Best budget guitar for me?

[Deleted]

Hello Michael,
Thought I'd better join in as I have just purchased your Basic Slide DVD, which may I say is very good and has got me started straight away. Now to the crunch, although I do like Son House, Freddie King, Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton I'm wondering which of the budget priced £350 to £450 price range would be best for me. My first thought was a Brass bodied but after viewing your DVD I have come to like the Wood bodied sound as well, and have seen via the Internet the Ozark range (3517's) of Tricone guitars, would it be possible for you to let me have your thoughts.

[Michael Messer]

Hi Gabriel

Thanks for joining our forum and for your kind words about the DVD.

I can give you my advice regarding your question, but as many of the members of this forum know a lot about the range of budget resophonic guitars available, I hope they will also give you some advice and help you to make the right decision.

Personally speaking, I have not had great success with budget-priced Tricones. They are such a finely balanced and difficult guitar to build, that mass-production on a tight budget does not produce an instrument that compares to more expensive ones. Whereas single cone guitars (both Dobro & National style) are less prone to buzzes & rattles, and generally are more durable than Tricones, are a better choice. That is just my opinion and I am sure that one or two members of this forum will disagree. (we like a healthy debate around here!) - However, I have seen many budget-priced single cone resophonic guitars that with a little TLC, maybe a new cone, biscuit and bridge, sound great.

As well as seeking advice from myself and other forum members, you should contact the LRC at resocentre.com and ask their opinion.

I hope I am not being perceived as being elitist by not liking budget Tricones, but I really do think they struggle to sound like a Tricone should sound. It should be the sweetest, full bodied sound with lots of sustain and the harmonics should leap out like on no other guitar. In many ways a Tricone is the nearest to the sound of an electric guitar. John Dopyera said that the sound of a Tricone 'should flow like a river' - and that sweetness is hard to achieve without using all the proper materials in the hands of very skilled craftsmen.

If you are looking for a Son House tone - get a single cone metal bodied guitar. If you are looking for an Eric Clapton tone - get a wood-bodied spider-bridge Dobro type of guitar. I like the wood-bodied National style guitar because it has everything that a metal guitar has, but with a little bit more warmth & sweetness than most metal-bodied Nationals. The first and possibly the best sounding single-cone Nationals in the 1920s were wood-bodied Triolians.

I hope I have been of some help and that other forum members will add their thoughts to help you.

Keep in touch,

Shine On,
Michael.

[LouisianaGrey]

Pete ("wolvoboy" on this forum) has an Ozark Tricone that he swapped the cones in so he's probably the best person to give you an opinion of what they're like with a bit of work. I've seen the cones he took out and I can say without hesitation that they are the worst cones I've ever seen. The Ozark tricone looks great and sounds really disappointing. I'm sure it won't give you anything like the sound you're looking for straight out of the box.

I disagree with Michael (as I'm sure he expected) to the extent that I think the Regal tricone is quite nice for the money. I'm less keen on steel bodied tricones, and that includes National's. With National cones I think the Regals sound pretty good - they still don't have all of the richness of tone of my Beltona, but given the difference in price I'd be a bit cheesed off if they did!

[fitchmeister]

Hi Gabriel

I agree Mike's single cone sounds great

You may find that if you want to go down the single cone wood body budget route - that they all seem at the low end of your budget compared to the metal ones. f you are coming from the regular wood flatop acoustic market where £500 will give you a lot of choice of some really good guitars, then this can be a bit of adventure.

There isn't a massive range and most of it seems to be metal single bodied instruments. I went for an upgraded metal Tricone, but i did have some great help and advice on tap to aid me. I think it can be a bit of a lottery.

Louisiana Grey's website (post before this one) does upgraded ones ready to go.

LRC guys are v helpful and don't pressurise you

There's alot of posts around this subject on this forum - read em and i hope you are pleased with what ever you get ;D

Roj

[Michael Messer]

I don't think I have played a Regal Tricone.

As I said, I am not the best person to advise in this area. Actually, Pete (Woodman), you have a fantastic knowledge of budget guitars and how to get them working better. I just didn't want to put you on the spot.

The problems I have encountered with many budget Tricones is that the sound-well (the pan) is not sturdy enough to take the pressure and therefore when the strings vibrate the cones, the pan moves and causes buzzes, fuzzes and rattles. It also in some cases creates an overtone that is not in harmony with the sound coming out of the front of the guitar. In addition to that - Tricones (even the best 1920s ones) require an occasional tweak & service to keep them running properly, so to try and get one that is not built well to play well.....is an up-hill struggle.

Having said all that I am now interested to hear what Pete 'Wolvoboy' has to say on the subject. Wolvoboy, have you got your Tricone up'n'running with a clear tone and no buzzes or rattles?

Shine On,
Michael.

[LouisianaGrey]

The Regal soundwells are pretty light as well, Michael, - I suspect all of the metal bodies come out of the same factory but the guitars are assembled in different places. However, I don't think it necessarily always has to be a problem as long as the guitar is built solidly. The photo below illustrates one of the factors - all of these bits of wood (and a piece of sandpaper) came out of one tricone. The largest piece is what passes for a tailblock (hence all the screwholes in it) and the rest of them were loose bits of wood used to pack out the internal parts that didn't fit together very well. Given that the pan can distort relatively easily, when they do something like this it means that nothing inside the guitar is as stable as it should be.

I'm a big fan of budget instruments but I think you have to be realistic about them - it would be naive to think that anyone can get something just as good as a National for a third of the price.

[Michael Messer]

Hi Pete,

Thank very much for your detailed reply & photo of Tricone gizzards.

I agree with you about budget instruments on all your points. And that with some new bits, cones & pit-props, they can be great guitars. But I still maintain that a budget-priced single-cone or spider-bridge type of guitar is a safer option than a Tricone. Having said that, I do know of people who have acheived great success by re-building the insides of their budget Tricones (Wolvoboy is one example). I am sure that with your knowledge & skill, you are able to make a budget resophonic guitar into a great sounding instrument. That is why I always advise people to talk to you. Agreed they cannot be as good as a National, Beltona, Fine Resophonic...etc, but as you say, there is a big price difference there. Annoyingly, and this is something I have often discusssed & written about - go to www.michaelmesser.co.uk/OZARK%203515B%20review.htm and read my review of the Ozark 3515B ....here is a quote from that review....With a little more attention to the important elements of construction, rather than the cosmetic features, Ozark could produce a superb guitar. Let us not forget that in the 1930s the National Musical Instrument Company mass-produced Duolians from the cheapest materials possible (almost exactly the same materials as Ozark are using today, but without the frills), and yet National Duolians from the depression years are among the finest resophonic guitars ever made.

An interesting thread! We have discussed the ins-and-outs of budget-priced resophonic guitars many times on this forum, perhaps we should put our heads together one day & write a definitive guide to buying and owning these instruments?

Shine On,
Michael.

[Deleted]

Hello,

i'm really pleased with the playability and tone of my Regal Tricone (an RC-58TT), and haven't changed a thing (except the strings - MM Newtones every time), plus it looks mean with its Texas Tea finish.

I found this guitar was (my) best of the bunch when I went reso shopping last April at the LRC, with a similar budget as yours. The guys there are great, I tried out loads of guitars, and had plenty of time to evaluate each one.

So far she's weathered some gigs and a couple of falling-onto-laminate-floor incidents. No rattles or buzzes (yet!).

There would be a couple of things I would change (when I get the time and the money) - the tuners could be better quality and the frets need finishing / filing (?).

I'm no reso expert, i'm happy with the tone of the cones as they are. I should be hearing the fichmeisters upgraded reso tomorrow night, so maybe that will convince me otherwise.

have fun !

[smojo]

gabriel - I asked a similar question a while ago - check it out. I'm a newbie to resos and had in mind a sweet sounding budget tricone in nice shiny nickel plate (because they look so cool). If money was no problem I would buy something really good quality. I got impatient to save for the £400+ for a budget guitar (not exactly pocket money anyway). So I bought a bargain wood body single cone on Ebay for £68 just to "keeep me going". I haven't even changed the lightweight strings for something decent yet but compared to what I've been playing it sounds brilliant. It may just turn out to be adequate for my purposes and I saved over £300 over a so called "budget" guitar that might not sound much better to my ears.

So there's another consideration, why not look for a real bargain/budget reso to satisfy the hunger then take your time researching a better one. You might decide you can't get to grips with slide playing or the enthusiasm fades and you give up on it in which case you saved a few hundred quid or you get really good and decide you want a quality one and want to ditch the budget. Again you've saved in the long run.

[marshcat]

Well, Fitchmeister brought his tricone over for his slide lesson last week, now sporting good cones and a new tee-piece courtesy of LRC and Dave King, and we were able to play it along with my 1928 style 1 and style 3 tricones.

It's vastly improved after the upgrade. Compared with the real ones, it's maybe just a tad harsher/less mellow, and I missed the overtones which are such a feature of a well set-up 'twenties tricone, but these factors apart, it's now a perfectly good, loud and tuneful instrument for sliding and picking and I'm sure it will serve him well for many years.

Richard, the other half of Delta Echoes, also has a Vintage tricone which we disembowelled and rectified after he bought it, and it gets played at gigs alongside my old ones. Let's face it, most uninformed punters really wouldn't notice much difference... and we're talking about an investment of a few hundred pounds, rather than the eye-watering, house-mortgaging sacrifices you'd have to make these days for a '20s tricone. It also sounds a lot better than his single-cone from the same manufacturer.

I'd always recommend a prospective buyer tries out as many instruments as possible (dozens? hundreds?) because sooner or later there will be one which pumps its harmonies into the chest cavity, ups the pulse rate and injects its resonance permanently into the bloodsteam - without breaking the bank in the process.

Marshcat
www.deltaechoes.co.uk

[Michael Messer]

This is a very interesting thread. Keep 'em coming!

Shine On,
Michael

[wolvoboy]

Hi Michael and forum members
I originally bought my Regal Tricone from Hobgoblin ,i got it at the right price as i noticed the headstock was twisted and there were a lot of other faults with it i don't know how it got through the factory quality control to be honest, i had it rebuilt by Pete woodman and i think it sound fantastic now maybe not as good as a National Tricone or a Beltona but looking at what its cost me i have got a good deal and it gets better every time i play it,
The Ozark wooden Tricone i think also sounds good i took the cones out of the Regal and put them in the ozark and changed the saddle and put MM Newtone strings on it and it sounded totally different very warm and mellow,but i am thinking of sending it to Pete Woodman to do a proper upgrade on it. i,ll bring the two Tricones to the workshop in the west-Mids for Michael to try and give his opinion on them .
keep pickin and slidin wolvoboy{pete}

[wolvoboy]

Hi Michael
My Tricone feels very sturdy compared to what it was like before being rebuilt and i am very happy with it ,i am still trying to get to grips with it a bit like an untamed horse but thats probably down to my lack of skill in playing it,at the moment there are no rattles or buzzing, one thing i have noticed is that as it gets warmed up it sounds better,i cant wait to meet you and the other guys on the workshop,i had better get back to my practicing.
keep pickin and slidin Wolvoboy

[fitchmeister]

For anyone interested - Resound apparently do a good replacement T piece for a Tricone at a reasonable price. I got a National one and they aint cheap.

Duggy K's Texas Tea Regal is a nice guitar, I seriously considerd getting the same model (we would of made a great duo with his & hers guitars ;D). The Vintage i tried just 'felt right' so i bought it with new cones with the idea that it had a basic tonality i liked.

Gabriel - i hope this isn't information overload.

[robn]

Hi Marshcat,

Do you think that the cone upgraded Vintage (manufacturer) tricone you a/b’d against your 1928 Style 1 and Style 3 may sound less harsh/more mellow and have richer overtones after 78 years of playing?

I’ve seen a lot written about new cones requiring “breaking in” to mellow out and open up. I think that National Resophonic actually state this on their web site. Have other forum members had experience of this phenomenon ? Maybe that cone upgraded and carefully set up Chinese Regal tricone, given the loving touch that guys like Pete Woodman can impart, is destined to become the killer tone of the future? Look at the “vintage” prices 1970s Japanese Fender Strat copies are now fetching?

There is also a rumour going round the net at the moment that Don Young of NRP has just started spinning a slightly different alloy (last few months at most) and that the new cones will be fitted to all new NRP guitars. Apparently, the new cones seem to be closer to the sound of vintage National cones from the outset. I think that someone pointed out that Fine Resophonic and Beltona have actually had the formula right for many years! Don’t you just love the internet ;D

Robn

PS: I think that the idea of producing a definitive guide to buying budget resos would be great - perhaps we could pursuade some of the Chinese factories to come in on the discussion. Like Michael says, National managed great things in the 1920s with the same materials and a similar labour market. Whoever takes on board a little bit of advice on the effects of construction on tone and placing emphasis on quality consistency, could be onto a real winner at the budget end of the market.