SHOULD You Set Up Your Guitar for Slide? (My Setup Measurements)
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- I have a bit of a spicy one for you guys this week, let me know your thoughts on slide guitar setup in the comments! I’m using the Universal Audio ‘55 Tweed Deluxe amp plugin with no pedals for the brief playing clips in this video.
Check out the Mule Resonator Guitars @MuleResonatorGuitars youtube channel! Here are some vids:
• Guitar set up
• Mule School: Building ...
• Mule School: Mulecasters!
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:35 - Quick Noodling
00:47 - My Setup Measurements
02:29 - More Noodling
02:45 - Why I Don’t Have a “Slide Guitar”
06:55 - Check out Mule Resophonic!
07:23 - Outro
/ dylanadamsguitar
/ dylanadamsguitar
Thank you ! For including over half the world with your metric measurements
Haha no problem! I knew I’d get comments if I didn’t include you guys
Half world metric ? Ha,ha the whole world is metric now, even the united kingdom !
Well here in the creeks and swamps of the USA we think of metric as much as speaking Chinese, slide lives in muddy waters, Just funnin. You'all.
@@rudolfmika4753Define “whole” please.
The empirical system is so much more lyrical though. Can you imagine Pete Townshend writing "I can see for kilometers"? How about Robert Plant singing "I'm gonna give you every centimeter of my love"? Oh yeah baby, every _centimeter_ you stud. "I'm a long, tall Texan in a 38 liter hat"? I can't think of one good lyric that uses the metric system. Can't even think of a bad one.
“Babe wake up, new Dylan Adams video just posted!” Thanks for answering all of questions, you got me interested in playing slide on electric again! I would only play on my dobro because I had terrible technique on electric but was always in awe of Derek Trucks (and now you), so now I’m back at taking a crack at it. Although once you got to the part of using 11s, I immediately went “DAMN! 11s? I couldn’t do that on my tele” but then you immediately acknowledged it😂 Awesome content as always, and if Smokestack comes to TX please let us know so I can go (specifically between San Antonio and Austin)!
Keep it up. These are great. Love your realness and down to earth personality.
Thank you for the pointers!
Great stuff!
Thank you, Dylan! This is great info!
Hey, Brotha! Duane and Jerry are my two favorite guitarists - melodic and crusty! haha Lookin forward to catchin ya for the first time at the Dog Rose WSP afterparty in a couple weeks! Stonybrook '71, FTW! Best wishes, Brotha!!
man im loving the content!!!! cant wait to hear you live one day
Questions I've wondered since I saw your first video answered. Keep making great content!
Such a helpful video!
I am just starting with slide, and my instincts regarding tuning and set up, parallel your practice, so this is very encouraging, and also affirming!
Exactly the answers I was looking to hear. Looking forward to more videos. Thanks Dylan!
Your perspective is spot on. 👌🏻
Great info, thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Such an honor to be here this early in the journey in terms of your channel. You’re already one of my heroes. Love the content.
Great video again. Thanks Dylan.
Thanks Dylan excellent advice. I did see your video about using a tuning to start with whilst learning slide, that said I think mostly I’d be playing standard so what you say makes perfect sense
Wow!! Thanks for sharing this!!
This is exactly what I was gonna ask you. Lighter touch. That’s what I’m about to start learning and using!! Very juicy stuff!!
10.5K!!! Looking good ole boy 👏🏻
It's that slide/finger picking combination that makes you a genius!!! Great video man!!!
I'm doing pretty well with 9's and normal set up. The biggest factor was chosing the right slide. Its got to be heavy enough to get a clear sound but light enough to make it easy not to accidently fret out. I'm using the Arien Polson ball tip slide at the moment. It is almost perfect for me. I wish it was a little bit heavier but it is the best I've found so far for use with light gauge strings.
All great advice! I don’t have a “slide guitar” either. I do use 10s most of the time, but my Gretsch has 11s. I love being able to play slide whenever I decide and not having to switch guitars like you said. Great video, man!
Great video, thanks for the exact measurements.
I can agree with this, I keep all of my guitars in pretty normal action because I like to rip some solos or do some fun rhythm stuff without slide, but when I do get my slide the normal action comes in handy.
Another great video. Normal action for me and I play 9s. Used to play 8s. Billy Gibbons plays 6s. It's all about the feel, muting and practice.
Thank you Dylan, I have heard this from many slide Masters. I just ordered some .011 gauge strings from Sweetwater to put on my budget Telecaster. I think this will be my experimental guitar for open D. Maybe when my technique gets better I will explore standard tuning. Thank you for your videos, they are very helpful. Have a Great Day. 😎
Very good point. I've often raised the actions on guitars that I played slide on. I stopped it and learned to use a lighter touch. I use 9's and 10's only, depending on the guitar.
Love it!!
great information and presentation.....thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Dylan!
Great playing and nice guitar!
Wow! So good!
I want to start playing slide but I def do not want to do a different setup, so this is very helpful.
My guy, you're just the best!!!
Enjoying your content. Keep it up.
I’m assuming you’re hip to Jack Pearson, surely? He might be one of the greatest “unknown” players, outside of Nashville, unless you’re a devoted ABB fan. Anyway, your videos are inspiring me to take another crack at slide playing. 👍👍
illuminating, thanks.
Awesome thankyou!
My man ! Jax Beach ⛱️ 🎸 🎶 🎼 🎵
Having recently started to play slide myself I loved hearing Dylan’s take on this subject. After trial and error, I have landed on moderately high action using 11-49’s with normal relief. Specifically my high E is about 2 mm at the 12th and the low E about 2.3 mm, which isn’t far off from Dylan’s. Now keep in mind I usually play with 10’s at 1.3 mm and 1.6 mm respectively. So for me this is adjusting to high action for slide, but I can still play fretted licks and such. Hopefully I can get good enough down the road to make this action more “normal”.
I keep a normal action and agree that it takes a little extra work to not get fret clanking and to make sure my right hand muting is proper, but overall I feel like the end result has been worth it. My feel has improved and it has really helped as I've progressed into switching between chords and slide, fretting behind the slide, etc. Also, I've experimented with some half wound strings (bass strings are flat wound, treble strings are round wound) and it seems to be a great match for brightness up top and some smoothness on the bottom.
Hmmm...."treble strings are round wound"? Aren't plain strings unwound? Maybe you mean they are round, instead of hexagonal like the inner wire under the winds on most wound strings, but plain strings are always like that methinks? Jack Pearson uses extra-lights 9-42 with medium/low action and still manages to play brilliant slide guitar, but he is a Maestro genius level player.
One of my favorite local blues guitarists uses standard tuning on a guitar he uses mostly without slide. Clean tone, and he doesn't have the strings raised any higher than normal playing.
#7 such tasteful and soft playing
Waiting for some of the behind the slide fretting tips and such. Thanks.
I’ve gotten a lot of requests for this, so it’ll be one of my next couple videos for sure!
11-46 are fine on a Fender Tele in D standard. You'll get used to doing everything 2 fretts down in a few hours and the slight downtuning will thicken the tone and slinky the strings just enough to feel "normal" tension wise. I'd run 11s in D over 10s in E anyday for rhytm, lead and slide.
I agree 💯! I started with high action and heavy strings, but changed to normal action and 11s, now 10s as my technique improved. Well done!
Great lessons. You’ve talked a lot about Duane and Derek. Don’t forget Dickey, Warren Haynes and Jack Pearson for lessons. People don’t talk about Warren as much as they used to. I have to confess I like the Mule better than TTB as much as I love Derek. Warren plays in standard also.
cool love it
My main guitar is a Stratocaster. I found it difficult to play slide because of the 9.5" radius fretboard. So I bought an Epiphone SG with P90s and tune it to open E. I kept the factory setup and use 9 gauge strings.
I used to have high action and heavy strings and eventually switched to 11's with standard action. It forced me to have a lighter touch and that took quite a while to not hit the frets. The trade off is also you get much better sustain with a lighter touch and don't have to always rely on heavy OD pedals for sustain. Still got a long ways to go so I'm still an open tuning guy until I get somewhat decent. Great video and advice here!
since I saw someone using a thimble to play I was wondering if I could use a few thimbles to have a multi-finger slide option; haven't tried it yet but it seems like it will be fun.
@@russellzauner Anything is possible though it could provide some limitations. I'm no expert on slide but having a slide that can cover all six strings sure is important for my playing style. Go for it though, you never know!
But I love changing guitars. Very rock star!
As Matt from Mule says, “setting up for slide” is no substitute for practicing slide. I play slide with really low action. big strings tho 13-60 in e flat
Thanks!
Yee-ha! Tip Jar!!
Thank you so much for your support!! ❤️
I have been playing blues / classic rock for 40 years , but only started using a slide every now and then the last 2 years , i mostly play in open E on my gibson tribute lp ( with P 90 pu's ) for the raunchy stuff and in open G on my martin DM , i use a pinky slide btw , but man , it's not easy to get any good at this , i mostly have a problem with the right hand muting , i have a tendency to forget to put my hand on the strings to mute them a bit 🤣, but hey , i love the sound , so there's only one way to go and thats forwards .
Would you consider doing a video on learning open tunings?
Ed King was one of my fave slide players.. Standard tuning... Standard setup.
Hello I am commenting to keep the algorithm vibing on Dylan Adams
I had been curious about this. I usually play 10s with 4/64" action on my Gibson scale length guitars. I'm trying to learn slide, but want to be able to bounce back and forth. I have found that for now, to learn, I needed to go to 6/64" and 11s to give myself a little room for error. I'm hoping as I get more comfortable I can work on a lighter touch and drop the action back down to something more like 4/64". But even 11s at 6/64" is totally playable.
hey dylan, have you had a chance of trying out new slide ring from black mountain slides or a jetslide„ both of them allow you to use all 4 fingers and slide when ever you wish as you•re playing mostly in standard tune a slide ring from the black mountain woud be a great recommendation to try it!
I bought a BM slide about a year ago and I'm hooked. I keep 2 guitars in open D and G and I'll tune to open E on my standard tuned guitar. Been a fun journey and now Dylan's channel has me more enthused.
E X C E L L E N T !!!!! Totally Agree
Great video. One key thing I heard was when you said "when I write music". That's something I've been curious about. Have you posted any of your own songs because I'd really like to check them out?
How / where do you measure neck relief? 6th fret while holding down string at 1 and 12?
Thx for the info 👍. This may sound weird but how big are your hands. I've got small hands and feel better in my guitar playing with 9-42. I have one electric that because of it spacing I finger pick on more. On that one I use heavier lower strings. I also like thinner necks, but have one chunky one cause I love its sound.
I’m playing 9s on my guitars. Works fine :)
Thanks for this video. I always thought Duane allman had a specific height adjustment at the Bridge and put his strings around the bar instead of through the bar and used 10 or 11 flatwound strings.
Thanks for watching! Definitely have never heard of Duane using flatwounds, seriously doubt that as he too used the same guitar for slide and non-slide, the difference with him is that they would always play all their Open E slide tunes at the beginning of their set, then he would retune his guitar back to standard for the remainder of the set (at least until the middle of 1971 when Dickey gave him the SG to use for slide so he wouldn’t have to re-tune between songs). You can hear evidence of this on many bootleg recordings, where after a certain point in the set you hear him tuning his les paul down to standard from open E. I’ve read he used regular roundwound 10’s with slightly higher action than normal, and he did top wrap but nobody knows his specific reasoning for doing it.
@@dylanadamsguitar Duane also like the SG for getting into what I call, "The forbidden Zone, no newbies allow." That's where the bird sounds come from.
Hey Dylan, im curious what action height you do for the A D G & B strings as well. I only ask because I set my guitar up how you like yours set up, but for some reason when I try to play individual notes on the B string it just sounds like a dead note. I’m wondering if it has something to do with how high the B G D A strings are as well. Like either the slide isn’t making good contact with the string or maybe the opposite - B string is too high compared to the E (?) causing it to have bad contact with the slide (?)
I used 9.5 gauge on higher strings, 9 set on lower strings. Works for me. Just have to get used to a lighter touch
I love higher action, fat strings and open tunings for slide. DIfferent folks different strokes.
Thank you Dylan. Do you prefer guitars with fairly flat necks? After getting rid of my SG because of the neck dive I am now playing a Telecaster which has more radius and it is seemingly more difficult with slide.
I don’t have a strong preference, but yes I’d pick flatter over rounder if given the choice. Mainly just because I grew up more on Gibson-style guitars with 12” radiuses. To me it really only makes a big difference if you’re trying to play chords across 4 or more strings with the slide, which I hardly ever do, but if you do then the flatter the better!
ok - more basic questions - what slides do you recommend and where would you recommend purchasing? I started with glass - seem to like that sound better (via Duane and the Coricidin bottle thingy) - and now looking at moving to pinkie... we need help with the basics Dylan - lol! Keep up the good work! 😎
ua-cam.com/video/b2UQCCW4SIc/v-deo.html
@@grooooved Thank you for the link!
I bought the cheapest epiphone les paul and installed the biggest strings on it so that I could detune it ala Ariel Posen. Action is normal, and it all works out in the end even tho I have power cables on it!
The Posen low tuning stuff is a whole can of worms I haven’t explored! But I’ve heard the string tension ends up feeling about normal so for the most part I’d imagine the stuff I said still applies
@@dylanadamsguitar I just love the tone you get from a low tuned guitar and slide! Put on a nice stereo reverb/tremelo and you have feeling for days!
I am probably wrong...but, it seems as though you would want the strings to be flat across (to counter the neck radius) so that you could have the slide cover all strings simultaneous....Any thoughts??
very good video, however I am using 9s strings, I can manage 10s but with 11s is not possible for me to play. And I like low action...
Should I stick to 9's and raise the action or do I have to use 10s?
Hmm, I’d say try 10’s and keep the action lower. I tried lighter strings and higher action at one point and for me it just made both slide and non-slide harder. But still experiment, like I said you ultimately have to find your own sweet spot.
@@dylanadamsguitar Thanks Dylan to take the time to reply to my question.
I am just starting to learn slide, I want to keep to standard tuning so I am looking forward your videos.
Do you have a preference for coated or uncoated strings for slide? I usually prefer coated but I would guess uncoated strings would give you more of that slide sound.
I have to use coated, not for any slide/tone reasons but just because I’m one of those guys that kills regular strings in a matter of hours with my hand oils/sweat. Elixir Nanowebs are my go-to, last way longer than anything else and sound great to me, but I’d imagine non-coated might get a slightly brighter and more scratchy/violin-like sound on the low strings with slide
A question: When you studied with Tronzo, did he himself use higher action and did he recommend it? Thanks!
Man that’s a great question, I could be wrong but I don’t think he discussed action with us at all, and I don’t remember his action being particularly high. The main thing I remember him telling us about his own guitar is that he uses a modified standard tuning, where the high E is tuned down a whole step to a D while the rest of the strings are tuned normal.
@@dylanadamsguitar Thanks a lot! :)
One other question, Dylan. Do you prefer flatter or rounder (less or more radius) in the neck for slide?
Flatter is generally better, and the majority of my guitars are 12” radius or “20 for the Mulecaster. That said, rounder radiuses are only really a problem if you’re trying to play chords across 5 or 6 strings, which I’m typically not!
I’m late to this video but if anyone sees this. With a tune-o-matic bridge, should I get a dedicated bridge with no radius?
Regular radiused tune o matic is fine if you ask me, 12” radius is plenty flat enough for typical slide playing and I set up all of my guitars to their normal radius. The only time I’d say flat/no radius is necessary is if you’re playing full 6-string chords with the slide all the time
@@dylanadamsguitar thanks for the reply. It’s really appreciated! And thanks for the inspiration. I’ve been playing guitar for a long time and trying to perfect the slide gives me a new goal and sparks an interest in the instrument that you loose when you stay in your confort zone to long. So thanks for that!
Have a good one!
A classical guitar player I sub to here also just defied convention by announcing that no you don't need to keep your fingernails long to play classical...sometimes I wonder if there is an "influencers newsletter" to push topics for content but I am not sure what "defying convention" would sort out as lol
Thanks for sharing your specific measurements! May not work for everyone, but more useful than "too low with slide and too high without it", which is how Warren Haynes (I think?) once described his setup.
hard cut? 3:13 capo appears out of literally no where. LOL!
This might seem like an ignorant question. But what are the measurements on the remaining strings .?
Typical guitar setup practice is to get your measurements for the low and high strings first, then set the rest of them to match the radius of the fretboard. So for me the high E is 4.5/64, and the B, G, D, and A strings each gradually increase from there up to 5.5/64 for the low E. But I don’t know the exact measurements. If you have a guitar with a Gibson-style tune o matic or wraptail bridge then it’s already pre-radiused for you, just have to measure the high and low strings’ action.
I saw Joe Walsh play Rocky Mountain Way live and to my amazement a roadie came out and handed him a different guitar for the slide solo. It was not one of my favorite interruptions.
I believe Joe Walsh commonly uses open E tuning when he plays slide. That tuning wouldn't work for the "talk box" part of the song which I'm sure he plays live.
You are slick on the slide, I'm an old what they call srv wanna be 😂
Hello Dylan. Great video on slide guitar. Hey you mentioned that you don't like open G too much because it does not have the root note on the 1st and 6th strings, like open D or E. I agree with you about that disadvantage however I found a solution that I think you might find interesting: have you considered removing the 6th string (D) then moving the remaining 5 strings over/up a position, then adding a new high string tuned up to G? That gives all the same intervals as open D and E plus more high notes. I made a UA-cam video about 4 years ago demonstrating my suggestion. Unfortunately it got very few views. I'd be really pleased if you'd take a look at it and give me your opinion on the idea. (Disregard all the Kieth Richards stuff.)
Thanks, John Blum
ua-cam.com/video/nEfENI7GJ4s/v-deo.html
I don't set mine up for slide either.
😢 'Promo sm'
You’re pretty particular
Dylan, and all reading beware there are some scam replies appearing down here in the comments. Be careful folks
Somewhat old to be living with your parents.
The tone of "slides" sound like a scratching a tin can. If you wan't a fretless tone, play a pedal steel guitar. Want the slide for blues? Don't waste your time; learn jazz blues instead.
Well you’ve found the wrong youtube channel if you don’t like slide lol
There's always one !
Love it!!