Metal or Wood body resonator

[TONEJONES]

I sometimes need to use a resonator in the studio & I currently have a Regal wood body. I always liked the metal body sound & am looking at another Regal or a Galveston? ?

Any comments or suggestions appreciated.

[Freeman Keller]

The best suggestion, out side of playing everything you can, is to get the National cd with Brozman playing all their gits. Not only is there a difference in sound between metal and wood, there is a difference between brass and steel, biscuit and spider, and, of course single and tri. I've done a little document on the basic differences between types of resonators but it is very hard to quantify sound.

 

The other problem I have that I own a wood bodies spider and a brass biscuit - so both the body materials and the cones affect the sound. The woodie is sweet with long sustain, while the metal is short and nasty.

 

If my Resonator 101 thing would be of any help I would be happy to send it to you (need an e-mail addy) but it was really designed for the newbee asking some pretty basic questions

 

[ziganaut]

I myself have a Regal RC2 which is steel w/biscuit bridge and an upgraded quarterman cone and tusq nut. It's a cheapie but sounds great if'n you play it right;) Anyway, here's a good link to answer some questions about resonators and they have sound clips

 

Also, Freeman, maybe you should post something like that on a sticky?http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com/ResonatorsExplained.htm

[Freeman Keller]

 

Originally posted by ziganaut I myself have a Regal RC2 which is steel w/biscuit bridge and an upgraded quarterman cone and tusq nut. It's a cheapie but sounds great if'n you play it right;) Anyway, here's a good link to answer some questions about resonators and they have sound clips http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com/ResonatorsExplained.htm Also, Freeman, maybe you should post something like that on a sticky?

 

 

I thought about that but this became a 4 page Word document with a zillion references at the end - maybe someday I should host it somewhere. I've been happy to e-mail it to anyone who wants to read it.

 

The Quarterman is a recommended upgrade. I have them in both of mine. Another good upgrade if yours has a plastic biscuit is to put a maple one in it.

 

btw - link didn't work immediately - I'll try reloading it

[ziganaut]

Here's that link again, it'll work nowhttp://www.acousticfingerstyle.com/ResonatorsExplained.htm

[Freeman Keller]

Thanks, Zig. I had that as one of the many references at the end of my little thing - there is a lot of great information there. The one thing I don't agree with is necks - for me that is the second most important part of a reso (behind the sound of cone/body).

 

The author comments about how hard it is to play slide on a 12 fretter - for me it is harder to play slide on a 14 because the neck is more curved. Most 14's are 1-11/16 nut and 16 inch radius - just like an old acoustic. The narrower string spacing is harder for me to get into with finger picks and the radius is hard to fret cleanly with the slide (unless you use a curved slide which I find unwieldy you tend to fret out a lot).

 

12 fret necks on the other hand are wide (mine is almost 1-7/8) and flat (20 inch I think). I can use a nice cylindrical wine bottle neck and barre all the strings, or pick single string runs. Most bottleneck goes to the 12th, rarely above. I have no problems with the slide or with string dampening behind it, and I learned Roy Roger's trick of rolling the slide to go higher if I need too (one reason I think a cutaway on a reso is wasted - most people just don't go there).

 

Even tho it is a much nastier sounding git and better suited to rauchy delta blues, I tend to tune the metal one in the pic to either standard or open D and play it without picks (it is a 14 fret) and I keep the woodie in open G for Walkin' Blues, Roll 'n Tumble, and a little Kokomo. I came very close to selling the metal one simply because I prefer the 12 fret neck.

 

One more reason to try before you buy