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Strings & Slides. Hey, Spike. What do you like?

Talking CBGs, here folks. I think cheap strings work fine. And lately I am liking electric strings. I think they sound about as good played acoustic and that they are easier to play and slide on.

Slides. How many types do you have? What is your current fave? I've tried a lot and like a lot. But my tapered Dunlop brass slide seems to forgive my errors more than the rest.

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on May 5, 2014 at 12:35am

It's a bit of a work in progress John
But I was thinking maybe a cucumber may be
a bit more useful...

But would welcome your help on a vegetable slide?
Lol

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on May 5, 2014 at 1:33am

Obviously, okra would be the thing for Delta blues.

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on May 5, 2014 at 1:01am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QkZUNljuzM
Plastic sausages work well on toy guitars?

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on May 5, 2014 at 1:55am

Cooked or uncooked okra John?
Just tried a knife and that is gooood!

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Permalink Reply by Hippy Chip on May 5, 2014 at 2:14pm

I buy D'Addarios when they are on sale---3 bucks a set for a CBG doesn't seem expensive when I have 15-20 hours invested in the build---I have used them on my electrics for 30+ years, and yes I have tried many others---I use 9's on my '74 Ovation Breadwinner, and Martin Phosphor Bronze on my accoustics (12-54), but everything else gets XL 10-46's. If they are good enough for my Tele I guess they're good enough for my babies :)

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on May 6, 2014 at 1:26am

Cheap AND good, Chip. My favorite combination.

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Permalink Reply by 14 buck bass (aka antonio) on May 6, 2014 at 2:12am

well in my opinion which is like a stinkin a hole and im sure we all know who has those . I just use ernie ball electrics for everything i build. but i have used the martin lights for acustics. those are mostly all i use , and the swamp witch strings . actually all i use. but i dont buy in the 6 packs . i buy mine by guage so they are cheap. ill buy 4 sets of one guage and 4 sets of another etc. cost the same to me as buying a pack of six and having a butt load of odd strings hanging around for the " build to use em on " waiting to happen. As for slides. ive got all sorts of crazy slides , my two favorites are a dumlop brass, and stella artois glass , but the topper a mojo bone spark plug rocker !! my worst slide a piece of copper pipe . or a melon ? and i tried on of those sets of piano strings too but had to change my tuners to bass tuners to get them to slide into the top because i couldnt bend em ? So bug , i only used one set of those and didnt like em. cost to much after I had to change my tuners and all

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Permalink Reply by 14 buck bass (aka antonio) on May 6, 2014 at 2:20am

Bug that freakin sausage blues was freakin bad ass. I wish i could just play half that good on a regular guitar . and you are tearing it up on a dang toy with a plastic sausage slide ! rock on man

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on May 10, 2014 at 12:34am

I played a bunch of my gits last night - electric strings and acoustic. Sure seems to me the electrics slide and boogie better and sound nearly as good acoustic. I just seem to play a bit better with them.

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Permalink Reply by Better Trees on May 10, 2014 at 6:48am

Honestly I just started to pay attention to the different strings I used. It kind of hit me all at once how important string choice can be. I'm in the middle of experimenting and forming proper opinions on strings. I can say that I don't swear nylon strings have no business playing the blues, as I just built a git the other day in an hour to see if I could. It's tuned DAd and has the three heaviest daddarios from a medium classical set and it sounds pretty good. They're not as loud because of the lower tension and that seems to cut down on noise associated with sliding on wound strings.

I haven't tried a bone slide yet, but I like my porcelain slide a lot. And my heavy steel socket. Seems beefy slides make beefy sounds. My bamboo slide doesn't quite have that heavy metal sound, but it's the fastest one I own. It has almost no inertia to fight with. Bottlenecks all seem to work alright. I mostly like the look of them.