Slide Noise On My Resonator

[Floyd Havner]

I've been playing pedal steel for several years now and a couple of months ago I purchased an acoustic electric square neck resonator guitar and have been having a lot of fun learning a few things on it. I noticed when I amplify it I hear a lot of noise from the slide. I use a shubb-pearse slide and no matter how much I try to dampen with my fingers behind the slide I still get a lot of noise. I replaced the strings with some "SIT SILENCERS", phosphorus bronze strings and that didn't seem to help. I even polished the strings with some fine grit emmory cloth to take off some of the edge and even that didn't seem to help. I can't tell you very much about the built in pick-up or where it's placed,I assume it's some sort of contact transducer, nothing visible from the exterior. It does do a good job picking up all the strings evenly but the noise is driving me nuts. I welcome anyone's help.

[Howard Parker]

Pick HARDER! Play so that the note is louder than any pick/slide noise.

You have to play it as an acoustic instrument. Push those strings around.

h

[Floyd Havner]

Thanks Howard so what you're telling me is that on a dobro you don't slide like on a steel, you just pick up and go and minnize your movement with the slide.

[Jeff Mead]

You should check out Michael Hillman's powder coated slides. They really minimise string noise and feel great in your hands.

[Jouni Karvonen]

Thread for Hillman bars:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... &start=300

[Stefan Robertson]

Use a Heavier Bar.

I know what you mean. Your Bar is too light. Great for hammer ons and Dobro style playing. Staccato

Long pedal steel -glissando playing terrible noise.

OR

Pick much harder

[Howard Parker]

Thanks Howard so what you're telling me is that on a dobro you don't slide like on a steel, you just pick up and go and minnize your movement with the slide.

Steel players tend to have a dainty touch as compared to dobro players. When playing steel, pick and bar noises are overcome by the amplified guitar. Not so on dobro, even an amplified one. You have to pick strong enough where the note over shadows any mechanical noise. It's a different technique.

The dobro bar is designed to "point and shoot" and unlike steel playing contemporary technique has the player lifting unused portions of the bar.

You obviously can choose to play it more like a pedal steel but as others have suggested, you'll be trying new toys in order to minimize the artifacts.

h

[Ron Landis]

On a related topic of slide noise, I recently purchased a slide bar off.eBay. It was a very cheap copy of the Shubb-Pearse 2 which I use. It is stainless steel and polished up very pretty and is identical in shape the S-P2. However, I discovered very quickly it is useless to be used as a slide bar because of the really bad scratchy sound it caused. I looked at the bar and found the bronze wound strings were actually cutting into the bar. I could be fixed by taking it to a plater and spending as much as it would cost to buy a quality bar.

I was reminded once again that you get what you pay for.

[Jouni Karvonen]

And get semi-flat wound strings.

[Erv Niehaus]

Dobros are supposed to sound that way.

[Dane Carlson]

I use a shubb-pearse slide and no matter how much I try to dampen with my fingers behind the slide I still get a lot of noise.

Is the shubb-pearse stainless steel or chrome? Stainless steel makes more noise than chrome, but you can reduce the noise by polishing the stainless steel. I took mine to a jeweler, who used rouge and a high-speed buffing wheel to bring the business side of the bar to an almost mirror shine, which reduced the slide noise significantly.

[Michael Brebes]

Elixir makes a set of coated strings that quiet things down quite a bit. I believe Daddario has an EXP coated set as well. I have one of those brands on my dobro and it's pretty quiet with my electric rig.

[Howard Parker]

Dobros are supposed to sound that way.

As a long time dobro player let me say...No!

How's about a little Mike Auldridge and Jeff Newman tune for you HERE!

Enjoy!

[Erv Niehaus]

A long time dobro player?
I've beep playing dobro for 60 years, can you beat that, bucko?

[Howard Parker]

I'm not counting.

Let's say a long time player in the contemporary style. Dobro is my primary instrument.

How's that suit you, Erv??

h

oh..Not "bucko". The name is Howard, Howard Parker.

[Erv Niehaus]

Whatever you say, Bucko.

[Dave Thier]

My money is on Howard. I play and listen to dobro players both live and recorded enough to know that dobros are not supposed to sound "that way". I also don't know any dobro players that use semi-flat strings to achieve their sound.

[Jim Bates]

I find that bar smoothness where it touches the strings can be the biggest contributor of bar noise. So, if it 's metal polish it with Simi-chrome (or equiv.) until you have a minimum of noise from the bar when you 'saw' on the unwound strings. A weighted glass or poly coated bar will give a softer sound.

After my 60+ yrs of playing 'slide' guitars (acoustic, and electric), I learned to simply ignore the string buzzing sound and play heavier or lighter as my mood tells me to. On pedal steel, I use round wound to accent a big 12 fret slide from hi to lo to make it 'growl'. On dobros I use round or semi flat wound strings, but I want that growl.

I agree with above comments, e.g., if you are hearing more string noise than your playing, PICK HARDER.

Thanx,
Jim

[Erv Niehaus]

Jim,
That's the word I was looking for - growl.
With a dobro, you don't want a soft sound, it needs to be sort of raspy.
Not like fingernails on a blackboard but close.

[Mark Eaton]

I don't know that putting up total number of years playing amounts to much of anything. It's what you do in those years that counts. There were periods over the years where my old prewar Dobro didn't come out of the case for weeks at a time due to work and raising a family, but I started playing 40 years ago. And there's no shortage of players who have been at it less than 10 years who can pretty much kick my butt.

Being that he grew up just south of San Francisco and was a part of the regional bluegrass scene going back to about age 12 or 13 (he's 49 now), I have known Rob Ickes for a bunch of years and have taken a number of workshops/lessons from him, and have seen him perform in different configurations more times than I can count. Because of his Bay Area roots he still gets out here pretty often though he and his new bride Jennifer moved to Nashville around 1992.

Rob, like Mike Auldridge and Jerry Douglas before him, stresses "clean" playing. To me it's the difference between playing a lap style resonator guitar vs. doing the bluesy bottleneck thing on a roundneck or "upright" resonator. As steel guitar players, we still want to be as "clean" as possible in our playing though some upright slide players actually like to get some of that extraneous string noise.

But as it sometimes happens, one unintentionally creates noise on the wound strings on your Martin or Gibson flattop when fretting with your fingers. It's just part of playing acoustic guitar. And even being as clean as a Rob Ickes on the fast stuff on dobro you will detect a little string noise from the bar. This is largely due to the fact that he is keeping the bar in light contact with the strings when his left hand is flying up and down the neck.

I also don't know of any of the top players using flat wounds. They just don't.

Because he has been out here on two tours already in 2016, I have managed to see Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley three times this year including last Saturday evening in nearby Sebastopol. The first time was several weeks ago where they opened in SF for Tommy Emmanuel and came out and joined Tommy at the end on a couple numbers. Amazing stuff!

The video linked below is from about a year and a half ago and I'm sharing it because it is very good quality. Rob & Trey on the Grateful Dead classic Friend of the Devil. Since I live in "the homeland of the Dead," this one always goes over well. Check out Rob during his breaks, you will still detect a little bit of bar noise, but the way he's zooming around on the strings it sort of comes with the territory. But if you take a lesson or workshop from Rob, one of the main things he stresses is good technique and trying to play as clean as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufWDQWblWk8

[Floyd Havner]

My thanks to all who contributed, I learned something from just about everyone. I started playing with a heavier slide however since a saw accident 15 years ago and my left thumb was severed and reattached I lost a lot of dexterity and grip so I had to cheat a little, (see attached photo). I stumbled on to a couple of things that helped more than anything else. After polishing my slide to a mirrored finish with jewelers rouge I took some 240 grit emery cloth and smoothed the roughness off of the wound phosphorus/bronze strings. The strings did not loose any resonance from it. Then I lubricated the slide and strings very thoroughly with silicone lubricant, professional cabinet makers use it on the table saw surface because it is non-greasy. I know I'll probably get more than just a few raised eyebrows from a few seasoned players but the result was far better than what I had expected.