National solid body
Moderator: Brad Bechtel
- Chase Brady
- Posts: 228
- Joined: 6 Jan 2014 8:25 am
- Location: Ohio, USA
National solid body
Is anyone familiar with this model? Wondering how they sound.
https://reverb.com/item/70381560-1950-s ... es-machine
https://reverb.com/item/70381560-1950-s ... es-machine
- David Ball
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- Bill Sinclair
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I had one of the cutaway/fretable versions that I tried using as a lap steel with a nut riser but wasn't terribly impressed by the sound. Mine had an aftermarket piezo bridge pickup so you could tweak a decent sound out of it with an amp, but not good enough for me to drag it to a gig. Pretty neat novelty living room guitar though. While the seller is sort of correct about the front and back reso covers making it louder than you would expect, that effect is mostly negated when it's placed on your lap or against your body. Another thing is that it is short scale (23" I think) so that might be off-putting if you're accustomed to a longer scale dobro. I wound up selling mine to someone who was nostalgic about re-acquiring a guitar similar to one he used to own. The lap version that you are looking at would probably have a narrower market than the cutaway, slide guitar version.
- Noah Miller
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- Brad Bechtel
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For some reason they seem to be somewhat popular in the UK, at least on the Michael Messer forum.
I've been unimpressed with the volume and tone of the ones I've played.
I've been unimpressed with the volume and tone of the ones I've played.
Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars
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- Russ Young
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- Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
National Reso-Phonic
Did you pull the trigger and buy it?
I have one — painted wood, not MOTS — and while it’s extremely cool to look at, I don’t get much joy from playing it. (Someone described the tone as “Sounding just like a National … played over a telephone line.”)
Ben Harper took advantage of that uhhh … unique … tone in this video, though: https://youtu.be/8f-D7Xx89r4
I have one — painted wood, not MOTS — and while it’s extremely cool to look at, I don’t get much joy from playing it. (Someone described the tone as “Sounding just like a National … played over a telephone line.”)
Ben Harper took advantage of that uhhh … unique … tone in this video, though: https://youtu.be/8f-D7Xx89r4
- Chase Brady
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- Location: Ohio, USA
- Steven Pearce
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