Any Capos Work Better For Slide Then Others?

[Jim Fogarty]

Hey,

I often capo when playing slide, and it's a constant issue with it bringing the action down a bit and making the slide buzzy. Any slides out there that work better than others for this? I see Ariel Posen extensively uses a Paige to play slide and seems to make it work. Others?

- Jim

[Dave Mudgett]

I normally just use my regular Shubb capos. I keep a curved one for more radiused necks and a flatter one for a flatter neck. But I also like the D'Addario NS Lite for radiused fretboards for electric, especially a Fender with a 7.25" radius. It seems to dampen buzzing a bit when I'm sliding down near the capo. I think a Paige works fine too, and has the advantage of hanging on the neck behind the nut when not in use.

For me, the big issue is fret height. I fret behind the slide a lot, and if the frets are low, it really messes things up when I'm down the neck with a capo on. So several years ago, I went out and got a bunch of musical wire (generally at Ace Hardware) and cut it just a little bit wider than the fretboard, polish the ends, and park it right behind the fret as I'm putting on the capo. I keep a few diameters around - I want to get it just tall enough so I can cleanly fret behind the slide down near the capo.

This isn't really an issue on tall frets. But on low frets (as on the 60s Japanese guitars with crappy frets, that I often favor for slide), it really helps. Nominally around .060" (diameter of a .060 gauge string) plus or minus depending on the fret height, seems to work pretty well. Taller is fine if I'm not fretting when I slide, but I usually combine fretting with sliding. I'm generally using the brass wire these days - it bends a bit and can conform to the radius of the fingerboard better than the steel wire.

I confess that the wire can be a bit of a PITA in the middle of a gig, but so is putting on a capo when we're moving through songs quickly. But I think it's quicker than changing to a different guitar with a different tuning if I really want open strings.

If the neck profile is pretty flat, I really like the Johnny Winter slide for a lower-action electric. It is very thin and handles lower action pretty well - I believe Johnny pretty much played 10-46 with a normal (i.e., fairly low) action. But a lot of my slide guitars have fairly curved neck profiles, and I wind up using something like an Eric Sardinas Preachin' Pipe curved slide. I find that following the contour of the fretboard curvature helps when the action is low.

[D Schubert]

For me, it's important that that capo is fairly well matched to the fretboard radius, to keep even pressure across the fingerboard. And that the capo has a tension adjustment for overall pressure on the strings.. Depending on the guitar, Shubb (adjustable) or Paige capos work for me. I have had bad experiences with spring-loaded easy-on capos, and try to avoid them. I also use a brass slide with a concave radius, rather than a straight-sided tube.

[Dave Mudgett]

Yeah, I completely avoid the spring-loaded clamp capos. Not just for slide playing, but especially for slide playing.

One other thing I meant to mention - make sure there is adequate relief in the neck. I keep only the minimum relief for a guitar used strictly for fretted playing. But for a slide guitar, I consciously leave a bit of extra relief. I don't have a number in thousandths of an inch, I go by feel. If the neck is too straight, I find that a capo significantly amplifies the buzzing when sliding down the neck.

One good thing about many of those cheap 60s Japanese guitars, aside from the tone of the pickups, is that truss rods often don't work 'too' well, and leave plenty of relief. It makes a big difference for me. Of course, a 'good' guitar doesn't have to have the relief cranked down to practically nothing either, LOL.