The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey Forumites, I don't know squat about Dobro style instruments, but I might buy one if a nice example presented itself. What are the good ones? Example: I was looking at a well taken care of, probably not too old, National model D the other day, but don't have any idea if it was worth having or what to pay. Thanks for any input.

David: I assume from your references to "Dobro" and a National Model D that you're referring to square neck, wood bodied, single-cone resonators.

If so, you're going to find no shortage of opinions here. Except from me -- everything I know about the subject I've learned from reading Forum posts. You may want to search by "Dobro" and "resonator" ... but get ready for a heck of a lot of reading.

Yes , Russ , Lets just kick it off. The National is a good bet, an Epiphone sounds good, but hard to find. Be sure you get a square neck, they are tough.

Round necks work O K but they are just not made to take the pressure, with the raised nut.

Hopefully you will really like playing this style, and maybe get serious about buying a serious ,custom made guitar in the near future.

R. L.

Yes it's get confusing, there are so many makes and models to choose from, wood with resonator, then all metal (zinc body?!)I'm still lost. I love the gritty, bluesy sound I hear in the movie sound tracks, but of course you never see what the guy is playing. Square neck Dobro looks like the right choice or an all metal guitar may be what I'm hearing in the movies. I'm looking at eBay to get an idea of current prices. The pawn shops, flea mkts., music stores are loaded with cheapo's, usually not worth having.

Dave you may need to get ahold of some recordings to find out what you want. Check out Jerry Douglas or Mike Auldridge for example of wood bodied, squareneck 'steel' playing and John Hammond or Son House for metal bodied (Steel or Brass typically) bottleneck sounds.
The National Reso-Phonic CD sampler is a good start too.

I'd recommend picking up a copy of "Tone Poems III" -- Mike Auldridge, Bob Brozman and David Grisman play a wide array of wood and metal-bodied single resonators and tricones.

And since you brought up metal bodies I guess I DO have an opinion: I have a National tricone, which I think is about as good as it gets. But I know guys who would rather die than play anything other than their single cone (wooden) resonators.

It safe to say you'll never get a unanimous opinion on the Forum ... on any subject. You probably won't even get a consensus. But you will get a lot of strongly-held views and ideas for you to pursue, and find out what's right for you. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Russ Young on 24 November 2002 at 12:02 PM.]</p></FONT>

I do not want to create any confusion on this ,but do try to pick or hear whatever you decide on . I know this ,lot of times are not possible. I could not find any kind of souare neck around here,I had to order one, you may have to do the same.

We do need more like you to get interested in "DOBRO",(brand name) accoustic steel guitars.

I wouldnt play any thing eelse. I went through what you are now doing, found an Epiphone "SPIDER", it was the best sounding inexpensive guitar ive seen. Had to go to Epiphone dealer, music store and orderit. These are made by Samic in KOrea for Gibson.

R. L.

Thanks for you ideas, everyone. I had the pleasure of hearing, in person, Mike Auldridge at the recent ISGC. Very impressive, I wish now they'd have given him more time. Another guy I really enjoyed was Roy Rogers, special guest of Bonnie Raitt on Austin City Limits recently. Not a dobro player, but slide guitar. Really tore it up. I'll see if I can find some recordings to listen to and see where I want to go. I've done some searches on the Web and found a lot of info.

There are many different kinds of American resonator guitars, and if you read up on the intertwined history of Beauchamp's National Guitars and Dopyera's Dobro Guitars since 1927, you can see why. As I see it, there are two extremes or polar designs, and there are lot of guitars that ended up with features of both.

At one end, there is the National guitar which is primarly used for bottleneck style. This is a round neck guitar with a slotted peghead. The body is metal -- inexpensive models originally made from steel, or more expensive ones from brass -- with f-holes. The bridge is a biscuit, and the cone is shaped accordingly. Or, the top-drawer models used a tri-cone resonator.

At the other end, there is the bluegrass Dobro which is set up with high action and played with a bar. The neck is square with a solid peghead. The body is wood -- typically laminate or mahogany -- with two screen holes and three small open holes at the end of the fingerboard, no f-holes. The bridge is a spider, which straddles the cone.

I would use gritty & primitive to describe the sound of the the former, and weepin' & creepin' to describe the sound of the latter. That's just a way for me to separate or categorize the two.

For my ears, the new inexpensive (imported) resonators don't have much of either sound.

For budget planning purposes, look at www.gruhn.com or www.elderly.com for vintage and/or new instruments

For my ears, the new inexpensive (imported) resonators don't have much of either sound.
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That about says it all. Thank you!

I may have seen a tricone in a photo the other day. Really took notice because it was unlike what I was used to seeing. Probably have to get into the city to find what I want. I suppose some of these already come with a pickup so you can just plug-in?

If you want to take a look at a tricone -- and a whole lot of other National guitars -- check out http://www.notecannons.com/

RL... interested in your comments on teh Epiphone spider. I agree with you about teh tone; for a low end dobro it does sound pretty good. A couple of words of warning, though ... I had one of these that was pretty good, but the store I bought it from had another which looked like it had been put together in a blind school.

And while the tone is pretty good, it's not that loud ...

Biggest problem, though, is the scale length and string spacing, which is just plain wrong. WHile OK for playing in closed positions, fast bluegrass licks using open strings are very hard to execute with any accuracy. A wider nut would help, but then the strings would extend over fretboard.

I sold mine last week (for more than I paid for it) but kind of regret it. Hadn't used it in a while, but I wanted to try it with a G6 tuning.

Still, for the money, better than a lot of the crap out there.