“Which guitar for slide?” This question is among the most frequent from novices exploring the slide technique, and even the most experienced guitarists often have doubts about which guitar is best suited for the task. Beyond the familiar jokes about instruments being “good for slide” because their action is too high for any other use, or the tendency to use the worst guitar lying around the house for this technique, the truth is more nuanced. While any guitar can technically be used for bottleneck playing, certain guitars, due to their construction and structural features, are undeniably better suited for the job than others.
Click here to discover in detail all the types of slides available and the materials they are made of.
The setup and the strings
Before dealing with the choice of the instrument, it is worth considering the setup and the strings. In fact, slide technique generally requires the use of bigger strings and a higher action than normal, and this, especially on acoustic guitars, requires a structure capable of withstanding the greater tension. For example, a light parlor guitar designed for silk and steel strings could be damaged if strung with a 13/56 set, just as an electric guitar equipped with a Bigsby tremolo might end up with an overcompressed spring. While this doesn’t cause harm, it can be uncomfortable.
Regarding action, it doesn’t necessarily need to differ too much from the standard. A standard or slightly higher action allows a mix of slide and finger techniques, adding versatility without effort and without causing intonation problems. The harder strings alone are sufficient to prevent the slide from hitting the frets. If you prefer playing only with a slide, consider trying a lap steel, which allows for more articulate slide playing than a bottleneck.
In my opinion, it’s worth starting with a standard 13/56 set on an acoustic or 12/54 on an electric, and testing how it feels. Additionally, consider that for slide, a slightly more bowed neck may perform better than one that is “too straight.” Adjust your guitar incrementally until you find your ideal slide setup.
A trick to consider, applicable to both acoustics and electrics, is to increase the gauge of the first string to 0.15. This helps support the slide at the most critical point. For someone like Ry Cooder, this might be heresy, but for others, such as Martin Simpson, it’s an essential setup feature.
Guitar for slide, is the acoustics suitable?
Any acoustic guitar with metal strings can be adapted: just fit slightly thicker strings than you are used to and off you go (but beware of the caution above regarding delicate instruments). However, slide players seem to prefer guitars that favor an emphasis on the mid frequencies, which leads to excluding Dreadnoughts and Jumbos, famous for their powerful bass and bell-like highs, in favor of smaller body shapes and mahogany back and sides (and in some cases a mahogany soundboard too).
Traditionally, the slide technique is associated with bluesmen of the first half of the last century. Since they could hardly afford high-quality instruments, it is perfectly legitimate, if you love that sound, to choose cheap instruments with laminated back and sides (and in some cases a laminated top), perhaps with the help of a vintage-style magnetic pickup, to obtain a sound between electric and acoustic that’s ideal for that style.
And speaking of amplification, my advice is to avoid using undersaddle piezo pickups: almost all of them (there are some rare and expensive exceptions) highlight the slide noise in an unnatural way and emphasize the high frequencies unpleasantly. A magnetic pickup is a better choice (the choice, coincidentally, of Ry Cooder and almost any Weissenborn-type acoustic lap steel player), and also a good-quality contact transducer could be a viable solution.
Resophonic
Resonator guitars are perhaps most associated with slide in the collective imagination, and for many reasons: the birth of these instruments coincides with the rise and peak popularity of two musical styles that heavily use slide—Hawaiian music and Delta blues. Moreover, slide playing results in a loss of volume, so, before the advent of the electric guitar, slide players turned to resophonics for greater volume (it’s no coincidence that the first electrics were lap steels). Lastly, especially for the itinerant bluesmen of the 1920s, a metal resonator guitar was much sturdier than a wooden guitar, which was a huge advantage for those constantly traveling and frequently encountering barroom fights.
Even if, when you mention slide guitar, everyone thinks of the iconic National Style O (commonly referred to as “Mark Knopfler’s guitar”), in fact, there are instruments that are more suitable for slide, depending on the style or genre you play.
Resonators rely on the use of one or more aluminum resonators in contact with the bridge and suspended inside the sound box, replacing the vibrating soundboard of a traditional guitar. We can compare the resonator to a speaker cone and the guitar body to a bass reflex speaker enclosure.
The bridge/resonator combination and the body material create significant differences in both the timbre and the sound envelope.
There are three types of bridge/resonator combinations:
• “Biscuit”: the bridge rests on a wooden disk (the “biscuit” in fact) fixed to the narrowest part of a single truncated cone resonator; the guitar body can be made of bronze (like the aforementioned Style O), steel or wood, usually laminate; these are instruments with a lot of volume, little sustain, a timbre rich in midrange frequencies and with great presence. From a slide use perspective, they are suitable for delta blues or in any case for styles that do not require much sustain;
• “Spider”: the bridge rests on an aluminum structure that resembles a spider’s web, connected at the center and at the edge to a resonator shaped as a smaller cone inscribed in a wider truncated cone. Usually the body is made of wood. The most popular models have a square neck to be played like a lap steel and are commonly called Dobro after the name of the historically most popular brand (I’m simplifying, volumes could be written about it). The sustain is greater and the tone has a characteristic that I would define as guttural. They are instruments created for slide, suitable for just about everything even if the strong timbral character makes you think of bluegrass, country and Americana styles.
• “Tricone”: the bridge rests on a T-shaped aluminum structure whose ends rest on three small cone resonators; the body was traditionally made of bronze, but today there are steel made and also wooden models. Less popular than the previous ones, probably due to the higher cost and the more “industrial” look, a tricone it is actually the most versatile model and the most suitable for slide, as it combines the timbre and volume of the biscuit models with a long sustain similar to that of a traditional acoustic instrument, if not even longer.
As for the materials, bronze tends to be resonant and rich in harmonics, steel is characterized by greater presence, attack, and a higher volume, and wood tends to soften the character of resophonic instruments, making them more similar to a traditional acoustic guitar.
The resophonic guitar is not necessarily the slide guitar par excellence, as many might assume. (Ry Cooder himself, a master of slide techniques and a great guitar collector, has never owned one. When he needed one for a soundtrack, he borrowed it.) Personally, I would only recommend it to fans of specific genres such as Delta blues or Hawaiian music from the early 1900s, or to those who truly need its unique timbral color or require their slide voice to be heard in a strictly acoustic context. Resonators are expensive (a National or Mule costs several thousand dollars), not very versatile, heavy, and difficult to play. They require big strings with very high tension, are hard to amplify and set up, and cheap resonators usually feature poor-quality molded cones. Manufacturers often prioritize mimicking the look of historical models, while the sound frequently lacks the timbral richness and volume characteristics typical of these instruments.
The only exception is found in some mid-priced, Chinese-made models equipped with spun cones, such as those distributed under the Republic brand, or the Gretsch range, which includes both wooden and metallic resonator guitars. These are equipped with good-quality biscuit or spider cones specifically built for Gretsch by a European manufacturer.
Electric
Here too, as with everything related to the world of slide, the only rule is the lack of rules. The masters of slide have used a wide variety of guitars: from the Stratocaster (standard, like Bonnie Raitt’s, or with a modified bridge pickup, like Lowell George and Sonny Landreth) to the Les Paul (Duane Allman), the SG (Derek Trucks), and even custom-built guitars such as Ry Cooder’s Coodercaster or Ariel Posen’s Mulecaster. Mark Knopfler uses a Danelectro for slide, and Muddy Waters used a Telecaster. Rather than focusing on a “perfect” instrument, it’s better to identify unsuitable ones and employ tricks to achieve your desired slide sound.
Let’s start with what to avoid: Guitars with very close string spacing (e.g., Rickenbackers) make clean and precise slide technique difficult. Vibrato systems that steal energy from the strings (like classic Jaguar/Jazzmaster vibratos) reduce sustain and are less ideal. Thin necks should also be avoided, both for structural reasons (given the high tension of thicker strings) and for sustain. Additionally, overly sensitive and powerful pickups can make the instrument challenging to control.
Another important consideration is that dedicating a guitar to slide use is not a simple task. Slide playing tends to emphasize the sonic character of the guitar, for better or worse. For instance, on a Strat-style guitar, a usable bridge pickup might sound “anemic” with a slide, while a Les Paul in open tuning can reveal unexpected sustain and resonance. It’s essential to test the guitar with a slide, the intended setup, and tunings before committing.
For the rest, it’s all about identifying the sound you want and choosing accordingly. If you’re aiming for a tone similar to a lap steel (direct, present, with lots of sustain) or one resembling a human voice or wind instrument, choose a rigid, dense instrument (e.g., mahogany body with or without a maple top), a relatively short scale, a hot Tele-style or P90 bridge pickup, or even a lap steel pickup. A fixed bridge and glued neck are also ideal. Conversely, for a more atmospheric, acoustic-like sound rich in harmonics, opt for a bolt-on neck guitar with “open” pickups (Stratocaster, lipstick, gold foil, or mini-humbucker), a longer scale, and perhaps a trapeze tailpiece or a locked Stratocaster tremolo with springs in place (as seen on the Coodercaster) or even a semi-hollow guitar.
If those extremes represent opposite ends of the spectrum, there’s an infinite range of nuances to explore when selecting or modifying your own “slide guitar.” For further insights, I recommend reviewing my previous articles on the Coodercaster.
