Set-up for playing slide.

[Paul Childs]

Due to having arthritis in my fingers I can no longer play like I used to so I am thinking about setting up my Strat to play slide. I never bothered about it much before but i do know the ideal set-up is to use heavy gauge strings and jack the bridge right up.
What I would like to know is how much are the bridge saddles supposed to be raised for this style of playing? The standard recommended height for normal playing according to the handbook is 5/64th on strings 1 to 4 & 3/32nd on strings 5 & 6 measured on the 17th fret.
Is it supposed to be raised as far as possible without the grubscrews dropping out or is there a recommended height?
Also what string gauge to use and should the G be a wound one as they usually are on heavy gauges?
My Strat is a 1989 USA Standard that I've had from new.

[roger bayliss]

From what I have read I would say firstly decide if you want to fret notes as well as play slide mixing the two. If the you do then the nut can stay as it is without raising it but heavier strings will require the slots to be widened in the nut. The bridge saddles might be best lifted by a quarter of a turn each till you find a height that works well for you playing and the bridge may be best hard tailed. I do not think there are any real rules and strings would generally be heavier gauges maybe 12s or light top heavy bottom and heavier sets for dropped tunings are used. If you want to use the guitar soley for slide and no fretting then the nut can be raised too ... maybe 1-2 business card thicknesses. They also talk about increasing the neck relief too as this moves the strings away from the body and helps.

I think the best way to judge the string height is to play and listen for rasping and noises and lift the strings a bit till you get as clean a slide sound as you want, but a light touch and good ear and intonation also help. I do not think you need to go too high though... just tweak till you get a clean slide sound and experiment. You can play slide on a strat with standard setup with a very light touch.

The quality of the slide also is a consideration... glass is favoured with plenty of mass. Much to learn here to become an expert ... and also the effects to use to get the sounds of some of the slide guitar heros...

Best of luck

[Tab]

As Roger says, if you want to fret the notes as well as slide it will be a compromise as raising the action for a good slide sound will affect the intonnation. How high the strings are away from the neck rests with the need to get a good slide effect without catching the frets with the bottleneck. The action is usually altered by fitting a raised nut, either replacing the existing one if the guitar is to be used solely for slide or fitting one that sits on the existing nut. The bridge will need to be hard-tailed as well.

I have my Burns Drifter (the original late nineties 'Drifter') set up for slide fitted with 11s (plain third) but 12s which I use on most of my other guitars would do just as well even with a wound third. Open G tuning is the most flexible.

Again, as Roger says, a heavy glass bottle-neck should be preferred - Look up Diamond Bottlenecks on the web. The sort mostly stocked in the average music shop are generally too light.

I hasten to add that I'm no expert on slide guitar but I have recently taken a lot of advice from people who know what they are talking about.

[Paul Childs]

Thanks Roger & Terry, if i decide to go ahead with it I'll try these suggestions. I have also thought about open tunings but either way I would find it restricting after years of playing the normal way as with open tunings there is a problem with not being able to play certain chords.

[rockinscott]

Hi Paul

I use 10's on my main strat which I use for everything including slide. On this guitar all I had to do was to slightly raise the high e string as I was catching the slide on the frets and the notes.wasnt ringing clear, since doing so it plays fine, even with its relatively low action.

Scott