Bottleneck / Slide guitar – probably the most ‘organic’ of any guitar effect…..all you need for this style of playing is a guitar, your fingers – and a slide!

Ahh, but which slide do you choose? Well for starters it’s probably the cheapest piece of kit you’ll ever have to find….but it’ll also be the most perplexing!

From the origins of slide guitar in West Africa to the American connections of the late 1800’s – early 1900’s, when Negro slaves migrating to the Mississippi Delta at the end of the civil war were seen sliding penknives or pocket razors along the strings of ‘dollar 50’ Sears acoustic guitars and home-made one string ‘diddley bows’ – to today’s high-tech slide guitar wizardry of Sonny Landreth, Derek Trucks, and Debashish Battacharya using reproduction ‘Coricidin’ pill-bottles and custom-made glass lap-slide bars, every conceivable type of cylinder & bar imaginable that could coax a whine from guitar strings has been tried, discarded – or held in the highest esteem by it’s faithful user.

And the list of materials used to make a players ‘Ultimate’ slide is enormous - genuine re-cycled wine bottle necks; pocket razors & penknives as mentioned earlier; all manner of metals – bronze, brass, stainless steel, copper & aluminium tubes with mind-boggling variations of weights and lengths; porcelain & ceramic tubes; medicine bottles & test-tubes; spark-plug socket wrenches and even wood & polished bone have seen good use on the digits of many influential slide guitarists throughout the years.

The general rule of thumb here though is – there really are NO rules regarding ‘the best’ slide – it’s purely a matter of personal choice using your own ears and hands to find ‘that’ slide tone which suits your own style of slide guitar playing.

So to assist you on yur search, I’ve compiled a ‘tone chart’ – with grateful help from dozens of slide afficionado’s over the past 20-plus years;

Glass slides - These give the guitarist a smooth, round tone to your playing. Firstly, ‘Pyrex’ commercial glass slides are inexpensive, available in a huge array of differing sizes and styles from most high street music shops – and they do the job quite well. The downside to this make of slide is in the quality of the material used in their manufacture.
‘Pyrex’ is created from base boro-silicate – the foundation sand of all glass production; this makes for a cheaper, easily workable alternative to the more expensive higher quality lead crystal glass slides available – ‘Pyrex’ is therefore a softer material than lead crystal & prone to surface scratches after a short period of playing time.

Genuine wine-bottlenecks are slightly more expensive than ‘Pyrex’ and can usually only be obtained from specialist outlets – but the search is definitely worthwhile! Real bottleneck slides give a thicker, mellow tone with a smoother, more sophisticated sustain than the ‘Pyrex’ alternatives; and the general opinion is that the actual colour of the bottle glass can also affect your slide tone. Green glass bottlenecks are considered to have the best ‘glass quality’ – you can also find blue, brown or clear bottlenecks available. For an example here, blue glass gives a ‘harder’, less mellow tone than green glass – this is probably due to blue bottle glass not generally recognised as a re-cycled product….but they do look pretty cool!!

‘Coricidin’ pill bottle slides certainly worked wonders for Duane Allman’s scorching electric slide work – and help Warren Haynes & Derek Trucks, the ‘dynamic duo’ of the current Allman Brothers Band, achieve their fluid electric slide tones to this day, but for mere mortals these type of slide lack the ‘density & mass’ formulation vital to get a smooth slide tone – certainly when applied to acoustic or resonator instruments.

The plethora of commercially available metal slides can be positively mind-blowing! Again, all of these slides can be purchased at both high street and specialist outlets, but remember, the ‘density & mass’ formulation also applies when choosing a metal slide. From 1/2lb brass ‘behemoths’ to paper-thin steel tubes – all can be easily sourced…the choice is yours.
Phosphor-bronze, plain bronze, brass and heavy stainless steel seem to be the favoured choice of ‘metal only’ slide players – with copper and aluminium all following close behind. Bronze type slides give a nice ‘bell-like’ tone (and being bronze – they certainly should!) with stainless steel providing a ‘harder’ edge to your tone. Metal slides will always sound less smooth and rounded tonally than glass slides ….it’s all about that ‘density & mass’ formulation again!

Porcelain / Ceramic slides offer the player a sweet, smooth tone – albeit quieter than glass or metal but, similar to the ‘Pyrex’ slides, tend to wear out quicker than the aforementioned; – nevertheless, they’re quite inexpensive and easily available for experimentation.

Newcomers to the fascinating world of slide are a range of pure quartz crystal, agate & polished, hollowed natural stone slides from specialist European-based stonemasons – these slides are absolute works of art in both appearance & workmanship – they’re definitely not cheap….but if you’re a truly passionate ‘slide-aholic’ then a couple of these beauties are vital additions to any treasured slide collection. 

The subject of ‘which slide’ can be discussed at length for hours, with the pro’s & con’s of weights, lengths, internal diameters and materials etc. bringing in many differing opinions. As i stated at the start of this article, there are no ‘etched in stone’ rules to which slide….but in my own, purely personal opinion – and armed with many years of ‘slide research’ – if you get yourself a good, genuine green glass wine bottleneck & a nice, heavy bronze, brass or stainless steel metal slide….you’ll find yourself close to slide ‘nirvana’!

Good luck with your search – and ‘Happy Slidin’!

Ian McWee; 

Bottleneck / Slide Consultant