Edited - Resonator guitar advice, what to look out for when buying.

notanon

Hi all,

Any recommendations on budget resonator. Looking to try some slide and Delta blues style.

Vintage do a resonator what are they like? Listening to some YouTube advice I think I prefer steel over wood and non square neck.

Thanks in advance.

UPDATED. With all the advice I am going to look at a Michael Messer second hand. What tips are there for a resonator newbie, what issues do I need to look out for?

Again, I really appreciated the advice given so far.

dazzajl

In a huge sweeping generalisation, the cheap
ones all play like crap and sound even worse. Yes, even the ones with amazing websites that say they somehow sound. ‘authentic’ unlike all the others. The expensive ones feel like a really daft idea if you fall in to the 99.something% that find it’s a passing fad. 

Almost any other route in to playing slide is probably a better bet. And yet they still call to me all the time!

JohnPerry

I have a Gretsch Honey Dipper which sounds pretty good and wasn't expensive. Doesn't get a lot of use but don't regret buying it (4 years back). 

wrinkleygit

There’s a very good reason why they are “budget “
  My advice is visit your local charity shop/ bootsale and and buy the cheapest acoustic you can find, tune it to open G, cut your self a piece of 22mm copper plumbing pipe ( make sure you file the ends smooth), spend some time on YouTube and see how you go from there.
 Takes time, but it’s rewarding if you persevere, good luck in your quest.

Andy79

A second hand Michael Messer is maybe a way forward. The guy knows how they should be built and they are easily as good as NRP. You will also get your money back on it

steer

Whilst I have not played loads of resonators, I picked up a Fender Brown Derby for a good price, and I am happy with it. I mean, I still cant play slide to save my life, but the guitar itself is great.

Sounds great. Nice thinnish neck, and came well setup. No Pickup.

I think resomnators are a bit like bass'es in that often you can get a reasonable second hand deal from someone who had brought one but never really used it.

richardhomer

Andy79 said:

A second hand Michael Messer is maybe a way forward. The guy knows how they should be built and they are easily as good as NRP. You will also get your money back on it

This all the way - or a ‘Busker’ (basically the same instruments under a different brand). 

All other cheap(er) resonators - Fenders, Gretsches, etc sound nothing like ‘the real thing’.

This is my Busker:

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/XYVrhYixDkDnsQwW9

notanon

I like that @richardhomer I'd be more than happy to hit that tone.

JohnPerry

paulnb57

Get yourself a Messer, he invested a lot of time getting them right, unlike mainstream budget jobbies that are not……

My Messer Lightning



and with its Little Luna cousin!

downbytheriver

Messer I reckon although there are a lot more decent cheap resos around nowadays. What do you reckon @Lewy ? 

Lewy

downbytheriver said:

Messer I reckon although there are a lot more decent cheap resos around nowadays. What do you reckon @Lewy ? 

Definitely Messer for me, Stan. The more recent ones are set up in Dave King’s workshop and have really nice necks. They’re not built like NRPs, but then neither were the original Nationals!

JayGee

JohnPerry said:

I don’t care whether that’s “right” or not. It sounds great…

Andy79

There’s an MM at GG

Poboy

Please forgive my ignorance, what's an NRP?

Tannin

I made some notes (copied below) about resonators when I was thinking about buying one a few months ago. Prices are Australian dollars: allowing for VAT, $1000 AUD is about £600.

Several modern resonator guitar brands pretend to be the authentic original, or claim to have a corporate history steeped in resonator guitar design and manufacture. None of them do. The resonator guitar was invented in 1925 and manufactured from about that time by three main companies: National, Dobro, and Regal. Although competitors, they happily bought and sold components from each other and retailed under their own individual brand names. The last original resonator guitar was made in 1941. Production stopped to preserve strategic material for the war effort, and was never restarted.

Decades later, people stated making resonator guitars again, and all three of the famous old names were taken up by new owners. None has any connection with the original companies, which are long gone. Saga Musical Instruments of Korea started making Regal-branded resonators in 1987. National Resophonic of California started in 1989, and Gibson bought the rights to the Dobro name in 1993.

Resonator guitars are easier to manufacture than orthodox wooden acoustics. The resonator itself needs careful attention, but the body construction is far less critical, and precision neck construction is not always considered important. As a result, most resonators sell new for about $1000, give or take.

Current products fall into two groups. The first is hand-made, mostly in the USA and very expensive - particularly when you remember that a lot of the expense that normally goes into a good guitar isn't really relevant to a resonator. Fine tonewoods are not required: most either have all-metal bodies, or are crude plywood boxes because the resonator itself (imagine something looking like a hubcap and acting like a metal speaker cone) is the important part so far as sound quality goes. Tonally, the rest of the guitar doesn't matter very much. Given that most resonators have a fairly high action and are mainly used for slide, you could also argue that it is not necessary to put so much care and attention into the neck and fretboard. I don't agree with that view, but you can see the point.

This leads us to the second, much more common, group of resonators. These are made in Asia, mostly China, and sell for around about $1000, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. There are many brands. The interesting thing is that you basically never see really cheap and nasty ones (under $600, say) and you never see premium ones in the $2000 and $3000 range. You either buy an Asian one for about $1000, or go stupidly expensive with something like a National or a Mule at a double the price of a good acoustic non-resonator. The lack of $300 crapola models at the bottom of the market makes sense: you wouldn't expect anyone who can play enough to want a resonator to be ignorant enough to buy a $300 one. But why the lack of quality models in the $2000 to $3000 range? It's a mystery.

There are essentially three kinds of resonator design (two different single cones, plus triple cone), and these can be built into an all-metal body or a wooden one. Metal bodies have more zing, wooden ones more honk. A more subtle difference arises from the degree of acoustic coupling or isolation between the resonator cavity and the remainder of the body.

* Biscuit resonators were invented first. These have a single large resonator cone facing inwards like an upside-down speaker cone. At the apex is the round wooden "biscuit" which acts as the bridge and has a conventional saddle mounted on it. Biscuit-cone resonators have the most attack and the least sustain.

* Tricones have three small cones arranged in a triangle, linked together by a rigid T-shaped metal bar, on which the bridge is mounted. Tricones have the most sustain and the smoothest attack, and usually cost a little more than single cone instruments.

* A spider cone is essentially an upside-down biscuit cone. A large single cone is mounted facing out (like a speaker cone); a multi-legged alloy "spider" contacts the rim in several places and provides a central mounting point for the saddle.

I am only interested in conventional round neck resonators - i.e., ones that you can play in the normal way the same as any other guitar. You'll also see square neck and hollow neck instruments: these can only be played on your lap with a slide and don't have functional frets. Just like round necks, they can be metal or wood-bodied, and have a biscuit cone, a spider cone, or triple cones.

Tannin

(Part 2 of my notes.)

You will see a number of confusing resonator-specific names thrown around as if they were meaningful terms. "Triolian" for example. This was a trade name applied by National to a model first made around 1928. It was going to be a tricone (hence the "tri" in the name) but they ran out of parts or changed their minds or something after the first ten, so from that time the National "Triolians" had a single cone. "Duolian" is equally meaningless. Both terms are no longer protected by trademarks and are used willy-nilly by any manufacturer who feels like it. Just ignore them.

Almost all resonators have a non-removable metal guard over the bridge which seriously restricts palm muting. The rationale is that the resonator itself is fairly delicate and a blow onto an unprotected bridge will crush it, resulting in an expensive repair. If I ever have one made for me (which I very well might) I'll specify a removable guard (screw on or similar) and simply take care not to impact the bridge with anything. I can replace the guard when necessary for transport.

My current view is that there is not a lot to choose between the common Asian-made resonator models: Gretsch, Dobro, Regal, Bourbon Street, and so on, but I have to look into this more closely. 

NATIONAL RESOPHONIC: The Gold Standard in resonator guitars. Made in the USA and priced around four to six times the going rate. No connection with the original National String Instrument Company which closed up in 1941. Yes, I fancy owning a National, but $6000 plus for a tin box with strings on it is ridiculous and I'm not paying it.

MULE: American, very expensive, not sold in Australia. US orders only, and you have to pay up front and wait two years.

BEARD: American and quite expensive. Very rare in this country.

MICHAEL MESSER: Well-regarded UK brand which manufactures somewhere offshore. Not sold here except by private import.

DONMO: Don Morrison of Adelaide makes resonator guitars by hand. They are quite reasonably priced for a custom-built instrument: somewhere between $2000 and $3000. I have my eye on a brass tricone, maybe even a baritone tricone, though I'd really like a chance to play a Donmo first.

AMISTAR: A small Czech outfit which hand-built high quality instruments until the main man died in 2015.

LEEWALD: Czech company which claims to have been involved in making components for Amistar, now custom-building instruments under its own name.

GOLD TONE: Asian. Beard handles them in the USA so they might be fairly decent. Or might not.

BOURBON STREET: Claimed to be Australian designs, owned by an Australian wholesaler, made somewhere overseas - China, I suppose. Priced a bit higher than most and the couple I've played have been a little better made.

REGAL: The brand has been around in various forms practically forever. The current Regal line goes back to 1987 when Saga bought the name and started making instruments more-or-less along the original lines. I had one for a while around 1990 or so. Pretty good sound but detail lets then down - the one I played in Hobart recently had a good sound but clunky neck and low-fi tuners. (Mind you, "clunky" seems to be part of the resonator job description: people tend to venerate the 1930s ones and regard anything which actually improves on them - such as nice necks and well-engineered tuning machines - as a drawback. Look at the number of modern resonators with pain-in-the-arse slotted headstocks for example.) Overall, Regals are a bit crude but you could do worse.

GRETSCH: Made somewhere cheap, probably China like most of their other products. Apparently not bad, I'd like to try one.

DOBRO: The original name, but nothing else remains. Just a brand of Epiphone now, which is itself a brand of Gibson. The last real Dobro was made in 1941. Gibson bought the Dobro name in 1993 and sells a range of Dobro-branded resonator guitars made in China. They are priced about the same as Gretsch and Regal and Recording King. Pending finding one to play, I have no reason to imagine that they are significantly different.

RECORDING KING: American brand, made somewhere in Asia.

REPUBLIC: American brand manufacturing in China.

Tannin

Poboy, an NRP is one of the National Resophonic models. They will sell you one for $4500 USD. (Presumably plus freight, import duty, and VAT.) Probably a UK dealer will have them for a bit less, but we are still talking serious money. 

Poboy

Tannin said:

Poboy, an NRP is one of the National Resophonic models. They will sell you one for $4500 USD. (Presumably plus freight, import duty, and VAT.) Probably a UK dealer will have them for a bit less, but we are still talking serious money. 

Thanks Tannin

wrinkleygit

Tannin, I think you have produced quite a comprehensive time line, apart from the omission that the Dopera family had bought back the right to use the “Dobro “ name and were manufacturing USA built wooden and metal bodied resonators, prior to the Gibson takeover in ‘93.

notanon

Appreciate all the feedback here, thanks for the in-depth posts.

You gotta love this place!