Road Trip Acoustic Lapslide Guitar - "Red Kite"

Certainly Dale:



Next the label is signed and glued in on the bass side of the back to the left of the soundhole:



For reasons I won't go into I ended up with a K&K pickup strap-jack. Unused things tend to annoy me and I wanted to play at the Folk club with my harp guitar and so I thought I'd make my own pickup for it. I found a source of 20mm piezo transducers (used to make pressure sensitive switches) at around £2 each and using speaker wire and my trusty soldering iron set about making four transducers for the strapjack - two for the main strings and two for the sub bass strings. The sound I got playing at the Folk Club was amazing so I was a very happy bunny. So for this Road trip guitar I decided to make another one to see what "plugged in" participants think. The “De Faoite” pickup is two 20mm piezo transducers attached with speaker wire to a strap jack. The size of the transducers is similar to the three used on the K&K pickups when they first came out. These tended to be boomy and they changed to the Mini smaller transducers. Using two of the bigger sized ones seems to give the same effect:



Setting up the instrument involves fitting the Gotoh tuners and nut to the neck, reaming and slotting the bridge pin holes, fitting the bone saddle, and fitting the strings and slotting the nut. The pickup is then fitted. Here’s the finished guitar:









In its case ready to travel:



The sound is really promising and the pickup sounds really good to me played in my little Trace Cube amp. "Red Kite" is heading off to Keith (ocarolan) in Somerset on Friday but I'll try and get some recording done before then.

Fabulous looking guitar as usual Dave. Home made pickups, you really are a guitar making god!

Thanks Keith, Colin and Dale.

"Red Kite" spreads its wings today towards Keith (ocarolan) but I managed to get a recording done - the first contribution to this Road Trip. This is the tune that emerged in DADFAC tuning recorded into my Zoom H4n in stereo mode and with flat EQ and no added effects. String gauges are 0.015", 0.020"w, 0.024"w, 0.032"w, 0.045"w, 0.056"w:

"Taking Flight"

For the journey to Keith I put "Red Kite" in Open D major tuning DADF#AD. DADFAC is just a variant of Open D minor tuning. I've put a section on tunings and string gauges in the Handbook in the case which says this:

"String Gauges, Tunings and Tone Bars
The string gauges specified will work well for most of the D and G tunings used on acoustic lap slide guitars and should last for each mini group stage of the Road Trip. If the 0.020”w second string is tuned a lot between A and B then it may eventually break and I’ve included a plain 0.018” string in the case as a more robust replacement if required. D tunings used tend to be Open D major (DADF#AD) or Open D minor (DADFAD) but there are a number of other more modal tunings around that I have used such as DADGAD, DADGAC, DADDAD and DADFAC. Open G major (DGDGBD) is also commonly used but I don’t use it much. If you are going to use tunings outside of these general ranges then please check with me first about appropriate string gauges to use.

I’ve included in the case the two tone bars that I use for those of you that are beginners – both are bar slides, one all metal and another slightly lighter one with a wooden handle. I also play with a thumb pick and have included one for those of you that don’t have one. With some Googling you’ll discover that there are many other types of tone bar around but these will work well for a beginner.

There are many tips on playing to be found on the internet and the only advice I can give is to have fun experimenting and don’t be put off by the initial sound that you make – it’s like learning guitar all over again. These instruments work well for instrumentals and for singing accompaniment. If you get stuck or frustrated then put a thread on the Acoustic Soundboard Forum. In Open D major then the major chords come from putting the tone bar across all the strings at the appropriate fret. The minor chords come from covering the bottom three strings only with the tone bar – a bit like power chords in dropped D tuning. Bm is got by covering the bottom four strings at the ninth fret and the chord works playing the top three strings open with it, Em is using the bottom four strings at the second fret."

Red Kite has landed - no thanks to Grace and Hugh's innate lack of organisation, soz about that Dave! Thanks for your efforts.

Have had a quick slide around and reckon there must be something very wrong with it as I can't make it sound anything like as fab as your recording above! Perhaps thumbover F chords aren't quite the thing here

I'll be back.....

Keith