Juliet | soldguitars

Ozark 3615 Steel 'Biscuit' Resonator ("Juliet")

I think that I'm getting old. I saw this and thought that it was about the second coolest thing I'd ever seen (don't ask about the coolest thing ... that's private). It was a bit of an impulse buy ... I saw it on eBay with a few minutes left and was virtually paralysed with WANT, so waited and threw in my usual "three seconds before the end" sniper-bid, with predictable results. I DO enjoy eBay sniping. I'd been looking at 'proper' Nationals and Dobros for a while (...those things are EXPENSIVE!), but never pulled the trigger in case the resonator thing was a flash in the pan ... I don't want to dump a grand and a half on a guitar that won't get used. This stood out of my "collection" (although it ISN'T a collection ... a bunch of china pigs in one place is a collection, this is different) in that it is Korean. All my other guitars (apart from Thor) are either English, American or Japanese. Before the flaming starts, I've nothing against Korean gear, I just don't tend to buy it. So, this was a nickel-plated steel-bodied resonator (obviously), with the strings resting on a wooden 'biscuit' which is attached directly to an internal aluminium speaker cone. The string vibrations make the speaker vibrate, which makes the noise. Simple and effective. This was nicely made, well finished frets and a great chunk of mahogany for the neck, which joins the body at the 14th fret. It came with 13-gauge bronze strings, which were a bit of a bitch really. So ... I threw on a set of 9's and whinced, expecting it to sound shit ... there are folks on the net who insist that you need at least 16's (!!) to get the resonator cone to vibrate properly. Bullshit! It sounded KILLER with the 9's! The resonator cone was crispy and vibrant, as well as LOUD with the skinny strings. My theory is that the less the cone is compressed (thinner strings will compress the cone less) the more the cone is free to vibrate, and to do its thing. I flipped between standard tuning and open G (and open D) for slide blues stuff. Now I'm no slide expert, but this got THAT sound with a steel slide ... glorious. Being the idiot that I am, the more I got attached to this, the more that I kinda wish that I'd bought a National or a newer Gibson-made brass-bodied Dobro. I dunno. Whatever.

Ultimately, using open tunings pissed me off a little ... I'm just getting used to the architecture of the fretboard in standard tuning, so having all the notes in different places really pressed my angry-buttons. As the time I spend playing is pretty precious to me, I can't afford to waste time getting pissed off with gear. So see ya Juliet, it was good knowing you.