National

This series are hand made in the USA. They are limited in number (mine is 007). As an acoustic tri-cone, there are no controls. The most unique thing about this guitar is that it has a hollow square neck constructed as an extension of the body (i.e.: brass with a highly polished nickel plate finish). It utilizes a spider bridge. UTILIZATION Since it is played with a steel, it is easy to get to any point on the fretboard (and, heck, it even has frets just for show). It is very easy to get a nice sound and that sound is a bit of history all by itself. It is equally adept at sweet Hawaiian music or the roughest blues. It has a very wide dynamic range and is very resonant with a long sustain. This is wonderful but it does imply that a new player will take a while to tame this beast with fine dynamic control. SOUNDS I love the blues sound this guitar makes. Particularly the ability to move from almost silence to venus filling levels. The bridge is very effective at exciting sympathetic resonances across the strings. So much so that you can hear that effect increase dramatically as you tune the strings and or get your intonation just correct. Also this can be modulated with a slight vibrato. OVERALL OPINION The appearance is spectacular (but get some polish and a few micro finer cloths and be sure to clean of your acidic fingerprints after each use). The build quality is impressive. It is hard to believe that it is possible to hand form metal to such a level. It is expensive but the cost shows in every aspect of the guitar and its sound I'm lucky enough to live close to a store with a wide selection of redo guitar's in stock. They pulled out nearly a dozen and let me play as long as desired. They even had a vintage version to compare to. This was my favourite and I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

The National Reso-Lectric is one of the coolest and most interesting guitars that I've had the pleasure of recording. It is a combination of a resonator dobro style guitar paired with the power of an electric guitar. While I wasn't the artist on the session, I was very impressed with the sounds possible with this guitar. I wish that I had more experience with it, but they are rare and don't come around everyday. The Reso-Lectric has two pick ups. UTILIZATION The configuration of the National Reso-Lectric isn't too complicated, as the only difference between it and a standard electric guitar is of course the metal resonating body. Each of the two pick ups have their own gain knobs and there is a three way switch to choose between them or blend the two. There is also a master volume knob next to the other two. The neck of the guitar makes it easy to play slide for sure. Getting a nice sound isn't necessarily hard or easy, it just depends on how good you are, but if you do your job, the Reso-lectric will do the rest! SOUNDS The National Reso-Lectric sounds unlike any other guitar that I've heard before. While it is definitely reminiscent of both playing regular slide on an electric guitar and an acoustic resonator, the combination of the two makes it very unique. We were using the Reso-Lectric with a '65 Fender Delxue Reverb, so I definitely got a good idea of what the guitar really sounds like. You can get a good amount of differing sounds between the pick ups, but really no matter where you set it it's going to sound great, if you can play it of course. OVERALL OPINION Finding a National Reso-Lectric isn't necessarily hard, but there definitely aren't too much of these out there. I don't know exactly when or for how long they were made for either. This is just a really great idea, and I wish I had one of my own! If you're an avid slide guitar player looking for a unique and powerful instrument that is unlike most, definitely at least check out the National Reso-lectric.