More frets and/or more strings (and other things) -- the world of extended range bass

[g.]

I'm trying to get the guitar forum to look at some of this sacrilege ... in the Bass player or another guitar? thread.

[alexclaber]

Slowly being sucked in...

 

Alex

[_Sweet Willie_]

Look, C. Alex, I'll be straight with you. I have designs on a future fretless. I have two fretted basses and one fretless, and I'm afraid that the fretless feels left out.

 

So, I was thinking that I wanted to get a fretless 5-string with a chambered mahogany body, maple neck w/ ebony or purpleheart stringers, ebony fingerboard. Now, this is all in the "dream" stage, but it took me quite a while to plan for the Fish o' Luv and this long-term "dream" stage is important. The more I think about it, the more I think, "Why not a 6-string?"

 

I also thought that really I'd just want a single magnetic pickup, most likely in MM position. This would give me space to have a longer fingerboard...so I began to think, "Why not 26 or more 'frets'?" (One answer I came up with was that intonation that high up would really be tricky.)

 

Why?

 

Well, I think I care less about the additional higher notes I could reach. I care more about the alternate fingerings that would be possible and the different ways I would envision music on a 6-string w/ 26+ frets.

 

Peace.

--SW

 

PS: This thread is like an old friend...

[alexclaber]

I'm not sure I'd bother with a higher string on a fretless, I'd just extend the fingerboard way up, as I'd only need a bridge pickup and wouldn't intend to slap. Then again, if I get used to playing a fretted 6, it would make sense to keep that spacing and arrangement and just extend the fretless fingerboard way up high (3 octaves?)

 

Alex

[Nicklab]

I for one would definitely be interested in seeing all the possibilities there could be if Zon were to make their Hyperbass as a 6 string. As it stands now it's a 4 string with a three octave neck along with multiple hipshots per string. Imagine those options on a 6?!

[g.]

Here's a bass by Michael Dolan, who did some of the final work on the Hideous Claw (installed the electronics and did the gloss finish and set-up:

 

http://a9.cpimg.com/image/63/B8/13123939-b227-01770200-.jpg

[g.]

Some images from recent concerts in Estonia featuring Michael Manring and Yves Carbonne (you may remember the pics of his Jerzy Drozd 10-string fretless being built):

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Tallinn/final_jam3.jpg

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Tartu/concert_in_tartu.jpg

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Concert%20at%20Tallinn,%20Von%20Krahl/von_krahl_yc.jpg

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Concert%20at%20Tallinn,%20Von%20Krahl/von_krahl_vaigla_manring_yc.jpg

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Concert%20at%20Tallinn,%20Von%20Krahl/von_krahl_manring_yc.jpg

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Viljandi/concert_viljandi1.jpg

 

http://www.yvescarbonne.com/gal/A%20trip%20in%20Estonia/Parnu/parnu1.jpg

 

Must have been some wild music! I'm sure to get their recorded work together, just to hear that huge fully-spaced eight string (he must be pretty large to make some of his chording look so natural) and the 36-fret Hyperbass in action at the same time.

[Eric VB]

This thread's been around the block a few times, eh? Nice read.

 

After thinking more about cello and reading a lot of websites, I finally had some lightbulb moments with regards to this whole topic of extended range. Nothing anyone here is unaware of, probably, but really made an impression on me.

 

Tone. A big problem with extended-range stringed instruments is tone. That is, at least for instruments in which the strings are shortened somehow (fretted, fingered, stopped, etc.) to produce different pitches. Why? It is partly due to "scale length", or the length of the string from nut to bridge.

 

Why aren't a violin and contrabass violin the same size? Part of it has to do with the body size resonances, but part with string physics which leads to length. [For electric basses there is of course the Ashbory, which uses a different string material to achieve such a small scale instrument capable of producing bass pitches.]

 

Reading about how Carleen Hutchins arrived at the modern violin octet was enlightening. Basically she (and others) noticed that part of why violas, cellos and basses weren't as brilliant as violins was because they weren't built to the right scale. This mostly had to so with body size, but some string length issues also emerged. Her contrabass stands 7 feet tall with a 43-inch "mensure" (not sure if that's the same as "scale length"), and even then it was made smaller than it theoretically should have been to make it playable. The really interesting thing here (to me) was that each instrument was made to a size optimal for the middle two open strings; tone drops off somewhat for the lowest- and highest-pitched strings.

 

This would seem to be an argument for keeping instruments to 4 strings or less. Of course, that's when tuned in 5ths; you get about the same range with 5 strings tuned to 4ths. Then again, this is based on acoustic instruments, not electrics.

 

For example, one manufacturer uses the following scale lengths:

14" G3 D4 A4 E5 mandolin (mezzo)

17" C3 G3 D4 A4 mandola (alto)

22" G2 D3 A3 E4 octave mandolin (tenor)

24 3/4" C2 G2 D3 A3 mandocello (baritone)

(The designations in parentheses are from Carleen Hutchins.) [Notice that the tenor-voiced instrument does not have a violin family counterpart outside of Hutchins' violin octet.] Mandobasses are rare birds, having been made around about 100 years ago by Gibson for mando orchestras; I don't remember seeing any specs on these other than the comment that they didn't project well, which means again they were built too small.

 

For comparison, we have:

24.5" - 25.5" E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4 electric g****r

28" - 38" B0 E1 A1 D2 G2 C3 6-string bass

Also note that cello scale length actually varies from about 24" - 28", or right in between g****r and bass.

 

[interesting note: the g****r is actually a tenor voice, and adding a 7th lower-pitched string extends its range into the baritone. Adding the C3 string to bass likewise allows it to cover the high end of baritone. However, neither really has the right scale length for baritone.]

 

Based on this, one method of extending the range of a instrument would be to have multiple necks, each at an appropriate scale length. Other than JPJ, though, few have mastered 3-neck instruments; more necks would seem to be too complicated.

 

By extending this idea we arrive at something like: Why don't we just play harps? (Sorry, too lazy to scroll back to get the quote right.) Every string is at the right scale length, and you don't have to worry about fretting anymore! Likewise, a piano has strings at the proper length for a fairly uniform tone.

 

And this seems to be the impetus for fanned frets. When you think about it, this is quite a development. Now imagine a fanned-fret instrument with the range of an 88-key piano: even with strings tuned in 5ths you end up with a mental image of a 13-string instrument with a huge change of scale. Just using the numbers from above, it would start with something like a B0 string at 38-inch scale and end with something like an E5 string at 14-inch scale. (This still wouldn't quite cover the A0 to C8 range of the piano.) That might be kind of hard to pull off.

 

So now if you want that kind of range in a string instrument you're back to looking at harp or piano. But how do you bend a note? (Hence the invention of a pitch bender on electric keyboards.) Glissando (slide)? Vibrato? Ghost note (muting)? Slap? Arco (bowing)? Harmonics? Etc.

 

If you like tap, there's "the stick". I can't tell for sure what the range is on the 12-string model, but it looks to be at least C1 to C6. But now we're back to a fixed scale length (36") and parallel frets. Doesn't that create unequal tone over the 5-octave range?

 

Am I being a little too worried about tone? Does it matter if a baritone voice played by a bass-scale instrument is too muddy, or too thin on a standard g****r-scale instrument? Classical string orchestras have been getting by forever without a true tenor voice, either forcing violas (altos) or cellos (baritones) to cover the tenor range. Can't modern music survive without a true baritone? Or is the answer in extended range instruments?

 

And if we extend the range of our style of string instruments, what's the practical limit? Can we get a 7 1/3 octave range by changing string technology?

 

Are we just reinventing the 28-string, 14-course lute? ( Wikipedia , described in the evolution section.) Can we find a better alternative using modern technology?

[g.]

I think Garry Goodman has at least the range of the piano with his ERB. But the piano is not every ERBer's range target. Quite a few ERBers are content to just extend to cover bass, subcontrabass and guitar ranges, or some subset of them.

[g.]

Also note that Carleen Hutchins's approach of caring about the two middle strings has as much or more to do with not using fanning to optimize string speaking as it does instrument body size. This is a limitation for electric instuments and acoustic alike.

 

And where did you get 28" as a lower limit for six string bass?

[Eric VB]

Originally posted by greenboy:

And where did you get 28" as a lower limit for six string bass?

It was probably for a 4-stringer. I can't find the link now, but I think the guy wanted to put more strings on it.

 

[edit]

 

Here it is, the Cellobass.

 

Scale length of 695mm is under 28".

[g.]

Yeah, well... That really doesn't say much about the relative truth of the matter. Some guy...

 

Anyway, a lot of people haven't been satisfied with short scale 30" basses when it comes to E and even A string tone and feel. You can only do so much with string gauges to compensate, and that always compromises either one or both elements beyond a pretty narrow window.

[g.]

An interesting way to arrive at some conclusions is to have a variety of strings about and use a capo at various places along the neck while trying different tunings. Ferinstance, a low B on 34" scale gives a low E at approximately 25-9/16" - both notes have the same tension.

 

Similarly, low E at 34" would at approximately 25-9/16" would give an equally-tensioned A.

[Eric VB]

Yeah, I saw someone else's website about capo-ing a g****r for octave mandolin or mandola like sounds. I have a crummy capo. Probably worth messing around with it anyway.

[g.]

Don't forget Ralph Novaks lecture on Scale Length and Tone to the 1995 Guild of American Luthiers Convention:

 

http://www.novaxguitars.com/info/technical.html

 

That's the basis for fanned 'boards and establishes that perhaps the name of an instrument isn't what makes it sound as it does - it's the scale length at its given tunings that is the origin of its characteristics, and then filtered by body and materials/construction.

 

Regardless of interest in fanning, this transcript (accompanied by visual aids) presents the central concept for understanding scale length's primary importance.

[g.]

Here's an old dog who seems to learn new tricks: Don Schiff

 

Just look at the discography there if you don't realize how well versed this man is. And for quite some time now he's spendt most of his time on the The NS/Stick :

 

http://www.nsstickist.com/schiff/nsfpickings.JPG

 

http://www.donschiff.com/main2.jpg