Guitar technology breakthrough.

[Whacked]

Take another look at the pictures Tim.

The E and A strings look to be close to the 'low action' he claims but due to the radius of the fretboard, the E and G strings are a mile high.

[rdepelteau]

Whack, you're confusing the edge of the fretboard with the actual height of the string, the string doesn't sit right on the edge of the fretboard, but about 3/8 up, that's what gives the impression of being a mile high.

[alexclaber]

Interesting stuff. Not (by a long shot!) the technological breakthrough that your title proclaims, but good ideas never-the-less.

 

If you want to be commercially successful I'd try seeing if the concept works with a ~34" scale length and Fender Jazz neck dimensions - that's what most of us would be happiest with. And I really don't see the point of such a radiused fingerboard.

 

However, the proof is in the pudding - post some (decent quality) recordings and let us judge it honestly.

 

Alex

[picker]

aw, give ol rdepelteau a break, guys. He's good-naturedly taken enough abuse to earn him a little bit of respect. He's said he's here to learn, and apparently he's doing some learning here. Back off on on the names, okay? Spam may be spam, but let's keep it friendly.

[getz out]

Originally posted by rdepelteau:

G: "the standard measurement for action is to take the measurement from the bottom of the string in question to the top of the fretboard directly below."

 

That's what I did.

Wow. Look at the photo you posted. See all that fretboard in front of the ruler? The space where you can comfortable fit your finger under the E-string, in between the string and the fretboard? Yeah. That space.

 

My conclusion is that you are either joking, lying, or incompetent.

 

Getting a patent is not all that hard. Actually applying one for something useful is a whole different matter. Check out AccuGroove's AccuSwitch.

 

You have no idea what the scale length is, but you have marked where the "frets" should be by using a guitar neck? I know you say you are creating the future for instruments and are not concerned with the past. I assume that also means you are not concerned with the Western harmony system, as you have created a whole new set of random intervals.

[thanny XIII]

I sugest you use a better bridge and stop radiusing your boards.

Also you ave the electronics in front of the body.

Put them here in a hole in the back and drill a few small holes in the top. Pick players (me) hate thumbrests, get them out of there and put a real jack in there.

 

You well never get perfect urb sound in a tiny electric, you could get a very woody tone if you used more wood.

 

Scrap all ideas involving metal and add some curves. And look up wishbass I think he wants to "innovate" in the same way you do.

 

Oh and thank you for telling us about your bands, are you in a band werin you use this bass?

[jeremy c]

The length of the string from nut to bridge is called the scale length.

 

At 26", that is an extremely short bass.

 

Basses called short scale basses are 30"

 

Rickenbacker basses are 33.5"

Fender and many other basses are 34"

 

Many five and six string basses these days are 35". Some are even 36".

 

Bass fiddles are usually somewhere around 41".

 

Dingwall basses have multiple scales going from 34" to 37".

 

I think that a cello is somewhere around 26.8" so maybe the instrument is an electric cello. Try cello strings on it and see what happens.

 

My Ashbory bass has an 18" scale and is not very easy to play....past the twelfth fret it's really, really difficult.

[thanny XIII]

Ive seen guitsrs with longer scalelengths.

[jeremy c]

A Fender Stratocaster is 25 1/2".

[thanny XIII]

a washburn seven is 27"

[way2fat]

Originally posted by rdepelteau:

G: "the standard measurement for action is to take the measurement from the bottom of the string in question to the top of the fretboard directly below."

 

That's what I did.

 

W2F: "It isn't at all easy to make an upright sound like an upright through an amp without about $3,000 worth of pickups and a blender. With off the shelf electronics? I doubt it."

 

Actually, it sounds pretty close to it as it stands. It's always been my intention to begin with. The sound is quite nice, if I could make a recording live I'd like that, but the jammers don't like it when we record the jam, I did it once, and there was a huge storm of protest. Some guy wants me to play bass on his recording so I'll have something if and when that happens.

 

 

Scale lenght? I think it's the lenght of the octave. Is that it? If so, the scale lenght is about 13". So the whole lenght of the string is about 26"

 

It's not a bass intended to be played like a guitar, it's a bass intended to be played like a bass. I also play keyboard and guitar parts on it, whatever the songs needs. Then I go back to the bass line. When a guy soloes, I like to hum the melody between the bass notes, just to keep the jammers on cue, they sometimes lose the song, and I sometimes lose the song too, after a good mexican cigars and a couple of pints of Rickard's red.

 

So the F hole actually reduces the strenght of the body at the narrow point to allow vibrations to pass through more easily. I can change both resonnance and pitch just as easily as one can tune a xylophone note. By pinging a piece, I get the general natural frequency response, and can tune each separate piece in tune with each other, as well as having a tone for the assembled framework.

 

I checked out Reverend basses, they're were doubt very well made, but they're out of business.... and they sound like pianos, I suppose I could get that tone also, if I searched for the right combination. I like the thumb rest, and it's not in my way, as my hand loops over the area anyway. I do change picking position up and down the strings, to get different sounds, and it never gets in my way. Some people like thumb rests, others don't, I have two of them without it, and two of them with it.

 

I'll certainly study the architecture of the upright, and the logic behind the construction, in order to better approximate the desired effect. I have to find aluminum for the neck, since I don't cast, I'll have to use industrial stock, modified to fit. If I can find hollow half round tubing.... there's a challenge all by itself. The rest of the metal I can scrounge for bits and pieces to fit together. I'm not an engineer, or a luthier, or a carpenter, I'm a hacker, but I do have a few patents behind my belt already, so it's not like the opinion of some no name rock star will throw me off... I like this tinkering too much.

No name rock star? Dude, I used to walk to school six miles through the snow. Uphill both ways.

 

If you will do like Alex suggested and post some sound clips of your instrument, we might be able to help you a little more. Have you played it side by side with a URB to reach the conclusion that it sounds prety close to a URB?

[way2fat]

Originally posted by getz76:

Originally posted by rdepelteau:

G: "the standard measurement for action is to take the measurement from the bottom of the string in question to the top of the fretboard directly below."

 

That's what I did.

Wow. Look at the photo you posted. See all that fretboard in front of the ruler? The space where you can comfortable fit your finger under the E-string, in between the string and the fretboard? Yeah. That space.

 

My conclusion is that you are either joking, lying, or incompetent.

 

Getting a patent is not all that hard. Actually applying one for something useful is a whole different matter. Check out AccuGroove's AccuSwitch.

 

You have no idea what the scale length is, but you have marked where the "frets" should be by using a guitar neck? I know you say you are creating the future for instruments and are not concerned with the past. I assume that also means you are not concerned with the Western harmony system, as you have created a whole new set of random intervals.

Stop reminding me about the AccuSwitch.

[jeremy c]

I'm not a no-name rock star, I'm a no-name studio musician and freelance bassist.

[getz out]

Originally posted by jeremy c:

I'm not a no-name rock star, I'm a no-name studio musican and freelance bassist.

Liar. I know your name. And you rock.

[rdepelteau]

CA Claber, I'll get a decent recording in time, I would like to give you a good sound clip, so that you can analyse it. As soon as I do, I certainly will. The technological breakthrough is there, I just didn't explicitly described it, I hold a little back,

 

Picker, thanks for your support, a little goes a long way.

 

Thanny, I play every Saturday with my bass, and we get a lot of quality jammers who come down. Of course, a jam is a jam, we get both beginners and advanced players. I'm in the middle, not the greatest, not the worst. If you have such good ideas, you should build one just like you like it, it's not that hard.

 

Jeremy, your Ashbury is too small in my opinion, of course it would be very difficult to play at the bottom of the scale because your bass nearly ends there. That's why I built mine more along the line of a guitar, so a guitar is easy to play all the way up, and so is my bass, very comfortable any time I want to go real high up there. Fortunately the others are used to my forays into the unknown, where I sometime get lost.... As I said on my first post, this bass is much the size of a cello. I'll try cello strings, if they make metal ones. The epup has to pick it up otherwise I can't use them.

[Eric VB]

Originally posted by rdepelteau:

Scale lenght? I think it's the lenght of the octave. Is that it? If so, the scale lenght is about 13". So the whole lenght of the string is about 26"

I posted the definition of scale length and a link that explained it in your last thread . According to the link I gave, a "regular guitar" (from your answer on the other thread) can have a scale length from 22-1/2" to 25-1/2".

 

You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by simply putting your light gauge (bass?) strings on a Strat. Then we could all talk about the physics of strings and why 34" to 38" scale length is a good idea for electric bass guitar. (Or even Dingwall/Novax fanned frets.)

 

Unless, of course, you're using Ashbory silicone strings, and then we're talking 18" scale lengh.

 

Don't you think it has ocurred to at least one other person -- even going back only to the '50s when electric bass guitar was born -- to make a bass guitar the same size as a standard 6-string guitar? Why do you suppose nobody has?

 

I give you a 10 for effort, but I have serious concerns about your design.

 

If you want to learn more about violin family physics, try reading up on Carleen Maley Hutchins and the violin octet .

 

[Everything in this post (and much more) has been brought up before in this forum. Even I can't have an original idea. ]

[thanny XIII]

I have often thought ofbuilding my own instrument, but there are peopl who do it far better than me and I can still get all the stuff i want. I am just trying to help you improve your design so people like me who like custom instruments but don't really want to do it themselves will buy it. that is cool that you jam.

[Whacked]

Originally posted by getz76:

Originally posted by jeremy c:

I'm not a no-name rock star, I'm a no-name studio musican and freelance bassist.

Liar. I know your name. And you rock.

Ditto!

Plus you have a Gold and Platinum album with your name on them thats sayin something

[rdepelteau]

RBG: "Don't you think it has ocurred to at least one other person -- even going back only to the '50s when electric bass guitar was born -- to make a bass guitar the same size as a standard 6-string guitar? Why do you suppose nobody has?"

 

I suppose a lot of people thought of building a bass on a guitar, in fact Fender does it. So I can't really say nobody has. But why don't you tell me why you think bigger is better, then I "may" make them bigger, but I don't think so for now. If you heard this bass I made, you would understand why I don't think making it bigger would make it better. I suppose a longer scale would put more tension on the strings, and that makes the instrument louder, especially URBs. I did look at the site, but I didn't see any diagrams, or description of their building technique. I have heard of them, and the high degree of acoustic engineering they put into it. I am exploring a new avenue of research, that of a new building principle, which makes these old fashioned instrument, well a thing of the past. Though I haven't yet adapted the technique to violin, I first develop it on bass, before tranfering it to other instruments. But now that we're on the subject it may be a good idea to give some thought.

[Rowbee]

I think people are more interested in hearing an isolated recording of the instrument, rather than in a band jam situation anyway, could you please do that for us.