Fretless update

And verily, today I did place upon the home-built fretless guitar three flatwound basses and three nylon trebles, and wound them up to see what would happen.

This idea came about from discussions with the redoubtable Steve Cornish, who has been incredibly gracious in letting me use the "back room" in his shop for mandolin lessons. I had long liked the idea of flatwound bass strings, especially as they'd be easier on my padauk fingerboard, but then again I had originally conceived this instrument as a nylon-strung project--I even ordered the LR Baggs pickup that was optimized for nylon strings. Steve seemed to think that blending the two types might be worth trying out, and set me up with .050, .040, and .030 flatwounds, and the lightest ball-end nylon trebles he had on hand. I came home, re-sanded the fingerboard with 600-grit paper, oiled it up, and put the strings on. My target tuning was the Guitar Craft standard tuning, C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4.

First, the bad news. I don't think I'm going to be able to tune that first string to G4. Just as I got it there, the ball-end pulled completely through the tunnel in the tailblock. Since the string itself was fine, I tried tying a bigger knot in the end, and backed the tuning off by a whole step, just as I've had it for a while now. It still makes me nervous, as I can see it trying to pull through again even tuned down to F4. I suspect I've got a lot to learn about how to work with nylon strings, which--for starters--stretch in a completely different way than steel. Okay, learning curve! I may intensify a search for an appropriate first string as I go along, and I may experiment with actually tying that string as on a classical guitar bridge. I think my tailblock may permit that, and a double loop may resist pulling through better than what I've got now. (Suggestions from nylon-string experts welcome!)

Along with that, I may want to fine-tune the fingerboard and action (nut/saddle) a little bit, since the nylon strings are considerably thicker than their steel predecessors. I'll play it a bit first and see what makes the most sense.

At first glance, my sixth string now does seem a bit floppy, tuned as it is to Bb1. That's low. If I settle on this tuning (Bb1-F2-C3-G3-D4-F4), I may revise the gauges of the flatwounds to be a little beefier. Continued experimentation!

Touch wood, that's it for the bad news--and all of those items should be easy fixes. Now, for the good news.

This is exactly what I wanted this instrument to be.

The feel of these strings is just plain sexeh. (As in, "I'll have what she's having.") The flatwounds are everything I wanted them to be: easy on the board, quiet and smooth under the fingers, and surprisingly lively in the upper registers, with a great "mwah" sound. And I think I am going to really love the nylons, which have a very similar feel under the fingers and a distinct "mwah" of their own, plus a much more balanced acoustic output and sustain than the tiny steel strings they replace. My fingers can actually feel them there; the plain steel strings would dampen so quickly that I found myself rolling up on my fingernail to get a workable note, which certainly ruins any sort of consistent technique! :-)

Slides on the top strings have gone from optimistic to sensuous, with an unexpected personality that I look forward to developing. Playing in the upper registers sounds a lot less "forced", and string-to-string balance looks to be much improved. The whole instrument sounds warmer and I think I am starting to hear a distinct voice in it. Initial testing playing across the boundary--going from steel flatwound to nylon in scale runs--sounded much more even than I would have guessed, and I'm pumped to try this out for a while.

Thus far everything has been acoustic. Tomorrow, I'll add a little electricity and see what happens. :-)