Inspiration.

Just to document one of the prime sources of inspiration for the next instrument project.

If you haven't seen this before, watch your jaw.  I still get goosebumps.



Michael Manring, "Selene".

Banjo, iterated.

Well, I managed to get the fingerboard insert glued down on the kit banjo. A mixed bag, at least on first analysis. I should reserve judgment and continue tinkering before drawing too many permanent conclusions.

I do believe the neck is straighter and flatter than it was. The trouble is that the rim of the resonator still intrudes on practical action height, and I still get buzzing up the neck.

There are things I can try, both in the realm of the minor tweak and the substantial change, to remedy this. One thing I might try is tightening the drum head more significantly, and/or substituting a taller bridge. (I suppose it's also possible to reduce the neck angle and go for a shorter bridge, and see if that works.) I could also simply relieve wood from the resonator rim, which seems like a gruesome change, but would be worth it if it works.

On the plus side, the action (at least below the octave) is better than it was, and I got the chance to restring the fifth string so that the cut end is not at substantial risk of putting a hole in my thumb during normal playing. I did end up going with a fifths tuning this time, to wit:

• 5th: 09p, tuned G4
  
• 4th: 32w, tuned G2
  
• 3rd: 26w, tuned D3
  
• 2nd: 18p, tuned A3
  
• 1st: 12p, tuned E4

The strings are still a bit Frankensteined (4th is nickel-wound, 3rd bronze) but I am already much happier with the 5ths tuning, appreciating both the expanded range (std G tuning on a banjo is D3-D4, where here I'm G2-E4) and regular shapes and scales.

Next steps: play this a little bit, mostly below the octave to stay away from the buzzing, and contemplate this "steeper neck, taller bridge, shallower nut" or "shallower neck, shorter bridge, deeper nut" question. Learn more about the right hand.

It's a tinkerer's project anyway. So, tinker.

Possible tunings for a 4-string...

The brain is chewing on things. In this case, the next instrument project, which is an absolute jumble of ideas at the moment, but with some starting to gel. I'm after a fretless, solid-body instrument with lots of sustain, and with some Michael Manring-esque instant detuning options. Pretty much every moving part is being considered, but that's the overarching goal.

Today's chewing is over the actual string tuning options. How can I get the most flexibility out of the simplest system? With a theoretical detuner for each string at both the bridge and nut end, yielding three possible "open" notes per string, permutations get daunting. But hell, let's take a stab, right?

I set an arbitrary box: could I get a tuning that would allow me to use both open fifths and open fourths? How about an additional option of the Guitar Craft intervals?

I pretty quickly came up with two possible options--there may be others, but the current exercise is: what might be possible with these?

Option 1:

String	Low note	Middle	High note
#4	G1	A1	B1
#3	C2	D2	E2
#2	A2	B2	D3
#1	D3	E3	G3

Option 2:

String	Low note	Middle	High note
#4	G1	A1	B1
#3	D2	E2	F2
#2	A2	B2	C3
#1	D3	E3	G3

Well now, these two options present quite a few obvious possibles. They both permit open 5ths (GDAE), open 4ths (BEAD), Guitar Craft intervals (AEBD), multiple power chord voicings (interestingly, rooted on G, D, A, and E), multiple major triad voicings, even more minor triad voicings, multiple sus4 voicings, at least one major seventh voicing, and a couple of minor seventh/major sixth voicings. Option #2 also has an obvious available dominant 7th voicing which does not seem available in #1. (I haven't ventured past seventh forms yet, but there's obviously other things there too.) Melodically, something might be significant about the first option's consistency; within each string's tuning profile, the only "intervals" that are not major seconds are the upper intervals on the top two strings, which are minor thirds. On the other hand, the second option has the two interior strings featuring a whole and a half-step. I'm thinking about the possibilities of chasing harmonics around, melodically, and it seems to me that a variety of possible intervals just might be too fun to pass up.

So, at least initially, it seems that either of these options would keep me busy for quite a while, and the latter option may prove to be slightly more flexible than the first. Now that it's documented, I can mull on it for a while, and see if it might be worth the effort of trying to get a detuner on both ends of each string.

I suppose it would be much simpler if I didn't keep trying to take every fixed point I can see and cast off its moorings. I can hear ya: isn't fretless enough? Well, sure it is. Hell, just listen to the available corpus of great music: twelve-tone, standard tuning is enough.

But it's not the point. Face it, I'm just a pain in the ass. :-)

A little attention to the banjo

It's unfortunate that the rather nifty design feature of the Musicmaker's kit banjo, wherein you can replace a short section of the fretted fingerboard up by the nut (the first three frets) with a fretless insert, seems to require just enough tolerance slop that I cannot achieve a consistent action up the neck. (I'm not necessarily faulting the design; it's quite possible that other instances of the kit may be more forgiving, or that a more competent luthier than myself--probably not saying much--could feng shui things to work out just peachy...but I have been unable to do it well.) The retaining screw invariably seems to drive the end of the insert up right by the nut, causing enough angle that the frets fall away precipitously from the strings right from the get-go. An acceptable action at the first fret becomes conspicuously high even by the third, and the whole insert seems to be higher than the main fingerboard, even with a little thickness-sanding.

Here's the thing. I like my action low, and certainly play better that way. I also like to play all over the neck, so the action at the octave and above is something I pay a lot of attention to. In short, I realized that I would play the banjo a lot more if it had an acceptably consistent action, and also that if I wanted a fretless banjo, I'd just build myself a fretless banjo. (That latter is not at all a bad idea, by the way. :-)

For me, the best way to achieve this (certainly on my budget and time!) was to glue the fretted insert in place, and dispense with the fretless insert altogether. So, yesterday I spent a little time thickness-sanding the insert, to pare down the "step effect" it seems to have over the remainder of the board, spent a lot of time sighting down the neck to make sure I had it right, and glued and clamped the insert in place. I'm hopeful on this, but we'll see how we end up after things dry completely.

Next step: string up with some new strings, and take a new look at how the adjustable neck angle (another nifty feature of the design), nut and bridge heights might be tweaked to get the action I'm looking for. I suspect it will at least be as playable as it was before, and for that it was worth the risk. Better, of course, is what I'm hoping, but we'll see.

I also think I'm going to try open fifths on this set of strings. I just haven't been able to get into the NST intervals the way I was hoping, although the attention thereto has certainly helped my understanding of the NST guitar. It's just different, somehow, when the m3 interval on top is in addition to at least one four-string group in fifths.

Thoughts for next instrument project

The following series of not-quite-random thoughts about the next instrument project:

• 4 strings, maybe 5. Something appeals about being able to cover a string with each finger, as on the mandolin. A fifth string may be useful, but I'll have to ponder the pros and cons.
• Range. With 4 strings and a basic fifths tuning, a range of C1 to A5 is possible; with a baritone scale, this might come off better a little higher, but the point is with 4 strings and a 3 octave fingerboard, one is not exactly wanting for range.
  
• Three octave fretless fingerboard. (After watching this absolutely magical performance, a lot of these thoughts are geared around Manring's Hyperbass.) In theory, a 34" scale would imply a fingerboard of at least 30" in length, a 30" scale would imply 26.5", and a 28" scale, 25" (each of these figures leaves room for the finger to "make" the third octave note). This obviously has implications for things like magnetic pickup placement and the incorporation of such items as a Fernandes Sustainer, which seems to require two pickups to produce the feedback loop. It's quite possible that the Ebow is a better option here; certainly Manring makes good use of it with his light-gauge strings...
• Hipshot Extender tuning pegs for each of the four strings. This should give access to detunings of a m2 through a M3, I think. Would choose guitar machines if possible, for their compact size, but bass machines could work as well.
  
• Hipshot tailpiece with "open tuners" for each of the four strings. This is the device that people get for the "B-Bender" effect, but the design of the part seems to be such that, used as a tailpiece with a separate "open tuner" for each string, may give the quick-retuning option on each string from the bridge...with a lot less complexity and expense than a custom bridge. Will have to check with Hipshot or Stew-Mac to see if this concept is sound, but it's very intriguing and would solve several problems simultaneously, not the least of which is the problem of string spacing across four or five strings.
• Saddle question. With a Hipshot tailpiece, the question of saddles arises. I'd certainly want adjustability for saddle height and intonation, plus string spacing and the problem of friction for the string retunings. Schaller seems to make a "rolling" saddle that might work, and there may be options that plug into the Strat/Tele bridges, but this may require some thinking. Ideally I'd end up with a true four-string instrument, with four saddles adjustable every which way, but with a fretless fingerboard the concept of a singular saddle is certainly viable--and may permit additional undersaddle transducer pickup options.
• Nut material should be lubricous, maybe the Tusq material from Stew-Mac.
• Pickup options will require some more thinking as well. Love the idea of placing multiple transducers in the body and neck. Along with a magnetic pickup, will want to blend this and run it through a preamp, with at least some switching options. Will ask around for opinions, since I'll probably end up making some of this stuff myself. :-)
• Woods, and budget. Will keep eyes open for "found wood" options, secondhand quartersawn necks, etc. This will probably wind up being very much a one-off instrument, but that's okay. My plan is to find something in it that I haven't even thought about yet.
  

Mandolin video sample

Felt the need to document this somehow. During the same "session" that produced the fretless sample, I also wanted to hear how the mandolin came across in the same recording environment, and wound up recording this.

Annotations:

• No audio or video editing has been done, other than timeline cropping. Prior to what you see here there was a diagnostic sounding of open strings, harmonics, and a few chords. After this there was a very short foray into major mode territory before I got a phone call. :-)
• Video is a webcam (Logitech if memory serves), microphone is a MXL USB.008.
• Recorded with Camtasia Studio.
• There is a really annoying glitch in the recording that surfaces at about 1:05, 2:30, and 3:40. I do not know what it is for sure, but I suspect that it is my evil little Blackberry, trying to find its network. If that is true, I'm not sure why it didn't (seem to) affect the fretless recording from the same session, but if anyone reading this can confirm that's what this sounds like, I'd be happy for the certainty. If nothing else it's a reminder to turn that annoying little beast off when I'm doing something important. :-)
• The synchronization problems between audio and video tracks seem to be less of an issue here than they were for the fretless sample, but there still seems to be a latency in there. More testing, I guess, and I've got a few ideas. If anyone has suggestions, please let fly!
  
• Music: improv, with a G tonic. It appears, in reviewing this segment, that I was on the same vibe here that I was with the fretless. Minor second degree, major third, and most semitones above that at one point or other. Broody, for sure, and mostly intentional. :-) I actually like some of the things that come out, even if I do lose the big downbeat a couple of times and fat-finger here and there. (Need more time for fundamentals!) I'm not sure where a few of those ideas came from; they just showed up when needed, and the romantic in me is pretty happy that I can't fully explain that...

So now it's documented. Next step: recording with Audacity, with this USB.008 acoustic microphone into one channel and plugged in through a DI in a second channel. It'll have to be done piecemeal, but I'll get there.

Fretless video sample

Okay, do please forgive me the problems here. One must begin somewhere, and here I am.

Here's a first-take sample of the kit-built acoustic fretless guitar. There are certainly problems--the audio and video seem to get unsynchronized, there is some audio editing that should probably be done to cure boomy spots and hiss, and of course I'm still learning how to play this beastie. But learning consists of putting darts on the board, and this does give an idea of what the instrument actually sounds like in person.

(Constructive criticism from musicky and audiophile folks is welcome. My learning here is both for KPC project business and my own edification. :-)

Annotations:

• Tuning is Guitar Craft Standard (C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4).
• Bass strings are electric flatwounds; trebles normal-tension nylons.
• Music is...aw hell, who am I kidding? Total wanky improv. ("Okay, so here I am ready to play for a test. What should I play? Uh... Okay, the open G sounds good...mmm...minor seconds...mmm...augmented seconds...what was that again?")
  
• Much of the playing is between the third (nylon) and fourth (steel) strings. (That actually was on purpose, and mostly intentional.)
• No audio or video editing has been done, other than timeline cropping.
• Video is a webcam (a common Logitech if memory serves), microphone is a MXL USB.008.
• Recorded with Camtasia Studio. (I'll soon be testing audio recording with Audacity too.)

Again, constructive criticism and comments are welcome. What I learn from this overall process (of audio and video recording and editing) will wind up contributing to our "new to distance ed" video-segment project, from spoken audio to camera recording to background music. Assume I know nothing, and you'll be pretty close! :-)