ERB Pickup

[Bass_Maker117]

Strings are commercially available that can reach A4 (A above standard guitar high E) at up to a 30" scale, so your Ab4 will work at 32" scale (1 fret longer)

http://octave4plus.com/

I use them on my 28.75" scale 9-string guitar and they're amazing. I use .006's from the site above. I give them a day to stretch at E before tuning up to A and they're so thin that they've revealed every single imperfection in my tuning machines, nut & bridge but once I've fine sanded all the surfaces the strings touch they've performed very well.

They were developed by a bassist named Garry Goodman who plays a 12-string (single course) bass designed to be tuned to the same C#0 - G#4 range you're after - so it definitely can be done and has been done. Yeves Carbonne also has a beautiful Jerzy Drozd 12-string fretless now too.

I'd highly recommend multi-scale (fanned-fret) designs for their ergonomic and tonal benefits, especially for a bass with so many strings.

And good for you for not being discouraged by the nonsense comments about too many strings - if it interests you and you have the imagination to explore it then go for it I'd say. Diversity is a good thing, and you playing a 12-string ERB takes nothing away from those who play anything else. It's just a tool to express music with, and a 1-string washbucket bass is just as legit imo.

Thank you so much for the information and support. You have no idea how much of a confidence booster it was to hear someone how supports my dream instead of telling me how "impractical" and "useless" it is. So i thank you greatly. I would also like to thank O4P for his help too, though i did not have space to quote him. Thank you both so much. I do like the idea of a fanned fingerboard but i will need to do some research to find a maker. And i think i will experiment a little and try a huge humbucker first. Thank you once again.

[Corvus]

Thank you so much for the information and support. You have no idea how much of a confidence booster it was to hear someone how supports my dream instead of telling me how "impractical" and "useless" it is. So i thank you greatly. I would also like to thank O4P for his help too, though i did not have space to quote him. Thank you both so much. I do like the idea of a fanned fingerboard but i will need to do some research to find a maker. And i think i will experiment a little and try a huge humbucker first. Thank you once again.

Go for it and keep at it until you've got the instrument of your dreams. My own prototyping experiments have proven to me that I can achieve an 11-string guitar that still sounds like a guitar (not a bass) down to a low A0 and that's the instrument I'm headed for. I've been designing & prototyping for the last 10 years and if you have any questions or issues you'd like to discuss feel free to send me a message. I look forward to seeing & hearing you play your 12-string.

[j. pierce]

I do like the idea of a fanned fingerboard but i will need to do some research to find a maker. And i think i will experiment a little and try a huge humbucker first. Thank you once again.

If I read your earlier posts properly, you're building this yourself - when you say you want to do some research to find a maker, do you mean someone to cut a fanned/multiscale board?

I know there's a fellow on the Project Guitar board who sells fingerboards and does fanned-frets. Real nice fellow, quality work from what I've heard.

[David King]

Bass-Maker117
I'd recommend http://www.fretfind.ekips.org/2d/nonparallel.php to get some different potential layouts for fanned fret fingerboards. It's very accurate and free and it will email you a .dxf file which can go to anyone with a cnc router who uses standard cad software. It's also emails you pdf files which you can have printed out at your local kinkos on a large format printer (you can print at home obviously but it's hard to line up all the pages accurately so I wouldn't recommend that for your final set of full sized plans.)

I'd try a few different scale combinations and try moving the neutral fret around between fret 5 and fret 12. Stick the paper down onto a stiff bit of cardboard or thin plywood and use as a mockup to see how it feels under your fingers. You can fine tune string spacing at the nut and bridge that way before you ever cut a piece of wood. It's been a very useful tool for me over the years.

You might also consider going headless with ABM unitary tuners from allparts
or by just mounting regular tuners at the back end of the guitar like on some of Saul Koll's archtop travel guitars. If you have to go with a headstock then consider using the Schaller Boron tuners for the bass end off the scale as they are very light and available from Warmoth.

[Bass_Maker117]

Go for it and keep at it until you've got the instrument of your dreams. My own prototyping experiments have proven to me that I can achieve an 11-string guitar that still sounds like a guitar (not a bass) down to a low A0 and that's the instrument I'm headed for. I've been designing & prototyping for the last 10 years and if you have any questions or issues you'd like to discuss feel free to send me a message. I look forward to seeing & hearing you play your 12-string.

Yeah thanks again. I will definitely e-mail you with pictures and audio of it when its done. I'm not sure how long that will take but I will go til its done. Thank you.

[Bass_Maker117]

If I read your earlier posts properly, you're building this yourself - when you say you want to do some research to find a maker, do you mean someone to cut a fanned/multiscale board?

I know there's a fellow on the Project Guitar board who sells fingerboards and does fanned-frets. Real nice fellow, quality work from what I've heard.

Really? Could you maybe message me his contact info? I would very much appreciate that. Thank you.

[David Schwab]

I wouldn't make a single wide pickup, though that would probably work fine. But I think multiple smaller coils would allow for more control than one humungous coil. Or a pickup for each string.

[David King]

David, I don't think we are being listened to anymore on this subject..

[David Schwab]

David, I don't think we are being listened to anymore on this subject..

Oh yeah... we build basses... I forgot.

(all in good fun)

Oh and I forgot to add the other day... a "Sesquiquardritone progression" (not to be confused with a Sesquiquadrate progression) is really pretty much just a "Major 6th" scale. Slonimsky liked to make up his own names for existing musical ideas, like a "dodecaphonic" scale to mean a 12 note scale. It's an interesting book, but is fairly useless except to spark some new ideas. If it weren't for the idea that Coltrane used it, it would have stayed an obscure text.

There are much better works out there to learn composition and improvisation than Thesaurus of Scales And Melodic Patterns. Even though he claims there are 479,001,600 possible combinations of the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, little of it sounds like music, but is good as fingering exercises.

[anderekel]

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/in...howtopic=35066

There's the link, his name is Erik. He's very helpful, actually sent me somewhere else because he thought what I wanted was better quality there, and cheaper too. Everyone seems to be happy with what they've gotten from him.

[Corvus]

Or a pickup for each string.

Absolutely agreed! I'm doing this for the multi-channel possibilities, but the tone control that single-string pickups allow is very worthwhile just because of the ease of bridge/neck positioning, height and output adjustment which can be optimized for each string.

[j. pierce]

Yep, anderekel's got the fellow I'm thinking of there. (Thanks! Saved me from searching for the thread)

I like Dave's idea of playing around with paper templates to get at least an idea of how the fan fret would play out. I forgot that FretFind does non-parallel frets. I've been thinking of having a go at building something fanned - I should play around with that idea.

So how does one place pickups on a fanned fret instrument?

[Corvus]

So how does one place pickups on a fanned fret instrument?

They should be slanted to match the fan. Just calculate the position you want twice - once for the highest string and once for the lowest string and that determines the amount of slant.

[Bass_Maker117]

I wouldn't make a single wide pickup, though that would probably work fine. But I think multiple smaller coils would allow for more control than one humungous coil. Or a pickup for each string.

one of the ideas i had was to divide it into three sections: The two super lows(C# and F#), the regular six(BEADGC) and the highs(F,A#,D#,Ab or F#). I makes sense considering the pitches and octaves though its all expiramentation. If i remember correctly, thicker wire gets high tones. So do you think i should use something along the lines of 38AWG for the high pickup, 42AWG for the mid and 44AWG for the low? I'm certain that i will use alnico 5's in all of them.

[Bass_Maker117]

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/in...howtopic=35066

There's the link, his name is Erik. He's very helpful, actually sent me somewhere else because he thought what I wanted was better quality there, and cheaper too. Everyone seems to be happy with what they've gotten from him.

Thank you!