Re: Handsonic - bass strings on guitars

["Stephen P. Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

"Gareth Whittock" <gareth@whiteoakstudios.freeserve.co.uk> gave me a good
morning chuckle...

> Just spent an hour trying one out - absolutely hated it!
> It felt like a dead thing  in my hands  -  nice sounds and everything and
> the ribbon controllers are cool but very little in the way of sonic
nuance.
> Lots of crap samples that have nothing to do with percussion either -
crappy
> electric guitars and GM sounds - yuk.
> To cap it all, (and even though I was prepared for it) it looks like a
> dalek's handbag!

Don't think too much about what a Dalek's handbag looks like unless you've
seen "Dr. Who", folks.  Of course I've not seen a Handsonic, so the mind
boggles.  I think of Hilary Rosen of the RIAA as a kind of Dalek, going on
and on and on and on chanting "Adjudicate!  Adjudicate!  Kill the indies!"
:)

> Oh, I ended up buying a bass guitar E string for my crappy but sonically
> beautiful secondhand, machettied electric guitar- it works a treat - I 
>can
> now lay down some deep bass under my loops without carrying another
> instrument with me - anyone else doing this ? I was thinking of looking 
>at
> some 7 stringers to get my old bottom E back.

I asked someone about doing something like this years ago - a bass player -
and he told me that one should not put too much of a guage of bass string 
on
one side of the neck, as it can cause gradual damage to the base of the
neck.  I asked about solid bodies, and he said that at some point even 
those
would succumb, and one day you'd end up with an unexpected sitar twang
coming out of the first and second strings.  While this might be pretty
cool-sounding initially, I was told that it's the first sign that some
bending is happening to the neck.  My friend back then said that, if the
guage isn't too extreme, one might be able to get away with it.

Now I wish I had my old $49.99 Sam Goody Special Sekova around to 
experiment
on.  It had already earned the title "Frankenguitar" some years before I
finally hunkered down and bought my beloved Strat, "Cthulhu".

By the way, I got to go see Ian Hunter and the "Rant Band" last night here
in London - my editor's in town and bought the tix for us! - and it was
outstanding.  And not just a trip back in time for an old geezer either!
Really worth seeing if you love Mott the Hoople's stuff at least.

Stephen P. Goodman
EarthLight Productions
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