Re: Fretless guitar built - ripped off the frets...

[Dan <danielalbertini72@yahoo.com>]

Guys and gals if you really want sustain out the wazooooo then look into 
polycarbonates they also
posess the ability to transfer electricity fairly well and are super 
slippery.  Fish Bone, Graph
Tech, RMC and LR Baggs, Rick Turners innovations, etc.  When it comes to 
sustain I recommend you
find the strongest maple neck you can, preferably with graphite 
reinforcement.  Notes just jump
off that neck.  The less movement in the neck and headstock the more tone 
in general you will have
as to less energy will be absorbed.  Im experimenting with woods that are 
very difficult to obtain
and most are extremely expensive even if you do find them?  Pink Ivory, 
Osage Orange aka: bois de
arco, Brazilian Ebony, Iroko, Ipe'.  Now im working on reducing weight 
without sacrificing tone in
the new prototypes.  
"The field of metallurgy is also an ever changing continually evolving 
medium"  Cannot wait for
more black operative ha ha alien technology to surface for the luthiery 
field.
--- van Sinn <vansinn@post.cybercity.dk> wrote:

> Charles Zwicky wrote:
> > Per,
> > 
> > The brass nut affects the coupling of the string's vibrational energy 
>to 
> > the neck by reducing this coupling due to the added mass at the 
>string's 
> > anchor point.
> 
> Agreed. As such, it might also reduce tone warmth exactly due to less 
> such vibrations.  In the past, many believed firmly in massiveness and 
> sturdyness (like mahogany, neck-through and heavy Schaller tuners), 
> which works fine from a sustain POW.
> Over the latter years, though, luthiers have taken up cavity designs, 
> and question massiveness, rethinking how separate properties in neck and 
> body materials/designs works together.
> 
> For a fretless, I'd guess sustain is a primary design factor.
> A tele, as Per is using, may be a fine starting point, sustain wise.
> 
> > However, this only affects an open string.
> 
> Yup, and as such, fretted strings may sound different from open ones.
> This is the case on my '87 Duesenberg with hard steel rollers in a brass 
> bed as the nut, compared to (IMO) too soft a nickel fret alloy.
> Then again, it might be different on a fretless, where strings are held 
> against the board by fingers, which may allow more vibration from the 
> pressure point to nut to slip through, thus keeping tone more uniform.
> Just an observation with no empirical data to back it ;)
> 
> 
> I really have a problem with these discussions. Everytime such stuff 
> comes up, I want in too, but alas allach, finance can't catch up :(
> 
> 
> >> On Jan 14, 2008 4:04 PM, Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net> 
>wrote:
> >>
> >>>  >
> >>>  >I can see the point in using a brass nut if you're going for the
> >>>  >Fernandez sustainer later on, which is all electro-magnetic.
> >>>  >Per
> >>
> >>>
> >>>  Per,
> >>>
> >>>  What does this mean to you?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Good question! A brass nut alters the vibration response between wood
> >> and string. When using a mechanical "vibrator" - as my Sustainiac C -
> >> a brass nut may reduce the effect. However, when using a purely
> >> electo-magnetic sustainer as the Fernandez that might not be such a
> >> big deal. And often one of the reasons to use a brass net is that you
> >> like the sound of just the string, when picked up magnetically as the
> >> electric guitar pickups do. Does that make sense?
> 
> -- 
> rgds,
> van Sinn
> 
> 



      
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