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To Design An Innovative New Instrument/guitar


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Haha- well, I guess it works!

Then again, how original would it be when essentially, it's cribbing an idea from another musical instrument. I might as well have suggested setting up piano-style hammers to strike the strings... but then again on an old episode of Saturday Night Live, Peter Gabriel's bassist was playing his bass with small, wooded mallets taped to his fingers.

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Hey Thirsty...

Not sure why people haven't answered this topic...perhaps you don't mean for it to be in the 'electronics' section of the forum.

The thing with basses is that there is already such a wide variety of innovative ideas. The bass community is far less conservative than the guitar guys by enlarge. Active elctronics and such is commonplace, additional strings, fretless, etc...

From a design point of view there is not much that hasn't been done. I have often wondered why a half fretted, half fretless instrument hasn't taken off (fretless above the 12th fret for soloing and fills for instance)...

From an electronics point of view, it would be cool to have an instrument with a preamp that allows a good direct injected sound for recording...

There have been some threads about things like a fuzz preamp for instance lately built in. Auto Wha is another cool effect, al la Bootsy collins I guess.

One thing that could be explored that you really don't hear about of course is a bass sustainer. Join me and the guys on the sustainer thread and get yourself a controlled bass feedback device. The bass is ideal as the strings have far lower tension, notes are usually one note at a time, vibrate at slower speeds, and have lots of metal for the electromagnetic driver to work with. The extra length in scale means that in general, the pickups are far away from the driver anyway and usually there is plenty of room for the driver without even routing out a slot for the device...

Just a thought, of course I would suggest a sustainer and you could be one of the few who have done it with the bass...

good luck... pete

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I had an idea a couple of days ago.

Would love to see it done.

In my room - I have a a little contraption that flashes to the rythm of music.

I was thinking; rip the guts out of that - and make it digital (rather than relying on a mic), and attatch a series of LEDs to it.

Now in the body-works, it has one major difference...

|.......|......|.......|

|.......|......|.......|

|.......|..P..|.......|

|...W.|..E...|..W..|

|...O..|..R..|..O...|

|...O..|..S..|..O...|

|...D..|..P..|..D...|

|.......|..E..|.......|

|____|_X_|____|

Have the LEDs at intervals in the perspex - and so it will end up working like this:

When you play a rhythm - the layer of perspex lights up and flashes along with the rhythm, in whatever colour your LEDs are.

Either that - or just have it so the LEDs turn on when the input jack is connected.

Only problem is - you may need to make a battery section accessable.

I have only one condition if you want to use this idea: Let me see some pictures when it's done :D

Edited by Flipp
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That's a pretty neat idea.... it's kind of like that Nigel Tuffnel Spinal Tap guitar with the tachometer on it, only it would be a light-up visual. I'm sure there would be quite a bit to do on the electronics end (so whatever component that would display the rhythmic "spike" in amplitude would do so cleanly and not stay on for the entirety of a sustained chord and whatnot.

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How about this for innovative ... http://www.littleguitarworks.com/torzal/

http://www.burrellguitars.com/

Much the same concept, only without the twisted neck (which scares me anyway!).

He shouldn't be allowed to build electric guitars, though.... those things are fugly. I actually live withint 20 miles of him, too.

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