Microtonal Guitars/Necks

[MrNovember]

Those look pretty cool though. I might give them a shot too if I can

[adamajah]

Bummer about difficulties contacting them. The only issue I could see with those is getting the right fret height. Probably not too hard to remedy though.

[qersty]

Get the cheapest guitar possible, some fretwire, whatever saw luthiers use, some acid, then go to town! What kinda scale are you looking to have? I think gizz uses 24edo but leave some quarter-tones out to make it more comprihensible for a western musician. If you havent already, check out the Xenharmonic wiki they may have good info. I remember from my middle school metal days there was a real prick on 7string.org who built microtonal guitars and conversion necks

[Schlatte]

I misread the thread title and was like "what kind of nonsense is micrometal now?"
You can get some pretty oriental tones out of such a guitar I guess, since eastern/arabic music is basically the home of quartertones... I'm used to playing with non-fixed tonal intervals (trombone) but hitting a quarter tone right is an art of its own for an untrained "western" ear. I figure the same can be said for frettless, so going with quarter tone frets might me the "safer" way to go intonation-wise.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Micrometal doesn't sound like nonsense at all. I have started writing more songs using microtones haha. It's an additional bag of tricks for creating tension

[Phosphene Audio]

Another option is to find a Godin Glissentar or another fretless nylon string instrument and used tied nylon frets. There are tutorials on line for tying lute frets.

in these examples, I wasn't going for microtonality, but just wanted the coursed nylon sound. You can tie on as many nylon frets as you want, in any position:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE_CLwIWs9M[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=150MihK4NLM[/youtube]

[coldbrightsunlight]

Ohhhh had never heard of this but the tied frets + a fretless seems a lot of fun

[adamajah]

Another option is to find a Godin Glissentar or another fretless nylon string instrument and used tied nylon frets. There are tutorials on line for tying lute frets.

in these examples, I wasn't going for microtonality, but just wanted the coursed nylon sound. You can tie on as many nylon frets as you want, in any position:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE_CLwIWs9M[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=150MihK4NLM[/youtube]

[Paul_C]

When I get a moment I'm going to try something different, to see what happens . . .

This might already exist somewhere with me completely unaware, but what I'd like to try is to just have three strings, with the lowest string intended to be a drone (probably E to begin with, but I do have some heavier single strings if I want to go lower) the next string a standard interval up (so A in this case) and the third tuned to A to begin with, but hopefully then detuned to a note somewhere between A and Ab to add "colour" to the notes played on the A string.

If that doesn't work then maybe swap that string for something I can tune higher (E again maybe, or perhaps D) and again detune until something interesting starts happening.

I've got an old Harmony that a customer gave me which will be perfect for this, as long as it works - I haven't plugged it in yet !

[MrNovember]

Holy shit, the Glissentar looks amazing and I absolutely love Godin instruments. I might have to try to find one of those instead of the Marrakesh. I still don't love the idea of a full fretless, but I never really thought about tying nylon frets on

[Phosphene Audio]

Holy shit, the Glissentar looks amazing and I absolutely love Godin instruments. I might have to try to find one of those instead of the Marrakesh. I still don't love the idea of a full fretless, but I never really thought about tying nylon frets on

If those stick on Fretlet things are still available, one could probably put those on a Glissentar as well.

[Phosphene Audio]

Here is how to tie nylon frets. You need a soldering iron to melt the end so it doesn't pull out of the knot.

I had trouble getting them tight, but I used little pieces of toothpick or chopstick stuck in by the knot to snug them up.

It took me about 15 minutes to get the first one right and then the rest were pretty fast.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs_pXOoBVLU[/youtube]

[coldbrightsunlight]

Now I just need a fretless guitar....

[Phosphene Audio]

The balalaika family of instruments would probably allow for such a setup.

When I get a moment I'm going to try something different, to see what happens . . .

This might already exist somewhere with me completely unaware, but what I'd like to try is to just have three strings, with the lowest string intended to be a drone (probably E to begin with, but I do have some heavier single strings if I want to go lower) the next string a standard interval up (so A in this case) and the third tuned to A to begin with, but hopefully then detuned to a note somewhere between A and Ab to add "colour" to the notes played on the A string.

If that doesn't work then maybe swap that string for something I can tune higher (E again maybe, or perhaps D) and again detune until something interesting starts happening.

I've got an old Harmony that a customer gave me which will be perfect for this, as long as it works - I haven't plugged it in yet !

[Phosphene Audio]

I know the dude behind the site, John Schneider (not The Dukes Of Hazzard guy), is still alive, or was very recently.

His Contemporary Guitar book is pretty rad, if you can find it cheap.

Bummer about difficulties contacting them. The only issue I could see with those is getting the right fret height. Probably not too hard to remedy though.