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So I have a spare strat body and neck lying around and I want to make something unique. After building myself the perfect strat, I really have no need (at the moment) for another electric guitar. I want to make another instrument that is totally unique in terms of look, sound, and most of all play style! Yet it should make use of my strat body and neck. (part of me wants to keep to that so I can use a mono double gig bag) At first I was thinking bass conversion but I got a lot of flac and warnings about the tension. Aside from that I really don't want to purchase a bass amp right now. A couple of guys turned me onto the picolo bass which is slowly becoming the main direction of this project. That is an octave up bass. So it will be a guitar modified into a bass modified into a guitar. I am not super strict on getting anything that resembles a "bass tone" so the fact that I will be playing through guitar amps and using what are essentially guitar strings does not bother me. I want a perfect counter to my partscaster which currently has texas special pickups and a light set of flatwounds. Its super smooth with creamy fender glass. I want a spanky slap/tap guitar that is in every way opposite of this. It should be mean, nasty, and thick. I was thinking of just using guitar pickups, Ive seen it done without the 6 pole pieces for the 4 strings being an issue. My strat is routed for HSH so I'd like to avoid any additional routing. Maybe some humbuckers would give me a different enough tone already in an HH setting. I was actually thinking of p90 buckers, I just feel like they will give me the punch I want, I'd probably run two of them with some kind of series/parallel option for fatness. Looking for advice here though, I am not opposed to a bass pickup of some kind. Maybe a single jazz bas neck pickup stuck in the mid position (with some light routing.) After realizing 4 string bass bridges will have too large a string spread for this project I came up with a solution. Individual string bridges. After realizing my guitar is routed for a bridge and has no wood where I would need to mount the individual bridges... I had to come up with another solution. A 5 string bass bridge with one of the saddles removed. This should give me just about the right spread I need to match up with my strat neck. I would just mount for the 4 saddles I will use, because gently caress symmetry. Also it will kind of look like a whole for a whammy bar which will be funny when people go to borrow this at a show and get a closer look. "Wait... What?" As for strings I am still at a loss. I want a sound and feel very different from my light jazz flatround strings on my main guitar. I'd consider dowtuning if the register is not so low it would mess up my guitar amps (I'd be playing through the same setups as my main guitar.) I like to get the fattest strings tension will allow me and still tune them up to standard (eadg) Tension shouldn't be so much an issue with only 4 strings. This will be a slap beast, and I'll probably work on my tapping chops too. Super percussive. From what I gather super tight strings would be good for this. Not sure what other obstacles I will run into but this should be a fun project. Before it gets asked, I don't want to just make another standard tuned guitar with humbuckers (because they would infact give me a totally different tone than what I am used to, especially with roundwounds...This is very true, but I still want something different.) The neck on my main partscaster which I built up to be my MAIN guitar (like for life) is almost 2 inches thick. I have large hands and have always struggled with smaller strat necks until I got myself a warmoth superwide. Its sick. I'm one of those guys who is all about "learn on what you have, make it part of your style" but the day I got this neck my playing drastically improved. It just felt right, all other guitars feel like toys to me now. (Seriously, I felt like I was holding a violin neck at GC playing a vintage strat.) I also don't want to just sell this and buy a cheap bass to learn on. This is all about making something, and if its something new and different that is still musically viable (what isn't really?) then it will be a bonus. Anyways, the point is my spare neck is crazy thin and I know I won't touch it with 6 strings on it. Plus it would be really loving cool to have tons of space to slap and pop, my superwide neck is wide but not that wide. (I have large and sausage like fingers, not like those long pencils some guys can pluck with.) A main part of this for me is having a totally different instrument in the same gig bag as my main guitar. The two together will hopefully shape my sound and carry each other well. Like I said polar opposites. Will edit with some pics, the colors are actually almost "polar opposites" Pretty cool how it turned out.   MODS: my phone auto corrected a typo in the title. Should be experimenters. The previous owner of my phone saved a bunch of misspelled words. Would be rad if you could fix. philkop fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 02:25
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 01:50 |
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You're just going to end up with a four string guitar with wide string spacing. This is what you will sound like (maybe, at best, which isn't saying much): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFc7dobYivw There's nothing special about bass pickups compared to guitar pickups, so you might as well just stick with them and avoid extra routing. Though having two humbuckers will get in the way of what slapping you think you will be doing. Four string bass bridges come in a variety of spacings and they're about the same as a six string guitar, unless you want the strings really tight together for some reason? I don't know why you think a five string bridge with a saddle missing will make it look like a whammy bar hole. You'll need a new nut as well, and some sort of string retainer to guide the strings to the four tuning pegs you'll be using. You say you don't want "another standard tuned guitar with humbuckers" but that is literally what your plan is, minus two strings. This whole thing is dumb.
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Jul 9, 2014 03:59
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If it's really about making something, you're already on your way. Anything that you do like putting 4 strings on there is going to be assymetrical and gently caress with the neck, or be a weird-rear end spacing that will gently caress with your playing on other guitar-like instruments. Unique in playstle is good and all, but unequal spacing goes pretty against most other instruments. I would stay away from that. You say you want a very percussive/slap/pop style of play on a guitar? You mean like Reggie Wooten or something like that (first person that popped into my mind.)? That's more your playing style than the instrument you play on. You can still do something neat with this while "making something." How about winding your own pickups? Try making some P-90 pickups. poo poo, try winding something like a jazz pickup if you want, surrounded by two P-90s. Have the guitar in a non-standard tuning. Use another high e string instead of a low E. Try 2 humbuckers with super-7 switching or something weird like that. I really hate to sound like I'm making GBS threads on the idea of you making something neat and new, but it seems like you want to make a compromise between getting a bass and using what you have to work with. There are still lots of ways to make something that is totally unique and new without taking a seeming compromise! Also, timg that poo poo.
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Jul 9, 2014 05:51
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This whole thing is dumb. [/quote] Do this dumb thing instead. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ODH0FPkvU6o If I had more time and money I would try this with a baritone telecaster or strat.
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Jul 9, 2014 05:53
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I nicked Scott's idea a while back and have done that mod to two of my guitars (Epi Firebird and LTD baritone), I play in a two-piece and it really fills out the sound. Bass output gets routed through a behringer polyphonic octave pedal to drop it an octave down and then through a zoom pedal to compress and thicken it up, and I have pedals to let me turn each component on and off although I can do the same thing with how I have wired the pickup selector switch but it's far more fiddly when in the swing of things. Not that expensive to do providing you have a spare guitar and know how to solder. All my routing was done with drills and screwdrivers.
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Jul 9, 2014 12:50
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Pound out the frets, fill + sand. Use a light wood filler for cheater lines. Bam, fretless guitar.
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Jul 9, 2014 13:27
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DrChu posted:You're just going to end up with a four string guitar with wide string spacing. Yep, if I wasn't clear I am going for exactly a 4 string guitar with a different string spacing, which I think will be pretty rad. I'll consider the fretless route. Good point about the buckers getting in the way of slapage. I'll probably stick to a single p90 bucker in the neck. Instead of using a bass bridge I figured I could take a hard tail strat bridge, drill two more holes to make 4 evenly spaced holes and just reload only four evenly spaced saddles. As for this being too close to a guitar, ever played for a while missing one string? Back in my moneyless days is play months on an electric missing a string, things change. Your lines change, your chord voicings change, you find new solutions. I forgot to post about the nut and stuff. Should be simple enough. I won't need retainers because I am probably doing two on each side and snipping the top of the strat headstock. ( or leave it, I have to think some more. )
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Jul 9, 2014 14:10
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Honestly I just think a shortscale bass would be a better platform for what you're planning. I know you just want to do something with the parts you have but I feel like it's going to be more trouble than it's worth and come out the other end a mess.
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Jul 9, 2014 14:15
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DrChu posted:I don't know why you think a five string bridge with a saddle missing will make it look like a whammy bar hole. On a string though body it would. It would be an empty hole, seemingly to put a bar into, especially considering that design would have had to be centered from the 4 strings not the 5th, leaving a little lip with a hole.... Much like many Whammy's. I don't think anybody took that I really wanted to look like I had a whammy hole. I was just finding a bright side to the fact that it would be off center. I ended up finding a better solution so the whammy thing will never come to be, but it have me a good laugh to imagine.
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Jul 9, 2014 14:18
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I think the Presidents of the USA use (used?) guitars similar to what you're planning, they always had a pretty cool sound.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:02
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Synonamess Botch posted:Honestly I just think a shortscale bass would be a better platform for what you're planning. I know you just want to do something with the parts you have but I feel like it's going to be more trouble than it's worth and come out the other end a mess. Thanks for the non dbag answer. Although I still want to do it you made me think a little about all of the work i'm getting myself into. I'm changing my plans a little to make the mods not only easier but less permanent. I will leave the standard tuners ( maybe remove two for looks) and just use a retainer like someone suggested. I'll use a standard nut with two more slots filed in so that I can go back to 6 if the idea fails. As for the bridge! I found this http://www.guitarfetish.com/zoomify.asp?catalogid=760&img=assets/images/products/topmohabrfit1.jpg Very awkward design but if I use standard saddles in place of those middle ones I will have 4 perfectly spaced strings, and if course I'd still have the original saddles if I ever wanted it to be a six string. Thanks for the helpful warning bud, I was getting a bit carried away. The new plans should be much easier and I can't really gently caress up much beyond repair. philkop fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 18:30
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RandomCheese posted:I think the Presidents of the USA use (used?) guitars similar to what you're planning, they always had a pretty cool sound. Yeah something like that, I forgot about them. Now I want peaches!
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Jul 9, 2014 18:36
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I can barely understand what it is you're trying to do (it's 5:30am here), but if you want unusual string gauges Kalium Strings probably has you covered. If you want to extend your range with fewer strings you could tune in fifths. Weird things: You could double-course one or more of the high stings by passing two strings over the same saddle. Or make a partial fretless by gluing a riser to part of the neck to match the fret height. As far as pickups go, how about a Fernandes sustainer system? And/or a G&L-style PTB tone stack? And kill switches? Kill switches. You seem pretty into the reduced string count, but have you considered using a Hipshot Trinity bridge and just leaving off a few? Alternate tunings out the rear end (and on the fly!), and easy conversion back to six if you feel like it. Those are my weird and I'll-advised suggestions. Sounds like a fun project. I want to see more pics as you go.
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Jul 11, 2014 13:45
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 01:50 |
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philkop posted:So I have a spare strat body and neck lying around and I want to make something unique. [...] In general I look at this and think something closer to a 'surf' guitar might suit what you're looking for? You could try using stainless steel strings - if not those, definitely pick up thicker roundwounds. I'm a big fan of 13s because I am a crazy person. The more string there is, the more of the initial 'pop' or 'slap' sound. My understanding of the 'pop' and 'slap' thing is that typically you'd use higher-output pickups for that, maybe even active circuitry, and between that and the 'surf' concept I think you'd be better served getting into your guitar and changing the electronics around above and beyond everything else! Something as simple as changing the resistance of your pots might improve results for you, and will likely be a lot cheaper than buying other hardware. You could even step back to 1 meg pots - this is the J Mascis concept! And maybe just have a master volume and tone plus a rotary switch that has treble cut and bass cut settings for a really 'surf' feel. As an aside, something you could do relatively easily is just downtune the highest two strings so they duplicate the pitch of others. Or even just mute them with a cloth! Or try some weird reverse-Nashville tuning, but you do so at your own risk. If you must buy new hardware, I can vouch for Hipshot being a good company to work with, and the Trilogy bridge Ferrous Wheel mentioned looks pretty cool/useful. Aside from that, active circuitry as I mentioned before might help - lord knows enough of the tappy metal players use it - but you could change pickups, and I think a P90 in the neck is hard to go wrong with, especially if you're changing the string spacing. People swear by Harmonic Designs' Z90, which wouldn't require extra routing, but you could say the same about the GFS ones (cheaper, less of a commitment). And if you really wanna open up the higher pitches you can pick up a Q-Tuner high-Z model, they launched again recently and you'll DEFINITELY get new sounds out of one. And then there's pedals, guitar synths, etc.... your options are unlimited, really. Whatever you do, it should be interesting!
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Jul 21, 2014 14:06
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