Behold my Angry Inch.

Benjamin Strange · #1 11-14-2010, 03:20 PM

Howdy friends - check out my latest project:

I rescued this g**tar from Ebay a few months back, and have been planning to turn it into some sort of micro-tonal instrument for a while now. Since it was so perverse, I decided to re-fret it with equidistant frets - one inch apart. Thus: The Angry Inch!

I defretted it, drilled out the fretboard dots, and filled the slots and dots with rosewood. Then I laid out and slotted the new fret locations, refretted it with stainless steel fretwire, made a new bone nut with wider spacing, gutted the electronics, shielded it throughout, and wired it up with a single 3-way toggle and volume pot. I'm still waiting on pickups to arrive (Lindy Fralin P-92s), but I thought I'd share anyway.

This isn't technically a micro-tonal instrument - it's macro-tonal. There is no pure octave at all. Every interval is wider than the one previous to it. You can move a chord shape up and down the neck, and each time you move the entire chord changes character. Neat!

This will be joining my Hello Kitty Microtonal guitar (which is currently at my shop waiting for me to get around to turning it into an aluminum fretless), and will most likely be on my next Burnt Infant album. Dissonant madness will consume you all.

paganjack · #2 11-14-2010, 03:23 PM

That's brilliant. Cool idea!!

6jase5 · #3 11-14-2010, 03:23 PM

For some reason, I like this. I could easily write some songs with it. I make up open tunings all the time to confuse my brain so this just makes sense to me.

bradn104 · #4 11-14-2010, 03:26 PM

when i saw your title I thought of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV0tguuYsJ8

Schlyder · #5 11-14-2010, 03:33 PM

Could you give a close approximation of what the interval climb is up the E string?
between what 2 frets is the closest to the octave?

Benjamin Strange · #6 11-14-2010, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schlyder

Could you give a close approximation of what the interval climb is up the E string?
between what 2 frets is the closest to the octave?

Uh... well the closest would be the 13th fret, which is about 30 cents sharp of the octave. The interval changes every fret.

fu22ba55 · #7 11-14-2010, 07:15 PM

Must. have. sound. clips.

Benjamin Strange · #8 11-14-2010, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fu22ba55

Must. have. sound. clips.

Must. Have. Pickups. First.

In the meantime, you can download my previous micro-tonal ambient album... only $7.92! Burnt Infant: Spam

uethanian · #9 11-14-2010, 10:25 PM

that's pretty sick. i've been working on 19edo guitar, but this would just be totally alien. i'm looking forward to soundclips.

dozicusmaximus · #10 11-14-2010, 10:31 PM

I have no idea whats going on in here. haha. I'll check back in later and look for key words to google.

Benjamin Strange · #11 11-15-2010, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by uethanian

that's pretty sick. i've been working on 19edo guitar, but this would just be totally alien. i'm looking forward to soundclips.

A 19edo is going to be my next project. I will most likely build the neck from scratch, and use it on a Strat type body. Non-standard EDO is pretty sick, but I'm digging the idea of abandoning the octave completely.

Munjibunga · #12 11-15-2010, 12:55 AM

That's just weird. Harry Partch would've liked it, though.

lunarpollen · #13 11-15-2010, 04:02 PM

I can't imagine that any chord will be in tune... It would sound like a horribly out of tune guitar 95% of the time...

Benjamin Strange · #14 11-15-2010, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lunarpollen

I can't imagine that any chord will be in tune... It would sound like a horribly out of tune guitar 95% of the time...

News flash: a standard guitar is already horribly out of tune 95% of the time.

uethanian · #15 11-15-2010, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

A 19edo is going to be my next project. I will most likely build the neck from scratch, and use it on a Strat type body. Non-standard EDO is pretty sick, but I'm digging the idea of abandoning the octave completely.

there's a few non-octave scales that have been thrown around, although i've never tried any. there's bohlen-pierce, which is dividing the octave+fifth into 13 equal steps. 88cent, where every step is 88 cents apart. miracle temperaments (like 21 tone blackjack) which are an irregular subset of 72edo.

of course you can take any non-octave interval, divide it into however many steps, and stack it. i remember someone dividing 5ths into 5 equal parts, which would get you a mix between pythagorean and equal pentatonics. this gets me thinking...time to break out the notepad

Hoover · #16 11-16-2010, 10:33 AM

I freakin' love you, man!

Nice touch having "the angry inch" be pink, too.

P. Aaron · #17 11-16-2010, 12:01 PM

Open tuning will probably be a decent place to start. It would be fun to see if there's any groove-synchopation stuff to churn out of it.

Thunderscreech · #18 11-16-2010, 01:09 PM

I like it! Microtones and Macro-tones are lots of fun!

fu22ba55 · #19 11-18-2010, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lunarpollen

It would sound like a horribly out of tune guitar 95% of the time...

Yeeessss.... Yeeesss... YEEESSSSS!

(with maniacal Dr. Frankenstein laughter...)

Benjamin Strange · #20 11-18-2010, 09:22 AM

I just found out that my pickups are backordered, and won't be around until mid- December or later. Guess I'll get started on my fretless Hello Kitty instead...