Burnt Infant presents: the Super Micro-Tonal Death Metal Hello Kitty guitar™!

[Benjamin Strange]

Yes, friends, here it is at long last: my micro-tonal Hello Kitty guitar.

I've refretted this thing to be in quarter-tones below the 12th fret (well, it's the 24th fret now), and fretless above that. I've also installed a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates, carved a new nut to accomodate 13s, and tuned it in 4ths (CFBbEbAbDb).

Behold:











It's bewildering. It's perverse. It's pink.

I do forsee some more non-12-tone scale instruments in my future, as well as a possible microtonal ambient album soonish... My apologies in advance.

[BurningSkies]

It's freakin' cool, is what it is.

Have you recorded any sound clips? I'm interested to hear what you can do with the microtonal scale setup and how it sounds with that tuning...

Good job.

[Hollow Man]

I don't know how to begin talking about it, but the fact that you did it is pretty darn cool.

You do all the work yourself? Looks pretty clean to me... you or whoever did it did a good job.

[Benjamin Strange]

I did it all myself. I kick ass.

[BurningSkies]

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

I did it all myself. I kick ass.

And you're humble.

[jasonbraatz]

Use a paint pen and draw some angry eyebrows on Hello Kitty.

[Passinwind]

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

I did it all myself. I kick ass.

Post your clips and let us decide that!

Cool deal. I did a fretless bari guitar years ago. Great with a slide, pretty much useless otherwise. Frets reWl for this application, IMNSHO.

[Benjamin Strange]

Originally Posted by BurningSkies

And you're humble.

I'm the king of modest. If there were a competition for humility, I'd kick everbody's ass.

In all seriousness, this is my first attempt at a non-standard scale instrument. I've made some mistakes with this one, so I think I'll have all the bugs ironed out with the next one.

Somebody here provided me with a Excel spreadsheet to help me with fret placement, but I don't remember who it was. Whoever you are, many thanks.

[Benjamin Strange]

I've recorded a few hasty soundclips:

Here's the intervals all the way up one one string... I guess it would be a super chromatic scale:
http://www.burntinfant.com/superchromatic.mp3

Here's one playing the first 4 frets on each string then skipping to the next one:
http://www.burntinfant.com/4frets.mp3

And here's one with me just noodling around:
http://www.burntinfant.com/noodling.mp3

It's going to take a while to get the hang of this thing, but methinks there's lots of potential. Woot.

[tzadik]

I love it.

[lemur821]

Sexy. I'm looking to pick up a cheap guitar to refret (no need for the bass -- it's fretless already) in just intonation myself, but now you're making me think I should grab something with a little more class.

[superbassman2000]

very cool Ben! I dig it!

[velvetkevorkian]

Woah. Cool.

[Bard2dbone]

You're a sick, sick puppy.

But I can respect that.

[ihateusernames]

interesting. where might someone find a use for something like this? (truly curious, no sarcasm intended)

[Matt Till]

Super Micro weiner guitar is more like it! Whoaaa, burn3d!! You never cease to amaze me Ben.

Originally Posted by ihateusernames

interesting. where might someone find a use for something like this? (truly curious, no sarcasm intended)

Expanding beyond the traps of western musical tones. I doubt everyone is going to "get" what Ben is doing, but then again, to some people, listening to a Shehnai is like death. Or Japanese Kabuki flute is out of tune... Ben has total control over these "out of tune" notes now.

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by Matt Till

Or Japanese Kabuki flute is out of tune... Ben has total control over these "out of tune" notes now.

Or at least he has 12 additional out-of-tune notes.

EDIT: He does get a very good approximation of the 11:8 interval though. Playing a fourth plus a quarter tone will be only around a cent and a half flat.

[spudmaster34]

nice

[Passinwind]

Originally Posted by ihateusernames

interesting. where might someone find a use for something like this? (truly curious, no sarcasm intended)

I'd be happy to explore using something like that in my fretless bass/5 string solidbody violin/drums band. Regular guitar isn't a very good match at all for a lot of what we do, so we don't often use one unless I play it myself.

[fryBASS]

crazy!!