Quite amazing luthiery - drone strings

[philipc]

http://www.beyondthetrees.com/gallery.html






not strictly a bass related post but its pretty amazing stuff. the instruments this guy makes, his sympitars as he calls them, all have sympathetic strings that run inside the neck of the guitar or whatever instrument he's gone for. theyre beautiful instruments for one thing but the sympathetic vibration thing really appeals to me. id love to have an acoustic bass with some of those strings in it. would make a wonderful solo instrument or something with maybe one or two accompanying acoustic instruments.

[iamthebassman]

Cool, just like a sitar. My electric sitar has drone strings to replicate the drones on a "real" sitar.

[Human Bass]

that 39-string acoustic Harp-Sympitar is crazy!

[Mark Wilson]

VERY cool!

-mark

[philipc]

Originally Posted by iamthebassman

Cool, just like a sitar. My electric sitar has drone strings to replicate the drones on a "real" sitar.

is that like the coral/danelectro one? most reviews say the buzz bridge doesnt allow a great deal of sympathetic vibration.

[vintager]

No way those are from the Earth.

[ElBajista]

I'm speechless, and I REALLY want to play one of those!!

Anyone finds recordings of these instruments?

[gurzil]

Something similar is the "Bazantar". A 5 string doublebass with 29 sympathetic strings and 4 drones.

http://www.bazantar.com/instrument.html

and a link to an mp3 for the impatient..

http://www.bazantar.com/media/samples/painted1.mp3

[philipc]

Originally Posted by ElBajista

I'm speechless, and I REALLY want to play one of those!!

Anyone finds recordings of these instruments?

this guy uses one apparently http://www.degrassi.com/index.html

cant find out much else about them.

[philipc]

Originally Posted by gurzil

Something similar is the "Bazantar". A 5 string doublebass with 29 sympathetic strings and 4 drones.

http://www.bazantar.com/instrument.html

and a link to an mp3 for the impatient..

http://www.bazantar.com/media/samples/painted1.mp3

aaaaaah yes, i came across this guy a while ago but couldnt remember what he or his instrument were called. good stuff!

[Ben Lesser]

Originally Posted by gurzil

Something similar is the "Bazantar". A 5 string doublebass with 29 sympathetic strings and 4 drones.

http://www.bazantar.com/instrument.html

and a link to an mp3 for the impatient..

http://www.bazantar.com/media/samples/painted1.mp3

Oh, wow. That's so amazing sounding.

[philipc]

Originally Posted by Ben Lesser

Oh, wow. That's so amazing sounding.

the recording sounds a bit muddy to me but its definately a fantastic sound. id love to get my hands on something like that.

[spudmaster34]

those are really, really cool

[philipc]

I think sympathetic strings would work well on a bass guitar because the soundwave resonates through the body much stronger than on a guitar, certainly more than on an electric guitar where its fairly minimal.

I think i'll keep an eye out for a cheap, small autoharp or something on Ebay and perhaps experiment with attaching that to my old Yamaha bass that is all but obsolete with its slowly getting bendy neck and ceaseless fret buzz!! Would be a fun experiment.

[Bassflute]

If you like that, this should interest you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUYzSv09g18&mode=related&search=

Pat Metheny playing the Picasso Guitar, built by a female Canadian luthier Linda Manzer

http://www.manzer.com/

C.

[SurrenderMonkey]

Man, must be a pain to tune

[Trevorus]

Wow, that banzatar sounds SOOO cool. anywhere else you can find more recordings like that?

[grygrx]

It does turn out, no matter how I figure it, that an instrument that takes 1000 hours to build (i.e. The Flying Dream or the New Dream) has to be priced at what I would have not too long ago considered "absurdly high", to say the least. I’ve been using an odd rule of thumb recently, for these Harp-Sympitars; that is to figure about $1000. per string, to get a rough idea of what a project might cost. So a 39-string instrument, like those mentioned, ends up being about $40,000. This has worked out so far, in covering time and materials, shop overhead, and other identified or projected expenses. But it may turn out to not be enough. Compared to other builders, $40. per construction-hour is not at all out of line: I know a number of builders that are getting more like $100 per construction-hour.

[philipc]

Originally Posted by grygrx

holy moley!

[ElBajista]

Originally Posted by gurzil

Something similar is the "Bazantar". A 5 string doublebass with 29 sympathetic strings and 4 drones.

http://www.bazantar.com/instrument.html

and a link to an mp3 for the impatient..

http://www.bazantar.com/media/samples/painted1.mp3

I WANT ONE!!!