Is it possible to re-fret a bass to different scales?

[hanx]

I'll start out by saying i KNOW i'm getting WAY ahead of myself here, but i'm having fun day-dreaming...

I have seen a lot of threads here about de-fretting basses, but how feasable would it be to re-fret it to fit a different scale?

Obviously the positioning is crutial, you can't just stick new frets in at regular intervals, they don't work like that, but i think the geometry i have worked out... (i have an excel file... i am probably one of a very small number of people who daydream in microspft excel...) it's the carpentry required to make my day dreams a reality some day which is the issue...

Say you wanted one that could do quarter tones? Or maybe basses and guitars with 13 notes to the octave? I think some truely beautifully wretched math metal could be had with a 13-note octave... maybe a not-quite-as deminished major 5th would be some sort of super tri-tone of doom... Or maybe something which is not quite as far above a tritone as a major 5th would sound even more beautiful... i wanna experiment and 12 notes just aren't enough for me...

[that or i'm trying to build some form of software that can create any note i desire... or i could learn to play a feretless...]

[neatobassman]

Ok, so you mean scale as in playing scale, not scale as in length....

If you want quarter tones and stuff like that, use a fretless. To try to get frets for quartertones and other such notes would make the neck WAY too clumsy to play. Not worth it IMO.

[Taylor Livingston]

I have a bass with quartertone frets. It's fun, but not as much fun as I expected. I haven't had the time to really delve into 24tet theory, but it can do some fun stuff, especially in the realm of "wretched math metal".

I would recommend something which allows you to do more than one scale. You may find that you get bored of these exotic tonal systems, so considered swappable fretboards, or movable frets. We've had some discussion of those here before, try searching for those keywords.

My experience is that playing outside 12 tet on a fretless is way harder than standard western music on fretless - you really need the uncomfortable intervals forced on you mechanically before you can start to play them by ear.

[hanx]

with a fretless i think i would resort to painting guide dots on it, i can't imagine eye-balling exotic scales.

hrmmm... moveable frets and swapable fretboards sounds quite expensive? i was hoping i could knock up some experiemnts in my garrage with a few cheap second-hand basses, how feasable is that plot?

[Jazz Ad]

I think you need a fretless more than anything else. Infinity of scales and intervals.
You can put as many scale markers as you want on it.

[HogieWan]

get some thin fishing string and tie some frets on like they did way back in the day with lutes and such (they used gut). I have 7 frets on a cello tied this way

http://www.vdgsa.org/pgs/frets.html

[Taylor Livingston]

Originally Posted by hanx

with a fretless i think i would resort to painting guide dots on it, i can't imagine eye-balling exotic scales.

hrmmm... moveable frets and swapable fretboards sounds quite expensive? i was hoping i could knock up some experiemnts in my garrage with a few cheap second-hand basses, how feasable is that plot?

Feasible, but as I said, you may tire of these scales quickly. When I got my microtonal bass made, I made sure to choose something which allows me to play in 12 TET as well, so I can use the same instrument for both weird and regular music.

If you have a bunch of cheap necks, have at it and make yourself as many different scales as you want. IMO, working out a movable fret setup, like fishing line (mentioned above) or zip ties (my personal favorite, since you can tighten or loosen them easily, without having to tie knots or anything).

You will probably need to use a different tuning as well, since most exotic scales require different fretting for each string if you keep standard tuning, which is quite laborious. Like this:

http://organicdesign.org/peterson/guitars/index.html

But I really recommend you search the Luthier's Corner for "microtonal", "movable frets", and swapping fretboards, because we've had a decent number of threads that would give you some nice ideas.

You will continue to hear to "just use a fretless", but this is a totally useless suggestion. I heard that a million times when I was getting my microtonal bass made, and uethanian always gets those comments in his threads on microtonality. The thing is that you could learn to play these scales on a fretless in tune after many, many years of work. But if you just want to experiment with them, you're going to give up long before that because you sound terrible.

Just learning to hear microtonal systems properly takes a long time. If you're familiar with composers like LaMonte Young and Michael Harrison, 2 of the big microtonal composers in the west, they have talked a lot about the amount of study necessary to internalize these foreign tonalities - it is a lot of work. People say, "but Indian classical musicians can play sarod, etc." but these guys were brought up hearing these intervals their entire lives, and they spend decades getting to where they are with fine pitch control.

And besides that, fretless sounds different. I have found with my quartertone instrument that timbre is largely involved in the perception of harmony (which makes sense because timbre and harmony are actually the same thing, a simultaneity of pitches). A muddy and blunt sound obscures microtonal harmonies. You typically need sharp attack, not much bass, and little sustain in order to keep the music from being cluttered. Microtonality in high notes with the proper sound sounds much like discordant than the same harmonies play on low strings with thuddy indistinct tone. Frets are the right tool for the job, IMO.

[Jazz Ad]

Unfortunately, frets are useless to approach microtonality. They're so out of tune it's ridiculous.

[Taylor Livingston]

Huh? A piece of metal is inherently out of tune? I don't understand.

You realize he's going to rearrange the frets, right? If you're saying that frets are out of tune because equal temperament is out of tune, then yeah. But that's actually what microtonal frets are all about. If you can play in Harry Partch's Monophonic fabric on a fretless bass in tune, I tip my hat to you.

[hanx]

hrmmm...so far fretless and some fishing wire sounds most practical affordable and versatile for experimenting? (unless i invent something i really loove and want more permanent.)

I guess another stumbling block would be the tunning. How can i find some sort of tunning aid that's not stuck in 12-notes-octaves? My current tuner can (with a bit of thinking) help me tune to a reference A other than 440Hz, but no amount of convincing will get it to a different interval. I can think of ways i can calculeate what my taget note would be e.g. work out i want to tune to X Hz and that corrisponds to Bbbb on a 445 reference A... but seems a bit convoluted. I need a more versatile tuner?

I tried tunning my bass by ear last night, first attempt just getting it back up out of drop D, i was a quater-tone out when i got a second opinion from my tuner, which i count as pretty good for a first attempt. That will maybe improve with practice, but what about exotic notes - possibly things fresh off my excel spreadsheet - how do i tune for that. I guess is could work out which frets should match on different strings any given reference that seemslike a good idea at the time, but that could be verry time consuming for unfamiliar notes.

I need some sort of tuner or other form of detector which will just tellme the frequency i'm producing, or a nice user-friendly tuner which i can program to aim for any frequency and tell me graphicaqlly (needle, lights whatever) how far i'm off. I don't need it to be too user freindly, i can do all the maths myself, i just need a bit of help turning my maths into noise.

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by Jazz Ad

Unfortunately, frets are useless to approach microtonality. They're so out of tune it's ridiculous.

that all depends. if you're talking about alternate equal temperaments, frets are in-tune enough (say in 24ET, your 12 new pitches will have no more tuning error than the original 12). however in just tunings, any error becomes painfully obvious. the just fretboards i've made are fairly accurate (especially considering that i marked and placed the frets completely by hand). although when i listen to recordings by, say, jon catler, the interval accuracy on his guitars is almost perfect.

like conical johnson said, using a fretless for most microtonal applications isn't practical or accurate. yes, there are fretless instruments like sarod that work, but a sarod isn't a bass; it's played mainly on one string with mainly one finger. and the only reason sarod players can be so accurate in tuning is because they can hear the drone of the tambura in the background and the resonance of the sympathetic strings on their instrument.

i must say however that my current project is a fretless guitar; but it's played in such a way that the left hand does not need to shift position for a given scale, so relative accuracy is possible. but that's an aside.

that same guitar used to have interchangeable magnetic fretboards. it certainly works, but i wouldn't recommend it...you'll spend more time making the boards than playing the instrument.

all in all, i think you need to do a lot of research about alternative tunings. the two main classes you'd be dealing with are

1) equal temperaments - dividing an octave into any number of equally spaced intervals

2) just intonation - any system where intervals are perfectly in tune

and these are two very different tuning philosophies and typically lead to very different types of music. when you are tuning a 'quarter tone,' it could by any number of things. in 24ET, it is 50 cents plus or minus the center mark. in 36ET, it would be more like 33 or 66 cents plus or minus the center mark. in just intonation, it could be 12/11, 11/10, 28/27, 32/31, or any other number of relationships.

anyways i could go on about this forever, why don't you send me a PM and i'll try to point you in the right direction

[ehque]

Originally Posted by hanx

I guess another stumbling block would be the tunning. How can i find some sort of tunning aid that's not stuck in 12-notes-octaves? My current tuner can (with a bit of thinking) help me tune to a reference A other than 440Hz, but no amount of convincing will get it to a different interval. I can think of ways i can calculeate what my taget note would be e.g. work out i want to tune to X Hz and that corrisponds to Bbbb on a 445 reference A... but seems a bit convoluted. I need a more versatile tuner?

Unless you're going to tune your strings to different tunes, it looks like you won't need a versatile tuner. A 24TET bass could very well still be tuned to EADG, but will be able to play completely different music. Of course this all depends what tuning you're going to use. A 13TET scale... well, you could tune your strings to each other.

[hanx]

Originally Posted by ehque

Unless you're going to tune your strings to different tunes, it looks like you won't need a versatile tuner. A 24TET bass could very well still be tuned to EADG, but will be able to play completely different music. Of course this all depends what tuning you're going to use. A 13TET scale... well, you could tune your strings to each other.

nah, the new toy i am seeking is a tuner which can ideally work either plugged into my bass or just work by a speaker that can be set to and/or accurately measure any frequency i happen to be interested in.

I guess i could centre whatever scale i invent (it seems what i'm doing is called equal temprement...) to have one standard note on each string and tune to that note on each string, e.g. centre it on the G from a standard G srting then find that note where-ever else it should appear... i guess there are work rounds...

But very often i want what i'd call a tuner with "geek mode"... i don't think in notes, i think in frequencies, i think maybe i want some sort of osciliscope-like thing...

[Taylor Livingston]

I'm pretty certain you can find tuners that show hertz. Pianos, for example, are not actually tuned precisely to the notes they are supposed to be. The higher octaves are "stretched" a few cents sharp, and the lower octaves slightly flat. So piano tuners show hertz.

If you are really interested in geeking out on intonation theory and math, there is a wonderful book written by the intonation guru and composer Harry Partch, called "Genesis of a Music". In it, he discusses just intonation in great (some would say excruciating) detail, and equal temperaments in slightly less detail (Partch was not a fan of any equal temperament). He wrote wonderful music in a number of interesting scales, mostly built out of his pitch system having 43 notes per octave.

There's another guy who's more modern, and who works in exotic equal temperaments, named Bill Sethares. He has a very informative website and has put out several records based on some pretty academic concepts, but which are actually pretty fun to listen, not just to furrow your brow to. He might be more along the lines of what you want to do. He has a concept wherein he transforms the timbre of sounds to be in tune with whatever scale he's using (so he bends the harmonics of a marimba to be in tune with 14TET, as a made up example).

[hanx]

wicked

so such a tuner exists, probably at a music shop not a hardware shop... i feel a mission comming on

those books sound very interesting too, does anyone know off-hand whether amazon charges per book or per order? winderring whether it's worth getting a few at once.

what's TET again?

[Taylor Livingston]

...tone equal temperament.

So 12TET means 12 tones per octave, equally spaced apart. EDO is used in the same way, and it means "equal divisions of the octave".

This is in contrast with just intonation, which is a general scheme of musical intervals in small number ratios, but where the notes are not all space equally.

[uethanian]

si, genesis of a music is a good book to pick up, although most of it will go over your head if you're not somewhat familiar with just intonation already.

there's a great (free) intro by kyle gann http://www.kylegann.com/tuning.html

there's the just intonation primer that you can order http://www.justintonation.net/

also Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone," which addresses tuning but also features the physics of sound production, psychoacoustics, and a whole mess of things. recommended if you're into the theoretical aspect of things.

[Taylor Livingston]

Originally Posted by uethanian

si, genesis of a music is a good book to pick up, although most of it will go over your head if you're not somewhat familiar with just intonation already.

Yep, in fact a lot of it is over my head - I often have to read passages several times. I'm thinking the OP can handle it since he seems keen on math and says he's a scientist.

I find the whole ratio pitch system difficult to use, just because my concept of music is largely visual. It's easy for me to visualize the diatonic scale, but 4/3s and 3/2s and 11/7s are tough for me to "see". But the results are great. I just listened to Sethares' stuff on his site again, pretty fun and interesting.

[hanx]

well i'm a genetic engineering tecnitian to be precise, so hard-core physics might be a bit too much, but i'm not as scarred of maths as most biologists, so read slowly or after some more introductory stuff it could be quite interesting.

I tend to think of myself as more visual, pictures first, then numbers, then words, lastly human rules. I graph (visual) and quantify (numbers) everything, but spelling (words and language) is tricky, and doing my taxes (human rules) results in lots of swearing.

but i actually find the standard "diatonic"(?)really hard to visualise and grasp onto:
white/white/black/white/balck/white/white/black/white/black/white/black/white

there's a certain logic to it, but it's a very muddy human logic (like taxes and spelling) that i found pretty much impossible to deduce, and even after reading the logic behind it, i still don't quite "see" it.

[ehque]

If i am not wrong the Sonic Research Turbo Tuner (non-stomp version) displays frequency to 0.1 hertz. I'm not sure if that's good enough for you.