summer project - 19 tone guitar/bass

[uethanian]

luthier's corner, it's been a while...

so i've been mucking around with different nylon line fretting (this site explains it better than i would http://www.cyberferal.com/UncleBob/design.html) in various equal temperaments...on the same guitar i went from 31 to 17 to 19. 31 is a fantastic temperament but it's just too crazy technically, hard to communicate with other musicians, etc. 17 i feel would be good for metal but not harmonic music, as it has good fifths and some 'quartertone' intervals, but the thirds are very harsh. and with 19, apart from sacrificing a bit of purity in the fifths, the major thirds are much better than in 12, the minor thirds are nearly perfect, and there's a lot of nuance to be incorporated (2 different sizes of semitone). i figured beyond 12, 19 is the most suited for guitar and bass in terms of playability and harmonic options.

so today my package of fretwire and wire-cutters arrived, and i got to work on the bass neck. i previously had some failed attempts at re-fretting a neck, it's significantly more difficult than slotting an unglued fingerboard for various reasons. so i made a centerline down the neck, marked the center line of my radius block, and used that as a guide for the saw. works well enough i think, provided that you really take your time.

here's the whole bass strung up:


and here's a detail of the neck


what's going on is that there's 11 steps to the fifth rather than 7. or to put it another way, each whole tone is divided in roughly 3 parts rather than 2...which consequently means there are
2 semitones
1 whole tone
2 minor thirds
2 major thirds
1 fourth
2 tritones
and so on...

i'd think about notation in the following way: differentiate between enharmonic notes (F# and Gb are now separate pitches) and add pitches between E - F and B - C, now called E# and Cb respectively. so the chromatic scale would be like
C C# Db D D# Eb E E# F F# Gb G G# Ab A A# Bb B Cb C

i'll post the guitar when i'm done and maybe some soundclips if i'm able to, sorry for rambling but it's 2am and i ought to sleep

[ZolkoW]

my god... we need soundclips! :-)

[uethanian]

after a lot of work today, the guitar is together and sounding great:



i'll post soundclips maybe tomorrow, unfortunately i can't get the bass to come through on my computer, but guitar is ok

[blendermassacre]

Not to sound dumb, but why?

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by blendermassacre

Not to sound dumb, but why?

excellent question, my good sir. for one, conventional harmonies simply sound better in 19edo (equal divisions of the octave) than they do in 12edo. in 12edo, the major third is 14 cents away from a perfect 5/4 (the fifth harmonic); in 19edo, that error is cut in half to 7 cents. the minor third in 12edo is nearly 16 cents away from a perfect 6/5; in 19edo, it there is practically no error. this is at the sacrifice of fifths/fourths (7 cents error in 19edo vs. 2 cents error in 12edo), but fifths/fourths can suffer larger deviations than thirds and still sound tolerable. in short, most 12edo music can be converted to 19edo and sound more harmonious (albeit a bit 'different').

secondly, having more pitches gives you more harmonic options. in 19edo, there's two minor thirds (one regular and one low) and two major thirds (one regular and one high). consequently there are two minor sevenths, two major sevenths, two minor sixths, two major sixths, and two minor seconds. so if you're modulating to say D minor, you have a choice - D minor or D sub-minor. G major or G super-major. this ultimately gives you greater control over tension, and leads to some interesting melodic nuances (using Eb and D# within the same phrase pulls on the ear in a wonderful way).

[Taylor Livingston]

Cool. I busted out my quartertone bass for the first time in quite a while, today. It got me thinking a lot about nonstandard tonal systems and all the difficulties with implementing them in real life. I have mostly moved in the direction of electronic instruments because of how much easier it is to retune to any intonation or temperament, but of course there is something about physical strings that hasn't been achieved in even the best electronic imitations yet.

Looking forward to hearing your instruments! And, let the countdown begin, to the first person to say "just use a fretless " ....

[giacomini]

My brain would fart trying to make my hands play that bass...



I understand your need to go in this direction. When I was attending Music College here in Brazil I had a lecture about temperament, it was about renaissance and baroque musicians and instruments, and it was the first time I heard a harpsichord tuned in the right temperament (I don't remember if it was Just or Pythagorean) for the key of the song. I play keyboard too, and I'm fond of Bach, so I managed to find a keyboard that would allow me to change the temperament, and indeed, it makes a huge difference!

[megadan]

Fantastic... Looking forward to hearing some clips.
I'd love to do this if I had the technical skills... I know at least guitarist would be probably be able to cope with it.

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by Taylor Livingston

And, let the countdown begin, to the first person to say "just use a fretless " ....

i know what you mean but actually, i first tried out 19edo on my fretless. works quite well!

Originally Posted by giacomini

I understand your need to go in this direction. When I was attending Music College here in Brazil I had a lecture about temperament, it was about renaissance and baroque musicians and instruments, and it was the first time I heard a harpsichord tuned in the right temperament (I don't remember if it was Just or Pythagorean) for the key of the song. I play keyboard too, and I'm fond of Bach, so I managed to find a keyboard that would allow me to change the temperament, and indeed, it makes a huge difference!

yea, 19edo is a very close approximation of 1/3 comma meantone, which wasn't the most popular baroque temperament but sounds good for minor keys in particular

Originally Posted by megadan

I'd love to do this if I had the technical skills... I know at least guitarist would be probably be able to cope with it.

it's really not all that big of an adjustment...like on the guitar, the general chord shapes are the same, there may just be an extra fret under your hand. so if the muscle memory is there from 12edo, finding the basic diatonic stuff is pretty natural. it does get a bit complicated when you modulate using the alternate intervals...

well maybe recordings tomorrow or monday, i'm working on some snippets with the guitar

[megadan]

Originally Posted by uethanian

it's really not all that big of an adjustment...like on the guitar, the general chord shapes are the same, there may just be an extra fret under your hand. so if the muscle memory is there from 12edo, finding the basic diatonic stuff is pretty natural. it does get a bit complicated when you modulate using the alternate intervals...

well maybe recordings tomorrow or monday, i'm working on some snippets with the guitar

Yeah, I think I could play it, I meant technically skills to build it? I defretted a bass once, but I think that skill is a one way street

[bassteban]

+1 on *I wanna hear this*
Links to any examples?

[colcifer]

Originally Posted by bassteban

+1 on *I wanna hear this*
Links to any examples?

Yeah, same here.

In the interest of one-ups-manship, my fretless is infinitely microtonal.

[M0ses]

SO COOL. I want one. This sort of thing is DEFINITELY in my future.

One a side note, now your inlays look really bad. This should have been done with a totally custom fretboard

[Beginner Bass]

Playing with that in a band sounds expensive. You'd have to make the whole band's instruments.

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by megadan

Yeah, I think I could play it, I meant technically skills to build it? I defretted a bass once, but I think that skill is a one way street

oh haha. well there's been a number of casualties in the past...what i did was mark the centerline of the neck with tape, then mark the centerline of my radius block. i lined them up as best i could, and used the radius block as a guide for the slotting saw. it's by no means a perfect method, but i'm happy enough with the accuracy...didn't need any power tools, just the radius block, saw, fret cutters, file, and glue.

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by M0ses

SO COOL. I want one. This sort of thing is DEFINITELY in my future.

One a side note, now your inlays look really bad. This should have been done with a totally custom fretboard

yea i know what u mean, i just try and ignore the inlays. most guys who would do a microtonal conversion would make a new fingerboard...but i didn't want to deal with removing the old one and all that, not really within my means.

http://www.swordguitars.com/
this guy will replace the fingerboard and does a clean job, but it's not cheap

http://www.freenotemusic.com/site/store/guitars.html
they sell 19edo guitar necks (no bass). but again, expensive.

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by Beginner Bass

Playing with that in a band sounds expensive. You'd have to make the whole band's instruments.

yea that's right. that was kind of my goal in this, i really want to start a guitar/bass/drums/vocal band this year at school. just a matter of finding the right people.

[Taylor Livingston]

Ethan(?), is there a program that can be used to plot out microtonal fretboard measurements? Like a microtonal version of all the common fret finder-type programs? Or, how are you calculating your fret spacings? Over the weekend I started hacking up a bowable electric fretless instrument; think I might do the old Partch "adapted viola" trick and mark out a variety of intonations as dots on the neck.

[Beej]

I've never checked this one out to see if its accurate: http://windworld.com/features/tools-...nt-calculator/

[uethanian]

Originally Posted by Taylor Livingston

Ethan(?), is there a program that can be used to plot out microtonal fretboard measurements? Like a microtonal version of all the common fret finder-type programs? Or, how are you calculating your fret spacings? Over the weekend I started hacking up a bowable electric fretless instrument; think I might do the old Partch "adapted viola" trick and mark out a variety of intonations as dots on the neck.

in the past i've used fretfind
http://cigarboxguitars.com/fretfind/standard.php
which supposedly can handle just intonation scales, although it's never worked out perfectly for me. what's nice is you can print out the fret layout and tape it to the instrument...

...but because something went screwy with the scale (may have been my printer, i don't know), i used the windworld calculator mentioned above and just measured frets by hand. so try out fretfind, but please double check before you do anything permanent, i don't trust the program all that much for non-equal stuff.

well i was hoping to record something tonight, but i've been playing music of different sorts for 5 hours and i'm feeling beat. tomorrow!