Got to thinking.... And I have no clue if this has been done before, BUT. I thought that it would be cool if the strings helped add to the inlays under them. and I began thinking of what could work. and i thought: If you have a 5 string bass, you could make it look like a staff. and it is possible to put a bass clef at the 24th fret of the neck, and put in a song, (without ledgers) that is meaningful to you as the inlays below. Again useing the strings as the staff, the frets would serve as oddly spaced measure lines. just a cool inlay thought for a 5 string bass... And while your at it, make them LED inlays.. has this been done before? and if not, is it a good idea?
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A cool idea for a 5 string bass inlay.
- Thread starter Josh Emmons
- Start date
Interesting idea. You'd have to give up on the frets as measure lines, since the the span of the strings forming the staff is roughly two inches (vertically), measure lines from 2.5 down to .75 inches (horizontal spacing) do not make any sense. Unless I misunderstand your idea.
I know the delema.... but you could use some space by the time sig, and key sig too. also its possible that the notes could get slightly bigger the further down the neck they go. (the bigger the frets go).
Okay, I took a stab at this. Right off the bat, you run into the problem of being limited to bass lines that fall between G and A. Without a bunch of 8vas, you're pretty much stuck. To make matters worse, you can't have anything hovering over or hanging below the stave, there's no "canvas" there.
So accepting that, you run into the problem mentioned above, the aspect ratio of bar length to stave height is completely off. Anything beyond whole notes starts to look really silly. Even quarter notes would look disproportionately stretched vertically/compressed horizontally. In my opinion, the only way to make this decent is to only attempt the inlay on an unmarked fretless board.
That's exactly two bars of music. Imagine squishing ten times the music into there! I can't! I figure you're looking at about four bars max depending on how simple they are...with shenanigans! Also, notice how the accidentals are easily obscured by the "stave lines".
So accepting that, you run into the problem mentioned above, the aspect ratio of bar length to stave height is completely off. Anything beyond whole notes starts to look really silly. Even quarter notes would look disproportionately stretched vertically/compressed horizontally. In my opinion, the only way to make this decent is to only attempt the inlay on an unmarked fretless board.
That's exactly two bars of music. Imagine squishing ten times the music into there! I can't! I figure you're looking at about four bars max depending on how simple they are...with shenanigans! Also, notice how the accidentals are easily obscured by the "stave lines".
ZubenElGenubi said:
I had a Wishbass that I shaped the end of the fingerboard into a bass clef, and then added abalone shell dot inlays to complete the clef.
That sick!!Okay, I took a stab at this. Right off the bat, you run into the problem of being limited to bass lines that fall between G and A. Without a bunch of 8vas, you're pretty much stuck. To make matters worse, you can't have anything hovering over or hanging below the stave, there's no "canvas" there.
So accepting that, you run into the problem mentioned above, the aspect ratio of bar length to stave height is completely off. Anything beyond whole notes starts to look really silly. Even quarter notes would look disproportionately stretched vertically/compressed horizontally. In my opinion, the only way to make this decent is to only attempt the inlay on an unmarked fretless board.
That's exactly two bars of music. Imagine squishing ten times the music into there! I can't! I figure you're looking at about four bars max depending on how simple they are...with shenanigans! Also, notice how the accidentals are easily obscured by the "stave lines".
Wow... I can't believe I thought it was Seinfeld...I think I have temporarily lost my sight reading priveleges...Barney Miller is not only one of my favorites to watch, but also to play (ear playing only...can you tell?).
