has anybody here considered the possibility? I think it would be right cool if someone made a fretless where the bridge, fingerboard, and nut were all carved out of the same single piece of material. would that make a difference in the resonance or sustain? I think that with a 1/4 inch piece of african blackwood, one could make it happen without adding too much weight, and the hardness of the blackwood could mean that the fingerboard portion wouldn't need to be too thick. anyway, just an idea I had last night, and who better to put it to than you guys. I am so freeking addicted to this forum I could plotz!
Pagelli is doing something similar to what you are describing. http://www.pagelli.com/e/2instrum/bass_git001.html#
I bet you could ring all 4 strings, go take a nap for the night, and the next morning the strings would still be ringing. But +1 to the "ugly as sin" part.
Funny. I think that that's one one the nicest basses ever made. Although I like the natural wood better than the gold: Or with a "more normal" body shape:
the only difference between what they (pagelli) are doing and my idea is that their bridge/saddle, and the nut are inset pieces of wood, and I was thinking that the bridge and nut would be the result of removing excess material to create a fingerboard. In other words, carving the nut and bridge out of the same piece of wood so that no gluing or fitting would be necessary.
un-economic destruction to the rain forests! i like Pagelli's design. i dont think its ugly at all! i am not into headless instruments though, hmm!
this is a good point, but it could just as easily be done with phenolic, graphite, diamondwood, or other more prolific local woods (black locust, maple, persimmon, applewood, pearwood, sycamore, etc.). heck, you could even make them out of old furniture and have the wood acrilised for stability and strength, or use an epoxy/polyester to achieve a harder playing surface.
AAAAAA! you could go take a bite, come back, AAAAAAAA you'd still be hearing that I don't hear anything Well yeah, but if it was plugged in AAAAAAAAAA
Contrary to what other people here think, I don't think an "only wood" path from one end of the string to the other is going to increase sustain. On the contrary, I think it would probably have less sustain, and maybe more "punch" (or maybe not), maybe "more character" (or maybe not). For more sustain, you want metal in there. It cleanly reflects or transmits the string energy, as opposed to wood, which has greater absorption.
Also, I'm with the people who consider it a waste to take a 4" x 5/8" x 40" piece of rare wood and grind half of it away to make one fingerboard/bridge out of it, rather than resawing it into two fingerboards. While it's not as pure in concept, a glued bridge or one simply resting in place would sound fine. Stradivarius violins and Martin guitars don't seem to suffer much for it, and they're acoustic instruments.
..but you could saw it like 1x (multi 3-in-1 project) and 1x ('normal' fingerboard) ... Personally i like the idea, but not from rare wood. mike
Either you cut a rather thick plank into two of this 'all-in-one', or you route a channel for bridge and nut and slide in another piece. Sustain will not be impacted, since the downforce will keep them where they belong. The original idea will add sustain compared with a stiff neck, bolt on joint, soft body. It will not add much compared to any neckthru or set neck into stiff body. If you really want sustain, you want really stiff gear, and metal is the greatest.
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