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Soldering wires on frets

CaptainTuna

CaptainTuna

May 13, 2011
132
1
#1
Hello everyone!

I need to solder wires to frets on my bass for a project I have in mind. I'm planning to do this on a cheap 90$ dollar bass I'm planning to buy on purpose, but I'm concerned about the negative effects on heating the frets. Is it bad for the neck? Will the frets bow or lift? Any suggestion on how I could attach a wire to them if not by solder?

Thanks in advance!
 
#3
Ouch, this is bad. I probably have to find another way then, like using copper tape to connect the frets to wires or something like that. No other idea comes into mind at the moment. I tried to connect them magnetically but to no avail.
 
#4
Depending on the fret material it may cause the solder not to adhere correctly; which equals more heat and possible damage.

Use some emery cloth, maybe a flat file (like a nail file if you have) and soldering flux to clean the edge of the last fret and test a solder joint there.

Good luck, and post your project after completed; I think more than just me is curious as to what you're trying to do???
 
#5
Basically I want to make (or, well...try to) a cheap midi bass which, instead of working with the analog wave and processing it to recognize which note is being played, sends some current down the string and when a player presses it against a fret, thus closing the circuit, a microcontroller detects which fret is being pressed. The microcontroller should also analyze the strenght of the string being plucked to adjust the volume of the midi note (by checking the analog wave).

I'm not too sure whether or not I'd like to play a midi bass....It's really just more of an electronics project. Maybe something musically good could come out of this though, probably mixing the original analog wave with some midi effects could be nice for some tunes.
 
#6
You could use conductive glue and simply glue the wires to the frets. Or even conductive paint to create tracks along the neck to a PCB that connects to the tracks using metal springs sandwiched between a PCB and the neck.


Having that said, wouldn't it be easier to demodulate the signal from the pickups, though? Or does that defy the whole point of the project?

edit: if you go the route of conductive frets you may want to program in some sort of filter to ignore frets between the fretted fret and the bridge. If a string hits another fret you will get an error in your output. (Think fret buzz, only far worse)
 
#7
CaptainTuna said:
Basically I want to make (or, well...try to) a cheap midi bass which, instead of working with the analog wave and processing it to recognize which note is being played, sends some current down the string and when a player presses it against a fret, thus closing the circuit, a microcontroller detects which fret is being pressed. The microcontroller should also analyze the strenght of the string being plucked to adjust the volume of the midi note (by checking the analog wave).

I'm not too sure whether or not I'd like to play a midi bass....It's really just more of an electronics project. Maybe something musically good could come out of this though, probably mixing the original analog wave with some midi effects could be nice for some tunes.
Click to expand...

I couldn't for the life of me think why you wanted to solder wires to your frets, but this my friend, sounds very cool!
 
#9
Smilodon said:
You could use conductive glue and simply glue the wires to the frets. Or even conductive paint to create tracks along the neck to a PCB that connects to the tracks using metal springs sandwiched between a PCB and the neck.


Having that said, wouldn't it be easier to demodulate the signal from the pickups, though? Or does that defy the whole point of the project?

edit: if you go the route of conductive frets you may want to program in some sort of filter to ignore frets between the fretted fret and the bridge. If a string hits another fret you will get an error in your output. (Think fret buzz, only far worse)
Click to expand...

Conductive glue? Cool! Never heard of before. Definiteyl have to google this one!

As for demodulating signal: I don't really have a clue on how to do that

And yes I've thought of the fret buzz problem, I was thinking of approching the problem the same way you debounce buttons (which go on and off very rapidly when you press them and only settle after a while).

lowfreq33 said:
Phil Lesh had a midi bass like this with the wired frets, it was a Modulus I believe.
Click to expand...

Really? Must search more info on that one too.
edit: What I found so far, an interview with Lesh:

When did you start using MIDI?
In the late ’80s. An Australian engineer named Steve Chick was making MIDI bass systems, so we contacted him and said we wanted a MIDI setup for 6-string. So he made a custom system using the wired-fret concept: This string contacting this fret would mean that note. The system would just know—you didn’t have to deal with the pitch-recognition delay, which made all the other MIDI basses impossible to play in time. I’m still not sure whether I’ll have MIDI on my new basses, though.
 
#10
I am watching this thread with interest, but just out of curiosity, how do you intend to only contact one fret at a time. When I observe a note being played, you have the target note, plus the string contacting the fret behind the note desired, wouldn't that cause two inputs to the midi? Unless you can include a comparator circuit in the sequence somewhere Or I'm missing something?
 
#11
xxx666 said:
I couldn't for the life of me think why you wanted to solder wires to your frets, but this my friend, sounds very cool!
Click to expand...

Cool right? :)
I hope it's gonna work how I thought it should. In the meantime (haven't got a bass to work on yet) I've searched for loads of bass samples on the internet and have come up with nice things. Uhm..maybe I should just open a post about my progress on this as soon as I come up with something working.
 
#12
4-stringB said:
I am watching this thread with interest, but just out of curiosity, how do you intend to only contact one fret at a time. When I observe a note being played, you have the target note, plus the string contacting the fret behind the note desired, wouldn't that cause two inputs to the midi? Unless you can include a comparator circuit in the sequence somewhere Or I'm missing something?
Click to expand...

You are right, but you aren't probably considering that these inputs go into a programmable microcontroller. That means that all this data about frets being pressed is gonna be analyzed to determine exactly which fret is being pressed. So for example if I'm pressing the 5th fret the 4 the will be pressed as well, but the micrcontroller will be programmed so that it only considers the fret closest to the bridge and ignore all the rest.

I've also thought of scripts for integrating slides and hammer-ons, but haven't made any tests on this so far.
 
#16
OP, to detect the pitch being played you only really need to look at the fundamental frequency of the analog output of the normal pickup. So, analog signal to a low pass filter to remove the confusing upper overtones, then count the zero crossings of the signal over time (a "digital" input in effect) to get the frequency. Then your midi conversion. Specialized pickups make that whole thing easier, obviously.

Or, if you'd really like to use the fretboard as a matrix you might avoid the problems with wiring the frets and use copper tape to make pads between the frets. Sense the string touching the pad rather than the fret.
 
#17
Hi.

Great idea.
Not a very new one as You have probably already discovered, but great one none the less.

Just solder the wires onto the frets, that minuscule amount of heat won't hurt anything unless You over-do it.

The AF (or pitch) to MIDI doesn't quite work, people suggesting that have probably never tried it with sub 80Hz frequencies. Or don't mind the latency and/or note inaccuracy.

AF to MIDI requires the scale to be accurate as well, something a matrix doesn't have to be, so a 15" long "34" scale bass" is perfectly doable.

Unless the micro-controller is the "thing", everything You need for the project can be found in an old MIDI keyboard. MIDI matrix chips aren't very expensive either.

The unfinished prototype I made back in the 90's has long since vanished, unfortunately, but what You're after is perfectly doable, that I can tell from having tried it.

Regards
Sam
 
#19
plenty of frets are glued in!

that said, solder will indeed stick to fretwire; i use it all the time when pulling frets, as heat breaks any glue holding the fret in and the solder makes that heat transfer much faster to the fret.

you should be able to solder a wire to the fret before you cause any significant loosening; just take care to have the wires to the side so you're not impacting the all-important fret tops, where the string's gonna hit.
 
#20
T-Bird said:
Unless the micro-controller is the "thing", everything You need for the project can be found in an old MIDI keyboard. MIDI matrix chips aren't very expensive either.

The unfinished prototype I made back in the 90's has long since vanished, unfortunately, but what You're after is perfectly doable, that I can tell from having tried it.

Regards
Sam
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info about the MIDI chips, I'll have a look at them! What you wrote inspires me to go further! :)

On the soldering topic: I'm still a little afraid I might screw everything up with the soldering iron. I have some experience with it but I'm not totally comfortable when using it. I think I'll just go for the glue
 

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