The Aleph - A Call for Opinions

[Hamish MacCleod]

Michael,
Awesome that it came in so light! can't wait to hear the sound clips.
Rondo

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

That grain is really popping now.
Looking good!

Thanks! This pic shows the color closer to what it looks like in real life, but the flash bugged me...

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

Michael,
Awesome that it came in so light! can't wait to hear the sound clips.
Rondo

I am glad I did not chamber it - it would be all neck had I pursued that option.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

I think it's really cool, and I like the size and weight.

But I'm curious, and I mean no offense, but why do you characterize the bass as a female?

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

I think it's really cool, and I like the size and weight.

But I'm curious, and I mean no offense, but why do you characterize the bass as a female?

Answering that question requires me to wade through a mine field that could be potentially offensive, but I will do my best to explain where *I* am coming from. I will not attempt to characterize or generalize why others may engage in this sort of behavior.

My personal philosophy, and bear with me here as it relates to the answer, is that everything in the universe is defined by it's relationship to others. Our relationship to members of our species, relationship to other creatures, relationship to nonliving "material" things in our purview, and potentially relationship to a higher power if you believe in one. I have come to find that I thrive and am at peace when I am encouraging healthy relationships, and avoiding unhealthy ones. To that end I am constantly balancing elements in my life to encourage relationship as best I can. Being a husband and father has both highlighted and heightened my perception in regards to the importance of relationships.

In doing my best to live out this philosophy I have found that my relationships to immaterial things has changed over time. Spending so much time and effort in creating an instrument provokes a strong emotional attachment for me, and my wont is to anthropomorphize said instrument. Perhaps it's a bit daffy, but the Aleph feels like a daughter to me. Being birthed in the admittedly odd forge of my mind, and brought to maturity through my patience and care, she still has her own voice and together we make music.

Why not a him? Good question. I think that answer lies in my preconceived notions about femininity, my expectations of appropriate intimacy and behavior with the various members of the female gender (e.g. daughter, lover, friend, etc.), and the amount of vulnerability I am willing to engage in. I think that if I were the owner of the Mothman I would attribute a male gender to it. I view most of my power tools as male - they are dangerous with sharp edges and have to be kept at a respectful distance.

I am also an eccentric old man.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Fair enough. I think most of my designs are decidedly...voluptuous, so the link to femininity is not inconceivable to me. Someone once quoted me as saying "I like dramatic curves" and pointed out that these are attributes that all of my exes share. I can't disagree. But even so, I have never felt compelled to personally anthropomorphize specific basses I've made, but rather the design concepts of which they are instances.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

Here's a fairly terribly played sound sample:

00:00 Raw - Recorded Straight
00:16 Run through a SansAmp Bass DI
00:32 SansAmp DI + Ampeg SVX Virtual Amp
00:43 The same as the first three sections with drums added

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

Frotbot! I noticed a problem with volume on the E string (it's tuned E to C, BTW) and found the culprit to in the saddle channel. It's an easy enough fix to level the channel out, but when I carefully pulled out the piezo one of the leads popped off and the unit is dead. I tried to fix it but just made it worse. Considering the low cost of the Artec piezo I can accept it as the cost of experience, but now I have to wait for a while to purchase another one.

Sadness.

 

[mapleglo]

Answering that question requires me to wade through a mine field that could be potentially offensive, but I will do my best to explain where *I* am coming from. I will not attempt to characterize or generalize why others may engage in this sort of behavior.

My personal philosophy, and bear with me here as it relates to the answer, is that everything in the universe is defined by it's relationship to others. Our relationship to members of our species, relationship to other creatures, relationship to nonliving "material" things in our purview, and potentially relationship to a higher power if you believe in one. I have come to find that I thrive and am at peace when I am encouraging healthy relationships, and avoiding unhealthy ones. To that end I am constantly balancing elements in my life to encourage relationship as best I can. Being a husband and father has both highlighted and heightened my perception in regards to the importance of relationships.

In doing my best to live out this philosophy I have found that my relationships to immaterial things has changed over time. Spending so much time and effort in creating an instrument provokes a strong emotional attachment for me, and my wont is to anthropomorphize said instrument. Perhaps it's a bit daffy, but the Aleph feels like a daughter to me. Being birthed in the admittedly odd forge of my mind, and brought to maturity through my patience and care, she still has her own voice and together we make music.

Why not a him? Good question. I think that answer lies in my preconceived notions about femininity, my expectations of appropriate intimacy and behavior with the various members of the female gender (e.g. daughter, lover, friend, etc.), and the amount of vulnerability I am willing to engage. I think that if I were the owner of the Mothman I would attribute a male gender to it. I view most of my power tools as male - they are dangerous with sharp edges and have to be kept at a respectful distance.

I am also an eccentric old man.

This is so very well spoken.

But maybe I'm just an eccentric old woman

For what it's worth, my Leafenbacker is female, and my Jetglo 4003 is male. I'm hoping one day they'll have kids

Oh, and I hope you get the E string back up and running soon.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

This is so very well spoken.

But maybe I'm just an eccentric old woman

For what it's worth, my Leafenbacker is female, and my Jetglo 4003 is male. I'm hoping one day they'll have kids

Oh, and I hope you get the E string back up and running soon.

Thank you on all counts, and a belated thank you to @HaMMerHeD for the kind words.

I had a spare under saddle bar piezo intended for an acoustic guitar and installed that as a stop gap. The shim I placed in the saddle pocket eliminated the weak E string, but the C string is still not as pronounced as I would wish. The guitar piezo does not sound as good as the Artec did, but it will work for the time being.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

After playing her all evening I can give some initial impressions. I love how light she is, and her curves snug right in to my body. She balances very well in my lap with zero neck dive, but I have not yet tested playing while standing with a strap. The 3/4" neck profile is quite comfortable, and the thicker neck feels solid. This surprises me due to the fact that I have never been a fan of thick necks, but I think that the trick is the 16mm string spacing. The nut is 1 5/8" wide and it feels very natural. I love the E to C tuning, and though I know the low B offers a lot of flexibility I never use the B string while playing.

There are a few things that need tweaking, though. I much prefer the fingerboard to be raised above the body, though it's not a deal breaker. Neck relief effectively stops at the 12th "fret" where the neck is joined to the body on the bass side. Having the fingerboard raised enough to tweak things will allow for me to get a more comfortable action dialed in while keeping the mwah reasonable.

It will be quite a while before I will have time to build the next version for myself, but I am going to incorporate improvements into the $50 bass for my daughter that will be one of my entries in the $100 bass challenge. If the challenge rules will allow for it I am also entering my sweet Aleph as well.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

A couple of other observations should be noted. When I built the ghetto piano pin tuner pine prototype last year I found myself playing a LOT more than usual. This was mostly due to the small form factor making it easy to carry around and leave in almost any room in the house, and compounded with the complete ease I had with the children having full access to the instrument free from fear of them harming it. The Aleph is finding itself in much the same position and it has driven home a point for me. Light basses with a small form factor leads to a lot more playing time for me, which leads me to my second point.

The shortened scale (32") and lack of any reference lines or markers is proving to be quite a challenge. I am not a very good bassist in general, and without the visual aids I am a terrible bassist. Seriously - plain I am just awful. The ambrosia maple fingerboard has a ton of character which is assisting in identifying visual references to keep myself from being too lost, but it's very slow going. I am also finding myself looking at the fingerboard less often and working on getting my intonation in the ballpark. Last night I was watching a movie with the bass in my lap and was able to mostly stay in tune with some of the music in the film, but I have a very long way to go. I am also finding myself thinking more about intervals, notes, and scales than boxes and positions. I can see a time coming when I will be focusing more on which notes I am playing than what fret I should be aiming for. After one night I can find C in various places on the bass, and from there extrapolate other notes. The odd thing is that I am not thinking as much in terms of what fret I am on, and honestly it feels like a liberation of sorts.

 

[gmjhowe]

I find keeping in tune on my upright electric bass is the easiest. I can do a pretty good job on my normal 34" fretless. A 20" scale bass ukulele seemed impossible without markers.

All comes down to science really, room for a larger margin of error the bigger the scale is.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

My daughter has taken a fancy to this bass. I am finding myself vying with her for time on it.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

Here's a video - she's pretty good actually.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Saay, what gives...

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

Saay, what gives...

It's a little hard to follow her fingers cuz she's so fast.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

It's a curious thing, Michael. In the screenshots of your CAD design, like I said, it looked stretched along the string axis and squished perpendicular to it. But as built, in playing position, in someone's hands, it looks normal and natural.

It's a very elegant design. Well done.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

It's a curious thing, Michael. In the screenshots of your CAD design, like I said, it looked stretched along the string axis and squished perpendicular to it. But as built, in playing position, in someone's hands, it looks normal and natural.

It's a very elegant design. Well done.

Thank you very much! I am honestly humbled by all of the praise I have received on this design, but I can't forget that my initial design was morphed into the final build after a ton of excellent feedback and influence from the kind people on this forum.

 

[michaelwayneharwood]

I pulled out my 34" scale fretless today and found myself straining to reach notes. It felt big, clunky, and unnatural. I find myself preferring the 32" "medium" scale, and now I am wondering how a 30" scale would feel.