Project report...
Benj
report for you reso-heads on what I'm up to, although nothing has
reached a point where I can report results yet.
I finally broke down and ordered one of those hipshot mechanical
tuning nightmares! Supposedly you can get three notes on each string
according to the lever position for that string. The hope is that this
will allow one guitar to quickly go between many open tunings.
Currently the "answer" is many guitars rather than many tunings. The
only exception to this is my Gibson LP and SG robo-tune guitars. As
an aside let me say I hate the tone of the SG compared to the LP
although the LP is heavy! The auto-tuner is not lightening fast but
still fast enough to reasonably use one guitar for a number of open
tunings. My Hipshot gizmo is not here yet, so I'll have to give you
guys a report once I get it and try it. My current plan is to put it
on the Chinese Tricone. I still haven't decided what to do about
electrifying that one yet. Maybe if this tuner works out it will move
that project forward too. In case you forgot I've had great luck using
banjo detuners with open tunings, especially to change from major to
minor tunings and to add a 7th note on a given string.
The other project is electric. For electric blues currently I have a
Hamer Slammer (Floyd Rose) that works very nicely in open E, a 7
string ESP LTD, (Floyd Rose) in open G [which is cool because with 7
strings you have a G on the lowest string instead of the usual D], and
a Dillion Dagger (std tuning Also FR) which I almost never use. And
of course there is the robo-LP mentioned above. So what I got
interested in was bottleneck Strat. So I bought a couple of SX cheapo
strats. Well that didn't work out so well. Part of the problem is the
curvature of the frets on the neck. There is a similar problem on my
kit LP (The robo-LP doesn't seem to be quite so curved). The bottom
line is that there was the summer Guitar Show and there I picked up a
used LP neck and a used Strat neck for cheap. I've just completed
refinishing them and I'm going to take them to the local luthier.The
instructions will be to rip out the frets. Sand the neck flat. And
then reinstall frets that are flat and not curved. This shouldn't be a
lot of cash so I've not got much to lose if it doesn't work as hoped.
Stay tuned.
And though not guitar-related. I bought a 7 string used Conklin bass
and found it had some high frets. And then I discovered there was a
Plek machine nearby! So I took it and had it Pleked. Yeah, $200 but
really, really worth it! I simply can't describe what it did to that
instrument. If you have a guitar that has tone worth investing an
additional $200 I'd URGE you to get one of these jobs done. The
transformation on a marginal instrument is positively amazing.
And lastly, today I got a bunch of Guitar parts from Rondomusic.com
but the really interesting thing was the set of harmonicas I ordered.
12 harmonicas in ALL keys for little over $40! They come in this
really nice case too. I tried them today and they aren't horrible or
anything. They are your usual Chinese harmonicas but at a few bucks
per harmonica it'd be really hard to go wrong for backup instruments
unless they were really bad... and they aren't.
That's about it for now. I'll report back once I give that hipshot
gizmo a try!
Benj
> That's about it for now. I'll report back once I give that hipshot
> gizmo a try!
Hipshot is here!
It's an interesting gadget! Basically there is a lever on each string.
Each lever has three positions: Tight, looser and loosest. Tiny allen
screws set the string tension of each position. The trick is to try to
figure out just what notes you want to be able to select on each
string for the choice of open tunings you want to use. The Hipshot
manual gives their suggestion which is pretty good! Just quickly
looking at that, the thing I noticed is that minor tunings are not
covered. Hence if you want both major and minor tunings probably the
best way to deal with that is to use banjo detuners to set major/minor
and the bridge levers to set the open tuning key. I'll have to study
this a bit more to see if I can find an optimum bunch of settings.
Once I figure out what kind of settings to use to get the maximum
number of open tunings from the levers, I think I'm going to mount it
on my Johnson Tricone. I'll report back as progress continues.
Benj
Well I've taken the Hipshot manual and gone through all the tuning
levers. And using the lever settings that Hipshot recommends, I've
compared to my large list of open tunings. The conclusion is that the
Hipshot lever bridge covers nearly all of them PROVIDED, you are
either willing to manually detune a string or two, OR use a banjo
detuner on that string (usually 1,2, or 3) to do the same thing. The
general idea is to use the detuner to move the III string between
major or minor (bIII) or between Major and Sus (#III). In all that
combo looks to be the smooth setup. So I was ready to look at
installation.
Ooops!
So I dug out the Johnson tricone ready to dig in! Trouble in River
City! As you may know a Tricone has some raised bumps where the
aluminum pieces that make up the bridge go to the cones. And the bad
news is that there is a "bump" that is like a raised ramp parallel to
the vertical center line of the guitar just to the bass side of the
strings. And what happens is that the corner of the Hipshot tuner just
hits that "ramp". That's because the original tailpiece is rather
narrow and missed ramp, but the Hipshot is about 3/8" wider at that
point and hits the ramp. This is going to take some thinking! maybe
even choosing a biscuit guitar instead!
I'll continue the story once I've figured out how to handle this.
Tony Done
Thanks Benj. I haven't checked this group for ages, but keep us
posted.
I've been wondering about making a palm lever for an electric to
detune the 3rd string, so I can go from eg D to Dm, or detune the
first string from D to D7. I haven't any firm ideas yet, but can see
some design possibilities that would wrok with a Gibson style stop
tailpiece.
Tony D