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[Easy Listening]

Thought I would photograph my axes to post - would love to see your collections !

FreeNote / G&L Tribute 12-Tone-Ultra Plus, an addictive instrument:


FreeNote / G&L Tribute 19-edo. Harmonic Design pickups are my favorite:


Sword Guitars / Ibanez RG 22-edo (this one's been posted here before):


Sword Guitars / Epi 24edo:


Scalloped Squier Stagemaster:


Scalloped Ibanez:


Fretless Peavy Cirrus 6:


Electric sitar - very cheap, not playable grade. Replaced tuners w/ Sperzels (installed tuners were helpless) and installed straplocks (can't sit w/ it as the jack is where you'd rest it on your foot, or the floor). Even so the electronics are bunk. I'm going to try to make this more usable but it makes me want a new Belgian one :)


Viola - always loved them, but find it difficult to relate to ...


Project guitars:

S500 that will become a FreeNote I'm sure:


A weird old Samick I'm refinishing and retooling, for conversion:


Ibanez 5-string for conversion:


Mockingbird "Calibre" for conversion:


Parker PM20 for conversion:

[Mark Allan Barnes]

I like your collection a lot. What are the extra notes on the FreeNote / G&L Tribute 12-Tone-Ultra Plus?

[Easy Listening]

What are the extra notes on the FreeNote / G&L Tribute 12-Tone-Ultra Plus?

"These new frets are 7th, 11th, and 13th Harmonics straight from the Harmonic Series ..."
from http://www.freenotemusic.com/site/store/guitars.html

[Easy Listening]

^ I don't honestly understand what that means, and I'm struggling to understand what this guitar represents. However I found it from the first moment to be effortlessly musical, and just to touch it liberates my ears. I've also noticed when playing alongside bass that it's possible to find notes that are even more tuned, beginning to tap into the JI implications. When I play it by myself I find that it allows easy access to "wrong notes" that were severely lacking in my palette. One thing I have noticed but cannot explain is that extra frets which come behind the major fret points, come very close behind (5, 7, 9, 12) and are otherwise placed somewhere closer but not exactly on a quartertone. I'd love to learn more about what this is and how this mentality could produce for example an "11-," "17-," or "23-tone-ultra plus."

[Ron]

Nice post. Nice guitars!

[Mat]

Interesting collection ... good to see a 6 string fretless bass and a sitar in there. I'm essentially a guitarist who restrings and plays basses so i would be very interested to see that 5 string Ibanez refretted. There aren't many microtonal basses around so that would be good to see :)

[Easy Listening]

I'm essentially a guitarist who restrings and plays basses

Do you mean you play on 34" scale with thinner strings?

[Mat]

Yep :)

[Easy Listening]

Can't stop thinking about it. What strings do you choose?
Do you play baritone also?
I assume your truss rods are loosened way out. What's that like long-term on an instrument?

I've heard of one bass player who uses banjo strings ... forget who.

In terms of microtonal basses I'll have a 19-edo to post before a week is up.

[Mat]

Here it is, normal 12ET fretting, 35" scale. Currently bass nickel roundwound .045 .035 .025 plus guitar plain steel .016p .013p .010p (guitar strings of sufficient length with old bass-ball ends threaded onto them). Tuned in either 3.5 semitone neutral thirds for 24EDO or alternating major / minor Just thirds for Just Intonation. I have a thread detailing this microtuning for 12ET instruments here: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/music-theory-lessons-techniques/161530-retune-play-quartertone-scales-microtonal-beginners-guide.html.
I miss the baritone pitches so i'm planning to restring one string lower, adding a .060. The truss rods are only a fraction of a turn away from loose, i assumed less stress on a neck is a good thing as long as they don't rattle. Before i discovered microtonality in 2008 my 6 string basses were tuned in fifths EBF#C#G#D# for a range of almost 5 octaves covering the range of bass and guitar, i used to use a .070 for the low bass E and a special .007 for the top D#. A baritone is tempting for the close string spacing that makes strumming easier, it would have to be 30" scale minimum.
No recordings of this tuning yet ... currently musically very unproductive, making digital art instead :)

[Easy Listening]

So amazing! Beautiful bass, btw - thanks for sharing about the strings and tunings. I love playing tuned to 3rds & 5ths - never thought about using  the neutral third. For 5ths I tried getting the CGDAEG "New Standard" but even after success (combining 3 sets of strings) I decided to put it away until I can score a fanned guitar.

[Mat]

Yeah Robert Fripp has been a big influence on me and was the inspiration for me to start tuning in fifths in 1996.
On the subject of tunings, how do you tune your various guitars? And / or what tunings have you tried?

[Easy Listening]

It's funny, right now I'm really trying to learn how to play a guitar tuned "normally" (normal being slightly abnormal on a non-12). I have been playing the 24-edo in modals, however; right now it's on EADEAE.

When I was a kid I was really into Sonic Youth and scordatura. I wasn't following any kind of advice (didn't know of any) and was just experimenting. I had various tunings, in many of which I had written songs, all written on a poetry scrapbook like 0/7/7/3/1 ... etc. I wasn't even using a reference for e.g. the A string, just all by ear. At this point how much I would love to find that scrapbook! But it's probably long gone.

During this time many of these tunings employed unisons, 5ths, and semitones.

When I started playing again a year ago, I fell in love with modal tunings, 3rds (avant-jazz hello) and "New standard tuning." But yeah, for right now I'm mostly playing normal tuning, which only adds to the challenge, as I never related to it in the first place ;-)

[Easy Listening]

New in collection, FreeNote / G&L 19-edo 5-string:

She looks, feels, & sounds great. Playing 19- bass is kind of relieving actually ...

[Ron]

def think we need a "pictures" section...  :)