Comment

Comment by Grease Stains on June 7, 2012 at 9:57am

that came out sounding awesome.

i really like the sliding pickup idea!

Comment by Elmar Zeilhofer on June 7, 2012 at 9:48am

Johann Georg Stauffer (1778-1853) had some design ideas on that contra-guitar. More noteworthy is the fact that he had developped the tuning heads - and he employed a guy called C.F. Martin for 14 years - the later founder of Martin guitars in the U.S. I too like that historic details, so much to discover

Comment by eK on June 7, 2012 at 9:22am

Wow! Thank you Elmar for the info on the counter-guitar. I'm familiar with the harp-guitar, but this Viennese cousin is new to me. (Can you guess I'm a bit of an addict when it comes to exotic and unusual instruments?) I'm also not too up on traditional Viennese folk music - so that's one more thing I'll have to add to my to-do list to find out more about.

That's what's so great about music. Always something new to discover. And always something interesting to learn about. :-)

Comment by Elmar Zeilhofer on June 7, 2012 at 9:07am

thanks for the theorbo info, eK. Yes, let's sneak around in history to find new-old ideas for tinkering!

Here in Vienna the double neck Counter-guitar was commonly used in traditional folk-music, which nowadays has kinda revival. The pic below shows such an instrument (6 guitar strings plus 9 bass strings, chromatically tuned downwards).

Comment by Uncle John on June 7, 2012 at 8:48am

Sounds lovely.

Comment by James on June 7, 2012 at 8:44am

wow the build is amazing great illustration of tone  and pickup placement and the playing and  music was pure beautiful !!!

Comment by eK on June 7, 2012 at 8:38am

That sounds really nice. Lovely sound and great playing!

And Chris Fillmore is in good company too. There was an instrument called a theorbo back in the Renaissance and Baroque periods that had the same setup with open tuned bass strings (with its own set of tuners) sharing a body with an oversized lute. Some of them got quite big. IIRC there are some surviving period instruments that were close to two meters long on the bass side.

Always loved the sound of that instrument. It still gets played today (search YouTube) although the price for something like a theorbo is up the nosebleed range - assuming you can find someone to build you one. So it's nice to see someone do something like a more down-home version.

Hmm...Just thinking...there were a lot of really "odd" instruments developed during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Just flipping through some musical instrument history books could probably provide enough inspiration to keep a string playing tinkerer busy experimenting for a lifetime.

I also really like that sliding pup. Last time I saw a sliding pickup like that was on the sadly discontinued Gibson Grabber Bass. Rick Turner also currently does a variation on that with his Model 1 guitar which has a pup mounted on a rotating center plate. You can turn it so the poles are either higher on the bass or the treble side. Not as versatile as full sliding pickup, but those who play it say even slight changes make a huge difference in the tone of the guitar.

Cool stuff!

Comment by JUJU on June 7, 2012 at 8:35am

oooohhhhhhhhhh yes that sounds really nice and a great demo of just how much the tone changes depending on pickup position - nice build and nice playing well done Elmar :)

Comment by Elmar Zeilhofer on June 7, 2012 at 8:27am

thanks bros. Jef from Australia (Phrygian Kid) gave me the hint to make the pickup movable. Now the time was right to set it forth, I call it the "Railpup" if anyone would like to try one out, just send me a message and we talk about the design details.

And yes, Chris plays dang cool, I'm always impressed by his test flights.

Comment by Chris Ballard on June 7, 2012 at 8:03am

That is the best display of enginuity I have seen. The playing was awesome too. Music was so smooth and soothing. Fantastic for sure.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page