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Permalink Reply by Richard Dean on March 6, 2018 at 8:33am

I thought our unspoken motto was 6 strings is 3 too many...12???? arghhhhh

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 6, 2018 at 12:23pm

They also have a 16 string and a 24 string. Your basically finger tapping guitar, baritone guitar and bass strings.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on March 6, 2018 at 1:42pm

It doesn't work the way you may think it does. It's more akin to a midi controller than a guitar.

https://youtu.be/aJuVzW-pM1g

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 6, 2018 at 10:19pm

It may have a midi controller and may be using a special Ghost Saddle transducer system in it.

I'm thinking that a long scale with tall frets and hot pickups would work for a tapping style instrument along with a good amp of course. Rod piezo's and a good preamp through a acoustic amp would work for clear tones.

I did notice in the video that the Harpejii has long sustained notes that didn't seem to stop til a finger was removed from the string. That wouldn't work with a passive stringed version. It would need a onboard sustainer effect. That wouldn't be hard to do with all the little onboard effects that are out these days.

An onboard Psycho knob would be good, Delay, Flanger, Chorus/Reverb and some of the Electro Harmonix effects that mimic organs and synths would offer a great little instrument.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on March 6, 2018 at 9:28am

Rose asked my opinion about building one of these a few weeks ago. After doing some research my opinion is that it's not for your average CBG builder. Certainly out of my league anyway. 

It looks cool but, after skimming through the patent, seems like it would be very hard to make. It has a several signal processing circuits (like an electronic keyboard).

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITO...

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 6, 2018 at 12:30pm

I was thinking about using a few rail pole pickups wired in parallel so you get the hum cancelling benefit while getting single coil clarity.

Was thinking of using a 6 string guitar set, 6 string Fender bass VI string set and a 4 string bass set for 16 total strings. So 3 rail Strat type pickups should work.

Won't be making it soon, I have too many other projects to finish.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on March 6, 2018 at 2:03pm

I think you could make a similar tapping instrument.

But notice the clarity of the harpejji?

https://youtu.be/uuDwRdqSoHs

You only hear the note as long as it is fretted and you do not hear the sound of the open string when the note is released (like when you hammer on/pull off).

You'd probably want an individual pickup for each string. Individual piezo saddles would work well for this.

http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Electronics/Pickups/Electric_Gui...

I think you would wire each pickup's ground to it's string and each fret to ground so that when a string is pressed to a fret the circuit is closed and it makes sound and when the string isn't fretted the circuit is open so the string is silent.

You'd probably also want to use a multi-effects pedal with heavy use of compression/sustainer effects.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 6, 2018 at 10:21pm

Good ideas.

These are a couple organ effects that would help out a lot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZKVPzRyn50

www.youtube.com/watch?v=av4X84lChEE

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on March 7, 2018 at 12:31am

Yeah, those look perfect for the this project.

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Permalink Reply by JL on March 7, 2018 at 12:34am

I watched the youtube clips, yes the open strings can/do sound, I suspect the player's technique rather than the instrument for muting open strings.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 7, 2018 at 8:38am

I saw another video on youtube of a demo with the player struming strings. Not all the strings were fretted and some still sounded off, so I think your right unless it has a switchable function from string style to keyboard style.

Korrigan's idea with the piezo per string that only sounds when fretting(ground circuit tied to frets) is a great idea for only working while fretted. So maybe switch between piezo to pickups to get both styles.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on March 7, 2018 at 12:28pm

I'm curious about this, can you link a video that shows open strings being played?

This guy is playing pretty aggressively and it doesn't sound to me like the vibrations of the string is picked up unless fretted. 

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