SamIAm

I have no words ... that is amazing! (S'manth furiously runs through the steps needed to 3D print a prototype of that system using a 2x4 fretless bass) S'manth x

Yes, yes yes! I am groked! I cannot put it in words well, but my vision will hopefully be clearer when I get the CAD model updated with tuners. COVID finally caught me on Sat (as well as 3 other band members, wonder where we got it!) and I've been feeling well rough but I shall redouble my effort to get it done. In my mind's eye Flo appears as a thing of elegant simplicity. I really like your idea about the bridge ... using fret inserts is an amazing suggestion. Easy enough for me to try and it may open the road for me to use a home grown piezo system. One thing I really liked about the UBASS was it's more upright tone, I'd love to be able to mix/blend the magnetic pups with a piezo pickup (Or rather with 5 individual piezo pickups). Might it be feasible to intonate by physically sliding the saddles up/down the body, relying on the pressure of the strings to hold them in the correct position? If I 3D printed them I can have them any shape I like and can print them in whatever height I want to adjust bridge action (I can get down to layer resolutions of 0.07mm on my 3D printer) 🤔 (OK S'manth ... less waffling and more CAD modelling!) S'manth x

Just one thing @Geek99 🤣 S'manth x

Ooooo ... those look really cool!! How do they work? S'manth x

Nice vid @stewblack, really interesting to see how bass as an element of music has developed. But OMG 64 ft organ pipes!!! And relating to the OP video, I feel really rather sorry for the "Fact Man" ... he seems so deeply sad S'manth x

Awesome! S'manth x

Indeed, my intention at present is single ball with the ball at the head. A very informed point of view! My current direction (whilst not double ball) would require custom strings to fit the Steinberger Gearless (Assuming they could even cope with the tension); A wee hole at the top of the neck, parallel to the trussrod would accommodate an Allen key, a spare in my gig bag would likely obviate the risk of not having one to hand on the odd occasion that I needed it. Being able to utilise ball end in the tuners would open up more options like technology for music or nova. Thank you @Andyjr1515 🥰 S'manth x

Not at all ... thanks for taking the time to read and contribute. I agree the points you raise may be challenging. I've emailed Newtone to ask what sort of string will I need on my B0 to get a reasonable tension (and what will that tension be); the whole tension thing has me scratching my head a lot! But if I get away with a tension that is within the range found on a guitar then I should be OK? The 0.060 size limit is a bummer, I imagine I'll need a larger gauge; so assuming B was too big but C would fit the tuner I've asked Newtone if I can use just the core (C) through a tuner or if it would lead to wrap delamination. And if it is a problem, could they do another thinner wrap that would cover the B-C section in my diagram and run some way along the B towards A ... if this thinner wrap plus the core was 0.060 or less then we're cooking (subject to the tension question). I also asked them whether sending the string around the pulley was likely to cause any problems for the string. I saw the patent expiry but I don't understand enough about patent law, can they not just tweak it a bit to be more in line with what they actually do (as you say the original is very vague) and then renew it or get a new patent? Having said that a slew of 3rd party makers may be good, tho the reviews I've seen of other Steinberger copy tuners (you know who you are) do not make me think they are worth investigating. If only my 3D printer could print metal parts! S'manth x

In this case it may well be tuning machines from Turing machines. 🤣

How would you do this? Apart from getting Nelson to do it ... S'manth x (And please dig, dig, dig some more ... I'd love to see your drawing)

Much to my horror I'm finding this already! 😱 @Jabba_the_gut, headless hardware is proving to be a challenge. Some of the features I'm looking for are common/rare/expensive. Captive ball-end head mount: Let's start with the easy bit lol! There seem to be a number of approaches. I prefer to not use a grub screw approach (I find it too easy to lose Allen keys!) So the options seem to be these two approaches. I need to ensure that the distance between the ball-end and the string winding is short enough so that the strings are at their full diameter when they get to my 0 fret. Individual bridge units. The approach I'm taking to reduce the LOA of Flo is to use a string through body design with the bridge front mounted and the tuners on the rear. ⁉️ Given she's multi-scale the bridges are quite spread out and so the units need to be individual. And look at that ... LOA of 846mm (33.3 in) and B0 scale length of 780mm (30.7 in) ... just what I was aiming for (I wonder if it will sound good ... or even play at all!) They also need to be thru body compatible. There seem to be a few about, the Babizc FCH are my favourites (But about $80 each!) Others range in price (From ... "I'd need to sell body parts" to "At that price it must be made of cardboard") I might look at getting a set of these and mounting them in individual strips of angle metal Google turns up a number of DIY bridges, so this approach seems viable. Tuning machines The tuning machines (I think) can be in a single block or separate units. ALP do something that 'might' do the trick, but whilst the reviews I've read praise it's design ... it seems to be built from low quality materials which means it slips/slides/detunes too easily The more I research the more I come to believe that Steinberger is the god of tuning machine designs. Two of these stand out to me as being suitable for Flo. Steinberger Locking Gearless Tuners They need no tools, have a ration of 40:1 and are not insanely expensive (< £100 for a set of six) but ... they state a maximum string gauge of 0.060! I believe that I am going to need thick strings for my B0 (perhaps 0.130) I wonder for a 0.130 outer wrap diameter what the core diameter would be; I know it will differ from one mfr to another but ... ? I wonder if it is "safe" to only have the inner core go through the tuning machine or if would cause the outer wrap to unravel? The other tuners I love are those on NS Design Radius. But I am not even sure they are sold separately and would likely cost way too much! Buy or Build The ball-end head thingies seem easy enough to make, the saddle/bridge a little more complex. NS Design Details can be found in the patent. 🤔I wonder if I should aim for a hat-trick build. How cool would it be that if someone asks me "Which elements of Flo I custom designed" I could answer "All of them". Tho, just for clarity, at present I am most certainly not thinking about winding my own pups! S'manth x

Just watched this rather brilliant video and thought I'd share ... hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I'll need to check out the rest of the series. S'manth x

I totally buy that! Having only played UBASSes, I did go shopping for a bass guitar. With a 34inch I felt like I was having to reach into the building next door to reach the low frets and my previously effortless stretching over 5 frets could barely manage 3! I did have an Ibanez Mikro 4 string for a short time (I really liked it) but I play in a ukulele band and it stood out like a sore thumb! Ponty (my bass) has a scale length of 24.5 and I really like it, but in going for a 5'er I don't think I could get away that short AGCs appear lovely! And the work that Andy turns out is amazing!

Similar, I did my Physics A level in the early 80s ... it was always my favorite subject. The reading I've been doing is fascinating and I do grok the underlying factors better than I did a few days ago ... now I think I'm just going to go to NewTone, tell them what I'm looking for and let them do their magic! S'manth x

They sound really quite good! They do a multiscale, but it's too wee for me

So basically, what I'm hearing... S'manth, less and more And so ... B0 - 800mm scale length (31.49 in) G2 - 730mm scale length (28.74 in) And now to model it S'manth x

Do you have a licence for that!? x

This is one of the scariest things I've read of late! 🤣

I'm attempting to 'scale the heights' of the early design of Flo. (Sorry 😜). It appears that the scale & fretboard will be a major (perhaps the major?) driver of the design. It will determine neck length, bridge positioning, etc. Fundamental to the EBB5 is the use of 5 strings; I wish to give myself the extra low range provided by a B0 string so for open tuning I'm aiming for B0 E1 A1 D2 G2. From what I have read on the internet, it seems that longer B strings play/sound better ... some claim that the speaking length on a B0 string needs to be 31/32 inches or more (I've been heavily influenced by the lovely basses that birdsong produce). This site was my favourite describing how 'not to fret' about fret spacing ... (Sorry again). I'm reading it through and am likely to do so again (and again). I started to poke around at the various fret spacing tools on the internet and then came across this great video on creating a parametric fretboard model in Fusion 360 (I use Fusion a lot for 3D printing) OK, so this will let me model things ... but during this research more questions came up than were being answered, for example: If I am aiming for a 32 inch B0 scale length, what should my G2 be? So I started scouring specs for various other guitars (Very much a work in progress) But it seems that the B0/G2 ratio tends to lie in the 1.06-1.09 range. But why any particular scale length for a B0? I mean, why pick 812.8 (32 inch) and not 815 or 830? Given that I just want it to sound good and not be too floppy, what is "best"? I gather that the construction of the string (diameter/core/winding/taper) will affect stiffness and mass per unit length, which will in turn affect resonance of the open string (Does this even matter!?). Several folks have mentioned Newtone custom strings and looking at the permutations gave me a headache! 🤣 And then ... I stumbled across this Mind blown! So the stiffness of a string can affect how floppy it will be, but can also affect how well intoned it will play ... but also impact on the scale length and the tension being playable and ... I feel like I cannot see the woods for the trees! 😱 I am finding it all very interesting, but ... Is there some "scientific" way I can land on an "optimum" scale length per string (or at least for B0 & G2 which would then drive the other string's scale lengths ... did I say I'm going for a multiscale) or do I just stick my finger in the air and decide "How long is a piece of guitar string" ... or is there another way? Guidance/help/experience all very (very) welcome! S'manth x

I have never considered designing a stringed instrument before. The most advanced thing I've attempted to date was 3D printing ... a kazoo! 🤣 In my mind's eye I can almost picture how Flo will look; I can imagine how she will feel to hold. My mind's ear is not so clear, simply want Flo to sound lovely and thuddy, no nasty buzzing or other artefacts; It is her basic sound that I'm thinking about as I imagine I can affect this quite a bit by my technique and a good signal chain. I'm going to be documenting my musings, things I've found, ideas etc here; partly 'for the record', partly so that others may find something of interest ... but a large part of it is to expose the design to the BC gang who have "been there & done that" and will hopefully point out any gaffs ... before I make them. So ... if you spot something that is not quite right, please pitch in! S'manth x

Actually, apologies to self-promote @Billy Bongo... but I've a rather nice Focusrite Scarlett USB-2 Audio interface listed for sale in the marketplace ...

Thanks Andy, I'm rather pleased with it! Dimensions: 85mm deep, 190mm wide, 45mm high (60mm to top of switches) Weight: 380g Configuration: Using the built-in webserver from a browser on computer/tablet/phone. Power: External USB via USB-C port Wifi: Built in, can connect to WiFi hub or act as a standalone unit (For instance if I need to reconfigure it at a venue) Midi over BLE: Built-in The various mechanical bits and bobs (switches/etc) cost about £25 The various circuit boards (ESP-32/OLEDx4/OLED Multiplexer/etc) £32 Connector wires, perspex, tools (Dremel,3D printer) and assorted stuff (filament, bolts/mounts) I had to hand So all in well under a ton in parts, much more cost effective than buying one off the shelf (If you could even find something with it's capabilities![*]) and I can get it to do anything I want! Well worth building one if one has the skills (or can find someone here on BC who would do it for you ) [*] I did not need all the capabilities that the PedalinoMini™ supports, which are listed as: Plug-and-play with any MIDI-compatible app on iOS 8 and above as well as OS X Yosemite and above. High customizable using web interface Bluetooth, WiFI, USB and legacy MIDI interfaces No extra drivers to connect Windows, macOS, iOS (iPad/iPhone) and Android Bluetooth LE MIDI (iOS and macOS compatible) Network MIDI (aka AppleMIDI or RTP-MIDI) ipMIDI Open Sound Control (OSC) IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 2.4 GHZ with WPA/WPA2 authentication Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0 DIN MIDI IN and MIDI OUT connectors MIDI routing MIDI clock master and slave MIDI Time Code (MTC) master and slave OSC to MIDI and viceversa Any number of pedals of any type in any order Auto-sensing footswitches and expression pedals The range of 3rd party pedals that can be connected in is amazing! S'manth

this is true

A few years old from on of our Xmas shows (I was playing my UBASS at the time)

You need one of these https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MD464ZM/A/thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter