Playability of a Homemade Musical Instrument

[Mustafa Umut]

Homework Statement

I have a project in my mind. Removing the neck of the electric guitar , Removing thin steel guitar strings from my electric guitar and replacing them with 1/5 inch thick brass tubes. And than play like a guitar and amplifying with a sensor. There will be no fret contacts. Is this instrument could produce sensable tones ?

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

Attemp of the solution is to make extreme long life , cheap , no neck , no strings , no body but 4 thick brass tubes and a carrying spacer. Playing like a bass guitar and amp with an sensor.

 

[collinsmark]

I wouldn't think so. At least not quite the way you described the setup.

But if you did experiment with something of that nature, make the tubes steel instead of brass (aluminum isn't good either). You'll want a ferromagnetic material for the vibrating part. (Electric guitar pickups work by detecting changes in the magnetic field by using a standing magnet wrapped with a coil. Brass or aluminum strings/tubes won't change the magnetic field very much.) And even then, I don't think the vibration of a thick tube will be enough to register much of a signal using the pickups, even if they were steel. (But maybe it would be enough if the tubes were thin. You might want to experiment.)

[Edit: Let me correct myself. It might actually work with thick tubes (I still suggest the ferromagnetic material though). But you'll want the pickups to be under the tubes, somewhere near where the the tubes vibrate back and forth a lot -- not too near where they are constrained by the bridge. That might work. In other words, use shorter, thick tubes, and mount them such that the middle of each tube is constrained and mounted, leaving each end to vibrate. Pickups should be underneath the tubes, somewhere near one of the ends of the tubes. You'd still only get 4 notes though.]

Also, from the way you describe things, you wouldn't be able to change the pitch of the notes. Each tube would have only a single note (and its natural harmonics). But you might be able to play it like xylophone, best case, one note per tube (although you might be able to change the tube's tone depending on where you hit the tube, perhaps). So for a four tube instrument, you'd have a total of 4 notes. But I wouldn't bet on it working too well. Oh, and you wouldn't be able to tune it either.

 

[collinsmark]

Although if just wanted to get rid of the "fret" sounds when sliding down the neck, there are already fretless bass (electric) guitars. One plays a fretless bass the same way one plays a fretted one, with the exception that that the "fret" hand (usually the left hand) has to be right on the money. There is little or no room for error. Popular bands such as Primus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and others, often/usually/always use a fretless bass.

You can buy fretless basses already made, take an existing bass to a guitar repair shop and have a professional take off the frets and refinish the board, or take off the frets yourself.

I have an old bass guitar that I defretted myself. I carefully ripped off the frets with a pair of pliers. I didn't even bother refinishing the neck. The crevices where the frets were are still there, but one can't really even tell by the sound. It sounds pretty good. But be careful about doing such a thing. Once you rip off a fret, there's no going back.

 

[232Thorium]

Another thought, if you wanted to be able to change notes on a tube, is to make a sliding extension for the tubes. Something like a slide whistle (google it). That would allow for continuous frequency changes.