fucking around more w/ the fretless guitar (after creating a crude trem block to make more stable tuning) and this thing is just a lot of fun. Can I play music with it yet? Well, no, not yet, but...
w/ just your fingertips pressing the string into the wooden fretboard, it has a rather (slightly muted) shamisen-like sound. You can press down with the tip of your fingernail, instead, to give it a much less damped sound; ringing out quite clearly. It still has a shamisen quality (perhaps it's just this guitar? or just the nature of getting to select the temperament)
I almost wish I had a tight glove with, like, steel fingertips or something, so that I could smoothly press. I guess those would be... some sort of chainmail gloves or something. That would be awesome.
@aud that's cool I've wanted to play a fretless. Have you messed around with how much pressure you put and how it affects the sound? Also has it been difficult finding where the notes are true?
@FreestyleFlame
Have you messed around with how much pressure you put and how it affects the sound?ooooh, not with pressure, no! I'll give that an explicit go.Also has it been difficult finding where the notes are true?In this case, no; this is because this was a fretless conversion I did... the fret wire is actually still there! It's just ground down to the surface so it's totally even 😅 It's a 1985 Hondo Fame guitar and the frets were trashed; I figured it would be more fun to try and make it fretless. It was a ton
of work to get the frets ground down; multiple people suggested I was lacking in good sense because of it XD And they weren't wrong. It took ages and a lot of sanding/grinding.
But it's pretty fucking neat! So I have nice, shiny fret markers (for the most part; I accidentally did rip one fret out while grinding, so I ended up filling that hole with a combination of gel superglue and pink posca marker paint XD)@aud hmm very interesting. That's a cool idea that you just grinded it down haha. Yeah that sounds like a ton of work lmao! But good job now you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor! It's fun to customize your gear as you want to really make it your own. Now you have a one of a kind! Keep jamming my friend!
@FreestyleFlame eventually I would like to replace the bridge: it’s actually this really weird floating bridge!? Not a Floyd or anything like that, mind you; it’s not in great shape but converts to a hard tail rather nicely. If I’m ever able to get the tools and skills required to route a Floyd Rose, I might put one in there for the hell of if (why put a floating bridge on a guitar I can already perfectly control the pitch on!? Cause I like to fucking party 😂
).
But I’d be willing to put a fender style trem/bridge on it, too; just wanna focus on finishing up these mods first. @aud hmm interesting, it is fun adding a whammy bar for that extra little bit of control. Haha but yeah one thing at a time. Get it all good to go then play it for a while have fun with it and see what you want the next project to do.
What kind of music are you making?
Asta [AMP]