Fanned frets why

Galbraith wanted an instrument where he could play notes one 5th lower than on a standard 6-string, and one 4th higher as well, adding a full extra octave to the instrument. He called his design the "Brahms guitar" because he found he could play convincing arrangements of Brahms solo piano repertoire on his instrument. He then built up his own repertoire of arrangements where he plays solo classical guitar with lower bass parts and a fuller sound.

Next up came Charlie Hunter , who worked with luthier Ralph Novak to create an 8-string electric guitar that has the range of the regular 6-string but also adds a full octave lower. This design has a longer scale length enabling the extra bass range, but doesn't enable any higher notes. Charlie Hunter plays in a style where he covers the range of both the bass guitar and the electric guitar all by himself Ralph Novak's slogan is "Fire you bass player".

Hunter usually performs with just himself and a drummer. Now progressive heavy metal and djent guitarists are getting into the game.

Strandberg Guitarworks makes a Misha Mansoor model. The technique of fanned frets has also been applied to the conventional 6-string guitar and the conventional 4, 5 and 6-string bass guitar. The theory here is that the lowest strings and the lowest notes make a stronger, fuller sound by giving them extra vibrating length, and the upper strings get a brighter, clearer sound by giving them a shorter vibrating length.

The best example is Dingwall bass guitars , whose low "B" string has a scale length of 37 inches mm , while a conventional bass guitar with a low "B" string has a scale length of 34 or 35 inches mm or mm. As luthier Chris Larkin explains for this 9 string bass monster - To get suitable tension on the huge variation of string sizes it required different scale lengths for each string and so needed fan frets.

The question of: "What are the benefits of guitars with fanned frets? The correct answer depends on what your intentions are. If all you ever want to do is strum chords to back up your singing voice or play along with others, then you'll do just fine on your standard six string guitar. However, if your ambitions run far beyond playing backup with other instruments to soloing on one guitar, then you've got a world of trouble.

It's been said the guitar is an easy instrument to play, but a difficult instrument to play well. And so it is. Why is that? It's because great music is the range of the Grand Staff and then some. That's the nature of the beast. So there are only three options! Either 1 start or join a band or an orchestra, 2 increase the string count, or 3 possibly do many additional practice sessions trying to do what the human hands were never designed to do.

There are three things that can trouble great guitar playing: 1 String count. And 3 Choice of tuning. If you can bring all three of these parameters together in the correct order, you can make many many technical problems go away.

How many strings should the guitar have? Ten strings seems to work well when tuning in 4ths, which is what medium sized guitars are usually tuned to. I tune my fan fretted ten string classical in fourths with my third right in the middle between my 5th and 6th string. This allows me to preserve six string chord shapes. In fact it opens up another useful chord shape not found on six stringers. I play five wound bass strings and five unwound treble strings.

This configuration works really well and allows me to chase music I wouldn't otherwise go after. In fact: There's very little music I can't chase after.

I like to call my guitar a Grand Staff guitar because it makes sense to write music for it using the Grand Staff as opposed to how it's usually done. It may surprise some people I play a fan fretted ten stringer, and as far as I know it's the only one so far in existence. What surprises me is no one ever thought of it before.

In any case I have played six, seven, and an eight stringers before I got the ten stringer. So I know a few things about string count, string length and choice of tunings. Getting a firm grasp on this concept helped me understand WHY I was getting the results I perceived from my experiments in bracing and other guitar design elements, and was instrumental pun intended in empowering me to push my designs further and get better results.

Remember what I mentioned earlier about the other parts of the guitar? The guitar top for example, has to fold or divide into different parts much like the string.

Think about this when you are laying out your bracing and thicknessing the top plate. A thinner top will divide or fold more easily resulting in more audible high frequencies.

That thin top will have less resistance to vibrating in smaller pieces in order to accommodate the shorter high frequency wavelengths. Or in other words it will be more efficient in that regard for high frequency energy.

Of course there are many variable to consider and experimenting is important to getting a sense of how much control you have and how to balance it out. All the while keeping in mind the effects of string gauge, tension, and mass. Pretty simple. The Single Scale Problem. The problem is that we usually have six strings each with a different set of the above mentioned criteria.

Using only one scale length causes us to compromise overall. If we use a fanned fret system, we can specifically choose a different scale for each string that perfectly suits our needs and allows us to incorporate all of the necessary criteria we have without compromising on any of the strings.

Yes, it is actually more ergonomic than playing a standard single scale instrument! Look down at your hand and spread your fingers as wide as you can. Do you notice how your fingers are actually fanned out, emanating from a common point? Building a successful fanned fret guitar requires far more than just picking a couple scales and slapping them on there, but with the right information the process can be easy and fun. Tom Bills has been hand crafting one of a kind custom guitars for the top players and collectors around the world since You can view and learn more about his guitars by visiting his website: tbguitars.

Your email address will not be published. If you change your mind, you can unsubscribe anytime. It works. I am lucky enough to reside in the same province as Sheldon Dingwall, and as a result, there happen to be a couple of places in the province that I can play on Dingwall basses.

I can attest to the awesomeness of his basses, and how amazing the B-string sounds. I absolutely love it! Otherwise, the craftsmanship in this bass is amazing! The longer scale length means the low strings are at nearly the same tension as the high strings. With conventional basses I learned to compensate and change touch depending on the string, to keep timbre and dynamics consistent. The afterburner has a bunch of other virtues independent of fanned frets.

I have been playing an After burner II for about 1. The quality of Dingwall basses are second to none. A super P is next on my list!! I build my own basses, and my favorite right now is one made from a solid plank of quilted maple, and is muti-scale, with fanned frets.