PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

siriusbliss wrote:

Nestor wrote:

siriusbliss wrote:Here's my latest addition.

p.s. this is fun!

That is exactly that a "serious bliss"... It is strange how in the pictures we see it as it is not, I mean, my eyes lies about the lines. It is an amazing instrument! To play with so many strings must be a challenge. The highest string must be something like B, am I right?

So far it's 'standard' tuning with an added lower F# and B (baritone range).
The angle of the photo highlights the fanned frets.

Greg

I'd love to hear something on it, could you post a link to a little mp3 for us to hear it? If you can of course... That would be very interesting I guess. And a lower F#, wow, cannot imagine that.

Nestor wrote:

I'd love to hear something on it, could you post a link to a little mp3 for us to hear it? If you can of course... That would be very interesting I guess. And a lower F#, wow, cannot imagine that.

I'm working on it.

Greg

siriusbliss wrote:

Nestor wrote:

I'd love to hear something on it, could you post a link to a little mp3 for us to hear it? If you can of course... That would be very interesting I guess. And a lower F#, wow, cannot imagine that.

I'm working on it.

Greg

Great!

Yep I've been waiting to see how close it sounds to Stick, plus Greg's tapping chops thru Eventide / Scope etc. Or even just dry would be great

dante wrote:Yep I've been waiting to see how close it sounds to Stick, plus Greg's tapping chops thru Eventide / Scope etc. Or even just dry would be great

I've decided to replace the Graphtech preamps with a custom-built one (the GT's are too noisy), as well as possibly some custom MIDI pickups as well.
So it's currently back up in Seattle getting the final touches completed.

Here's the gallery.

Stay tuned.

Greg

p.s. sorry for hijacking this thread.

Well, Im sure you'll include your others - you do still have others ?

dante wrote:Well, Im sure you'll include your others - you do still have others ?

Yes of course.

G

i can see why you're so proud of this one, though.

I have rarely seen such an amazing craftsmanship. It is so detailed.

It's sort of a hybrid between a guitar and a mega-bass. For playing jazz, that must be the ultimate guitar.

I don't think that it will sound similar to the sticks, because they don't have "body mass", and so they tend to sound very skeletal. The Scorpion, I guess, with its carved spaces and the big body that it has, must have a much wormer sound than a stick. I imagine a warm, deep and clear sound.

What I'm curious about it is the way frets work, they reminds me the workings of a sitar, because of the curved shape in between the frets. I can imagine that this gives you the possibility to express waves of changing frequencies and vibrato, just as you do in a sitar. If you can do that, coupled with so many strings, MIDI, and a good tone, well..., this must be a dream to play! I can imagine an "evern ending improvisation goin on"...

Nestor wrote:I have rarely seen such an amazing craftsmanship. It is so detailed.

It's sort of a hybrid between a guitar and a mega-bass. For playing jazz, that must be the ultimate guitar.

I don't think that it will sound similar to the sticks, because they don't have "body mass", and so they tend to sound very skeletal. The Scorpion, I guess, with its carved spaces and the big body that it has, must have a much wormer sound than a stick. I imagine a warm, deep and clear sound.

What I'm curious about it is the way frets work, they reminds me the workings of a sitar, because of the curved shape in between the frets. I can imagine that this gives you the possibility to express waves of changing frequencies and vibrato, just as you do in a sitar. If you can do that, coupled with so many strings, MIDI, and a good tone, well..., this must be a dream to play! I can imagine an "evern ending improvisation goin on"...

Yes, it has a great 'big-body' type jazz sound sort of like an L5 mixed with a Gretsch, and when you crank it, it pulls off an ES-335 or Gretsch type tone. Sort of a growl. The bass-side has enough flexibility to go from funky high-end to a rolled-off sort of tone with a Stick-like attack.

The frets are scalloped, so yes you can do bends within a chord, or attempt to pull off McLaughlin-esque warped solo lines. Bending notes in the upper ranges - due to the fret angles - gives me almost an octave of bend ratio.

I'm still growing into it.

Greg

Wow Greg, that sounds soooo interesting... It is a traditional instrument if you want , and an experimental one also. What else can you ask for in a guitar

I guess that it is hevier than a regular bass, but not that much.

What about silencing other strings while you play, let say, the first or second string or the seventh or eight ones?

Heres a couple ,more soon

skwawks wrote:Heres a couple ,more soon

Nice!

Love the lefties!

Greg

Thanks Greg... us lefties do it our way love that machine of yours too.
Mr Arkadin I've long been interested in earvana nuts . Was there a big change after installing it ,like did the general sound feel better ,was it easier to tune , did you have to do a lot of adjustment to the bridge pieces . In return I can say that when I had to swap out my tone pot on my P bass I put in a stellartone tonestyler pot . It's as excellent as you would want out of $100 tone pot . I got the notchy one ..16 positions ..and it's so good to have pot that does change gradually not just lurch from boom to clang in the blink of an eye

Hagstrom Swede.. U.S. G+L 5500... Mex Strat made out of mex bits and U.S. fender greasebucket electrics from the stratosphere on U.S. ebay and Bill Lawrence pups ,they are nice and not expensive at all

Ibanez artist with Nipon no P bass pups and electrics and with the frets incredibly painfully filed flat ...jeez after 2 days my fingertips were agony . '74 P bass, someone had repainted it badly so I just stripped it and put in the previously mentioned tonestyler pot and a gotoh bridge . My first electric ,a chinese strat which actually plays very nicely but it had crapulous electrics so now it's just got U.S. strat neck pup and vol. pot and a gk3 . It was replaced by the squier that ended up a 5 string slack tuned witch , As a new guitarist it took me a while to realise that the chinese copy was a much better player than the squier and the squier was headed for the bin until I read Keith Richards book where he said that the bottom E when you slack tune and which ends up at D just gets in the way which is why you'll see him playing with 5 strings a lot . He's right, it just gets in the way so I reorganised the head stock ,got a bridge plate made, 2 and a half ml. stainless, it just rings like a bell . cut a new nut and put some mighty mite hot rails in so the pole pieces weren't a problem . I like them they are dirty hot punchy little suckers just right for the swamp.I got a prewired pickguard with the pups and just sort of rolled it over into a lefty pickguard , it's all a bit backwards but the squier which is in a previous picture is so much her own thing that the controls being backwards , upside down and generally confusing fit quite well with the vibe

siriusbliss wrote:

Nestor wrote:

I'd love to hear something on it, could you post a link to a little mp3 for us to hear it? If you can of course... That would be very interesting I guess. And a lower F#, wow, cannot imagine that.

I'm working on it.

Greg

Here's a short raw video of me screwing around on the 'Scorpion' guitar yesterday.
http://vimeo.com/31313524

(synths are ModIV with OBX patch and P5 bass)

Greg

siriusbliss wrote:Here's a short raw video of me screwing around on the 'Scorpion' guitar yesterday.
http://vimeo.com/31313524
Greg

Thats good shows good conventional playing of clean, distorted and synth styles. Now for the tap demo ... ?

skwawks wrote:Ibanez artist with Nipon no P bass pups and electrics and with the frets incredibly painfully filed flat ...jeez after 2 days my fingertips were agony .

Good pic I was wondering where the other 3 were till I noticed the two pics weren't identical

thank you everyone for all these great pics