For better or worse, the fundamental design of guitars has remained familiar since they electrified around a century ago. A few strings, a fretboard, and a body of some sort will get you most of the way there for an acoustic guitar, with the addition of electromagnetic pickups and wiring for electric variants. However, technology has advanced rapidly in the last 100 years outside the musical world, so if you want to see what possibilities lie ahead for modernizing guitars take a look at the Cyberbass created by [Matteo].
The guitar starts its life as many guitars do: with a block of wood. One of the design goals was to be able to use simple tools to build the guitar, so the shape of the instrument was honed with a Japanese hacksaw and the locations for the pickups and other electronics were carved out with chisels.
The neck of the guitar was outsourced since they take some pretty specialized tools to build, so simply bolting it to the body takes care of that part of the build, but [Matteo] had a few false starts setting the bridge in the exact location it needed to be.
Luckily he was able to repair the body and move the bridge. With the core of the guitar ready, it was on to paint and then to its custom electronics. [Matteo] built in not only a set of pickups and other common electric guitar parts but also integrated a synth pedal into the body as well as including a chromatic tuner.
With everything assembled and a few finishing touches added including a custom-engraved metal signature plate, the Cyberbass is ready to go on tour. [Matteo] learned a lot about guitar building in general, as well as a few things about electronics relating to musical instruments (including how expensive tuners work just as well as cheap ones).
Rose tinted memories of early YouTube and people grafting Kaoss Pads into guitars.
I think I own one of the first “Cyber” basses. The 1977 Gibson RD Artist bass. A collaboration with Gibson, Moog and John Entwistel…. Built in compression and expansion the RD can be dialed in to sound like Many different basses…. With it’s active electronics and Moog circuit board, it’s a beast.
imagine william gibson guitars
Haha i was confused there for a second, Gibson guitars?!
Then you’d have guitars that plug into you!
Hacking the Gibson sounds fun
FWIW I think the linked fretboard radiuser is needlessly complicated. Mine consisted of a router moving back and forth along the top of a simple mdf box. The neck could be mounted with either end at any height and instead of moving the router around the fretboard the neck itself rotates inside the box. This allows things like different radii at the neck and fingerboard and even different radii at either side of the fretboard just by changing the height the ends of the fretboard are mounted at.
Please post a link to plans for your jig.
I spent like 20 minutes looking and I couldn’t find one similar. Plans are as follows:
Build a wooden box, length must be longer than the neck, width should be the width of the router, height depends on the radius you need. The top should be open, a bottom is not needed but will help with rigidity.
Attach L brackets (drawer slides) to the top edges of the long sides, the router will slide back and forth along these.
Drill a hole near the center bottom of the short sides, this will be the axis that the fretboard rotates around.
Attatch a piece of wood to two round pieces that extend through the holes, I did this by drilling into a piece of 2×4 and gluing a piece of pipe in. One side needs to extend through the hole with a few inches excess because this is what you will use to turn the peice of wood. The other side can be short i.e. the width of the wood you used for the sides.
At this point you have a box that is open on top and that has a piece of wood near the bottom that you can rotate.
Attach your fretboard to the piece of wood, if you want a 14″ radius then the top surface of the fretboard must be mounted 14″ away from the axis of rotation using pieces of wood or w/e as spacers.
Move the router back and forth while turning the fretboard using the few inches of pipe that stick out from the axis of rotation hole drilled earlier. I did not make any locking mechanism because I just put a wrench on the pipe and had one person use that to turn the wood while the second person moved the router back and forth.
You can see how radius can be changed by mounting the ends at different heights (using different spacers) and how different radii on each side of the fretboard can be had by mounting the fretboard or axis of rotation slightly off center.
Actually this is pretty close and should explain it well. Major difference is that his is adjustable for 11 inches but mine is only adjustable for the plunge depth of the router i.e. 2 inches but mine is a lot more compact and less complicated.
https://www.kappi.com/blog/2015/10/diy-plan-for-a-fingerboard-radius-jig/
Nothing of value to add except that I wanted to say that that’s really neat!
All I can say is the Roland GR -77B and its pedal is still the best!
Not even going to touch the snottyness of guitar fit and finish and feel but just saying stringed midi guitars are almost as old as me … I’m 45
Love the idea but ~ A guy built a bass that does what the Electro-Harmonix MicroSynth pedal does anyway
Yup
The body actually reminds me of my Roland Guitar synth, back in the 80’s.
Not very impressed. I have a platform of foot pedals, going back to ’79, and they work. Traded up for a Line6 last year, but no real advantage there, either.
Get a nice stereo Ric, and a stereo cord, run one pickup into one amp, run your eFX boxes into another (props if you have a twin-channel amp head!), and you’re there…
As to my “portable pink floyd” steel I’ve planned a bass version mentally. It’s a self sustaining effects amped instrument. A backpack sized woofer would be needed to make the bass portable.
No-one seems to remember the classics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kDhpFaf4EY
[C64 Bass Guitar – Cool to be Square Wave?]