Neck Widths

[dcrosby]

Hi folks, looks like I've got the tapping fever and am looking to buy my first tapping instrument. Since I have small hands I'm particularly concerned about the width of the neck on various instruments. Of the three manufacturers I've looked at (Stick, Megatar, and Krappy), Megatar is the only one that I can't find the neck specs for. Does anyone know what the width of a True Tapper is at the nut and near the pickups?

Do you think a ten or even an 8 string might be better starting out?

Thanks

[arsacane]

I have average sized hands, but with a short pinky. A 10 string stick is pretty comfortable to play in classic tuning (v.g 4ths / 5ths crossed). I have a 12 strings warr and found it a little bit too wide for me to play crossed so I sent it to my local luthier to uncross it (parallel 4ths).
If you really have troubles with the neck width you can always go uncrossed; if you can play guitar, you can play an uncrossed tapping instrument.


Cheers, Daniel

PS: Welcome!

[traktor]

The Megatar neck is 3.5 inches at the nut, and 4.75 inches where neck joins the body.

The trick about neck width has more to do with your body position than the absolute width of the neck. If you have a narrow neck (say, a guitar) then you can hold the instrument horizontal, and the length of your fingers easily reaches all the strings.

On any tapping instrument with the wider neck, the idea is to position it vertical. This makes your fingers parallel to the frets -- and often overlooked, it also dramatically changes your reach -- because now the length of your *palm* plus the length of your fingers is your reach.

But this only happens with upright positioning. Collapse your posture, drop your head, pull your left elbow back behind you, and dip the headstock away from the vertical ... and every one of these changes of posture is both unhealthy for your wrists (especially the left one) and reduces your reach quickly.

Try it. You'll see --

If small hands are truly a problem, there is always the Uncrossed String Arrangement. But I have small hands and can reach completely beyond the far strings in each hand, simply by using the healthy upright positioning.

Before deciding, see this video. It shows how you can do an experiment that will quickly allow your own body to tell you whether crossed or uncrossed string positioning will be best for you --

http://megatar.us/CROSSEDVSUN


Hope you find this information useful!

-- Traktor

PS: All of those tapping instruments are good ones, but if you do decide to get a Megatar, remember that if you get your order in before 12/31/2009 you can use the special Meg-Millennium special pricing (http://megatar.com/promo/meg-millennium/) which can save you an extra $300-$700 on your new Megatar.

PPS: A twelve-string instrument can, if set up correctly, provide much faster learning because you can train left-hand and right-hand identically for your first learning, and this will also maximize fast transference of what you already know from keyboard, bass, or guitar. For this reason, in my opinion it is *easier* to learn a 12-string with two stringsets, and if your time has any value at all, then any 12-string, set up properly, costs less for the music produced, than a 10-string or 8-string.


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[dcrosby]

OK thanks for the info. Just so I understand: a Megatar has two sets of strings, tuned like a standard bass on the left and a standard guitar on the right but in all 4ths meaning B goes to C and E goes to F. That's considered "bass bottom" tuning and would be played with hands crossed. I can get one set up uncrossed putting the bass strings on the right of the neck (bass top?). Correct?

In order to change tuning from crossed to uncrossed (on any instrument), would I have to adjust the nut and bridge? If I were to go with a 10 string instrument couldn't I set it up like a Megatar without the F strings? I'm not sure how the overlapping (common) notes from string set to string set affects how the instrument is played.

Is there an online resource that shows how the strings map to piano or guitar in different tunings?

Thanks again

[Blackie]

Traktor, the information in your video is wrong. Matthias Soroff was playing uncrossed in 1984, long before Wolfgang. But of course, Mathias doesn't own a Megatar...
Happy Holidays
Blackie

[traktor]

Traktor, the information in your video is wrong. Matthias Soroff was playing uncrossed in 1984, long before Wolfgang. But of course, Mathias doesn't own a Megatar...
Hi, Jim Wright,

Perhaps you are right. I am just going from what I understood to be true from Wolfgang and Daniel Schell, from a conversation in Belgium some years ago. I have no information about what year Wolfgang began doing the uncrossed thing. If my information is wrong, please accept my apology, and may Mathias forgive my error.

I have heard a rumor that Jimmie Webster may have invented uncrossed tuning .. and that Javier de Cadena may have invented the guitar tuning using strings in fourths .. but that's just speculation. ;)

For what it's worth, Wolfgang didn't have a Megatar when he began uncrossing the strings, and I have no idea what Mathias plays, but of course that has nothing to do with who did what first and when.

-- Traktor

PS: Nice to see you here, Jim!

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[traktor]

OK thanks for the info. Just so I understand: a Megatar has two sets of strings, tuned like a standard bass on the left and a standard guitar on the right but in all 4ths meaning B goes to C and E goes to F.
That is correct, for open strings (although we tappers don't much play open strings) ... except ... you can tune a normal guitar to EADGBE or EADGCF (low to high), but if the neck was much longer you couldn't stretch those strings tighter to gain the same pitch without breakage.

So on a tapping instrument like Megatar, normally you will find the guitar pitches at FRET THREE. The longer neck gives you three lower frets, and three lower notes on each string.


That's considered "bass bottom" tuning and would be played with hands crossed. I can get one set up uncrossed putting the bass strings on the right of the neck (bass top?). Correct?
If you mean the bass strings on the Right of the neck as seen by the Audience, that's correct.

From the point of view of the musician playing the instrument. Normal (crossed) string arrangement has the bass set closest to your face, on the right side of the fretboard, and uncrossed string arrangement has the bass set furthest to your left, on the left side of the fretboard.

In order to change tuning from crossed to uncrossed (on any instrument), would I have to adjust the nut and bridge? If I were to go with a 10 string instrument couldn't I set it up like a Megatar without the F strings? I'm not sure how the overlapping (common) notes from string set to string set affects how the instrument is played.
I'm not completely certain I understand the question. One at a time ...

When you change any guitar's strings to different sizes, you will normally have to do several things: You may have to redo the nut, to raise or lower the string in its new position. You often have to raise or lower the string saddle to make the action good. You will then have to re-do the intonation, because the imperfect vibrations of differently-sized strings will no longer sound precisely 'in tune' to your ear without some re-adjustment.

On a Megatar we use a Zero-Fret on which all the strings rest. The 'Nut' is a type of string positioner which self-centers the strings regardless of their gauge. So on a Megatar you do not have to re-file a nut. The strings will self-position correctly at the nut regardless of how it's strung.

But on a Megatar or any guitar you still have to re-do the string heights at the saddles, and you will have to redo the intonation if you want to sound in tune as you play. Unless you have a laboratory strobe and know how to re-install the Buzz Feiten intonation system, you will lose that advantage, because you'll have to reset your new intonation to 'standard' intonation. Of course it will then still sound as 'in tune' as a normal guitar or a Stick.

A 10-string instrument can be played of course, but the speed-of-learning advantage of 12-strings is this -- Assuming tuning in fourths, like BassBottom or uncrossed BassBottom, you can place your left hand near double-dots at fret two on bass strings, and place your right hand near double-dots at fret twelve on melody strings ... and then the notes on all six strings beneath each hand are identical across all six strings.

And in that position, with twelve strings, the left hand can play all the notes of the bass clef, and the right hand can play all the notes of the melody clef.

You can do something similar with a 10-string, but you must give up the ability to play the lowest bass notes (bummer) or the highest melody notes (bummer) in that single position. You can move your melody hand, but now the notes beneath the two hands are no longer identical. This can absolutely be done, but I like the clarity of having each hand operating in an identical note-environment.

Is there an online resource that shows how the strings map to piano or guitar in different tunings?
Download the Megatar Owner's Guide. It has the tuning charts.

I've never tried mapping strings to piano or differently tuned guitars.

Pretty much anyone who wishes to do so could do so with a bit of research.

The Owner's Guide is in the Library. Open Documents then download Owner's Guide --
http://megatar.com/english/library/library.html

Hope this information is useful!

-- Traktor

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[dcrosby]

Thanks Traktor, that's alot of good information. I can see that the tuning is a bit more involved than I thought and that it will be difficult to really understand the advantages and disadvantages of each implementation without actually having an instrument in front of me (and probably a couple of months of familiarity). When I spoke of mapping the strings to guitar or piano, I really meant figuring out where middle C is in order to better understand the range of the instrument and be able to compare it to what I already understand.

I saw the chart in the Megatar owners manual. It was enlightening. There must be a chart that shows where the different notes land on the neck for different tunings. I'm sure a bit more research on my part will yield more answers.

peace

[lactose]

I think the Megatar neck feels good. I played around with bass bottom, inverted crossed fifths, and uncrossed fourths and eventually stuck with uncrossed fourths. Each has advantages,

Perhaps one reason I found bass bottom a bit of a stretch was that I play with my finger tips, and I really think you're supposed to play with the flats of your fingers. I didn't put much time into figuring out how to be agile with that finger position.

[traktor]

... There must be a chart that shows where the different notes land on the neck for different tunings. ...
You know, now that you say that, it suddenly dawns on me that Daniel Schell's tuning graphs are usually coded as C0, C1, C2, etc.

I do not much think that way and have never mapped this out. I simply worked out the location of the notes shown in a piano score (melody in treble clef, and bass in bass clef). These work out to 'home' positions left hand and right hand in a fairly intuitive and obvious manner, and so I never felt the need to go beyond that.

So I'm not very good at the C0, C1, C2 notation without looking it up. But go to Daniel's site at http://clicmusic.be and look up tunings to find what you're looking for.

However, a word to the wise -- It is comparatively difficult to *think* all through this, and comparatively *easy* to simply do it. If you try to trouble-shoot a car that won't start only in your mind it gets complex fast, but when you can experiment on the car it becomes much easier, and tapping instruments are far simpler than a car.

If you simply download a copy of our method book, place your hands, and start it's easier than it was to begin riding a bicycle, and after the first few wobbles ... you *feel* it, and life again becomes clear and simple.

Also, this is one of those things where you cannot go very wrong. You simply make the best guess about tuning -- as opposed to dithering and figuring -- and then go with that for a while. If you want something different, it's pretty easy to do once you have experience.

I recommend BassBottom, normally in parallel fourths, because statistically that's over 80% likely to be the clearest and fastest for technical males who mainly think visually.

And if you wish to change later, what you've learned .. transfers.

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[Tom Drinkwater]

Neck widths aren't as much of an issue on a tapper than on a guitar or bass. So far every tapper that I have played (megatar storm and tone weaver, old 10 string Sticks, Box guitar, Tapladder) is easily tappable.

I quickly breezed through the other posts so I didn't read whether or not you currently play a guitar or bass. If you currently play guitar or bass and want to stay with something that you know pretty much any tapper can be tuned like a guitar or bass. It depends on what makes sense to you when you play the instrument. Check out the youtube videos from Jan Laurenz (Sprugian on YouTube. He has great videos featuring many different tappers.

[alecminiero]

Hello, new here, just a quick question...does anyone own the TGSS 12 string model Warr guitar and can give me a neck width spec? Thanks!