Conversion to 18 equal

I've started my conversion of the 12 equal acoustic guitar to an 18 equal acoustic guitar. You can follow better on my facebook page because I have comentary. But if you are not on facebook the pictures documenting the process is here:

http://micro.soonlabel.com/conversion_to_18_equal/

So far I've de-fretted and measured.

My facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000848978089

I think....

if you are on facebook look me up "Chris Vaisvil"

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "christopherv" <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> I've started my conversion of the 12 equal acoustic guitar to an 18 equal acoustic guitar.
> You can follow better on my facebook page because I have comentary. But if you are not on > facebook the pictures documenting the process is here:

Fabulous. Good choice! I'll be following, as I'd like to see how tricky you find it to actually do the fret level and dressing. I dream of an 18-EDO 12-string someday, maybe I'll follow in your footsteps.

-Igs

I got about 1/3rd of the fret board cut and right now just getting true
perpendicular cuts are hard enough. I may end up doing this twice. But the
point is to make mistakes and learn.

On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 10:42 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...>wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "christopherv" <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >
> > I've started my conversion of the 12 equal acoustic guitar to an 18 equal
> acoustic guitar.
> > You can follow better on my facebook page because I have comentary. But
> if you are not on > facebook the pictures documenting the process is here:
>
> Fabulous. Good choice! I'll be following, as I'd like to see how tricky you
> find it to actually do the fret level and dressing. I dream of an 18-EDO
> 12-string someday, maybe I'll follow in your footsteps.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> I got about 1/3rd of the fret board cut and right now just getting true
> perpendicular cuts are hard enough. I may end up doing this twice. But the
> point is to make mistakes and learn.

Speaking of learning, the 18edo entry on the Xenwiki is one of the bunch I've recently added or added to, and you might find it informative.

http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/18edo

ok, I got the bird down, I'm working on a piece of music to demonstrate.

1. The fret placement is actually not as critical as one may think.
2. When I bought the guitar the high E buzzed already - so it had problems
(thus the $50 cost) with the neck etc.
3. Sooooo by replacing the saddle with one about a third higher I by passed
all of the buzzing / fret leveling (except 1 fret) and the action is still
quite reasonable and the intonation is still true.

4. It tunes nicely to it self using the same pattern as a 12 edo guitar and
I'm finding chords.

5. The hardest thing to deal with as far as I can tell is making the ends of
the fretwire smooth so it doesn't sctrach your hand as you play.

I declare victory even though its not 100% because I have a working,
functional 18 edo guitar - not the best ever but certainly more than "good
enough".

Chris

On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 10:42 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...>wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "christopherv" <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >
> > I've started my conversion of the 12 equal acoustic guitar to an 18 equal
> acoustic guitar.
> > You can follow better on my facebook page because I have comentary. But
> if you are not on > facebook the pictures documenting the process is here:
>
> Fabulous. Good choice! I'll be following, as I'd like to see how tricky you
> find it to actually do the fret level and dressing. I dream of an 18-EDO
> 12-string someday, maybe I'll follow in your footsteps.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> 4. It tunes nicely to it self using the same pattern as a 12 edo guitar and
> I'm finding chords.

What do you mean "the same pattern"? Are the outer two strings still two octaves apart?

> 5. The hardest thing to deal with as far as I can tell is making the ends of
> the fretwire smooth so it doesn't sctrach your hand as you play.
>
> I declare victory even though its not 100% because I have a working,
> functional 18 edo guitar - not the best ever but certainly more than "good
> enough".

So you didn't have to futz around with fret dressing/leveling? Awesome! I may give this a try!

-Igs

Darn,

Igs I didn't see this.

By same pattern - I mean chord shape. Like the (fret numbers starting on the
low A in 12 equal) 5-4-5-6 Hendrix chord - it is there in 12, 17 and 18 -
sounds different but the shape still works. This is with the caveat you tune
the guitar to itself at the 5th and 4th fret like a 12 equal guitar.

And the answer to your question - nope - very little dressing needed but
height is still reasonable. On an electric you should have even more room to
play.

And since I want to discuss this with someone I'm going to re-post this from
MMM ---------------------

A curious thought came to me a couple days ago. Why not reuse the 12 equal
slots? Why are we eradicating 12 equal slots in *every* case?

This was before I saw this monster at Ron Sword's site.

http://ninestring.org/index.php?topic=25.0

It is a guitar that combines 36 + 24 + 12 equal into regions. In my case I
was looking at the extra 12 equal frets in my 18 equal refret and thinking -
what would happen if I just popped in the additional frets? In theory you
could play both 12 equal *and* 18 equal and some Frankensteinian combination
of the two.

I'm sure it can't work for every tuning... but for some (non-24 edo) it
probably makes sense. And might be a really reasonable way to introduce
microtonality to a guitarist.

Also - I've been finding I like tuning my 18 edo guitar to 12 equal but
playing 18 equal frets. I have NO idea what the result should be called but
it sounds nice to me.

Chris

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 2:38 PM, cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...t>wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> > 4. It tunes nicely to it self using the same pattern as a 12 edo guitar
> and
> > I'm finding chords.
>
> What do you mean "the same pattern"? Are the outer two strings still two
> octaves apart?
>
>
> > 5. The hardest thing to deal with as far as I can tell is making the ends
> of
> > the fretwire smooth so it doesn't sctrach your hand as you play.
> >
> > I declare victory even though its not 100% because I have a working,
> > functional 18 edo guitar - not the best ever but certainly more than
> "good
> > enough".
>
> So you didn't have to futz around with fret dressing/leveling? Awesome! I
> may give this a try!
>
> -Igs
>
>
>