anyone ever try violin fretters?

Last Visible Canary

Last Visible Canary

actively parsing hurf durf
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
4,577
Item number: 250155658900 on ebay to be exact, because I haven't actually seen anything like them anywhere else.

It states on there that it's a "paper thin nylon" sheet with the equivalent of thin mandonlin frets. has anyone ever tried anything like this?

I've used fishing line to make frets for my cumbus before, but I could never get the knots on the back to be stable enough to make it worth it, so this seems like a good alternative... I've tried the tape style fret markers, and it hasn't helped very much.

anyone here ever tried them, or something like them?
 
No, but we have tried corn fritters, potato fritters, and many other types of fritters. They have all turned out pretty good. But I am thinking that nylon will melt in the hot grease.
 
Last Visible Canary said:
Item number: 250155658900 on ebay to be exact, because I haven't actually seen anything like them anywhere else.

It states on there that it's a "paper thin nylon" sheet with the equivalent of thin mandonlin frets. has anyone ever tried anything like this?

I've used fishing line to make frets for my cumbus before, but I could never get the knots on the back to be stable enough to make it worth it, so this seems like a good alternative... I've tried the tape style fret markers, and it hasn't helped very much.

anyone here ever tried them, or something like them?
Click to expand...

Wait just a minute parder .... ain't that cümbüş supposed to be a fretless instument??

Wikipedia said:
The cümbüş is a Turkish stringed instrument of relatively modern origin. Developed in the early 20th century by Zeynel Abidin Cümbüş as an oud-like instrument that could be heard as part of a larger ensemble. In construction it resembles both the American banjo and the Middle Eastern oud. A fretless instrument, it has six courses of doubled-strings, and is generally tuned like an oud. In shape, though, it closely resembles the banjo with a metal resonator bowl and skin body head. It has a loud, metallic, resonant tone and is widely heard in Middle Eastern popular music.
Click to expand...


I can not explain how much I enjoyed your question.:D
 
the family who owns the rights to the cumbus design in turkey initially designed it to be capable of having interchangeable necks. most notably is the ability to effectively turn a plucked instrument into a bowed instrument by changing out the flat fingerboard-ed neck for a radiused neck and bridge.

the really unfortunate part about that design is that they are located in turkey, so it doesn't do anything for those of us in the u.s. :rolleyes:... If I had a shop theres a lot of stuff I'd do with it though, just making necks and probably selling them for a small profit to the cumbus market.

violins are classically designed to be fretless, but there are several examples of standard violins having been made with frets in the 1800's and earlier. there are some variations that are meant to be fretted, like the viola de gamba (a 7 string fretted cello). The viola de gamba uses gut string for its frets I think? pretty much fishing line :)

sooo, my fretters got here... and they are definitely interesting. I expected a piece of nylon that was thick enough to maintain a rounded form, almost like a thin shaving off the top of another fretboard.

in reality, it is a sheet of double sided sticky contact paper that has either brass wire, or fishing line laid on top of it, with a sheet of one sided clear plastic tape laid on top of the frets to keep them in place.

I would advise that if anyone orders one for their violin that they give measurements to the maker even if you have a standard sized violin. my standard 4/4 cremona sv175 violin has a fretboard that is noticably to big for the fretters that were sent to me.

The way that the fret position is determined is by the length of vibrating string. if you know the length of vibrating string, you can mathematically determine how much distance is required to create a specific note, given a specific string thickness. so technically it really would not be hard at all to make one of these yourself, I just don't know anything about resonance to be able to functionally make one. I could probably just mark the fingerboard before frets were applied and use those distances for the bras wire, but ya. thats a lot of work.


While they are not as nice as I had though, they are definitely funcitonal. you have to mess with your bridge position in order to get the scale to match the fret so that the 7th fret = your next string *the g string's 7th fret = d*, but I was able to get mine to be accurate.


I'll have pics up by the end of the night :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top