Friday 8 May 2009

I am not alone

One of the good things about the T-beam bass or guitar is that it's fairly easy to build a functioning instrument and improve it from there. In spite of its relative simplicity, there's still lots of challenges in it. If you're ambitious, there's plenty of aspects to improve. If you're not, there's still the joy of building your own functioning, albeit crude instrument.

It's a really good project in many ways, but until recently, I thought I was the only one making a T-beam bass.

To my delight, as I discovered here, I am not the only one. Kaspar Torn is building one as well. It's still in its early stages, and so far, it looks very promising. As you can see from the pictures, it differs from my own project in a number of ways:

Strings are anchored in a bolt through the vertical flange

String slots and zero fret











Tuners upside down

Angled tuners












This project is going to be interesting to follow. Kaspar leaves many options open, such as a detachable acoustic body and a spike, allowing it to be played upright.

I will post updates as the project moves along.

2 comments:

Kaspar said...

Thanks for the post!
My list of excuses not building it right now is getting short ;)

And thanks also for the pickup link (have to register to see the pics though).

Unknown said...

Take your time! I do. Though I'd like to spend more time in the workshop, I have great fun just thinking about the many different possibilities.