The great thing about the bar is bending down, even while string-bending up, Hendrix style. The Stick, however, needs stability. The more "mushy" the components, the harder to set up and maintain. That's why each "SlideBlock" holding a saddle screw is firmly fastened down onto a rigid bridge plate - ironclad.
Dive-bombing is a striking effect but at the sacrifice of pitch definition and sustain on Stick. Also, the right hand is already busy executing notes and chords.
OK, I could build a knee bar of some kind to act as the third hand, but if it acted at the bridge end, there'd still be instability. At the nut end, well, maybe Captain of the Strings has some more thoughts.
Steel guitar bends selected strings up and down via the pedals, mostly dealing in half and whole steps each way. Hendrix was doing wholesale slacking of all strings, a very different musical effect.
You can get carried away with a particular effect, or advantage, or colorful tuning, and not realize what all you're giving up. One of my first tapper prototypes was a hard rubbery plastic beam. I wanted the dive-bomber effect right there on the board itself. It was an extremely mushy affair.
Fri May 12, 2017 12:32 pm
Jayesskerr
Elite Contributor
Joined: Sun May 18, 2014 9:43 am Posts: 4039
Re: stick with tremolo bar
Me personally, I am quite happy with the Stick just the way it is. So much to learn and explore...
The great thing about the bar is bending down, even while string-bending up, Hendrix style. The Stick, however, needs stability. The more "mushy" the components, the harder to set up and maintain. That's why each "SlideBlock" holding a saddle screw is firmly fastened down onto a rigid bridge plate - ironclad.
Dive-bombing is a striking effect but at the sacrifice of pitch definition and sustain on Stick. Also, the right hand is already busy executing notes and chords.
OK, I could build a knee bar of some kind to act as the third hand, but if it acted at the bridge end, there'd still be instability. At the nut end, well, maybe Captain of the Strings has some more thoughts.
Steel guitar bends selected strings up and down via the pedals, mostly dealing in half and whole steps each way. Hendrix was doing wholesale slacking of all strings, a very different musical effect.
You can get carried away with a particular effect, or advantage, or colorful tuning, and not realize what all you're giving up. One of my first tapper prototypes was a hard rubbery plastic beam. I wanted the dive-bomber effect right there on the board itself. It was an extremely mushy affair.
the biggest problem i forsee on a Stick, besides the discouragement of open strings, is the string tension itself: much more slack than a standard guitar (Standard or Matched Reciprocol tunings as benchmarks for this post)....this is going to give a Stick a much shallower range-of-effect than on a guitar....dive bombs should be much shallower
Sat May 13, 2017 8:38 pm
pretensions
Member
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 6:15 pm Posts: 54
Re: stick with tremolo bar
Tremolo isn't applicable to my style, and the associated tuning problems drive me nuts. I've owned guitars with tremolos but they're long gone. I still have a Squier Bass VI with tremolo, and among all that instrument's awkward technical features, it's the tremolo that I find the most frustrating (even with the Staytrem upgrades).
I'm sure there are folks out there who could do creative, beautiful things with a tremolo-enabled Stick. But for my own use I'm a hard "no."
Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 2:11 pm Posts: 271 Location: St. Petersburg, Russia
Re: stick with tremolo bar
I thought about a Bowden-cable-pulled (ala bicycle brakes) tremolo half-bridge contraption for the melody side strings that could be controlled with a pedal (I mean literally a pedal, a mechanical foot-pressed lever), but figured that the related hassle is not worth the limited effect you can get on a stick with no open strings and low string tension.
_________________ Bamboo, 10 strings, Stickup
Tue May 16, 2017 6:35 am
AnDroiD
Elite Contributor
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:42 pm Posts: 2532 Location: Jersey
Re: stick with tremolo bar
Thank you for chiming in Emmett you've done the heavy lifting not gonna try it for reasons you've stated.
_________________ Peace, Marty "The present day composer refuses to die" -Edgard Varese
Tue May 16, 2017 10:00 pm
Boaz
Elite Contributor
Joined: Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:08 pm Posts: 1571 Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel
Re: stick with tremolo bar
ok this one really does the whammy bar trick for the stick perfect solution for busy hands !
_________________ Boaz Bar Levy
#7159, Grand Railboard,Plum, RMR tuning, MIDI melody. Manufactured Dec. 2018
#2001,10 strings Shedua, MR tuning Stickup, Fretrails Manufactured March 2002
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