i almost placed my reserve in the que before close of business today.. but fought off the temptation. first thing monday morning i'm jumping in!

what i'm sure about:

12 string grand
wenge wood
black tuners
gk-3 into gr-55 on melody side


what i'm NOT sure about:

pickup model
linear insert color (taking greg's advice and avoiding copper.. the contrast is just not enough)
tuning

any thoughts or guidance so very welcome.
any questions that might help you point me in a direction, please ask!!

thanks, jimi

only one more decision to make. figured out the others.

which tuning to go with?? i'm a keyboard player by trade, if that matters.
my approach leans towards keith emerson / eddie jobson style compositions.

any suggestions?
thanks

I've only had experience of one stick! but I'm very pleased with the ACTV pickups, give a good response, even straight through into my MacBook Pro.

I've got Deep Matched Reciprocal tuning, which I'm also very happy with - coming from guitar, with some experience of piano also. The left hand gets used to the tuning, and it makes sense for bass, and there is a strange rotational symmetry about it, for instance, the right hand makes a dogleg up and right to get an octave, the left hand down and left.. makes more sense to show than explain - all the intervals work in a similar fashion.

I get the sense that the different tunings matter if you have a specific range in mind for your melody, when matched to bass, so your hands don't hit each other..

Wenge looks a really nice wood from the photos, but mine is Tarara and again, I'm really pleased with it - beautiful grain.

The Classic tuning would give you the maximum high range and most overlap between the string sets. It's a nicely C-oriented tuning with the lowest bass note a C, and middle-C and the octave above in the left hand straddling the fret 12 inlay. The pitches at the fret 2 inlay and the fret 12 inlay match (but they are inverted) so this makes it easy to learn where the notes are on both side pretty quickly.

If you want to get some cool left-hand chords (#9, for example) you can lower the top note of the bass stings a whole step.

I like the Matched Reciprocal tuning, fine, but that extra high D on he melody comes in handy.

I think I prefer active pickups to passive pickups myself. But I don't know how they compare to the standard stick pickup.

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the pickups.

Also i recommend classic tuning, it seems that a lot of instructors use it (it makes what Steve A is playing an exact match to your inst. I think Greg and Bob as well)

Have you thought about a used grand? it seems you are ready to embark on the journey. you can order your dream stick and play your used inst , and then sell it when your new one is ready.


thats what I would do

Brett

When I bought my first Stick, the 12 str Grand,I thought a lot about what I wanted to play. Imagining the music and where on the two necks the notes would be located (I thought a lot about playing harp-like chord patterns by altering notes between the two hands and even about how notes would fall for using the right hand's thumb as an additional recourse on the bass side while its other four fingers tap on the melody side). This led me into assuming that Matched Reciprocal would be best for me, because my hands would not collide as easily as if playing the same things on the classical tuning. So it turned out I started learning the Stick by the Matched Reciprocal tuning and I liked it so much that I ordered my second Stick, a SG12, with the same tuning.

Speaking pickups, just listen to examples and pick what you like best for your own playing! Initially I listened to players using the different kinds of pickups and read everything discussed about PUs on this forum and that led me to chose the PASV4 for both my Sticks. On the PASV4 I typically like the neck pickup at the fattest filter setting and this sound I could not spot from any of the other models. Here's an example of the PASV4 qualities I like:
http://www.timewind.net/music.html

Also check out recordings by Rob Martino for PASV4 example, although he uses the dual PU setting and a different tuning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JjimMO2SdE

Here's my own PASV4 neck PU sound, although this is my SG12:

As a keyboard player, you probably already have training you can use with the mirrored fourths tuning. A search of posts by myself and by robmartino with the keyword "fourths" might interest you.

Mad Monk.

placed order via e-mail earlier this evening. final configuration was wenge 12 string grand in mirrored 4ths, pasv-4, gk-3 on melody side into gr55, white pearl linear inlays and chrome tuners.

just waiting to hear back from S.E. to process the payment.. then the REAL waiting begins.

does anyone know how/when the stick production numbers (engraved at top) are generated?
it would be cool to know your future number while you're waiting for the build. it would feel more tangible somehow... =o)

thank you one and all for your suggestions and input over the past few days. helped to bring confidence to my choices.

jimi

Hi Jimi,

The numbers have to do with when the blanks are machined. So a rosewood 10-string could have a lower number than a wenge one even if it was finished later, as the wenge blank might have been machined more recently.

They follow a general trajectory upward, and are now numbering over 6000 (though I think there are still a few 5000 blanks).

There was a period where Emmett had started over renumbering them when he started with the one-piece hardwoods, but the total number was tallied up and, apart from NS/Sticks, which have a separate number system, there are now over 6000 Sticks in existance.

I haven't seen any numbers from other companies, so I don't know exactly how many they have made, but I think it's probably less than 2000 total for all of them combined.