Baritone neck prototype

This is Cindy, my archtop prototype.

If you attended shows on which I've been present as an exhibitor you probably know her and have played her with the 25.5" neck.

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My Little Project is a new 27-28" scale neck. This year, my work ability has been pretty limited, and that's about all I can do with 110% of my available energy. The beauty of this Little Project is that Cindy now has two necks (25.5" and 27-28"), and because the box is tuned very low, she can be:

 

•    a standard 25.5" archtop,

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•    a baritone guitar tuned to A1 with 16-70 strings,

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•    a baritone guitar tuned to A1 in Nashville tuning,

 

•    a great guitar tuned tuned to standard C with14-64 ,

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•    or to standard D, or DADGAD(!),  with 12-53 strings.

 

This last possibility was completely non-obvious to me at first, but my calculations of the string tension and vibration characteristics of relatively thin strings for a long scale mean that this may be the most attractive way to use this guitar. Of course, there are other cool combinations possible, but these require combined, non-standard sets of strings. I'm still learning about it. A lot of new knowledge to learn before me!

 

And this: I developed a new pickup. It's still a very low impedance humbucker connected with an XLR cable. But I changed it a bit. I kept the sound characteristics, because many musicians (and I) found the sound of this pickup very attractive, but the new pickup is now louder. My reference point was the Telecaster neck pickup. My new pickup is objectively (measurements) louder. At least relative to the Telecaster I have access to.

The pickup prototype is done, however I didn’t manage to install it for the Arvada show.​​​​​​​​​​​​