Experimental String Instruments

Since 1989 many of the electric guitars and basses here have been modified, including movable-fret guitars for Just Intonation starting in  1992.  Most of this instrument building has been in collaboration with more experienced luthiers and woodworkers.  An extention to JICalc was developed for calculating fret placement which is included in the latest 4.4 release. This was used for initial placement of the movable frets on the Tom Tracy Electric Sitar.

Here are a few of the instruments:

Hexaphonic fretless guitar with Shadow piezoelectric bridge pickup, built-in trackball installed by Daniel Schmidt, fretless neck built by Real Guitars, San Francisco

Fretless bass guitar with Shadow piezoelectric bridge pickup, built with help from Pat Smith in CA and Bob Adler in NJ

Electric Sitar built by Tom Tracy, formerly at Ensoniq- Movable frets added later

Tiesco guitar with replacement neck, JI frets installed by Pat Smith

Solid-body violin built by Tom Culberson at Gryphon Guitars, Palo Alto, CA, piezoelectric Kynar pickup and jack added later