Fanned scale lap steel, what are your thoughts?

[Randy Cordle]

Hi Mark,
Glad you're enjoying your 7. I swear that I've yet to make two identical laps. You guys always want something special or out-of-the-ordinary. I think this one tops 'em all. though.

bOb, is that photoshoped or for real?

Alan,
Thanks for your detailed history lesson. You're always a wealth of information. As far as the practicality of building goes, no problem with that as the fret positions are a piece of cake in CAD. I have to defer to the owner on his preferance for arc length and arc center, although he did feel that the arc center would be better one fret further toward the nut end. I'm in agreement with you about the arc radius length, though. It looks to be a little too extreme.

Some folks love the Novak system, but I've never had any problem with a traditional neck myself.
As far as taking the scale length to extremes, Ry Cooder plays a split neck electric with a standard scale for the first 4 strings and a baratone 29" scale for the 5th and 6th strings. I think I'll pass on that one.

[John Bushouse]

Alan,

I took a guitar building course from Harry Fleishman, another luthier that has had discussions with Novak regarding his patent. Apparently what is patented is not the fanned fret idea itself, but some part of the fanned fret setup. Harry builds fanned-fret instruments all of the time, in part based on the many years of tradition before Novak came on the scene.

The other thing about fanned frets is it doesn't have to be the 12th fret where the two scales meet. you could move it down the neck so that the 9th fret is perpendicular to the neck, which would make it easier to play the upper frets (the window wiper effect). Frankly, you could put a steel on your lap and do a window wiper with your left arm - that would tell you which frets should line up based on your playing style.

On edit: I think y'all have already covered the "which fret is perpendicular" issue. Never mind.

[Tom Pettingill]

While I can see the "wiper" motion being comfortable, would it not be tough getting used to the bass strings being on top?

[Randy Cordle]

John,
That's exactly how the owner figured out what he wanted in the way of the actual fan. He then plugged the approximate arc into the aformentioned website fret placement calculator.
Randy

[Alan Brookes]

While I can see the "wiper" motion being comfortable, would it not be tough getting used to the bass strings being on top?

Tom: you're looking at a left-handed instrument that has been rotated left-to-right. Fanned frets don't have any effect on the stringing. The bass strings are still nearest to you.

[Nic du Toit]

www.megatar.com

[Randy Cordle]

Alan,
Not so in this case. This lap has the bass strings on the side furthest away from you. That would really throw a curve in my ability to play it, but it would be interesting to try out. It might not be as difficult as it appears to be. Left handed AND high strings closest to you, it would take some getting used to. That's why I flipped the first photo (left to right)so the rest of use "conventional" players could focus on just the fanned fret idea coupled with the string arrangement.

Nic,
Interesting instrument, thanks for the link.
Don't get excited lap steelers, the megatar is a "touch" instrument designed to be held and played in an upright position like the Chapman Stick.

[Alan Brookes]

Alan,
Not so in this case. This lap has the bass strings on the side furthest away from you. That would really throw a curve in my ability to play it, but it would be interesting to try out.....

Having the bass strings on top would prevent you from using the thumb to do the usual rolling bass. Travis-style picking would become impossible.

Interestingly, the Mountain Dulcimer ended up getting its strings reversed when compared with its European ancestors. I always string ones I make backwards to that, in the normal order like a banjo or guitar, and you can immediately pick all the regular banjo tunes as normal.

Looking at Nic's instrument it's important to notice that the frets slant the opposite way to Randy's, so it was either built for playing as a regular guitar or as a left-handed steel.

[Tom Pettingill]

Having the bass strings on top would prevent you from using the thumb to do the usual rolling bass. Travis-style picking would become impossible.

I guess that was my point.

Yes, it could be strung with the bass to the player, but then you lose the feature of having longer scale bass strings.
Whether or not it makes a big tonal difference would have to be seen.
If comfort is the main goal, then perhaps just a single scale instrument with angled frets is a viable alternative.

[Dave Weir]

I have always played right handed guitars left handed, but still strung right handed, so the bass string is on the bottom. When I decided to try playing lap style, I just continued in the same direction, buying an old right handed Epiphone Electar and playing it left handed, with the base string away from me.

A while ago I bought a router for a kithen remodel project and wound up needing to put it to more use. I made an electric guitar body which turned out very nice, and wanting to take it a little farther, but not ready to tackle a guitar neck with truss rod, decide to make a lap steel.

I was looking for some kind of program on the net to calculate the frete board and ran across fan frets.
It occured to me that since I was already playing with the base string away from me, and I had trouble keeping the bar straight over the higher fretes, than a fan frete design might be an intersting project. If the bass string was near my body, like 99.99% percent of people would play, it wouldn't work because either the fans would be completely backwards, making it really awkward to play or the high string would be the long string, pretty much missing the point of the longer scale for the bass string.

Making the fret board was actually pretty easy. I did the windshield wiper thing than has been mentioned here and determined the angle I naturally wanted to hold the bar at the first fret and 12th fret. I also checked where I held the bar pretty much perpendicular, which was at the 6th fret. It just kind of worked out that when I added it all up, the high string was around a typical lap steel lenth, and the low string was around the scale of a telecaster. So I figured that was all within normal peramiters, and I pluged it into the fret finder 2d calculator.

The calculator allows you to print the whole fretboard, including the fretes, nut, bridge and strings. I drew a body with the curved line tool in Excel, and printed the body and fretboard on sticker paper. I stuck the printout onto the Maple boards. I used some blocks and clamps to keep the saw in position and cut the frets to the right depth. It wasn't difficult, but did take a while, I went pretty slow and careful. I routed out 1/2" half circles for the nut and bridge. This was kind of scary, but they wound up being position perfectly. I glued on the body, routed a hole for the pick up, drilled a hole for the jack, and wired it up.

There's no volume control, just a P90 screaming power cords to the dismay of family, neighbors and pets. The trickiest part of the design was really where the angled nut meets the angled headstock. The only solutions I found were either to cock the headstock to one side, or extend the short side of the fretboad plain past the nut, which is what I did, and not very gracefully.

As to how it plays, it plays very well for me. As Randy has said, I don't really play bar slants, I mainly just use it for fills and Blues type leads. So no one gets the wrong idea, I'm not a really good player who is super particular about his instrument. I'm more an average player who likes to try different things.

I guess some slants would be more difficult, and some would actually be easier. But it is definately very compfortable to play lazy blues.

I do still play the Epi some, and also play a metal resonator lap style. It is no problem going from the fan fret to the regular style. I don't even think about it. What I don't understand is how people go from one tuning to another. Now that's crazy!

I contacted Randy to see if he was interested in manking a professional version of this thing. I am always looking for new ideas and designs and his products look to have the perfect blend of superior craftsmanship, state of the art electronics, and classic design. I was really impressed with how well he had thought everything through.

I think he realizes if he takes this on it's a one time deal. All he will get out of it is his profit on the sale, a hopefully interesting project, and a funky picture for his website. Any templates may as well go right in the bin, because I wouldn't expect anyone else would want one of these.

I'm not even sure how he can try it out. It will be completly backwards for him. I did have a right handed friend of mine, a dobro player named Dave Dias, try the prototype. He had it completly figured out in about ten minutes. I think sometimes odd things can wake up the muse. He had it smokin, even though it should have been totally awkard and unplayable. He thought an interesting alternitive would be to have all strings on the same scale, but the frets tilted like a parrallagram.

Anyway, thank you all for your comments. Where's the spellcheck?

[Randy Cordle]

Hi Dave,
Thanks for checking in here. It's turned into an interesting topic with lots more interest and comments than I would have thought. You can probably shed some light as the player of this instrument that I wouldn't be able to answer. I especially like the concept of it's individuality, its unique if nothing else! You're right that I probably couldn't give it a good evaluation due to the left handed design.

Alan,
Notice that the instrument shown in Nic's post is designed to be played upright with two hands used to tap out notes on the fretboard, bass on one hand and melody on the other. No picking or strumming is involved.

Randy

[John Bushouse]

Thanks for your detailed description of what you're aiming for, Dave! Randy, your guitars look great, so I'm sure whatever you end up building will be a pretty cool guitar. And if you build it, you will have a cool picture for your site

[John Bechtel]

When figuring out the fret-positions, if I am l©©king at it correctly; you only have to figure proper placement of each fret for the top & bottom strings and then drawing a straight line between the first and last string will find the positions for the inside strings automatically! It must have a rather unusual sound if you use Vibrato holding the bar straight as with the “normal” style of playing! Every string would have a different amount of vibrato¡

[Dave Weir]

You could do it by figuring out the two outside strings. The program on Fret Find 2D

http://www.fretfind.ekips.org/2d/nonparallel.php

is even easier. You just enter The scales you want on those two strings, and the string spacing, and the fret board edges if you want. It figures out eaxtly where each string crosses each fret, and gives you a numarical printout, and also allows you print the whole fretboard and shows you where the nut and bridge go.

If you want to try it for cheap, take a guitar with the longest scale you can find. Wedge a steel bar under the strings near the nut at an angle, and another near the bridge at an angle. Measure the scale on the two outside strings and a few other measurements and plug them into the calculator. Print the fret board on sticker paper and cut it out and stick it right on top of the existing fret board. You probably won't get great tone, but you'll get the idea.

As for the vibrato, If you move the bar in the "arc", you should get a proportional, normal sound. If you hold the angle that that particular fret is at, the high string is going to go out of pitch more than the base string. It's kind of academic. I don't think I have the skill to control or the ear to observe the difference.

[Randy Cordle]

John,
It's easier than that. Here's a pic to help you visualize that all that's really needed is fret position calculations for the longest string. A little applied math helps, but if the short ends of the frets, bridge, and nut are projected to a point in space beyond the instrument then all points retain their mathematical relationship to each other. You can see from the illustration what would happen as the remote point is repositioned closer, further away, to the left, or to the right of the indicated position. CAD lets you do this as easy as dragging your mouse around.

[Alan Brookes]

Randy, I've never seen a better illustration. That's the view that's in my head when I'm building fanned fretboards. As can be plainly seen here, the considerations of what scale to use hinge entirely around the location of the convergance point, which dictates the slope and radius.

One important point overlooked in the illustration is that the pickup has to be angled too if the tone is to be consistent over all the strings.

[Dave Weir]

There are some guitars with standard frets, and the pickups are angled. Like a Mosrite or a Telecaster. I've wondered if it was to get the strings over the poles, or just a design thing, or if there is some aledged advantage to having the pickup closer to the bridge on the treble string. Like better treble response. Without the luxery of lots of guitars with only one different feature, it's hard to test what one little change would actually make. So it's hard to say how my guitar would sound with straight frets. Probably pretty much the same. In my case the biggest limiting factor is the player.

[Randy Cordle]

Alan,
Precisely. Fortunate for me that our playing surface is on a single plane. (I'd better be careful about what I say, Dave might start thinking in the third dimension.)
As far as pickup goes, we haven't got there yet. I'm doing my own winds so the polepiece centers can be anything within reason. Slanting to match the fan is a definate possibility. The split single hum cancelling design is what Dave's considering.

Dave,
No 3D lap steels in your immediate future I hope. You'll have to go the Therimin route for that one.
I think Leo's original idea for the slanted bridge pickup on the tele was for a little more treble bite and fuller bass when just the lead pickup was switched on. That's all he had on the Broadcaster/no name so he had to address the tone issue one way or another.
On a fanned scale lap steel I could see an advantage to pickup slant for the reason you mentioned.

Again, thanks to everyone for their contibutions to this thread. I'd rather have negative comments than no comments at all. I'm somewhat suprised to the amount of interest it has generated.
Don't demean your playing Dave, you're controversial if nothing else! I also appreciate your thoughtful posts.

[Mark Roeder]

Would it be true that by angling the pickup(as Leo) it would also be longer and thus more mass thus more output? Sorry for getting off the thread but my curiosity got the best of me.
Mark

[David Haddock]

I was told that you have to send a check to Ralph Novak every time you build a fanned-fret guitar for someone... I'm sure Alan would know if that's true. I recall that it wasn't much of a price to keep him happy. I've never built one before, I guess I'm content with the inherent intonation problems.

[Randy Cordle]

Mark,
Pickup mass as a result of increasing the length would have little bearing on output level, more a function of magnet strength,general configuration of entire pickup,coil shape, wire size, and number of turns on the coil.
As the coil is slanted the overall length increases(as does total Kohm value due to added wire length per turn)but doesn't result in a proportional increase in volume. Keeping the same length and adding additional turns to the coil(increasing the total Kohm value) does increase output, but then we have to factor in what the result is on the pickup's basic tonality.
Think about all those 10 and 12 string pickups with winding values of 18K-22K and higher. If winding resistance were the sole determining factor in output, those pickups would be so loud that you wouldn't even need an amplifier!

[Alan Brookes]

I was told that you have to send a check to Ralph Novak every time you build a fanned-fret guitar for someone... I'm sure Alan would know if that's true. I recall that it wasn't much of a price to keep him happy. I've never built one before, I guess I'm content with the inherent intonation problems.

No-one can have a valid patent on something that's historically been verified over centuries. There are plenty of fanned-fretted instruments in museums. You could patent the soundhole in a guitar but it wouldn't be legally enforceable.

[chris ivey]

i feel this is a waste of time, money, and effort!!

[Michael Johnstone]

I can see the advantage of fanned frets on a fretted instrument where you need a slightly longer string scale on the bass side like when you add low C strings to a 13 or 14 inch mandolin tuned in 5ths. But on a slide instrument typically tuned in 3rds,5ths,6ths and 7ths,it'd be nothing but slants all the time - just to play in tune. And when you had to do a real slant it'd be extreme as noted in an earlier post. To my way of thinking slants are hard enough when played on perfectly parallel strings and the normal 12th root of 2 log fret spacing w/parallel frets. Why complicate the geometry? There are middle ground scale lengths between 22" and 24" w/normal parallel frets that can accommidate any concievable tuning by using the correct string gauges. As a guy who's spent a lot of time playing non-pedal and is pretty good with slants,I wouldn't put myself through the extra hassle. There's nothing to fix.
Sorry,I don't get it - and I like weird $h!+.

[Alan Brookes]

i feel this is a waste of time, money, and effort!!

Well it may be waste of time and effort, but I'm interested in experimenting. I've tried out several ideas in the past that haven't worked out, and I could list them here so that everyone could have a good laugh , but it doesn't cost very much. If I build an instrument that doesn't work I reuse the pickups, bridge, nut, tuners, and most of the wood, on another instrument. It's a hobby for me. In fact, as most of you will have noticed from my musical postings, I'm more of a builder than a player.

By the way, for a lap steel, the fans would have to be reversed from that of a fretted instrument, since you're playing from the other side.