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My Smartbass idea (Long post!)


Twincam
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I got thinking after reading and commenting on the fender in trouble thread. About what a truly modern bass would be
So ive got some ideas how to bring the bass up to date. And would like to hear your views on my ideas, i also welcome people adding there own ideas too.

Smart fret board. The fret board, is replaced by a series of high quality, smartphone like capacitive touchscreen. The frets are still there as normal in between the screens.
The idea is a teaching and recording aid. The screens will show you where notes are, Where to fret notes for songs (Tabs would be downloaded from online direct to the bass). The screens could also teach other theory like the scales etc.
As a recording aid it would record your fretting movements which you could then transfer online and if you wanted allow others to learn your songs, they could be then be downloaded onto there bass like a onscreen tab on there fretboard. Also allow you to look over your songs and easy pick up where you left off, instead of using your memory. You have just played a brilliant ad lib piece but in the heat of the moment your not sure exactly what you did well the bass would automatically record all your movement and performance. How would this recording work, well the touchscreen would pick up alot of your fretting but also the frets would record pressure. Later on like sky plus you can play back all your movements on the bass or download to computer. The bass having various ways to connect to a pc/mac or smartphone etc such as wifi or directly online itself.

Optical pickups, which can also record which string and how hard you pluck. This is related to the above this is for self analysis and for other to play your songs closely how you play them. You might not want to play like someone exactly and no two people will sound exactly the same but i still think its a cool idea to have say the stats on your fav player and get a idea of just what exactly there doing while playing how hard they strike the strings the exact fret timing.

The optical pickups are also part of a variax bass style system. Like a variax the bass will have emulations of all the famous bass guitars, and string emulations. Also including pedal emulations, amp and cab modeling. However these will be used with a touchscreen which will also allow full customisation of pickup modelling and placement as well as your normal tone options. Which of course you would be able to then save your presets and quickly change them with a finger on the screen no messing about the knobs or the need for changing to a different set up bass. Would also emulate drop tuning and be able through software to keep your bass within tuning for longer.

Other things a bass could have, inbuilt camera could record your self or audience, this might be more a novelty than of real use. But in today's selfie world why not. The bass could then use its internet connection to upload the pics onto whatever social media site and all that stuff.

Oh not forgetting any screen can also have wallpapers and choose different fret markers. In fact really the whole bass could technically be mostly screen, then you could change the colour of the bass at will, have pics on and even video playing while your playing. However that is getting away from the fact its an instrument first and foremost.

So anyhow if you read all that thank you, and hopefully its not all rubbish. Just my take on a totally modern bass built for todays generation.

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A 24 fret fingerboard is going to need 23 separate touchscreens - that's an awful lot of ribbon cabling to run somewhere down inside the neck. But before you even manage that there's the fact that your fingers and the strings aren't really making contact with the fingerboard; when you fret a string it doesn't come into contact with the fingerboard; that's assuming that the frets haven't been levelled and dressed several times in previous years so there's no point in having any touch sensitivity there. There's another solution to your touchscreen thing anyway, at least for determining/recording which fret/note someone's playing - the Industrial Radio MIDI bass system, where each fret becomes a 4 section electrical contact (assuming it's a 4 string bass) so the bass becomes a MIDI controller where you can effectively play/record anything you like. The guy from Little Dragon sometimes uses one.

The optical pickups already exist with the LightWave infrared systems used on basses like the Saber bass. I don't know how well these compare to piezos or conventional pickups, however we do know that magnetic pickups can and do add character to the sound, depending on how they're constructed, with single coils, humbuckers, coil taps, pickup location along the speaking string length, in/out of phase pairs; which AFAIK you can't achieve with either optical or piezo pickups (which are always in the bridge area).

As you've already pointed out a system like the Variax bass offers instrument emulation... it didn't conquer the world and is no longer made. Who knows why... GAS?

I did wonder about electronics modularity being utilised more and flexible pickup location being employed with a modern instrument but we've also seen those tried in the past and they didn't catch on (eg Shergold Modulator system and the Gibson Grabber).

Looks like conventional basses are going to be around for quite a while longer.

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[quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1413796946' post='2581874']
A 24 fret fingerboard is going to need 23 separate touchscreens - that's an awful lot of ribbon cabling to run somewhere down inside the neck. But before you even manage that there's the fact that your fingers and the strings aren't really making contact with the fingerboard; when you fret a string it doesn't come into contact with the fingerboard; that's assuming that the frets haven't been levelled and dressed several times in previous years so there's no point in having any touch sensitivity there. There's another solution to your touchscreen thing anyway, at least for determining/recording which fret/note someone's playing - the Industrial Radio MIDI bass system, where each fret becomes a 4 section electrical contact (assuming it's a 4 string bass) so the bass becomes a MIDI controller where you can effectively play/record anything you like. The guy from Little Dragon sometimes uses one.

The optical pickups already exist with the LightWave infrared systems used on basses like the Saber bass. I don't know how well these compare to piezos or conventional pickups, however we do know that magnetic pickups can and do add character to the sound, depending on how they're constructed, with single coils, humbuckers, coil taps, pickup location along the speaking string length, in/out of phase pairs; which AFAIK you can't achieve with either optical or piezo pickups (which are always in the bridge area).

As you've already pointed out a system like the Variax bass offers instrument emulation... it didn't conquer the world and is no longer made. Who knows why... GAS?

I did wonder about electronics modularity being utilised more and flexible pickup location being employed with a modern instrument but we've also seen those tried in the past and they didn't catch on (eg Shergold Modulator system and the Gibson Grabber).

Looks like conventional basses are going to be around for quite a while longer.
[/quote]

Modern touchscreens are very sensitive but i did say the frets would have pressure sensors, however i did think of the electrical contact thing too. I don't think wires would be a problem. And i think Led's instead of screens could work to.

As to the pickup adding character all that could easily emulated. You just copy the exact signature of a setup then put that into the basses memory bank. Modeling amps and other programmable pedals are getting better and better, why not just have that technology inside the bass, like a more advanced variax.

In the future im pretty sure this bass like this will be made. As pointed out many ideas are being used now. Will it be a success i don't know in the future maybe today probably not. As for gas this is not to replace any bass people have lots of basses this is just another bass i have just tried to make it more appealing to a younger generation and to be up to date with todays technology.

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Hmmmn right.... ribbon cabling aside. You'r proposing the tech of 23 mobile phones for a dwindling audience of conservative 30 plus-year olds who comprise the core market. (I include myself in that demographic unfortunately...) for an instrument that you'd be hard pushed to find in the top-20 singles.

The same audience that has whole discussion threads on the merits of Fender changing from 3-bolt to 4-bolt neck joints..

Not gonna happen... nice discussion topic though..

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[quote name='visog' timestamp='1413833254' post='2582587']
Hmmmn right.... ribbon cabling aside. You'r proposing the tech of 23 mobile phones for a dwindling audience of conservative 30 plus-year olds who comprise the core market. (I include myself in that demographic unfortunately...) for an instrument that you'd be hard pushed to find in the top-20 singles.

The same audience that has whole discussion threads on the merits of Fender changing from 3-bolt to 4-bolt neck joints..

Not gonna happen... nice discussion topic though..
[/quote]

Well i wouldn't buy one either lol. My idea was to get more younger people interested in bass playing, and i think the learning tech would appeal to new players. In fact any instrument that has been unchanged in the last half a century and longer, you could modernize to a degree.

My title should of maybe been ways to get a younger generation to play instruments.

And 4 bolt or more is superior but 3 bolt necks look better lol.

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