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 New Stick details revealed at Southern California Seminar 
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
Great and interesting news. Thanks. :)

//Jan


Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:18 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
@Rich - lol. I was called out on terminology so you are aware and promptly updated my second post with proper Stick syntax! I like your questions and your enthusiasm.

Emmett did state that one of the guiding principles for this instrument's design was to lower cost. He mentioned that it's too early to determine what the price differential will be.

It could be that this could be a savings in time on the part of SE in setting up instruments which in turn is passed on to us as consumers. Statements were made by Emmett to this effect while grinning broadly. :D

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Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:27 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
Yeah, I would expect that a lot of a Stick's cost is in the labor to build it. After all, the wood/bamboo blanks are already machine cut. All the effort comes from having to set the frets, inlays, truss rod, set it all up, etc.

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Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:19 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
I wonder if a prototype might be coming the way of one or two of you ultra high mileage Stickists for an extended trial? I'd want to let someone else make sure there's no question about fret wear before buying an instrument with steel strings and non replaceable frets.

One other question comes to mind - condensation on the fingerboard, coming from a cold dry winter trunk into a warm humid club?

Looks great though!

Max


Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:20 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
Powagoat wrote:
Yeah, I would expect that a lot of a Stick's cost is in the labor to build it. After all, the wood/bamboo blanks are already machine cut. All the effort comes from having to set the frets, inlays, truss rod, set it all up, etc.


100% agree. Leveling and crowning of the stainless steel rails must be a real pain in the neck...


maxr wrote:
I wonder if a prototype might be coming the way of one or two of you ultra high mileage Stickists for an extended trial? I'd want to let someone else make sure there's no question about fret wear before buying an instrument with steel strings and non replaceable frets.

One other question comes to mind - condensation on the fingerboard, coming from a cold dry winter trunk into a warm humid club?

Looks great though!

Max


Condensation happened on my rosewood this winter, followed by a big movement in the neck; I've never had to do such a big truss adjustment (ok this winter was quite harsh and my instrument went from -10 to +22).
At least an aluminum Stick will not move due to moisture changes; but what will happen with temperature changes? I heard that polycarbs were really sensitive to temperature changes and moved a lot.

Cheers, Daniel.


Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:58 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
I hope that this doesn't mean that the 'good old' traditional wooden Sticks will be discontinued :(
I like to look and feel of wood...

Cheers, Daniel.


Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:07 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
Wow, picture from the front solved all my questions.

When do we sign up?

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Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:13 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
It was a surprise to everybody, myself included, as I debated the day before whether to take it along. It was ready, or so I thought, all except for the Block module, which is very customized and didn't behave exactly like it was supposed to. So I used this new "Railboard" (TM) model for my afternoon class but not for the evening concert.

First of all, my gratitude (and Yuta"s as well) to Tom for almost single-handedly organizing this Mira Costa College Stick Seminar and concert event. The enrollment of Stick players and students was just right for such an event, I thought, and local public attendance for the concert was impressive. The College's luxurious new theater was built for acoustical instruments and I think the three of us played our instruments as if they were acoustical, but of course the theater sound system made it electric again and expanded the sound wonderfully. Many thanks Tom, for a most successful and enjoyable Stick event and for making it all run so smoothly.

Brother Dan was there with hand-held hi-D video camera and memorialized the concert where we poured out our musical souls to a very responsive audience. We were mostly in solo but also collaborated in spontaneous duos and trios. Ryan Moran of Tom's "Agent 22" made a trap drum configuration out of exotic percussive instruments and sitting on the stage floor, he put a fine polish on our trio performances.

Dan also videotaped my class while I introduced the Railboard and many of its features. Thanks Dan, and you didn't know about this new model or that I'd be bringing it to the Seminar, but you were there to document the occasion.

And now we have the second introduction of the Railboard here on stickist.com initiated by Gene Perry who attended the class. Many thanks Gene, for outlining some of the Railboard's features. Yes, there's a "wish list" involved in all the designing, drawing and prototype play-testing I've done over the past year. I wished for a fuller sound at the "X-fret" and more uniform playability there, so I increased the distance by 1 3/4" from the X-fret back to the Flaps (TM) dual nut unit - a much longer X-fret space.

But then I also brought the scale length (bridge to nut) back to 34" from our present standard 36 inches, so as to knock off two inches in the other direction. The end result is a 44 3/8" long Stick from bolt-on headstock tip to aluminum tailpiece butt end, as opposed to our standard 10-string Stick's 45 1/4" overall length and Ten-String Grand's 46 1/4" length.

The Railboard width is 3 1/2" for the ten strings, closer to the Ten-String Grand's 3 3/4". Altogether it's a slightly trimmed down version of The Stick, and thinned down as well.

I also wished the neck, fingerboard and Rails would be integral (out of one piece), so I invented the "Railboard" concept and have a patent application filed for it. Gene picked up (and perked up) on this feature right away and yes, it is unique. The Rails (TM) are machine cut to protrude from the board by .060" and are very slightly leveled at their collective tips. (Guitar frets are about .055" high off the board.) The fret "dressing" for a flat and even plane plus some "relief" that I normally do by hand is now a data file for CadCam (CNC) machine operations along with the rest of the instrument (hallelujah!).

I wished for an all metal instrument with lighter weight, so I chose aluminum with radically scooped out rear sides - basically a "deck" with an underlying center ridge to put some vertical distance between truss rod and top deck. The integral neck beam is 3/4" thick whereas our hardwood and bamboo Stick necks are 7/8" thick.

I also wished for rock hard surfaces of aluminum oxide from the hard anodizing process. I have prototypes in dark blue, maroon and soon in a deep burnished gold (if all goes well).

The fret span is our normal double octave from X-fret (first playable note) to the 24th Rail (25 Rails in all). My wish list included five extra high Rails for an extra 4th interval of range, but I've had to back off because the pickups would have to be positioned very close to the bridge to accommodate those extra frets, resulting in thinner tone and lower volume.

Villex's pickup module is an amazing piece of technology, with several innovative features to be announced soon. For now, I have to reverse the Block configuration and then my wish list will be complete.

It plays ideally well (you'll have to take my word for it), and my friend and long-time Stickist Leo Gosselin played it extensively at the end of my Saturday class (thank's for your inspiring musical tour of the Railboard, Leo, even though it's tuned differently than yours).

These days, I'm tuning my dark bamboo "Ten-String Grand" and this dark blue "Railboard" to MR but up a whole step, from low bass D on the 6th string to high melody D on the 1st string (instead of C to C) when played at the X-fret or the octave fret (third inlay bowl cavity). As I explained to the class, I feel that it rejuvenates my music - higher, faster and more "audible" (if you will) in the blend. Of course, this new Stick model will accommodate all 10-string tunings as always, but I'll also be recommending this "Raised MR" tuning, also for hardwood 10 and 12-string Sticks in case anyone's interested.

And finally on my wish list are lower costs and a substantially cheaper price. You're probably already guessing the ballpark price and I'll be able to confirm it soon. The bolt-on headstock helps in that regard. The components are of relatively thin sheet and bar stock and fit together nicely.

Gene is right about my effort to finally bring The Stick "into the mainstream", not that I expect any instant mass production. This model will be fully replicable for the first time, and with all fret work mechanized. My patented divided truss rod will be used to "fine tune" the fretboard profile (operable four ways with each independent half pulling or pushing from the rear surface). And of course, my standard bridge and the dual nut unit and pickups are all height adjustable in the usual way for very low tapping "action" and lightest touch.

Francesco has an intuition about the sound of such a material and structure, and yes, it's on the brilliant side (what I call "clang") but with a deep and resonant bottom end. Also, the pickups are versatile to embellish the sound. (I hope to have a video with good sound soon.)

Rich correctly presumes that the deeply scooped rear "bevels" create enough flexibility in the neck for the truss rod to properly exert its force from the rear. And yes, Rich, the Railboard can be "re-fretted" and re-anodized, just taking the whole top surface down by .030" or so on the same fixtures and cutting program, resulting in a very slightly thinner neck.

And yes Jaap, there are several plating processes including nickel that can make the playing surface and all surfaces including the Rail tips very hard, also mirror like with a polish if desired. Hard anodizing in various colors is just one of these processes, and then there are some new and exotic plasma coatings.

Now I must do a photo shoot of a couple of these third generation prototypes, but it's raining on my deck where I normally do ambient daylight product shots.

Thanks for all your interest and to all of you who attended my class. I hope my focus on expressive RH lead melody was helpful, also my conceptual three-fingered melody using four fingers. You all had lots of questions and I greatly enjoyed explaining things.

We'll soon have an official announcement of the "Railboard" model on our Stick Enterprises Website and I'm enthused about getting started with the first production run.

All the Best, Emmett.


Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:09 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
This all sounds pretty awesome... I guess the only other question I have that hasn't been answered yet is: are there plans for a 12 string model?

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Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:49 pm
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Post Re: New Stick details revealed at Southern California Semina
Hmmm... another Stick??? Well, I AM lacking a 10-string (although, I wouldn't frown on another Grand, Ken). :D

It's great to hear about the next phase in the Stick evolution. Ever the innovator, Emmett!


Take care,

Paul


Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:50 pm
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