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Moonlander


bieke

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The Moonlander is a biheaded electric guitar with 18 strings, 6 normal strings and 12 sympathetic strings. The guitar is a custom-made instrument, built in 2007 by Yuri Landman for Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth.

 

The guitar has four separate outputs:

The output for the bridge pickup, like on any other normal guitar

The output for the droning strings pickup

Output 3 for the upper rotated neck pickup, for a stereo option

Output 4 for the lower rotated neck pickup, for a stereo option

 

The 12 droning strings create a natural reverb, with specific desired frequencies, depending on in which tones the strings are tuned. The standard tuning for the droning strings is a circle of fourths divided over two octaves.

 

Besides this acoustic reverb possibility the guitar is also a stereo guitar. The two rotated pickups individually send out different signals coming from different strings, to make it possible to play two different guitarparts on one instrument at the same time. The nut and bridge allow repositioning of the strings, modifying the moonlander into a coursed instrument.

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the Moodswinger is a custom made string instrument for the band Liars. Although it closely resembles an electric guitar, it is actually a zither -- an electric 12-string 3rd bridge overtone zither. The tuning of this instrument is E-A-D-G-C-F-A#-D#-G#-C#-F#-B, arranged in 3 clusters of 4 strings each. The pickup and electronics are built into the neck instead of in the body like usual electric guitars.

 

The 3rd bridge divides the strings into two segments with different pitches. Depending on where the string is played, a bell-like harmonic second tone is created. The string resonates more or less when the back side is struck, depending on the position of the 3rd bridge along the string. This can be explained by acoustic resonance and microtonality. At harmonic nodal positions, the string resonates more then at other positions. For instance, dividing the string 1/3 + 2/3 creates a clear overtone, while 24/33 + 9/33 creates an indistict overtone.

 

soundclip anyone ?

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Check out Fred Carlson's Sympitars - the extra 12 drone strings run under the fretboard for a more elegant look with its own sound.

 

http://www.beyondthetrees.com/omphotos.html

 

The Flying Dream has a similar hollow neck with 12 drone strings plus bass and treble harp courses. Notice the sharping levers on the harp strings. .

 

http://www.beyondthetrees.com/drmphoto.html

 

The New Dream is completely off the hook. Check out the individual capos on the bass harp neck.

 

http://www.beyondthetrees.com/NDphoto.html

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