converting 3/4 scale electric into electric 5 string?

[Adam Tracksler]

I really would like to get an electric 5 string, but my budget for it is low....

I was thinking of buying a 3/4 electric and putting a 5 string bridge on it and swapping the pickups for rails. (CGDAE tuning)

Dont know if anyone has done this before, or has any advice in this area.

Seems like the neck would be right length-wise, I dont know if a 3/4 neck is narrower, per-se, than a full sized neck...

Thanks in advance for any tips, tricks or advice....

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[MdJ]

The Mini strat seems like the standard platform for conversion - mike soares'y does a nice job with his tenors and he keeps his price point amazingly low. If I was going to do a budget conversion I would strongly consider having mike do it, you would certainly get a solid, eminently playable instrument at a great price.

I saw an ibanez mikro at guitar center earlier this yr and the nut / scale certainly looked right for this kind of effort...

Btw- I own a 5 string 23" scale electric converted from a gibson es125 t 3/4 - tuned FCGDA - I don't think I could get a high 'E' a fifth up from the 'A' on my instrument- I am currently using a .009 for the treble string on this guitar.

Not saying it can't be done tho....

Moistly

MdJ

[zoukboy]

Btw- I own a 5 string 23" scale electric converted from a gibson es125 t 3/4 - tuned FCGDA - I don't think I could get a high 'E' a fifth up from the 'A' on my instrument- I am currently using a .009 for the treble string on this guitar.

Not saying it can't be done tho....MdJ

Guessing at your string gauges here, based on the .009 on the A4. If you got one of the extra thin strings from
http://octave4plus.com/ you could get a first string up to E5 on a 23" scale. Since your ES125 is electric you can probably get away with it, but on an acoustic the tone would most likely be disappointing.


len 23"

E5 .006" PL == 17.65#
A4 .009" PL == 19.04#
D4 .013" PL == 17.7#
G3 .022" NW == 19.34#
C3 .034" NW == 20.25#
F2 .050" NW == 18.68#
total == 112.65#

[mandocrucian]

Article on doing your own conversion in Mandocrucian's Digest #13. ($5 ppd. in the US) Or do a mandocafe archive search for "conversion". I know I've weighed in at least several times on the subject over the years.

NH

[jesserules]

If you're going five anyway - why not go six & not have to change anything? (except the strings)

FCGDAE?

[zoukboy]

If you're going five anyway - why not go six & not have to change anything? (except the strings) FCGDAE?

Because of the range. If you mean F2C3G3D4A4E5 then the challenge is the high E (see my post above). If you mean an octave lower: F1C2G2D3A3E4 then the challenge is the low F which is the same pitch as the first fret of the low E string on a bass.

On the 23" scale 3/4 guitar we were discussing, Even with an extra heavy bass E string that low F wouldn't get much tension and the tone would probably not be good.

len 23"

E4 .012" PL == 19.0#
A3 .018" PL == 19.04#
D3 .030" NW == 20.37#
G2 .046" NW == 20.12#
C2 .068" NW == 19.84#
F1 .105" NW == 18.83#
total == 117.19#

In addition it would most likely require changing the nut and saddle to accommodate the very different string gauges from standard tuning.

These discussions are interesting but I think we are all seeing why the guitar is tuned in 4ths (with one 3rd) while the violin/mandolin families, with fewer strings, are tuned in 5ths.

[zoukboy]

It just occurred to me that a medium scale 6 string bass could be tuned in straight fifths from F1-E4 and might work reasonably well (except for the longer scale):

len 30"

E4 .0095" PL == 20.25#
A3 .0135" PL == 18.22#
D3 .022" NW == 18.46#
G2 .034" NW == 19.34#
C2 .052" NW == 19.19#
F1 .080" NW == 20.44#
total == 115.9#