News and Updates

XR-Spectra: Drop Test

We conducted a drop test to determine the durability of the XR-Spectra pickup. The pickup is dropped twice onto hard tiles at a height of one meter (video below). After being dropped, the pickup should continue to function normally with no degradation in sound quality.

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White XR Spectra

White XR Spectra Pickups, anyone? These are white XR Spectra 82mm pickups that are currently custom ordered. I’m thinking we can make this a standard if there is enough interest.

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Nu Cello

A brief diversion from the Manufacturing Thor series. Here are some photos of Ferdinand Liedtke’s Nu-equipped Cello. The Nu modular pickups are used in all sorts of instruments! Ferdinand says he’ll share some sound clips soon.

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 7

Here’s how our fret cutting tool works. A laser-cut acrylic template with fret position slots aligns with a 3mm pin. The fret slots are cut on a small rotary saw with a titanium coated circular saw blade with a cutting width of 0.5mm.

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 6B

After posting Manufacturing about Thor’s Compound Radius Fretboard, I was pointed to an article by Mottola stating that compound radius fretboards are not worth the extra effort and that cylindrical fretboards and normal fret dressing techniques yield the same results. I went on to analyze this claim.

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 6

Thor’s fretboard has a compound radius, with a nut radius of 304 mm (12′′) and a 24th fret radius of 456 mm (18′′). Compound radius fretboards have a conical surface that allows for low action and no string buzz.

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 5

Manufacturing Thor Part 5: The Neck Duplicator​: How do you quickly produce repeatably precise necks without using a CNC? We made our own wood carving duplicator for just this purpose. It works like a charm. It enables us to copy a master pattern in amazing detail using a compact router on one side and a stylus on the other.

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 4

Part 4: The Nut​: OK, So… Your frets are metal. Your tuning machines are metal. Your bridge is metal. And your nut is… eh… plastic? Bone? Or some kind of synthetic material resembling bone? The nut we use for Thor is made of laser-cut stainless steel, buffed to perfection. It matches the sonic and mechanical properties of Thor’s stainless-steel frets.

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 3

Part 3: Manufacturing The Middle Section Previously, I wrote about the design of the Thor’s middle section. This time, we’ll look at how the middle section is

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Manufacturing Thor: Part 2

Part 2: Designing The Middle Section This post describes the design of Thor’s body’s middle section. The design incorporates both traditional and innovative design elements.

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Beyond Infinity

Allow me to present Infinity — the electronics inside Thor that handle polysustain (infinite multichannel sustain). Three modules, including power conditioning, signal conditioning, microcontroller, and

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Touch Guitar

If I were to re-learn the guitar, I’d learn touch guitar. I learned the keyboard before the guitar, and it just makes sense. The two-handed

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XR-Spectra v2 Fresh Batch

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zBXlicaqDD4ef4eHy2kbLra59SKLW-zpThis batch took a long time to finish. Logistics were a mess, plagued by delays. Apart from that, I have to admit that we had

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