Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Metheny is brilliant. Early in his career he was occasionally (and very wrongly) lumped in with the incipient "new age" crew because his style is very melodic. But among jazz buffs, which I'm not, he seems to be held in high regard. He's performed and recorded with a variety of heavy hitters.

I think his music, especially with Lyle Mays, is terrific... whether on arch top, acoustic, synth guitar, that weird thing he's pictured with, whatever.

Gary, that Bunker Touch (sounds like a tiny little bomb) should have gone under "Knock Offs, Rip Offs and Just Plain Ugly", don't you think?

All the red-kandy-coated AAAAAAAAA+ Maple in the world can't disguise the fact that it looks like a prosthetic snow shovel...

Mmumm... lucky guy you are Gary...

Sheena: I might have been slightly wrong about PM's acoustic high-strung tuning...I think he might only tune the D-G strings up an octave (the middle two strings). I know he uses lighter gauge strings for those strings, slightly thinner than his B-E strings. That must feel strange to the fretting fingers. I've been meaning to try that tuning out on one of my acoustics.

Just for the record, I'm a big fan of Pat Metheny, Chuck McCann and Bozo...didn't want to seem like I was dissin' anybody...

I got to try out one of these at the Montreal Music Show ealier this month. (shown here with it's inventor). It is called a Tritare.



Basically, there is no string stops on this thing. Each "neck" has a set of tuning keys and the "stop" end of each string is attached to the other two sets of strings "bullets", at the joint of all three necks. They free float, held by tension from the other two string sets.

It is mighty different. There are 5 pickups on it, 3 on the main player neck and one on each "drone" neck. The sound is a cross between a sitar and a synthesizer. There is virtually no resistance to any bends you try. You can bend a low E right off the high E side of the neck.

It was a bizarre experience. Just getting it on is interesting.

At over $5K Canadian, they have a long road ahead to success. It isn't my cup 'o tea sound wise.

...Dean

What a great Star Trek guitar...where's Lt. Uhuru...order me a tall purple one while you're up, willya?

I did a quick search for tritare and hit a bunch of mathematics publications, probably because the two guys that invented it are mathematicians.

Tritare story

Scroll down to the bottom of the page where there is a short article and more links.

The Tritare was made at the Université de Moncton, which is where I'm a student...
Haven't heard much about it lately!

At the Montreal Show, I spoke with Claude Gauthier about the instrument and it's origins. They have licensed a Moncton luthier to build and sell them. I played a 5 pickup and a 7 pickup version. The 5 was finished in a fireglo style with very figured wood, the 7 was just clear varnished. They even had a crude, unvarnished acoustic version.

I played them through a Princeton and was underwhelmed. The tones were hard to get control over. The instrument wants to clang like bells a lot. You have to be very gentle with it to get the sitar like tones. Very easy to fret though.

They are visually stunning, with a high quality finish and they attract a lot of attention. They are also very, very expensive.

Oh yeah, it is strictly stand up and play, no chair loafing with these! Very Star Trek as Dane put it.

I'm not knocking them, just not a sound I personally like. I never asked how long it takes to tune one!

...Dean

Too many jokes about "how many .....'s does it take to tune a tritare" I would think. It IS different!
I saw that Pat Metheny guitar in CM a few years back.
What's up with the course of strings running diagonally across the face of the guitar?

They're 'sympathetic drones'...no liberal jokes, please...

Kevin: I vote for 'Romulans'...

"Sympathetic drones" sounds suspiciously like "yes men" to me!
Romulans = good choice. See also: CIA operatives, tax officials, government employees, spin doctors, etc.
Actually,I'm starting to think our Prime Minister is a Romulan
I was referring to the diagonal course on Metheny's guitar.

So was I...