Tele nylon build

[JustPlay]

Hi to all:

I’m wondering if anyone has experience with building a new guitar - or converting an existing one - to create a nylon string tele or strat using a piezo in bridge?

I know the nut width will be narrow compared to a traditional type nylon / classical guitar. And other tradeoffs. If I’m way out in left field, please tell me. But I have a neck and body that I could use…

Thanks in advance -
Chaplain Will

 

[RodeoTex]

Keith played one on a live version of Ruby Tuesday some years back. Sounds like what you are describing here.
Sorry, I can't remember the maker, but I mentioned it here a few years ago and several members quickly named it. Maybe they'll do it again.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Having built a couple of nylon string acoustic guitars I think you have your work cut out. However I did have a thin body nylon string electric guitar cross my workbench. Its made by Gibson as a Chet Atkins signature model. Piezo UST, a bunch of on board signal processing. It had a dummy sound hole with a cover inside, obviously no attempt at creating an acoustic sound

It belongs to a jazz playing friend and sounds like neither an acoustic classical nor an electric. Not bad as a jazz guitar.

If you decide to build something like this seriously consider a wider flatter fretboard and of course a much higher action. Classical guitars are different animals.....

 

[JL_LI]

Godin makes a variety of nylon string electric with necks slightly narrower than classical guitars. I’d try to find one and play it before starting on a build. You may get ideas for your project or you may decide you don’t want to start. Pick one up and try it first.

 

[pixeljammer]

Keith played one on a live version of Ruby Tuesday some years back. Sounds like what you are describing here.
Sorry, I can't remember the maker, but I mentioned it here a few years ago and several members quickly named it. Maybe they'll do it again.

 

[boxocrap]

Godin makes a variety of nylon string electric with necks slightly narrower than classical guitars. I’d try to find one and play it before starting on a build. You may get ideas for your project or you may decide you don’t want to start. Pick one up and try it first.

on godin...24 track has a nice godin nylon string electric..with a roland 13 pin output for a synth..when you see him online maybe ask him

 

[Willie Johnson]

I thought about trying something similar by experimenting with nylons on my Stratacoustic, but ended up using silk and steels for the wound strings and light plain steels for e, b, and g. I like it--nice mellow tone, while still having an electric-like feel.

 

[jkingma]

Many years ago I built a semi hollow electric nylon string guitar. I used a Schatten pickup in mine.

HFN-C Artist - Classical/Nylon String Pickup with Artist II Endpin Jack Preamp (Phantom Power Capable)

The HFN-C Artist pairs our HFN-C sensor with a two channel Artist II endpin jack preamp. This preamp may be run from an onboard 9 volt battery as well as from phantom power (when available). The pickup will give you a full, rich sound and will reproduce exactly what your guitar sounds like...

schatten-pickups.myshopify.com

Lucky for me I know Les Schatten and his shop is not too far away from where I live, so I paid him a visit to chat about my plan. He gave me some advice on how big to make the hollow chamber and how to position the pickup. It turned out pretty good but it was so long ago that I do not remember all the specifics that we discussed. And I've only been able to find a couple old pictures online.

Aside from the narrow neck and nut, I think you should be able to make it work. There could be other pickups out there for this type of application... I just relied on local expertise and it worked out well for me.

 

[hamerfan]

Just a thought. Try a IR Loader with a Nylon string sample with a piezo Nylon. I had good luck with IR response of a Martin D45 with a Takamine.

 

[JustPlay]

Please keep the info coming - my thanks to all!!!

 

[ghostchord]

 

[JustPlay]

Piezo / mic ‘ed / maybe both? Any contact info? Thanks!!!

 

[ghostchord]

Piezo / mic ‘ed / maybe both? Any contact info? Thanks!!!

If you're asking about the video I posted I believe this is just mic'ed. This guy has some other videos where he gets cool sounds out of mic'd electrics. No idea how you'd contact him though a YouTube comment might be a starting point if he reads his comments (this video is pretty popular though). Just goes to show that tone really is in the fingers...

 

[drmordo]

My thoughts:

1. Why? Not that you need a reason, but if you have a reason in mind it might inform our advice.

2. I think you'd end up breaking strings with the metal tuners and nylon strings. I might be wrong, though.

3. I think it could be cool. Personally, I would want a telecaster style bridge with no pickup cutout and I'd use a Esquire pickguard. It would end up looking like a Variax.

 

[Freeman Keller]

This could be an interesting project but there are a whole lot of things to consider. For what it is worth, I have built both solid bodied electric guitars and nylon strung classical guitars, as well as standard flat top acoustic and a bunch of other critters, but never something like this. Here is a classical and a tele clone. both made out of Douglas fir. It is interesting that the guitars are the same scale - 25.5 inches or 650mm

Lets break this down into a couple of different areas to consider. First, the general difference between a nylon string and electric guitars. Obviously one is a completely acoustic instrument, one is completely electric. They make sound in completely different fashions - one by driving energy into the top so it vibrates and moves air, the other via metal wires moving in a magnetic field. The two systems are completely incompatible, we'll deal with that in a bit.

Playability of a guitar follows from its geometry. A nylon strung guitar has a very high action compared to an electric - 0.125 to 0.150 compared with 0.060 to 0.090 - so the strings are twice as far off the fretboard. A nylon string guitar has about 80 pounds of tension, an electric 105. A classical guitar typically has a wide (2 inch at the nut) flat fretboard, and electric narrow and radiused. The bridge spacing on a classical is about 2-3/8 compared to 2-1/8 for the electric. The saddle on both guitars are compensated for intonation, but in very different fashions. The strings are attached to the guitars in totally different fashions.

Part of the differences in necks follows from classical technique which is quite formal - the guitar is held at a certain angle, usually with a foot stool, hands and fingers move in well defined patterns. Picks are rarely used, if for no other reason than that the wear the strings quickly.

When I talk about true classical guitars, there is an interesting new version commonly called "hybrid" which are strung with nylon but have slightly narrower necks (1-7/8) and a tiny bit of radius to the board. These are intended to appeal to steel string players who want to add the sound of nylon but still use the less formal techniques that they are used to. They are still acoustic guitars but may have an undersaddle piezo pickup.

Nylon strings stretch a lot so the tuners have large diameter plastic rollers and there is a little technique of tying the string on so it won't slip. You can certainly use a steel string tuner but it needs to wrap a lot more string and may yield sharp corners that will cut the string. Obviously the nut needs to be made differently (action at the nut is considerably higher than an electric).

Nylon strung guitars usually do not have truss rods - their necks are so beefy and with the lower tension they have very little relief. However it is common to plane the fretboard so it has a little twist as you go up the neck, that is one way they get the very high action on the low E string.

If nothing else I think you will find it very difficult to pack the six fat nylon strings into the narrow fender neck. Making a wider neck allows you to use a wider bridge, but creates problems at the neck pocket. I can see the neck over hanging the body on both sides to get the width that you need. Once you commit to a different neck you can flatten it and do the little twist, make a head with tuners with nylon rollers. I don't know why string trees wouldn't work but I would suggest an angled head. For a bridge you'll want something like a standard nylon tie bridge. Compensation is pretty simple on a classical, sometimes the G string is given a little extra but mostly the saddle stays perpendicular and is just moved a little bit from the scale position.

So, its not impossible to build a solid body guitar that would take nylon strings.

Getting the sound out of it is a different matter. Magnetic pickups won't work, neither will sound board transducers (since there really isn't a sound board). Microphones, whether inside the guitar or out front won't work either, you aren't moving any air. The only thing that would work in my opinion is a pieze transducer in or under the saddle, that does pick up the vibration of the strings themselves. What that will sound like I don't have a clue. I posted a picture of a Gibson Chet Atkins with that style of transducer but its got a boat load of electronics on board. I do not know if that is simply preamplification or if there is a DSP or something on the little PCB. I can tell you that that particular guitar did not sound like either a telecaster or a classical guitar, I have a hard time knowing where it fits.

As you know, there have been solid body guitar with piezo transducers, they attempt to have an "acoustic" sound but in my opinion usually fail. I believe that if they did sound reasonable there would be a lot more of them, you certainly don't see them. Fenders new Acoustisonic attempts to achieve an acoustic sound but its all done by modeling with DSP's in the circuit board. I see the appeal for a gigging musician but the one I played sure didn't impress me.

I helped my son put together a solid body guitar with both magnetic pickups and a piezo bridge - his idea was to not have to take two guitar to his P&W band. The ToM bridge in this picture has six little piezo crystals that are wired to their own output so they could have their own signal chain. We both agree that it is pretty lack luster

So its also possible to amplify a solid body nylon string guitar but the options are very limited.

Before I end this I'll add one side note. In the current issue of Fretboard Journal there is a description of a D'Angelico New Yorker archtop guitar that was modified to take nylon strings. They did fit a new neck to it and did some other work to the top and tailpiece to make it playable. There was no attempt to amplify it, this was back in the 1930's.

If you decide to do this I will watch with interest. Should be fun

 

[drmordo]

Following Mr. Keller's great post, I'll add that I remember a guy on a forum sandwiching a piezo in the neck pocket between the body and neck. I remember the dude saying that it was a more 'woody' acoustic sound than a piezo under the bridge. There may be youtube videos of this approach, I didn't check.

 

[paulblackford]

I've built a nylon string Strat. Things were going well, but it has been broken down again. I wanted to use a different body than the one pictured. I put together the one in the photo, more or less, to see if I wanted to do a full build with finish work, and all. It has a graphtech ghost saddle set, and acousti-phonic preamp. I bought a set of Sperzel nylon tuning machines, that they originally made for Parker guitars. I've got all the parts, and a Warmoth Superwide neck that I bought for next to nothing, but only because I had to refret it. I started working on the neck (re-radius, refret, re-finish), and I did a bit of 'wheat' vintage tint, Reranch Coral for the headstock, and lacquer clear. Now it sits in a project bin. I've lost motivation on it. Maybe one day, I'll finish it. I really only started this build because I had a rare Alvarez 6502 Summit Solid-body nylon string that I was dumb enough to part with, earlier in my life, and I wanted an electric nylon again, but it has gone to the back burner.

 

[ghostchord]

Something to add is that this is pretty common in electric violins. My daughter built an electric Viola with a piezo under the saddle and it had a pretty good sound. The electronics used for those might work in a guitar, e.g.:

My wife keeps saying how she wants a classical guitar... hmm... A Tele is what she really wants, right???