The Springtime Guitar

I made the first Springtime guitar for Laura-Mary of Blood Red Shoes. For people curious about the sound I can recommend to listen to When We Wake of Blood Red Shoes, which is played on the Springtime. The gentle high pitched ringing tone in the background is what’s typical about the sound of the Springtime if you play it like an ordinary guitar. It’s not an effect delay pedal, but the actual guitar. The sound of the 3 unisono strings appears in the intermezzo (at 2.58) of the track Colours Fade.

You can also watch the Placebo’s Bonus DVD The Making of ‘Battle for The Sun’, where a red copy appears. Molko is playing the intro of Bright Lights on it and disgusses with the cameraman about the possibilities of the instrument. He expresses very positive feedback about the sound of the instrument while considering what to do with it.

Here is a youtube clip of the Placebo moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBwmwuYLjc

Message for curious guitar players:

The Springtime can be configurated and played like a regular guitar. It has many extra features, but if you are afraid of the instrument being far too off the road, you can rearrange the strings in a regular EADGBE setup and avoid the stereo output and use the neck pickup. In case you modify it back to a normal guitar it sounds like a normal good quality Stratocastor with the switch all the way to the left (from the players point of view). I use regular Fender parts for most of my instruments. The neck is also similar to a Strat and Tele. If you like my instruments, but also prefer to stick to your usual system, this instrument is the best choice.

Source: Text taken from Wikipedia

Explanation about the setup

The Springtime has 7 tuning pegs, 3 rotated pickups and three outputs. It has an enlarged tail. It is much larger than a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster or any other tailed bridge guitar I’ve seen so far. I did this because I like the 3rd bridge positions 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 and 1/6 on the Moodswinger. When the counter value of the fraction is higher the overtone is very high. On Jaguars, Jazzmasters and all other tailed bridges like the Teisco’s the tail is somewhere around 1/7^th, 1/8^th of the total string length. The Springtime has a 5:1 ratio, causing a double octave + major third tone (G sharp if the open string is an E). On Enon’s Twister Guitar I went a level further up to a 1:4 ratio), causing a double octave tone behing the bridge (if the open string is an E also an E behind the bridge). The Twisters and Springtimes are very equal to eachother. The biggest difference is their tail and the body of the Twister is 4 cm longer.

The regular Springtime has 7 strings originally meant to be tuned as B – EAD – B⁺B⁰B^-. But other tunings might also be very convenient.

The B string is a bass string and sounds like a bass guitar coming from a separate amplifier. The middle section is for the barre chords, the triple unisono thin strings cause a typical screaming sound or more closely to a Greek Bouzouki if played clean and tuned equal instead of ‘+’, ‘0’ and ‘-‘. The ‘+’, ‘0’ and ‘-‘ indicates the three unisono strings are pitched slightly out of tune to eachother, creating a rapid cycling irregular beating pattern. I tune them on a boss tuning pedal two red lights left to the centre, the middle string on the green LED light and the third string two red lights to the right. The three unisono strings are positioned very close to eachother so they can be played with one finger only. When I was in Zoppo Cees used this kind of tuning a lot but than in the normal nut positions of the G,B and E string which hurts your finger much more when pressing them all. And it was more difficult to press them all while going up and down the neck rapidly.

Laura-Mary has a velcro muting tape on the tail, because I wasn’t sure she’d like the string resonance appearing on tailed bridge guitars. A telecaster, what she most of the time plays are better for staccato than tailed bridge types of guitars. On all other editions I’ve left this tape off. Most people playing such a guitar like it when it rings endless.

The guitar only has volume knobs and on/off switches which also allow the player to merge pickups to one channel. So it is possible to play mono on this instrument, but stereo or 3 way stereo is more interesting for the slightly bleeding sounds coming from the neighbouring pickups.

Alternate versions & replicas

Lou Barlow has an alternate 4 pickup Springtime with 8 tuning pegs of which 6 are stringed and 2 are unused, but optional to string also (the blue one below is Lou’s). The 6 strings are arranged in an unusual set up, similar to a bass guitar but with the two thinnest strings doubled. The shape of the body is typical and a bit unpractical while sitting. Just like the Flying V and the Vox Teardrop. Barlow added a coathook on the bottom of the body to solve this. It’s a stage instrument and not really a bedroom instrument unless you fix something on it similar like Lou did. I took the decision from an easthetic point of view instead of a practical solution. Now that I’m used to it and just let it rests on my lap when I play it and for me personally it’s not very unhandy anymore.

Only three blue Springtimes excist. The one of Laura-Mary, Barlows and my own replica. All others are blonde or transparant red. Tim Bucknall owns the first red replica of Laura-Mary’s instrument (next to Barlows in the pic above). Bas Morsch of The Moi Non Plus also own the first blonde one.

Mauro Pawlowski of dEUS owns the first blonde Springtime with 5 pickups, configured identical like on the Twister. He has 9 tuning pegs of which 7 are used and two empty reserve pegs. In 2009 Pawlowski is touring with Wim Vandekeybus’ contemporary dance group Ultima Vez. On this tour he mostly plays on the Springtime.

Meric Long of The Dodos owns a nine string Springtime (pic with the shoes above). Since he’s playing quiet different like I do I rearranged all aspects of the Springtime on his version. Like Mauro’s and Lou Barlow’s version he also has the bridge mono pickup. His instrument has two rotated pickups instead of three. One for the two upper wound strings and the other rotated pickup for the other strings. So it’s a bit similar to Barlows in many ways. This Springtime also has a tail pickup like on Mauro’s edition. The body color is red. The instrument has nine tuning pegs. Based on the nine string Vox guitars it is a hybrid between a regular 6 string and a 12 string. 3 wound single strings and three pairs of strings for the thinner section. Tuning is similar to a Baritone: B-E-A-D- Gg – F#F#- BB. Gg is tuned in an octave, the other two pairs are unisono. So the highest pitched string is the g.

The Burner Harp Guitar I built for The Veils is not a Springtime, but has the tail of a Twister Guitar.

Copies of the Springtime are for sale.

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