One user in Europe reported ‘muddiness’ in low bass strings on his Megatar. He was not using the standard strings that we supply, but strings of some different construction, and gauges unknown. He asks what can cause tonal changes and especially ‘muddiness’ in low bass strings. Several things can cause tonal changes in the lowest [...]
Megatar FAQ
You are currently viewing the category archives of Design
Category Archives: Design
How To Count the Frets
[reprinted by permission from MegArticles Two-Handed Tapping Archives] Image by Brian Hathcock via Flickr HOW DO YOU COUNT FRETS? It’s not a silly question. I have been surprised by how many times this question comes up. Since this little question baffles so many people, I did a search on our favoriite search engine, and didn’t [...]
Q: How to Make a String Deadener / String Mute?
A: People sometimes ask if they can buy one of our String Deadeners, sometimes called a String Mute. You don’t need to buy one from us, because you can make your own string deadener easy as pie. Just go down to Ace Hardware, in the kitchen department, and look for ‘shelf liner’. It’s a spongy [...]
Q: Many Megatar instruments are inexpensive, but your sound is better than others costing more. How you do that?
A: It’s a matter of priorities. In our design process, we’re mainly interested in the sound and playability. So you think, what do we know sounds best? How can we utilize the science of sound? And what will give us superior playability? For example, guitar-builders know if you want good tone, the instrument must be [...]
Q: Has Mobius Megatar developed the perfect instrument?
A: They’re pretty darn good, but we don’t think they’re perfect. Perfection is a moving target. As soon as you’ve improved one thing, it’s impossible not to see something else that could be done better. In the southwestern United States, there was once a tribe who believed that if they made a pot or a [...]
Q: How do you compare your instrument to other touch-style instruments?
A: Well, first of all, if you know how to play any other manufacturer’s instrument specially made for touch-style play, then you’ll find our instrument very easy, and you may well enjoy some of the innovations we’ve added. That said, we think there’s a lot to like about instruments made by several other manufacturers, and [...]
Q: How fast is delivery?
A; Real fast, compared to other makers of tapping instruments, because we use what we call the ‘Almost Ready’ Inventory System. Though ideally we would like to offer ‘same day shipping’ like Amazon Books, in practice it’s not always that way. Because our instruments are ‘semi-custom’, although we generally have plenty of stock, we cannot [...]
Q: Do you make 5×7 instruments? Left-handed? Eight or Ten-String Instruments?
A: The term 5×7 means an instrument which has five bass strings and seven melody strings. Because we’ve chosen to maintain modular design principles using only standard parts, we’ll stick with six strings in a string group, because there are so many pickups and bridges available for six strings. I don’t know what ‘left-handed’ actually [...]
Q: I thought that the Buzz Feiten Intonation System has to do with the nut, and tappers don’t play open strings at all! What gives?
A: Lots of folks believe this, because Buzz Feiten’s *first* discovery had to do with moving the nut to make the open strings play more in tune with the fretted strings. However, after that he went further, and along with super-luthier Greg Back of Southern California, they developed a whole set of adjustments you make [...]
