A: As engineers, we believe there were three generations of tapping instruments from the 40’s through the 90’s. The first generation, those were standard guitars just tweaked a little for tapping. The second wave consisted of somewhat radical designs made only for tapping. The third wave more recently saw high-end traditions being applied to tapping instrument design. And now, building upon those previous efforts, we’ve brought some new refinements to the design of a touch-style bass.
The Mobius bass builds upon many workable ideas already existing in electric basses, for example tilting the head back to get strings to sustain longer. We’re then adding some innovations such as an instrument that’s easier to learn (using a new approach that we describe in our method book), easier to navigate (resurrecting an old fretboard marking system that’s both familiar and yet integrates positioning for both hands), and easier to play in tune (by licensing Buzz Feiten’s amazing new intonation system).
Also, from the beginning our idea was to design this instrument in a modular fashion, using standard parts and measurements, with the idea that musicians and luthiers would find it an “open architecture” using parts they know, so those who wish to do so can tweak and modify and hopefully accelerate the evolution of this instrument and tapping instruments in general.
Or as Henri says, “It’s designed to mutate rapidly in the wild.”
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