Quick-to-dismantle and reconfigurable stringed musical instrument

Abstract

The invention relates to a musical instrument having plucked strings, in particular an electric guitar or bass, the neck of which can be quickly dismantled and stored in a groove located in the front face of the body, in line with the strings of the instrument, allowing the instrument to be transported in a compact case. Various elements are positioned in the groove: bridge, tailpiece and microphones. These elements are removed from the groove when the instrument is dismantled, leaving room for the neck and allowing the instrument to be stored in the smallest possible thickness. This allows for different configurations in terms of the choice of microphones, bridge and tailpiece, which can be easily interchanged to obtain different ranges of sound depending on the repertoire and musical tastes of the musician.

Description

[0001] The invention relates to the field of plucked string musical instruments and in particular to that of electric basses or guitars. Previous technique

[0002] In 1951, Clarence "Leo" Fender revolutionized the electric guitar (reference 1) with the invention of the Telecaster, the first "solid-body" guitar—that is, without a soundbox—that could be mass-produced industrially. Inspired by automobile manufacturing, Leo Fender designed a guitar that could be quickly produced from independently manufactured sub-assemblies: body, neck, pickup, and bridge (reference 2). This fostered the rapid development of electric guitars, which could then be produced in the hundreds of thousands per year.

[0003] One drawback of electric guitars is their length, often around a meter, which makes them difficult to transport—especially by plane—unless they are packed in extremely reinforced cases and carefully wrapped in shock-absorbing material to allow for transport in the hold while minimizing the risk of damage. The passionate guitarist is therefore frequently forced to forgo bringing their instrument with them when traveling by plane. The same applies to traveling by motorcycle or bicycle, which a large instrument can make dangerous.

[0004] The appearance of headless guitars (reference 3) has made it possible to make guitars more compact, but the length remains around 75 cm for a standard scale length of 64.8 cm (25.5 inches), which is the most common string length for guitars.

[0005] It is then necessary to use a guitar with a shorter scale length to achieve a total length of less than 65 cm, which can fit diagonally in an airplane carry-on suitcase. Using a shorter scale length reduces the spacing between the notes. This can be uncomfortable and unsettling for guitarists accustomed to playing on a standard-length scale.

[0006] The alternative is to disassemble the guitar by separating the body and the neck. Some quick-release mechanisms have been proposed for this purpose (reference 4). Alternatively, other designs have been proposed that involve folding the neck over the body of the guitar (reference 5).

[0007] The disadvantage of this method is that the thickness of the neck is added to the thickness of the body and that the guitar thus disassembled, if it can fit in a cabin bag, will take up a significant amount of space, leaving little room for other belongings.

[0008] Some also suggest storing the neck in a cavity carved inside the body (reference 4): while this approach does save some space, it requires a body thick enough so that the cavity housing the neck doesn't interfere with the volume occupied by the pickups. This type of approach necessitates a greater thickness than that typically used for an electric guitar body and is therefore not ideal for guitarists looking to travel with a compact instrument.

[0009] Reference 7 describes another state-of-the-art instrument. Summary of the invention

[0010] The present invention relates to the construction of a plucked string musical instrument—and in particular a bass or an electric guitar—whose neck can be detached and stored in a groove located on the front of the body, aligned with the instrument's strings. This allows the instrument to be transported in compact luggage. It also minimizes the instrument's thickness when disassembled, thus freeing up space in the luggage for other items.

[0011] During the instrument's assembly, various components are positioned in the groove: the bridge, tailpiece, and pickups. These components are removed from the groove during disassembly, freeing up space for the neck and allowing for minimal storage thickness. This also offers the advantage of enabling different instrument configurations in terms of pickup, bridge, and tailpiece selection, which can be easily interchanged to obtain a variety of tonal palettes depending on the repertoire and musical preferences of the player.

[0012] The neck can be mounted and dismounted by a unique stop and nut arrangement, allowing this operation to be carried out quickly without the need to change the tension of the strings at their ends.

[0013] An optimized body shape allows for storage with the neck diagonally in a compact rectangular format, without altering the ergonomics of the instrument, while leaving space to store the various accessories. Brief description of the drawings

[0014] [ Fig. 1A ] : front view and side view ([ Fig. 1B ]) of the instrument highlighting the groove carved into the front of the body, designed to receive the neck during transport, the bridge / tailpiece, and the microphones in playing position. Fig. 2 [ ] : diagram illustrating the bridge and tailpiece and one of the instrument's microphones mounted on a through-bracket designed to be inserted along the rails of the groove. Fig.3 [ ] : diagram illustrating one of the instrument's microphones fixed to a non-through support designed to be inserted along grooves in the groove. Fig. 4A ] : view of the heel of the handle and cross-sectional view ([ Fig. 4B]) showing the device for attaching the handle to the body using a single bolt. Fig. 5A ] : illustrations showing respectively the assembled instrument seen from the front ready to play and the instrument seen from the side with the neck in the transport position in its groove ([ Fig. 5B ]) once the accessories - microphones and tailpiece - have been removed. Fig. 6 ] : presentation of a guitar according to the invention with an optimized body shape allowing storage in a small piece of luggage. Detailed description

[0015] An embodiment of the invention is presented [ Fig. 1A ] in front view and consists of a plucked string instrument, in this case an electric guitar, comprising a body (1) having a cavity in which the neck (2) is mechanically fixed by means of a heel.

[0016] The body on the face of the strings - intended to be played - has along its entire length a groove (3), parallel to the strings, in line with the neck, the depth of which is at least equal to the thickness of the neck joint and the width of which is at least equal to the width of the neck. Fig. 1B ].

[0017] The various components of the instrument located on the body and under the strings – bridge (7), pickups (8) (9) – are removable in order to expose the groove along its entire length. They are shown [ Fig. 2] and [Fig. 3] ].

[0018] The groove (3) is locally widened and deepened to accommodate the different elements.

[0019] The through-body components or those subjected to string tension are fixed by means of two rails (5) – or alternatively two grooves – parallel to the fretboard and serving as guides. An opening (4) is made upstream of the rails (or grooves) relative to the neck, in order to insert or remove the relevant components – bridge, tailpiece, or bridge-tailpiece – and to position them by sliding them along the rails (or grooves) until they reach stops located upstream, which then secures the strings.

[0020] To this end, the bridge and tailpiece – to which one or more microphones may be added – are fixed to a support (10) designed to slide along the guides. The microphones are also equipped with plug-in connectors positioned parallel to the groove, allowing electrical contact to be established with the body of the instrument at the stops.

[0021] The guide fixing method can also be implemented when the microphones are fixed to non-through supports (11) and are not subjected to string tension, their retention in position in the guide (6) then being ensured by the connector.

[0022] An alternative method of positioning microphones could be to attach them magnetically.

[0023] The handle can be quickly removed with a bolt – possibly hand-tightened – passing through the body on one side; and a metal plate (12) having a single nut (13) centered on the axis of the handle and fixed to the heel of the handle by two screws (14) placed on either side of the nut, symmetrically with respect to the axis of the handle. Such an arrangement is shown in cross-section [ Fig. 4B] and allows the nut to be firmly anchored in the heel while remaining at a distance from the metal tension rod (18) - commonly called "truss rod" - intended to control the curvature of the neck and placed on the axis of the neck - buried about ten millimeters inside the neck on the side opposite the strings.

[0024] The groove has two lateral stops (19), shown [ Fig. 5A ], which allow the neck to be positioned longitudinally relative to the body and rotated along an axis perpendicular to the axis of the groove and parallel to the plane of the strings, thus allowing the strings to be de-tensioned during disassembly or put back into tension during reassembly of the neck.

[0025] The width of the groove at the heel is precisely adjusted to the width of the heel. When the body is symmetrical with respect to the neck and the heel is rectangular, the two stops and the groove are sufficient to provide effective neck support. When the body has a cutout designed to allow easier access to the higher notes, as in the illustrations shown, a metal rail (20) of centimeter length is inserted into the body, parallel to the neck axis and perpendicular to the plane of the body, and positioned at the end of the groove near the cutout. A slot (15) judiciously placed in the neck to precisely receive the rail allows for good lateral neck support. The parallelism of the rail with the neck axis allows the neck to rotate around the axis of the stops for mounting and dismounting the neck. As illustrated [ Fig. 4AA second slot (16) and two cavities (17) are positioned on the back of the neck to receive the rail and the stops respectively when the neck is removed and rotated 180 degrees for storage in the groove. Unlike the slot (15), which is precisely fitted to the rail, the second slot (16) and the cavities (17) are widened to allow sufficient play for easier storage of the neck.

[0026] Alternatively, a more conventional arrangement, using four screws through the body, can be used in addition to the stops to secure the handle instead of the arrangement described above. However, this has the disadvantage of requiring more time for assembly and disassembly, and of deteriorating over time with repeated assembly and disassembly.

[0027] Once the single bolt (21) has been unscrewed, the neck can then be turned towards the front of the body - thus releasing the tension on the strings - then separated from the body and rotated approximately 180 degrees in the plane of the strings to be stored in the groove - the back of the neck towards the body - after removing the bridge and the pickups as illustrated [ Fig. 5B ].

[0028] This allows for compact storage of the instrument with a thickness approximately equal to the thickness of the body (rather than the thickness of the body plus the thickness of the neck as in the methods described previously).

[0029] This also has the advantage of making it easier to interchange different types of bridges and tailpieces - for example, separate bridge and tailpiece or bridge and tailpiece with vibrato - as well as to use different types of microphones.

[0030] Reassembly is done by rotating the neck 180 degrees around its axis so that the fingerboard faces the body, then lifting it out of the groove to position it approximately perpendicular to the body. The pickups and tailpiece can then be positioned in the guides, and then, with the heel of the neck resting on the stops (19), the neck is rotated backward until it is parallel to the body with the rail (20) inserted into the slot (15). This movement puts the strings under tension, and the neck is then secured by placing the bolt (21) through the body, making contact with the nut (13), and tightening it.

[0031] In particular, a headless neck solution allows a guitar thus constructed with a 25.5-inch scale length and 24 frets to fit into a 55 cm x 35 cm x 20 cm case compatible with most airlines (reference 6)

[0032] An optimized body shape is presented [ Fig. 6 It consists of modifying the classic shape of the guitar by reducing the depth of the cutaway and removing the portion of the small lobe of the body located between the junction with the large lobe and the bottom of the neck on the bass string side, as well as the lower portion of the large lobe of the guitar body on the treble string side. This geometry maintains the essential ergonomic elements of a stringed instrument, namely the surface area for the player's arm to rest on the body and the distance between the player's leg in a seated position and the strings. This geometry also allows the neck to be stored diagonally inside an even smaller piece of luggage (22), sometimes required by certain low-cost airlines.

[0033] This type of arrangement can also be used to create an electric bass that can be transported in an extremely compact manner. References

[0034] Reference 1: US Patent Des. 164,227 - Clarence L. Fender - August 14, 1951 Reference 2: US Patent 2,573,254 - Combination Bridge and Pick-up Assembly for String Instruments - Clarence L. Fender - October 30, 1951 Reference 3: US Patent Des. 290,130 - Electric Guitar with Bolt-on Neck - Ned Steinberger - June 2, 1987 Reference 4: US Patent 5,353,672 - Collapsible Guitar with Quick Disconnect Neck and Submerged String Tunnels - Lelland W. Stewart - October 11, 1994 Reference 5: US Patent 8,273,974 B1 - Folding Mechanism for Bolt-on Neck Stringed Instruments - Eduardo Edison Gonzalez - September 25, 2012 Reference 6: Cabin baggage size for different airlines https: / / www.taillecabine.com / compagnies / taille-bagages-cabine.php Reference 7: US Patent Application 5,994,633 A - Northon Hugh - November 30, 1999.

Claims

1. A plucked string musical instrument comprising: a) a body (1) comprising a pocket to receive a neck (2), b) a straight neck mechanically fixed to the body at the level of a heel inserted into the pocket, c) a groove (3) dug on the playing face of the body of the instrument, along an axis parallel to the axis of the neck, over the entire length of the body, starting from the pocket, over a width at least equal to the width of the pocket and a depth at least equal to the depth of the pocket, d) a cavity made in the groove, wider than the groove and equipped laterally with mechanical guides parallel to the axis of the groove and of a length less than the length of the cavity, allowing, once the tension of the strings is released, the tailpiece and the bridge of the instrument to slide backwards relative to the neck until they pass the end of the guides and thus to be able to separate the tailpiece and the bridge (7) from the body of the instrument by removing them from the cavity; said musical instrument characterized by the following characteristics: a) the groove has two lateral stops (19) allowing the neck to be wedged longitudinally in relation to the body and to pivot it along an axis parallel to the plane of the strings and perpendicular to the axis of the neck in order to release tension from the strings when removing the neck and to put them back under tension when reassembling the neck, b) the back of the neck has two cavities (17) intended to receive the stops when the neck is turned 180 degrees in the plane of the strings and then placed inside the groove with the back of the neck towards the body of the instrument.

2. A musical instrument according to claim 1: a) whose heel is equipped with a plate mechanically fixed so as to retain a nut buried in the heel while allowing access to the screw thread of the nut, b) whose body is pierced with a single hole allowing the neck to be fixed by means of a bolt screwed into the nut buried in the heel.

3. A musical instrument according to claim 2: a) whose body has a cutaway at the junction with the neck on the side of the treble strings b) whose body pocket is equipped with a rail parallel to the axis of the neck and perpendicular to the plane of the body, c) whose heel is provided with a slot intended to receive the rail precisely in order to provide lateral wedging of the neck and another slot intended to receive the rail when the neck is turned 180 degrees in the plane of the strings and placed inside the groove, the back of the neck towards the body of the instrument.

4. A musical instrument according to claim 1 which is an electric instrument whose microphones are placed inside the groove when mounting the neck and removed when dismounting the neck.

5. A musical instrument according to claim 4: a / characterized in that it is a guitar, b / whose small lobe of the body has a wide, shallow cutaway at the bottom of the neck on the side of the treble strings, c / of which the part of the small lobe of the body located between the junction with the large lobe and the bottom of the neck, on the side of the bass strings, has been removed, d / of which the lower part of the large lobe of the body of the instrument on the side of the treble strings has been removed.

6. A musical instrument according to claim 4: a / characterized in that it is a bass, b / whose small lobe of the body has a wide, shallow cutaway at the bottom of the neck on the side of the treble strings, c / of which the part of the small lobe of the body located between the junction with the large lobe and the bottom of the neck, on the side of the bass strings, has been removed, d / of which the lower part of the large lobe of the body of the instrument on the side of the treble strings has been removed.

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