There's always the Steinberger DB tuning bridge. And I'm sure Ibanez do a monorail detuner for headed basses.

I've been noodling ideas/desired specs in my head for a detuning monorail tuner for a while now. Here's what I came up with so far:

I like how the Hipshot directly replaces the original tuner with no drilling or routing required, and I'd like the same direct replacement capability for the monorail detuner.

The Hipshot also looks pretty good with the rest of the tuners, no major differences except for the flip switch. I am not sure what kind of mechanism would be required for the monorail detuner, but hopefully nothing too Rube Goldbergian. I agree with Fat Rich that it looks fairly simple since the monorail tuner is already a 'slide' type tuning mechanism. But once again, I am not an engineer or fabricator so I could be wrong.

I'd like up to 1 step range(perhaps up to 1.5 steps?), keeping in mind that some double ball end strings flop out after just a half step of detuning so I may have to go to regular strings.

Another spec I've thought about is having the lever on the top of the monorail instead of the sides like the Steinberger, and flip up and down as opposed to sideways like the Hipshot. Not only does this make it possible for lefties like me, but then you could also put the detuning monorails on more than one string. As I mentioned earlier I have a few songs to play with the E string in drop D and the B string dropped to A#, so a top mounted lever would be perfect. Also, one could still have the 16.5mm spacing option (assuming the dimensions of the monorail detuner remains the same as a standard tuner). With the 16.5mm option the standard monorails are already essentially butting up against each other with no room to spare and if the lever were mounted on the side this would be a problem.

No change in action, ease of use and durability required to withstand billions of detunings.

BassBus mentioned the Ibanez detuner, which I have only seen for guitar. Based on the specs that I have so far, this type of detuner appears to come closest to what I'm looking for in terms of design/concept:


Naturally the bass monorail detuner would have to have the main tuning knob at the end and the detuning knob somehow incorporated, perhaps like the Steingberger but not the entire bridge. Easier said than done, but you get the gist.


Anyways, if Moo or anyone else has any suggestions I'd like to hear. :) It could be an interesting project.

A little more time on the couch.....

Geeeeez

You give a Canadian a camera and look what happens!!

That's a fine collection of basses you have there Todd. You selling any of them?;)

All reasonable offers accepted! B)

Geez Todd,
Thanks for being our rock....our corner stone !!
...Our provider of Qua-li-tay Status porn.

Do you per chance have a Red Series 2 you want to move along?

I'd quite like to buy one.... WAAAAAAAIT A MINUTE! :o

I think I might have something like that.....let me see what I can dig up.

.... Must look away
Heart rate at 130 bpm

Yeah, like that's going to work!

:o

A company named Langley, now gone it seems, built a headless detuner for Steinbergers, I'm surprised that a Status version wasn't attempted. It wasn't pretty but it did work well.