Electro-Acoustic Stringed Reverb Device

[chromedinette]

So, I had these two pieces of aluminum laying around forever and it occurred to me I could make a stringed instrument out of them.

I connected them together with some standoffs and got some super cheap tuners and pickups. In between the two sides, I mounted two small surface mount speaker motors.

The unit has an input and an output. The strings can be driven by a small amplifier.





Youtube clips, on they keyboard one, there is a dry track and they are mostly panned:

[chromedinette]

Some obnoxious fooling around, playing it manually with chopsticks:

[chromedinette]

It occurs to me that I should separate the pickup outputs and make it a stereo device.

[jahloon]

Full marks for a musical device made from improvised parts, brilliant!

[Infinite Ego]

awesome improvised instrument. and that 'verb is pretty good....definitely has applications

[chrissh]

*Cool project* It's always good to exercise the imagination into form.

Fwiw, zither pins can make a good quick and dirty tuner solution for wood. I've attached them to old desks and doorways, mike with contacts and pzm. Find strings long enough and you're golden with anything.

[chromedinette]

Nov 18, 2012 22:53:03 GMT -5 chrissh said:

*Cool project* It's always good to exercise the imagination into form.

Fwiw, zither pins can make a good quick and dirty tuner solution for wood. I've attached them to old desks and doorways, mike with contacts and pzm. Find strings long enough and you're golden with anything.

I built a 6 foot long Branca-style board zither with the bridge in the middle a few years ago and it uses zither pins and piano wire.

Piano wire in it's tightly wrapped form can be scary, always wear goggles when trying to unwrap it!

[chromedinette]

Nov 18, 2012 22:00:52 GMT -5 Infinite Ego said:

and that 'verb is pretty good....definitely has applications

Yeah, I am already thinking of what vocals and guitar overdubs I want to use it on when we record in a month or two.

[chromedinette]

Now that I have done this, I realize it would have been a lot less work to buy a super cheap double neck import guitar on ebay and mount the speaker motor to that, but this looks cooler. I think the tone and sustain from being made of aluminum is also distinct.

If anyone else wants to try something like this, I used surface mount "exciters: like this:

www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=297-220

The ones I used were only about $2, I think they were a clearance item when I bought them.



I can envision a sound installation using a bunch of these exciters mounted to floor joists, with multiple lengths of piano wire in long sections, also below the floor. They could be fed by microphones in the room above, or possible other sound sources.



It also occurs to me that I need to try feeding the output of this back to the input, through delay or pitch shift. I have a Pitchfactor, and the arpeggiators in there might produce interesting results.

[bear]

Very cool idea and execution. Reminds me a bit of the PSP Pianoverb plugin (maybe still free?) that models resonating sounds off the soundboard and strings of a piano with an open sustain pedal. So mix that with idea with plate reverb and there you go.

[aliensporebomb]

FREAKY! I dig, what are you going to call it?

[chromedinette]

I called it the Silver Key, after a Lovecraft story.

It has been pointed out that it sounds a bit like the Palme, the stringed loudspeaker that was part of the Ondes Martenot. I was aware of this item, but had kind of forgotten about it. It must have been at the back of my mind.

[brucestevens]

I dig this.

Nov 18, 2012 16:20:16 GMT -5 chromedinette said:

Some obnoxious fooling around, playing it manually with chopsticks:

[aliensporebomb]

For some reason I'm reminded of this:

[chromedinette]

Nov 29, 2012 15:25:50 GMT -5 aliensporebomb said:

For some reason I'm reminded of this:

That guy has much better carpentry/mechanical chops, for sure.