Post 15: Still more musings about what the next "Music Making Machines" might be.

      I have long been in love with the hurdy-gurdy.  I was born in a region of France called Morvan, which has traditional folk dance music where the hurdy-gurdy generally is the only instrument. When we had an outdoor wedding party there back in 1975, my father asked one of the few old-timer musicians to come and play for us. It was great, we even got to play his beautiful old vielle.  I considered building one back then, but never did. I wanted to buy an old one, but they were rare and expensive. I went on to other things.

     There has been a considerable revival of the hurdy-gurdy in recent years, especially in Irish music, and a number of luthiers are making them again, improving on the age-old design, even making electric ones.       I recently discovered a European virtuoso that plays incredibly beautiful, haunting, interesting and soulful music on an electrified instrument: Guilhem Desq

     It's a very old instrument found more or less all over Europe, derived from the Organistrum, which goes back a thousand years.  It was mostly used in churches back in these times, and was much bigger than the later 15th-century Hurdy-Gurdy. It required two people to play, as depicted in this sculpture from a 12th-century Spanish church:

     Because of its large size and its longer strings, it's sound inside a church must have been similar to a small organ, the instrument that would come to eventually replace it. 

     I have been dreaming of making a really big electrified one, that could really fill a space with the same deep resonant tones as the organ. The biggest and longest string commonly available string is a double-bass E string, which is tuned at 41 hertz. I ordered a set and received it yesterday. 

    I wanted to test it immediately, so I just used a stick of Guatemalan caoba I had, fitted it with a very basic tail, two guitar tuners, a small guitar pickup, a 1/4" rod as a nut, and a piece of 1" tubing as a bridge. I want to get the deepest sound possible, so I took full advantage of the 62" length of the string, and have the bridge to nut distance maximized at 51", instead of the standard 43" scale of a 4/4 double-bass. That is 20% longer, and I am hoping to get at least a low D, maybe even a low C. To make the tone richer, I added the D string, and plan to tune it an octave higher than the lowest tone I get from the E string.

     I also improved my slightly out of round test wheels, and cut two new 8" disks out of high-density fiberboard, one 1/4" thick, the other 1/2". I fitted them with the flanges extended by an aluminum disk to avoid wobble, and rubbed the edges with dark rosin:

     I tuned the big E string to a low C and the smaller D string to an A. It could also be tuned to a C to play in unison. Here is the test video:

    Well, testing has now shown me that the strings sound best when the wheel is rubbing them down or up rather than sideways. With the strings side by side, I cannot do that, or it would require two wheels, which is an option.

      If I want to use a single wheel,  I will have to build a "sideways bridge" with two levels. This is actually not unique, there are other instruments with such a bridge, like the African Kora, which is plucked like a harp:

      But that will change the design of my future "Double-Bass Gurdy". The axle of the wheel will have to be above the sounding board instead of below, and the strings arranged vertically. Using my old MacPro box as a body, it would go something like this:

   

Post 14: Continuation of post 13. Where is this going?

    I got seriously sidetracked in the last post, but all that harmonica stuff is in some way part of the project. In fact, I have considered making a small portable organ using harmonicas with a keyboard and compressed air. Well, that would be too much like a Melodica. I will have to make organ pipes!

   OK. I love the aluminum Steel Guitar, the Standing Aluminum, and the Aluminum Cello, but I can't play them because my left hand has no strength nor mobility. I will never be able to play live music with them, BUT could possibly sample the sounds and put them together in GarageBand. 

   Another possibility I am looking into is putting a motorized wheel in an "Electric Hurly-Burly". I read about how, before the advent of church organs, big "Hurly-Burlies" were used in churches instead, and have been tempted to design one. 

    I built a test zither a while back with several groups of 4 violin strings, a piezo contact sensor, and a preamp equalizer. I mounted two wheels I had on 12 volts geared electric motors with RPM's of 50 and 100, with speed controllers to slow them down. One of the wheels is 8" cut out of 1/8" tileboard, the other is 7" cut out of 3/4" high-density fiberboard and a 12V DC power supply. 

   The thinner wheel turning at 50 RPM actually seemed to produce a cleaner sound. The bigger strings sound better at a slower speed, the thin ones at a higher speed. These wheels are slightly out of round and have a slight wobble. To correct that in the next iteration, I ordered some metal flanges:

       I will cut a new test wheel out of a 1/4" thick piece of fiberboard, fit one of these flanges as close to the center I can, and then refine the fit with a sander while rotating the wheel.

      The size of the wheel also matters, of course. The bigger the wheel, the slower it needs to be. Which means that at the same RPM, the smaller shorter strings would require a larger wheel than the big long strings.

    As can be seen in the picture above, I have also been experimenting with an old saw blade bolted to the edge of the zither soundboard, and it produces interesting sounds. I am using an unused "bed leg" as a handle to bend the saw blade in an S shape. The wider cello bow is louder than the violin bow. The wheels do not work.

   I find it very hard to tune the strings just with the zither pins, and so ordered a dozen of Chinese fine tuners :

      I want to make this next "MusicMaking Machine" also mostly out of aluminum, and need an aluminum box as a soundboard and resonator. Rather than buying 1/8" sheet aluminum to make a box, I am going to use one I already have sitting in the attic collecting dust: my old 2005 MacPro G5.  I will have to make extended aluminum necks for the four 62" double-bass strings and the four 45" cello strings, and place bridges more or less in the center of the box. 

     I am not sure at this point whether the wheels will be below the strings inside the box with electric motors and joystick controllers, or above the strings and turned by hand. Nor am I sure how many wheels there will be, or how big. There will be several shorter violin string groups too attached to the edges of the box. All groups of strings will be tuned to a chord in the harmonic minor scale, as will all the other "instruments", so they make noise more or less in tune with each other... 

     There will be a piezo rod under the soundboard below each bridge like the cigar box guitar and the small test zither, and a preamp with equalizer. There will be a microphone inside the box too, as it can be made into an electric percussion instrument. I want to find a larger lower-pitched saw blade.

     I am now in the process of taking all the innards out, and it is not an easy job. Makes you wonder what alien put this thing together...

         Another thing I have been pondering is how to make a zither that can be easily bowed, and also easily retuned. The model for that is of course the ancient Chinese Guzheng. It's been around for well over 1000 years, and has been traditionally plucked, but sounds great when bowed. The curved shape allows easy single string bowing, and it can be re-tuned for a particular song just by moving the individual bridges.

      I wonder if I could make something similar but floor-standing, with strings all-around a cylindrical resonance chamber, and a handle to rotate it. Or maybe just a half-cylinder...

Post 13: Thirteen is my lucky number, so I want to use this post to muse about what the future of this project might be

      I used the expression "Music Making Machines" in a very loose way, including pretty much anything that can make a sound that can be used strung up with other sounds to form something that somebody somewhere considers "Music".

    What is "Music" really?

   Traditional 12 tones even temperament Western Music is but a small part of world music. Now, this is my little Project, and I am well aware that whatever I may do will barely scratch the surface. I am not trying to compete with anybody, I am just a guy on his way out trying to have as much fun as possible within his means exploring whatever ideas come up in his head. I really have no interest in exploring music that does not sound good to my ear, and I like harmony. In my ongoing early morning parallel voyage of discovery with the HARMONICA, I am slowly learning that I like some keys better than others. 

    I started like everybody with a harmonica in the key of C major, which is what most everybody plays, and what most lessons are for. The reason for that I suppose is that it is the only key where all notes are white on a piano: C-D-E-F-G-A-B. There are no flats and no sharps. It kinda makes things easy. Is that the reason why so many classical compositions are in C major? Bach's Toccata, Ravel's Bolero, lots of Haydn Symphonies, etc... 

    The harmonica, an old Chinese invention, was re-invented in Germany in the early 19th century to play Classical German music, and the makers settled on the Richter tuning, which is still by far the most common today on the standard 10 holes diatonic harmonica. Techniques were developed later in the 20th century to "bend" some notes to produce the missing ones. Skillful players with A LOT of training, like French virtuoso Christelle Berthon, can coax every note out of a humble C harp. But it is exceedingly difficult to control bending one, two or three halftones on 3 draw and especially 10 blow. I keep trying... 

        I guess some people thrive on the challenge. I definitely don't have the patience, and most likely don't have the skills either to get there. And what would be the point anyways? There are amazing harmonica players out there, and I will never be one of them. Still, I practice every morning sitting outside when I get up before dawn. It is a challenge for me, but so far I enjoy it, especially as a voyage of discovery. 

        It is also a very good aerobics exercise... And I hate "Exercice". So I try to build it into my routines, doing things the hard way on purpose. For example, I have a big "relatively clean" Art Studio downstairs, where I spend most of my time, and a "dirty" workshop" on the second floor, straight up a long flight of 23 steps. I try to keep most of the dust and sawdust upstairs with the table saw, the bigger band saw, the big drill, two belt sanders, and the compressor with all the pneumatic tools. When I build something, I usually end up going up and down these stairs a number of times a day. Not a very efficient way to work, but a good built-in exercise. 

     But I digress...

    Back to the subject of the harmonica, I quickly realized that even though every would-be teacher on YouTube tells you to keep practicing with the C harp and that you don't need any other, most have boxes full of dozens of harmonicas. So my "collector instinct" kicked in I suppose, and I went on a quest to discover what was available and what the difference was. The C harmonica is roughly in the middle of the range, and since I tend to prefer lower pitch sounds, I found I much prefer the harps in B flat, A and G. It took me a while, but I ended up with a very good Hohner Rocket Amp in A and another Rocket Amp in Low C. I loved the deep sound of the Low C so much I looked for other even deeper tones harps, and ended up with a very reedy rich-sounding Low F East Top 24 holes Tremolo Harmonica, and finally with a very unique bassoon like Seydel Low Low E.  The sound is amazing, and you can play Amazing Grace in a low voice for a change!

    These were fairly expensive though, but so much better than the cheaper ones I kept trying at first and sending back because some holes would not work at all. I seemed like you basically get what you pay for, and there is no quality control as the low end. Actually, I thought that until I tried a $13 Focusound Thunder in the key of G, which sounded almost as good as the expensive ones. I ended up completing the key collection with Thunders in E, F and B flat. Each key has a different sound. I tend to favor A, B flat and G, with my favorite being the Low C Rocket.

      But then, I discovered the 7 holes Kongsheng BABY FAT, and fell in love with the tiny colorful slick thing!

       It's presented like an Apple product in an oversize heavy white box and comes in all 7 keys, each key a different anodized candy color. Moreover, it comes in 4 different tunings: Standard Richter, Paddy Richter, Minor, and Country..., so that actually adds up to 28 different keys!

      I wanted the Purple of course, so I chose a B flat Minor to order and try:

      I absolutely fell in love with the little thing, the shape, the size, the missing high notes I never used anyway, and the moody minor tuning. It sounded so much better to my ear and bluesy brain than the standard C major. And I could easily play some of my favorite old songs I couldn't play before because I was missing the notes..., Brel's "Amsterdam", Brassens "Le Bistro" and "La Princesse et le Croque Note" etc...

      That really got me excited about alternate tunings. 

      I ended up getting a BabyFat in C Paddy Richter tuning, a beautiful red color, and that was even better to play the same tunes as the minor, plus others like "Le Vieux Leon", "Sounds of Silence", "Scarborough Fair", etc... 

      Then I got one more BabyFat in G with the Country tuning to see what it would do. Strangely enough, I like to doodle with it, but I have not figured out what songs it can play well... Country music is not exactly my cup of tea.

       Finally, I "discovered" the very eastern European/gypsy sounding Harmonic Minor key, and I had to try one. There is not very much choice when you get to these unusual alternate tunings, and the choice was between a LeeOskar and a HarmoPolar.  I picked the Polar Harmonic Minor in the key of G because it is the lowest sounding of the 7 keys:

                                         G – A – B♭- C – D – E♭- F# – G.

     I got it just a couple of days ago and love both the way it sounds and the way it looks:

    It's easy to improvise and make up Russian or gypsy sounding tunes because it has just the right notes for that. It also plays some of Brassens' other songs.  

Post 12: Cello First Test Assembly with Strings

     I am always anxious to see if my latest "Music Making Machine" actually works. In the case of this cello, I have not made the bridge with a built-in piezo pickup yet, so I thought it would just be a non amplified acoustic, and that it wouldn't produce much of a sound at all, like an electric guitar without the amp...

     I installed the strings and the bridge this morning to test the sound and the bridge height. I used the wooden cello bridge I had cut down about a 1/2", and deliberately left it a bit too high so I could figure out exactly how high the final metal bridge should be. I tuned the strings a few times to low E-A-D-G.

      Well, I was surprised how loud the bowed strings actually sounded. I thought I would try to just stick a plain round piezo to the side of the bridge itself to see what it would do. Again here, I was very surprised by the loudness and relative quality of the sound. 

     Here is the test assembly of the cello. A side view with all my little stuff, and the blueprint in the background:

       A general three-quarter view showing it off. I am really pleased with the look:

     A detail of the neck plate and bridge:

   A detail of the bridge and tailpiece. It shows the round piezo pickup stuck to the side of the bridge. I will definitely use the little balls on it rather than the knurled nuts:

      Finally, a very rough test assembly of the scroll. That part definitely will need more work to fit everything properly.

     Want to hear the sound? I moved the stick on pickup to the top, right between the legs of the bridge.  

     Here is a short recording:

https://soundcloud.com/jjgaudel/musicmachine-1-8-23-20-154-pm

     OK, it's no Strad! The A string buzzes pretty bad on plucking, the D and G sound rather harsh and metallic,  but I am overall pretty happy with the low A and low E... The instrument definitely has a lot of sustain, maybe too much. Also, I am using a cheap violin bow, which makes it hard to keep the pressure.

  

Post 11: Fitting the tuners, assembly and cutting cello shaped "mini-top"

    It took me a good part of the day to fit in the four tuners, and they still don't fit quite right. I will have to cut a notch and double the scroll with an additional 1/8" aluminum piece on each side. But they are functional, and I will test string it as it is.

     I cut the cello shaped "mini-top" out of my last piece of 1/8" aluminum, so here we are for today:

Post 10: Cutting the aluminum parts and building the "body"

    I should probably call it a frame rather than a body. Anyhow, I managed to find just enough 1/8" aluminum pieces for the cello and cut the frame plates and the scroll parts. I drilled the holes for the assembly:

    I have some short 8-32 oval head brass screws on order, but decided to use some round head 6-32 brass screws and washers that I already had instead. I can always go back and replace them later. I drilled the tubing and assembled everything.  It turned out looking pretty good:

     Now I need to install the tuners and finish the decorative scroll.

     I have been thinking about how to build and shape the bridge. I cut the wooden bridge I had down about a 1/2" to bring it close to the height I need, and then doodled some accented shapes based on actual historical cello bridges. This is where I am at the moment:

     It will of course not be made of wood, but will be carved out of a chunk of aluminum, with brass decorative insets, and incorporate a piezo sensor.  The curvature of the top will be slightly increased.

    I will probably first put the cello together with this wooden bridge and adjust it before carving the aluminum one, which promises to be quite a challenge...

Post 9: Building the basic cello frame

   This morning, I cut the four square tubing sections roughly, drilled holes for the two long bolts, and assembled them temporarily. I cut the curves as best I could on the band saw, and finished them on the big and small belt sanders:

   Now, I can lay that frame on top of a piece of 1/8" aluminum and draw the plates that will stiffen the frame. I cut them, sand them, and drill them  aped together so they match perfectly. I clamped them to the frame and drilled the holes in the frame for the countersunk oval brass screws. I tapped the holes for 8-32 screws.

Post 8: Refining the Electric Cello design

    I started with that square 1"x 1" aluminum stick, but somehow could not see a flat cello with a low bridge. It would probably work just like the bass, but I need more excitement! 

   So I got the idea of cutting the stick and building the neck up. I received the ebony fingerboard from Amazon yesterday, and it's very well made and substantial. That allowed me to visualize things better., and draw the thing on scale. The three pieces will be bolted together with 2 long 1/4" bolts, and there will be a 1/8' aluminum plate attached on each side with 8-32 brass screws:

    I also collected information about the design of cello bridges and cello tailpieces, decided against a fine tuner, and finished the aluminum tailpiece, using a short length of copper braid as the tailgut held by brass screws and lock-washers. It will attach it to a brass rod crossing the square beam at an angle, ended on both sides with a 1" brass ball. The beam will be reinforced with a square chunk of solid aluminum, that will also hold the tail post:

        Then, I started with the scroll, trying to figure out a way to incorporate the decorative spiral piece of aluminum I happen to have. I have no idea what it was for, I just like it with the brass balls! I ended up with a pretty massive looking scroll made of two plated of 1/8" aluminum attached to the end of the square tubing beam. A short section will shape the end of the neck and increase the rigidity of the tuner box. The tuners themselves will be attached to pieces of 1/2" x 1/2" aluminum tubing. The helicoidal section of aluminum capped with brass plates and finished with brass balls will fit across the head through two 1 1/2" holes:

          I already had these chrome plated enclosed tuners, but I felt they didn't look right, and chose instead to order a set of bronze-colored ones that will compliment the brass and copper accents theme:

   

      Here is the basic layout of the whole full-scale instrument, in side-view. I have a traditional wooden bridge, but only as a guide and inspiration to designing my own and carve it out of brass, a 3/4 thick chunk of aluminum, and wood, incorporating a piezo pickup.:

      This is the kind of direct contact pickup I would like to use. Unlike the plain rod pickup, it is designed to be built into the bridge, and custom slotted to fit the strings Only, it is made for a bass guitar and is straight and inflexible.

       

     I just took it apart carefully. It is made of a steel channel, a 4 sensor piezo stick, and a piece of plastic divided into four sections to support the strings and act as a bridge. The plastic is hard and brittle and broke when I tried to bend it. I should have used the heat gun. Too late, so I broke it in four pieces, which will be glued to the four piezos sensors, and fit in a slot atop the aluminum bridge. The standard piezo stick I was going to use originally is shown on top:

    Finally, I designed a small decorative "body" inspired by a cello shape, to fit the 9"x 14" pieces of aluminum I had leftover. I drew it in pencil on the front view and just fiddled with the shape until it seemed right. The picture somehow makes it look bigger than it actually is:

         I am considering using a brass plumb bob as the endpin, possibly fitted with a brass ball... I have not decided whether to use little balls of small knurled knobs to keep the strings in place. 

        OK, time to build it!

Post 7: Cigar Box Guitar with wound wire frets, Piezo Zither tests

    I marked the fret positions, filed rounded notches on the sides of the yardstick, and wrapped the half-round brass wire around it, and it did work fine. So I used big head 1" roofing copper nails in predrilled holes to attach it to the neck:

   

    I received yesterday a Pre-Amp I had ordered from Amazon for $13:

     I thought I would just try plugging in it the single piezo bar pickup I had slid under the bridge of the zither and then plugging the preamp in my amp. Once again, I was amazed by the strength and tone of the sound that came out. I could hear all the strings, even those that were not above the piezo. I will try to slip a second piezo under the other end of the bridge to even the tone.

    In order to test the hurly-burly wheel idea, I took some disks I had already cut for a past project. Two of them,  7" and 8", were cut out of high-quality fine-grain 5/8" pressboard. One is just made of very thin 1/8" hard masonite tileboard. I fitted all three of them with a shaft and a little crank made up of brass lamp parts left over from yet another past project. I rubbed a piece of rosin hard all around them for a while, and then burnished and smoothed it out with a spoon. 

    All three worked, even the very thin one, with the zither, but also with the cigar box guitar and the high string of the bass. But it was obviously very hard to apply just the right amount of pressure and control the speed of the wheel while just handholding the thing.  The next step will be to test the wheels mounted in a fixed frame, and with an electric motor with variable speed. I found one with a rotation speed of 100RPM:

      I also want to test other strings of varying gauge and length: violin, viola, guitar, cello, etc... I bought a bag of 50 harpsichord tuning pins,  and a selection of cheap strings. I also got a roll of .029" and a roll of .051" piano wire to test longer strings. I happened to have a prepared panel 18" x18" that will make a fine frame and sounding board for violin strings. In fact, it is the perfect size for violin strings. 

     I mounted one of the wheels on the shaft of the geared electric motor and connected it to a dimmer connected to a little 12volts DC  power supply. I mounted an aluminum strip to anchor the strings on one end, and two rows of tuning pins on the other end, some on top for the shorter strings, others on the edge for the longer ones. I stretched one set of 6 guitar strings, and a set of 4 violin strings, using a threaded 1/4" brass rod as a bridge against the pins. The idea is to group the strings and tune each set for a particular chord that can be sounded by the handheld motorized rosined wheel. An ebony strip serves as the main bridge, which I angled so the chords would get higher going from one set of strings to the next.

       The concept definitely can work, but I have to improve the quality of the sound. I find the tuning pins difficult to adjust on such short strings, making it hard to tune the chords. Also, the sets of strings will have to use separate concave bridges with the same curvature as the wheel, so the 4 strings touch the wheel and sound together without having to apply pressure to push the two middle strings down.

       The other little gismo in the picture is a Joyo Infinite Sustainer.  This is a budget Chinese rip off of the original eBow. These have been around since the 70's, but are not used very much. It basically creates a feedback loop when it is placed close to a string and makes it vibrate continuously. It does work well on my guitar and produces interesting sounds on the new longer string test zither. But it doesn't work so well with the shorter strings of the first test zither, nor on the long strings of the bass. I will need to test it some more before I decide whether to keep it or not. 

       I do hope it will work on the electric cello I am just starting to think up, because that would really be the sweet spot soundwise. I just started a rough mockup, and have an ebony fingerboard ordered. It was cheaper to order one from Amazon than to buy a strip of ebony to carve one from scratch! I have a wooden cello bridge to use as a model to make my own with a built in electric pickup out of a 1" thick chunk of aluminum left over from the Motorcycle Bobbing Project. I want to use that strange aluminum spiral as the scroll that ends the neck. I will more or less preserve the angles and measurements of a classic cello, and started to make an aluminum saddle by partly flattening and shaping a leftover section of 1/8" thick extruded 2"x 2" angle molding. I am not sure yet how it will be attached.

Post 6: Finishing the Cigar Box Guitar...

    This whole project actually started with making a Cigar Box Guitar, but veered towards more elaborate designs before I actually put it together. Since I am taking a bit of a pause to write this blog and think up what may be coming next, I figured I should really finish the original cigar box project. 

   So I glued the neck to the cigar box, glued the rod pickup in place where the bridge is going to rest, connected it to the preamp. I also glued the magnetic pickup in place about 3" up from the bridge (sort of a compromise between a bridge pickup and a neck pickup), and added a separate jack for it.

    I just placed the lid on the box and strung up the guitar with the 3 middle strings(1 plain and two nickel wound) using a section of a 3/8" brass threaded rod as the nut, and an old wooden screw as the bridge. There is no need for a hole in the lid. The ruler fretboard is not attached yet. I have some half round 16 gauge brass jewelry wire, so I plan to slightly notch the sides of the stick where the frets would go, and then simply wind it as tight as possible around the yardstick all the way down to create basic very lot "frets/markers".  The dots will be the big heads of copper roofing nails attaching the yardstick to the neck.

    Let's test it! 

    Whao! This thing sounds amazing, and is really loud!  I particularly like the sound of the piezo pickup under the bridge. In fact, I am amazed at how effective it is with this little preamp and equalizer that control both volume and tone... The tone is really rich, much more complex and interesting than the tone of the magnetic pickup...

   Actually, that is leading me to completely revise my original concept. I was planning to use multiple magnetic pickups for the "Polyphonic Music Making Machine". It now seems to me that it would actually sound better, and also be a lot cheaper to build using piezo pickups instead of magnetic pickups. I would, of course, need to build a real soundboard for the instrument, but that merely means using thinner wood for the top of the box.

    As a preliminary test to explore possibilities, I had ordered a "zither kit" from Amazon, that I roughly put together yesterday. No attempt at Art or even Design here! But I did use aluminum and brass, and the aluminum soundboard is slightly raised above the wood. I had also ordered several cheap magnetic 6 strings guitar pickups, and stuck one under the strings. 

     Again, I was amazed by this little setup. The pickup clearly picks up the four strings it is closest to, but also the others. Actually,  the strings on the other side of the bridge sound too. It does not seem to matter much that there are 6 magnets, since there is only one coil, and the magnetic field seems to be strong enough to pick up vibrations far beyond the nearest strings. 

    I will try next to wire two of the same pickups in series, to make it more or less like a long single pickup going across my 7 strings. I also want to test groups of strings tuned as chords. So I ordered a pack of 50 tuning pins to add two heavier strings between each of the existing 7 strings. I will also need a good assortment of string sizes, so I also ordered a bunch of violin strings and a set of cello strings.

   However, the impressive result of the Cigar Box piezo pickup test makes me want to test some of these with this simple zither, by placing two of the stick piezosunder the aluminum soundboard, right under the bridge. I will have to try wiring them both in parallel and in series to see what works best. And I will need another one of these little preamps.

Post 5: More Ideas for the Polyphonic Music Making Machine

      I started brainstorming a couple of days ago trying to think up a different way to interpret Da Vinci's ideas for a "Viola Organista"(what a beautiful name!), that would be much simpler than the ways that were previously built. In my previous post, I showed two very different ways to use the hurly-burly model of a rosined rotating wheel. I also know of a built using the belt on two wheels idea. As far as I know, the mechanical bow was never seriously attempted. 

     I actually just found a very interesting paper posted on the Internet about a bona fide project called:

        "The Design and Development of a New, Mechanically Bowed String Instrument Ensemble".

     They apparently tested all three of DaVinci's ideas, and found the rotating wheel was the most viable. They are experimenting with multiple wheels controlled by Arduino microprocessors to recreate a whole string orchestra. I hope they get interested into mechanical woodwinds next...

    Anyhow, first, I thought up a setup that would play a set of maybe 6 chords using a rotating wheel mounted on slides.  Then I thought instead of having a wheel for each set of  4 strings. The wheels would sit above the strings, so they could be rotated simply by rubbing the hands on top of them. It occurred to me immediately that they could also of course easily be "scrubbed", as is done with the crank of the hurly-burly. It would probably help if the hands were covered with powdered rosin, both for "traction", and to keep the wheels rosin on the wheels. The wheels would be staggered for compactness, and their axles sit in slots in rungs running across the strings. Each set of 4 strings would use a separate bridge, and the strings get longer from left too right. 

    These are the very rough first sketches of both ideas:

     There would be a spring keeping the wheels off the strings, and lifting it after each stroke, allowing the strings to keep ringing and resonating, instead of producing the screeching "dead" sound of the hurly-burly:

Post 4: Thinking ahead: Ideas about the Future Polyphonic Music Making Machine...

    While I go back and finish the two guitars, I want to start designing the future Music Making Machine, at least in my head, and start making sketches of the different parts. I had a brainstorm the other night, after watching YouTube videos about various interpretations of Da Vinci's ORGANISTA sketches. 

    Basically, he envisioned three ways to build a mechanical cello(or string organ):

      1. A single Hurly-burly type wheel with strings all around it and a keyboard lever mechanism lowering each string to touch the wheel and sound: 

    2. Several smaller offset wheels with groups of strings on an arc above, with a similar keyboard mechanism.

     3. A set of multiple mechanical bows.

     4. A continuous belt on pulleys running parallel to an slightly above the strings, with again a keyboard mechanism to raise each string to be "bowed" by the belt.

   There were attempts over the centuries to build such devices, especially in Germany and Spain. They used a four-wheel design:

   Somebody has built a gorgeous one recently with the same basic design and details the construction on their Viola Organista web site. 

   There is another design that was built with a single large wheel, and a rather unpractical circular keyboard. It's called the Wheel Harp:

   I actually like the sound of the Wheel Harp a little better than the sound of the Viola Organista. 

   I am not planning to build either one, but I want to incorporate the principles in the Music Making Machine. In fact, I had a brainstorm the other night after watching all that stuff, and got the idea for a simpler instrument based on the same basic idea that would play only the basic chords rather than single notes, eliminating the keyboard mechanism, which is very difficult to build and adjust, and making it simple enough for me to play.

Post 4: Testing the Bass

   As always, I want to test my built before it's quite finished, especially something like this, when I am kind of making things up as I go... So I assembled the bass,  attaching the fretboard at a slant above the square tubing using mostly countersunk 1/4" brass screws, which also serve as marker dots. Only the last few ones are smaller 12-32 screws, so they fit between the last frets. I  used brass rods as spacers before tightening the screws. The last one also holds the top of the "soundboard" in place. 

    The Volume/Tone/Switch unit fits nicely inside the square tubing at the bottom and is connected to the two pickups and a jack situated just below the tone knob. I cut a pretty elaborate ebony bridge with brass inlay, and after finishing the aluminum and brass trapezoidal tailpiece, strung up the beast. 

    I will eventually attach a brass headpin with a rubber tip. I just taped it on for the moment.

   That's it, ready to make some noise... And it does work! Well, that is not rocket science... But it will require adjusting down the height of both the bridge and the nut, which I did make too high on purpose.

   I am well pleased with the look. You get to see my messy workbench too in this general picture.

    Just like for the lap steel, the pickup switch is defective and will have to be replaced.

    Once I figure out the optimal height for the bridge and the nut, I will take the whole thing back apart to sand and polish the square tubing core. I will cut another guitar shape out of 1/8" aluminum to match, make spacers, drill, tap the holes, and then assemble them with brass screws and close the "body" like the Lap Steel with a thin strip of aluminum bent to fit the curves. 

    I have some half round brass wire I was planning to wrap around from one end of the fretboard to the other after slightly notching the edges, but I am not sure anymore... 

   I am looking into the possibility of cutting a fretless rounded wood fretboard and a slightly curved bridge. The flat pickups would work fine because the two center strings tend to be louder, and that would place them a bit further, evening the tone. 

    I am also considering also making the neck narrower and bringing the strings closer together. I could then tune them as a chord instead of the standard EADG tuning, maybe something like an E minor EBEG, or an A minor like EACA. I might then be able to play some, even with that bad left hand that cannot make chords of finger a fretboard anymore...

Post 3: Forging on with an Aluminium bass

    I had to wait for some brass fret wire I ordered to arrive, so I started brainstorming the next instrument. I definitely prefer rich low sounds to high pitched bright ones, always had. I like the cello better than the violin, the bassoon better than the oboe, the tenor and baritone saxes better than the alto and soprano, and the harmonicas in G, A and Bflat better than those in E and F. So naturally, I had considered making a bass instrument. Bass guitar, bass lap, double bass, I wasn't sure..., but  I and had already bought some long bass guitar strings to play with. 

   Again, I looked at the materials on hand to make a mockup. I had another long piece of square tubing 1.25" x 1.25", some more aluminum in various shapes and sizes, and especially a piece of thick 1/4" aluminum about 4" x 30" that seemed to say "fretboard", so I made the fret spacing calculations for a long neck bass guitar with a 36" scale, cut it, and marked the fret positions and the bridge position. I still had plenty of brass balls, and even a whole huge escapement mechanism leftover from an abandoned "Clock Project" :

     So here is the original mockup, again put together very quickly out of materials at hand, basically a stick with useless decorative details:

     I was pretty excited about the idea though, especially the brass nut and the decorative "scroll" of the head, so I decided to go ahead and build it, and ordered a set of black bass tuners and two plain black pickups. I drew the front and side views full scale on poster-board.

    The bridge needed to rest on some kind of solid"soundboard" into which the pickups could be recessed. But they had to sit high above the square tubing because notching it would compromise rigidity. I happened to have another piece of 1/4" aluminum 8" x 10";  that would have to do. I fiddled with the shape for a while, finally deciding on a small guitar shape. I cut it out and hollowed out notches for the pickups. I had to cut an additional rectangular plate to mount them. I started the brass and aluminum tailpiece and cut a 1/2" brass rod spacer to support the fretboard, and roughed an ebony and brass bridge:

       I wasn't able to use my idea for a brass and aluminum "scroll head" because the position of the four massive tuners required a narrow head angled sideways and down from the fretboard so they would line up with the strings and put downward pressure on the nut. 

      Fine then, I would make it an exaggerated "Stratocaster caricature" instead. I will use the scroll on another instrument later! This was really becoming a full scale "PROJECT":

     In fact, I have been toying with the idea of making a "Monster Music Box" since I ran across a very interesting video about "The Apprehension Engine":

     There is a luthier out there actually offering to make an Apprehension Engine for $10,000! 

     I think I can probably make one for a couple hundred bucks, using cheap pickups, tuners, strings and material I already have...  Only, mine would make all kinds of music, not just horror film scores... It would include several sets of short to long strings,  a bow, a hurlyburly type rotating wheel, zither type strings, marimba like tuned percussions, kalimba like steel blades, harmonium like pipes, resonators,  various "sound makers", an amplifier, an equalizer, and even a used spring reverb tank I found cheap on Amazon: