Guitar Toys, Guitar Amp Plans

March 2nd, 2010

Replaced the strings on my Telecaster. I had DR 11s on there, switched back to D’Addario 10s. Despite the DRs having hex cores, I can’t tell a difference in the sound, and the decreased tension by going to a lighter gauge string makes it a little easier to play. Also the DRs are double the price of the D’Addarios. More importantly, the low E string once again fits in the nut slot, solving the first fret intonation issues I’ve been having. Playing on new strings is like night and day, and makes a tremendous difference in callous wear and tear.

I have been looking on and off at Tube Screamer/Tube Driver/Tube Overdrive pedals now for about as long as I’ve been playing guitar. The “Tube Screamer Green” Ibanez TS808 and TS-9 seem to be the most popular ones, but cost about $90 and range up to $180, hand wired models and boutique versions can run you up to $400. Delta Lab has a great clone of the TS-9, called the TD1 which apparently is what Stevie Ray Vaughn used quite a bit, for $50. I was going to buy one new at retail at the guitar shop until I saw that they wanted $80 for it. I thought the price had gone up on the pedal, but musician’s friend still has it at the old price. They’ve renamed it the TO1, I suppose since there’s already a Tube Screamer clone by another company with that name. Anyways, I found the “old” TD1 on craigslist, offered the guy $35 for it and picked it up today. $35 seems to be the sweet spot for used pedals. At low volume it just sort of makes the sound a bit more grainy, with the classic tube screamer mid-hump. Turning the volume to the 9o’clock position or higher really makes the sound wake up and gives it a bit of honk, along with some smooth breakup. It’s an authentic reproduction, the knobs are super smooth and quiet, and of course it comes in a solid metal case and “true bypass”.

Ok, so the other thing I’ve been looking at for quite some time at the price of tube amps, tube amp kits and even solid state DIY amp kits. Weber has a huge selection of AC15, AC30 kits along with all sorts of Fender amp kits and more. They start at $355 and go up from there. Anyways, there is this great DIY audio blog by a master tinkerer, Beavis Audio, home of the Noisy Cricket, which is a battery powered amp based off the LM386 chip and can be put together for around $30. These make hellaciously good amps for the Cigar Box Guitar enthusiast. If you think building amp is out of your leauge, you can always try building an amp with traditional cigar box guitar materials :)

And here’s what one looks like inside (slightly different layout). There’s not much to it:

Which is neat, and you can always plug it in to the wall with a 9v AC adapter like any pedal. It sounds like this; first part is clean Cricket, next two sections have some distortion and echo pedal effects added. And yes, it’s only 1/2 watt, upwards of 3/4 watt at full power which is actually decently loud. Download the Noisy Cricket plans and bill of materials here. The main problem though, is you’ve still got a solid state amp through and through. There’s an update now, it is a tube preamp, with a solid state power amp. It still comes to about 3/4 watt, but that’s plenty for bedroom play and recording. It looks like this:

And more importantly, costs $140 shipped. That’s less than the cost of a Valve Junior. It’s called the Tube Cricket and I’m very, very tempted to buy one. There’s several bonuses to this model; A) Only one tube. Tubes tend to be one of the most expensive parts of an amp. B) No transformers. Transformers start at $30 and go up. This includes it’s own wall wart in that price. C) all the parts are included. Download the Tube Cricket plans and bill of materials here.There’s a competing model, the FireFly Tube Amp, which is $99 for the “partial kit”, but is missing the A) Tubes ($30) B) transformers ($60) and C) Enclosure (build your own for $15-30) bringing the total cost closer $200 not including shipping. But you get an extra watt of power, and a tube power amp as well. Jumping up another hundred dollars puts you in the Weber amp price range, where you’re looking at proper 5 and 15 watt amps.

If building pocket sized amps isn’t your cup of tea, EHX is selling their “22 caliber” 22 watt solid state guitar amp for $106.It fits inside a standard effects pedal enclosure but outputs directly to a speaker cabinet. The owner of EHX seems pretty enthusiastic about his product.

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Harmonica tabbing (incl. 12 Bar Blues)

March 2nd, 2010

Let’s see, today we have Harmonica tabs, guitar strings, guitar pedals, and DIY tube amps.

You’ll need a D harmonica to play this one. It’s called Spokey Dokey, written by one of the premier harp players in Japan Ryuichiro Senoo. Here’s the harmonica tab. If you have a week or two of harmonica under your belt, you should be able to take a stab at this. Here’s a youtube video of someone (not me!) who has been playing for about a month, playing this song. If you like this song and master it, be sure and check out the song “Diggin’ my Potato” which is another great harmonica solo song, but you’ll need an Eb (E flat) harmonica to replicate that sound.

I got this email from my buddy, he was looking for a song he could play that didn’t involve any words

This song is just a singer and piano, and the piano part i swear we can put to harmonica

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPyd7qFTsT8

i found tabbing for the piano part…
i just need to convert it to harmonica… -and then get good at the harmonica
http://tabnabber.com/view_Tab.asp?tabID=58&sArtist=Biz+Markie&sName=Just+A+Friend

I tabbed out the first three bars for him, which was simply 345B 5B 4D 4B 456D 6D 7B on a regular C harmonica. D is draw and B is blow. This is pretty easy if you know the guitar note in the tab, you can just transpose/convert it to the note on the harmonica. I used this site to get a visual representation of what notes are on what key harmonica for transposing tabs. This is a great tool for transposing your own tabs until you can do this by ear.

If you’re just looking for something to jam to, check out harmonica jam backing tracks. I really like this harmonica backing track (free MP3 download) since it’s designed specifically for a C harmonica and is repetitive enough to practice licks but not so much as to bore you to death. You can find plenty more at harmonicajam.com’s backing tracks page

And then there’s the harmonica 12 Bar Blues…  the tab goes like this

3B 4B 3D 3B (1st riff) ♪I got the blues…♪

4B 4B 3D 4B (2nd riff) ♪I got the blues for you…♪

3B 3D 4B 4D (3rd riff) ♪This line rhymes too…♪

If you still need help you can listen to this guy explain it

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Learning to play Harmonica

February 18th, 2010

So I got this email from my buddy this afternoon.

I wanna learn blues harmonica (like there is any other kind).
Give me the top 3 steps to doing so. Also assume I have step one -get
a harmonica

Ninety minutes later (worth of typing) he got a reply, probably more than he bargained for. I can’t let all that effort go to waste on just one person, so I’ve mirrored the info here. It’s very stream-of-consciousness, but maybe the mishmash of links can help some other people jump start their harmonica hobby.

step zero – listen to every harmonica player on youtube, listen to lots of amateurs http://harmonicajam.com/ has a shit ton of stuff you can learn to emulate. listen. emulate. listen. emulate.

step one – buy a lee oskar C harmonica (black plastic box, probably some day-glo orange stickers on it) – $30 – find at guitar center locally, most independent music shops, or on amazon.com, musiciansfriend.com. you can start off with a honer bluesband $5 harmonica, but you’ll just have to go back and buy the lee oskar in three weeks when you’re ready for it anyways. the Lee Oscars have interlocking cases which begin to make more sense once you start buying harmonicas in other keys (Bb, A, E are good keys to branch out to when you get bored of the C)

step two – get good at blowing in and out of single note holes (labeled 1-10) this is accomplished by blowing into the harmonica by sort of whistling style with your mouth. ignore anything written about “tongue blocking”, its a crutch and will ultimately hold you back. this part is frustrating as hell and playing it on and off for about two hours cumulatively in front of the TV/computer for two or three days you should be able to get pretty good at blowing individual notes. that’s right, it only takes three days to become competent at playing the harp. once you sort out blowing single notes, learn how to bend notes (on the draw only).

step three – try and play some basic songs, the whistling theme from the andy griffith show, the legend of zelda theme (should be able to do it blow only playing triads (three notes in a row)), blues shuffle, the victory theme from final fantasy, etc. dont worry about hitting every note perfect, blues harmonica is all about sloppy style and making it sound awesome. once you can play those on command try stringing together some riffs you heard on harmonicajam until you have a good rhythm/pattern going.
Plenty more after the cut, including some links, juicy with information:

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Google Buzz

February 9th, 2010
me: google “google buzz”
are you getting that wacky vertical news ticker in your search results too
Zakk: yes
surprisingly little relevant stuff about google’s buzz stuff though
me: i saw that for the first time the other day
well its live
Zakk: I mean in the general search results
me: i guess
whats the turn around time for a journalist to write, proof and publish an article for a press conference that hasn’t ended yet
it was announced 20 min ago
Zakk: oh
me: lol
Zakk: well, never mind then
Like most google announcements, I am going to ignore it. Google just isn’t good at social networking (see also: Google Wave). Call me when I can transfer files to people inside gchat without having to email it to them. (GOOGLE, ARE YOU LISTENING?)

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Building a Balsa Violin, pt 1

February 8th, 2010

Really this could have been included in the last post, but it was getting long and I wanted pictures of my own work above the cut. So here are the first progress shots of my balsa wood violin. Right now I’ve got the foam block marked up and ready to cut out.

So, you say, “I’m not a professional boat builder, where do I get a 3″ thick block of 360×210mm foam??? Well you’re in luck, Lowes sells this blue Dow brand insulating wall foam in a 4×8′ sheet – enough for roughly 9 blocks of violin sized foam. Cut out four 1/2″ slabs of the stuff and glue them together with some 3M upholstery spray adhesive, contact cement, or use some 5 minute set epoxy:

Make sure you peel off the plastic on both sides. Cutting through that later would be a bitch. Plus it’ll peel apart later while you’re cutting it. Two slabs is 30mm thick, which is standard height of a violin rib. The highest point on the top and bottom is about 15mm, which is the height of a single slab. Roughly 90% of the top and bottom slabs will be removed by the time I’m done, with most of the middle two untouched.

Measure out your dimensions and label accordingly (see violin dimensions from last post):

And then sketch out your violin’s outline. I used a thick, stiff leather belt I wore on my trip to South America to draw the radius curves. Hand drew the C-Rib curves (several times). Once you have your outline you can cut it to shape, and then begin sanding down the top. I highly recommend a hot wire foam cutter, which can be assembled from scrap lumber and an old guitar (or violin!) high E string. I should warn you though, DANGER: if you build one of these foam cutters, it involves electricity and exposed wires, which will surely shock, harm, cut and probably kill you. But it’s what I use and most hobbyists use so you’re going to have to roll with those risks. Here’s a link to one (I’m not responsible if you use this information and hurt/kill yourself/others and/or burn down your house building it) link to hot wire foam cutter. Use common sense when building unsafe crap like that and make sure your will is up to date.

Here’s my violin outline. I’m sure it will be modified further by the time I get it cut out.

Will post additional pictures after I cut this thing out and get started on graduating the violin top and bottom.

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Building a Balsa Violin, pt 0

February 8th, 2010

I know. I’m certifiably insane. The guy who came up with this idea and implemented it has a) roughly 45 years experience building violins b) has roughly 45 years experience building performance rowboats of similar design and c) comes from a family who has been building wooden boats for 60+ years. I, on the other hand, have a) a pile of balsa b) a couple of saws and c) far too few clamps (you can never have enough clamps).

Ok so with that out of the way, let’s get cracking. Let’s look at how violins are put together. Here’s the anatomy of a traditional violin:

What you have there is a fancy looking box, with a convex top and convex bottom. The main structural elements are the (from the bottom, clockwise) lower block, the four corner blocks (one in each corner), and upper block. This provides the bulk of the gluing surface and vertical strength. The top and bottom are carved from blocks of wood, and the top is ventilated with two f-holes, which provide flexibility to the soundboard. The bass bar provides reinforcement against the pressure of the strings, and also helps transmit vibrations to the outer reaches of the soundboard. The sound post provides reinforcement on the treble side of the bridge from the string’s pressure. It also dramatically effects tone, especially when your tonewood is balsa. Strangely, after coming from guitars, where people claim huge differences between mahogany and maple in the neck, apparently the violin neck, it’s materials, and how it’s attached has almost no bearing on sound quality. Shorter neck, higher pitch, shorter scale length might have something to do with that. A stratocaster neck weighs as much as an entire balsa wood violin.

So, the flat parts are easy, the ribs are just flat pieces bent from corner block to end pin to corner block. The trick to the tops is to make them curved, typically with compound curves. So we start off with a block of foam, shape it in the general size of a violin, and add convex curves:

And then we’re going to wrap the top half with planks of 2mm balsa (or in my case, 0.8mm, ridiculously expensive birch plywood) and clamp it down so it assumes the shape of the foam. Next up we take strips of balsa wood (which I was able to find at my local hobby shop) and glue them in place over the sheet of balsa. Imagine the structural support for a satellite dish. Same idea here.

You should be able to see some pink foam peeking through the modified f-hole there. After that you laminate three pieces of wood (hopefully in alternating color for artistic merit) in roughly the shape of a violin neck blank. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but that should give you a body in white in far less than a week. Forming and fitting a neck is pretty basic, and you don’t have to carve out a careful 3d design from a rather large block of wood, which is the biggest hurdle to building a violin. By simplifying the shape of the body you can make bending the strips of wood for the ribs much easier on yourself.

The F-holes as you can see have been converted in to a much simplier C slot that looks a lot more like a vent. A slit is still cut at the B measurement to facilitate flexing and to meet the basic measurement criteria of a violin. Oh, by the way, here’s a handy set of schematics for two rather famous violins. They’re actually a bit small compared to the modern violin, but it’s a proven set of schematics.

Make sure you click that for the full size version. Anyways, if you look at the picture next to the satellite, you’ll note that the c-rib is a single piece of wood, carved from a block of balsa (which can be had cheap if you look for the balsa wood derby car 9 pack at Hobby Lobby). If you play your cards right you can turn this carved c-rib into your corner block. There’s a lot of room for interpetation of the violin design here so feel free to square things out a bit. If you have a particularly long block of balsa you might be able to connect it to the pin block at the bottom/end.

That’s about it for this post, instructions/ideas/thoughts continue on the next post.

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Balsa Wood Violins

February 8th, 2010

I’ve had an on again, off again fascination with balsa wood violins. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in their mid 20s that reads the paper copy of the New York Times. Anyways, the NYT ran an article about research on how violins work and function, and the man who sort of kicked off the whole mini-revolution in 2005, Douglas Martin. The violins he was creating looked like something out of an architecture school’s student display section; vast sheets of balsa wood, broken up by sticks of balsa to keep it all together. I filed it away mentally, but every few months the topic of violins would come up, I would mention the article, and people looked at me like I was crazy. I finally googled around for the NYT balsa wood violin article and found some pics. I ended up emailing Doug himself and he recommended I start with a regular fiddle and I check out maestronet.com. A few years pass, and my buddy had started work on an electric violin, piquing my interest in unique violins again. Having already tackled the cigar box guitar and tahitian ukelele, this seemed like a good project. Work got busy and it was put on the backburner again. I made a cigar box guitar with F-holes to tide me over. A friend mentioned learning to play the musical saw, which required a violin bow.

So after some googling I found a more recent picture of Doug’s work, and did some additional digging and shot off some emails for source pictures. I shot off an email to Joseph Curtin, one of the best luthiers in the nation, who is doing grant work on balsa topped violins to bounce some ideas off him, and also another email to Doug again, this time with some fairly specific questions. I thought this style of violin building was ideal for the cigar box guitar luthier who was ready for something more complex and more standardized. A CBG only has half the strings needed for a real guitar; these violins have 100% of the required parts, don’t need frets (the biggest problem of CBG construction), and supposedly, with enough tweaking, sound fantastic. Further digging yielded some technical specifications, building techniques, and some great source pictures. Well I finally got my email back from Doug and was inspired to start on my project. I’ll go into construction details of my own here in the next few posts.

Further reading:

More Pics below the cut

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Website updated

February 8th, 2010

Apparently Wordpress 2.9.x requires a much newer version of MySQL than I was using. A quick look on wikipedia yields that I was using a version of MySQL (4.0.x) from 2003, which was breaking my upgrade path. The 2003 caught my eye, and so I checked my old blog/website, and it turns out the original NearlyDeaf dates back to “5.7.99″ as I wrote it then. Which means I’ve had a continuous web presence for almost 11 years now. In the process I almost blew away my WordPress install as well, but then I remembered a quote I read the other day; made famous by Regan – “Trust, but verify.”. Called up godaddy support and I just had to adjust the db name in the config file (slaps self on forehead). Up and running again. Also I think I finally got Google Analytics plugin to work so I can stop using this other statistics plugin.

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Cutting F-holes for instruments

February 5th, 2010

fholesI came across this excellent (if not dry and boring) video on cutting F-holes for your instrument (be it violin, as is in the video, or cigar box guitar). Some things to note here:

  • He uses a transparency type material for his F-hole pattern
  • He uses an adjustable width hand drill to cut the ends of the F holes
  • The F holes are 30mm below the “sound center” of the instrument

If you don’t fall asleep during the presentation, there’s a lot to be learned here. He uses an exacto knife to cut out the rest of the F-hole for a very precise cut; I don’t think this method will work particularly well for someone on a cigar box guitar however; the plywood nature of the box lid causes the inner grain to be set 90 degrees from the top/bottom grain, so carving a CBG lid is going to be frustrating at best.

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rio de janeiro

January 3rd, 2010

arrived, it was rainy. stopped raining around 4pm the next day. got to see all three major tourist attractions; sugar loaf mountain, Christ the redeemer, and copacabana beach. also did new years on copacobana beach, but it was dark, and 2 million people on the beach, so you couldn’t exactly see the water haha. got to dance barefoot on the beach to live music until after 3am. apparently the party continued on the next beach over, with another million on that beach. i don’t doubt the numbers, it was shoulder to shoulder for most of the night. happy new years!

currently in the city of florinopolis, an island city about 18 hrs south of rio. i skipped sao paulo completely.

rio1

me visiting sugar loaf mountain. its named that for some sort of device used to boil down sugarcane. there’s a cable car to the mountain im currently standing on, and then a cable car from there to the actual sugar loaf (behind me on the left). the mouth of the harbor is punctuated by sugar loaf mountain. oh yeah, and i got a haircut! amazing what a difference something like that makes when its hot and humid out.

rio2Terrible pic of me at Christ the redeemer. There’s tourist helicopters constantly circling this thing; that’s really the way to do it. I like to call it Super Jesus, as he’s 30m high, and sits atop the tallest mountain in rio, with a view of the entire city. while seeing super jesus is neat, the truly spectacular thing is the view. sugar loaf mountain looks like an anthill from up here.

rio3speaking of which, that little knob to the right of my shoulder is sugar loaf mountain.the atlantic is further to the right, and to my left you can see someone posing for their pic with super Jesus. i left for super Jesus around 3, and it was so crowded I didnt make it up until almost 7pm, so I got to see rio at sunset, which was pretty neat…rio4better shot of rio at dusk. to the left you can see the harbor by the yacht (iate in portuguese) club. the main port is to the left, along with downtown. this is just the super ritzy area by sugar loaf.

rio5and here’s sunset, looking west from super Jesus. just stunning views. they give hang gliding tours for like $100 from the mountain just left of this picture. i almost did it but was running short of time. i’d really love to go sailing in rio one day.

rio6

rio yacht “iate” club. had to post this pic. someday….

rio7

and i’ll leave you with this pic of me on copacabana beach. happy new year!

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