Andy Stone, the Les Pew and the spinning chocolate tins.

2012 already?

2012-01-02T05:14:00.000-08:00

Was my last post really in September? With one thing and another I havn't been performing much but the uke got finished and sounds even better than the first, here is a video of me playing it when Victoria Vox played at my local folk club :) She sighed the top of it too! Katie her cellist told me during the interval that VIctoria was supiried how loud it was then wrote "Nice uke" along side her name when she signed my copy of their cd; Vox, Uke and Cello. My floor spot

And a song from Victoria.

Happy New Year!

A quick uke build!

2011-09-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

Have just built another cigar box uke in 2 weeks, even though it's plainer I think it's turned out a little nicer than the first one, I built it to sell it but am happy to play it until some one hands me the cash!

Table Guitars?

2011-08-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

I won’t go into too much detail or or indeed rant on about how we feel about our American company closing our highly profitable UK factory down and taking it all over to Delaware you can work that out for your selves! But it does mean I have only two weeks of work left before I'm made redundant and have STILL no new job to go too:( I say work, we stopped production a few weeks back and have been taking apart every thing we have built up bolt by bolt. OK enough negativity. One of the surplus items I have my name on is an old table that our printer stands on, I never noticed till yesterday that it has solid mahogany legs! Enough seasoned timber for four guitar or uke necks! :) That coupled with cigar boxes I have left and the large pine dinning room table top I was given a little while back and despite not having any spare cash a few new instruments are being planned! Watch this space!

My own tune on my home made plywood dulcimer and balsa wood boat.

2011-08-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

My ideas get even weirder!

2011-05-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Ok I've gone mad! My new project is......The Dulcisizer! Well it maybe called something else bcz that sound like some kind of home keep fit equipment! The idea is an electric dulcimer controlling a simple monophonic synth so it's melody lines can be mixed in with the electric pickups...Wow the hilly billy's have finaly got electricity!
I'm using the string to fret contact idea and it will be far easier the splitting all the frets into 6 and feed the wires down a guitar neck as I only need to spit them in half and wire to each side (The low D string isn't going to be a controller) I already have the oscilator thanks to my reissue Stylophione stylus organ which is now sporting a 37 way D connector so I can remotly switch the notes. It has the advantage over the old ones of not using resistance to control the pitch and is spot on in tune though it does behave a little oddly when you try to play two notes together! My work mate has GIVEN me a five channel mixer module that he made for his giant modular synth and hasn't used. I now need to make a VCF , ADSR and VCA to make the Stylophones output sound more pleasing, I am currently picking his brains while I have the chance as I am looking for a new job before I am made redundant at the end of August.

All At Sea

2011-04-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

The reason why things have been a little quiet on the music front for the last six months.

I helped my church youth group scratch build these radio control yachts. We had great fun making them and are planning to launch them on Wednesday evening on a pool by the beach, it's supposed to be nice a breezy should be fun! See more photos and read more about them here: http://fleetoffootys.blogspot.com/

Short mando guitar demo video.

2011-03-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've just recorded a short video of my newly refurbished mando guitar played through my Vox ADC 30.I'm very happy with the sound so I think I'll stick with these pickups.I wonder what it would sound like though the rotary speaker?
BTW I'm using my new flip camera! Surprisingly good sound quality don't you think?

Ten down to Nine!

2011-03-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

If you've read my review you'd know that even though both of my mando guitars were working after a fashion I certainy wasn't satisfied with them as they stood.
This evening I took the plunge and removed all the strings from both mando guitars, ( all 24 of them!) removed the home made bridge and screwed the nice fully adjustable Gotoh bridge back on to number one mando and once restrung with the original strings (amazingly no breakages!) with very little adjusting it returned back to it’s original chimey sparkly self. It now has a super low action and no buzz, a delight to play! I only had it for a year before I stripped it down so five years later it feels like I’ve got a new instrument! So why didn’t I do this a few years ago? I guess after all that work I didn’t want to admit defeat. I might yet swap the pickups as I seem to have lost that glassy Strat like sound in favour of more emphasis in the mid range but I ‘ll give it some time (but NOT 5 years!) and have yet to try it though my Vox amp. Belive it or not the single coil pickups in my good mando are an old Demarzio super distion humbucker which I split in half, I stuck tiny magnets to the bottom of each pole peice to replace the shared bar magnet! Sounds good so far but I need to try it out on other amps and DI it. It used to sound great through an over driven amp! So what to do with Bluey!? At the very least I have two spare pick ups and 12 mini tuners! I might sort out the neck and use it to make a cigar box mando. Maybe if I made a longer scale “through” neck and slotted it through a routed a channel in the body it would bypass the lack of resonance that body has. I’m thinking it might make a nice lap steel guitar or some kind of electric dulcimer anyway no hurry!

Successes and failures, a review.

2011-03-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

Gary Holder accompanying me at Gary's Music Club

P=Playability S=Sound Q= Quality of finish
0=A huge disappointment 10=The best I could hope for.

Mosrite inspired copy 2001
On picking this guitar it feels a nice weight and indeed is well balanced both on my lap and hanging from the strap, the off set body is in fact very comfortable and the whole thing has a vintage feel about it. The only fly in the ointment is the block of walnut packing the neck up to the right height! The 1980's Eko neck feels smooth and the vintage Vox bridge is good for small Hank Marvin like wobbles but nothing more if you want tit to stay in tune! The sound form the P90 stly pick ups is Jazzy on the neck setting and twangy on the bridge to me it seems to sound a little one dimensional but then I am used to humbuckers. This is no out and out rocker but I can image it fitting in with a 60's cover band belting out the solo of Shaking all over by Johnny and Pirates!
P7-S6-Q6

"Lady V" 12 string 2004
I reached over to pick up this guitar and nearly fell of the chair! Wow what a weight! Every thing about is chunky, a big guitar with a big sound! If you were expecting any Rickenbacker chime you'd be disappointed but instead maybe bcz of the shorter Gibson length string scale the slightly slack feeling stings pack out a real punch with a far more acoustic sound than expected.. It's strung with octave strings at the bottom so when finger picked the bass strings are under your thumb.
The neck is wide but very stable and never has any problems with intonation. It has a super low action though some of the very top frets buzz, I shouldn't have listened to my teacher's advice about dishing the finger board out to create some "relief" it turned out to be total nonsense! The finish is generally fairly good until the light catches the top! A good workhorse and great stage guitar.
P7-S8-Q7

Mando Guitars 2005 & 6
I'll do these together as they have a shared history, or maybe that should be fiasco!
The first one was originally dyed blue and played very well with a low action sounding like a Stratocaster capoed on the 12 fret and on steroids! Believe it or not the bass was incredible! Unfortunately it didn't have a very good finish and blue dye prevented you seeing the pretty grain of the maple underneath.
On the back of this I got my first commission and built a duplicate, though this body had a top cap to keep construction simpler. I was out of work at the time so used the hardware from the first one hoping the replace it with the money from the sale, The finish on this instrument is the best I've ever achieved.
I didn't take a deposit and the sale fell through and thinking about it now was just as well, "Bluey" as the customer called it wasn't a patch on the first mando, the bass strings had no response at all! This was probably caused by two things ;A The scale was slightly shorter, I thought this was a good idea as the first one often broke E strings. B though the cap was extremely pretty quilted maple the wood was far too soft . Also despite it having a zero fret sounded out of tune at the nut.
After a while the first one was rebuilt and the dye (eventually) sanded out as I didn’t want two the same , I made two pickups from an old humbucker pickup I had around and I made it a home made bridge, it's OK and would sound good in a mix but not the same as it was, I can't bring myself to pull apart Bluey as it looks so pretty and have restrung it as kind extended range double stringed ukulele!
One day when funds permit will put the original one back as it was. back in 2005.
P9/5 -S10/6- Q4/5
Bluey P4-S4-Q10

The Les Pew 2007
This thing feels weird! Despite having a PRS scalier length because the neck is set so deep into the body (14th fret) it's like someone cut it down and it's as fat as a baseball bat! After you get used to it it becomes obvious how versatile this rather crude stubby looking guitar really is, it has a long sustain and and it’s semi hollow construction gives it a mellow sound which can play Jazz but put it on the bridge pick up and it becomes an out and out rock axe! The truth is comfort and top fret access has been sacrificed for clarity and articulation, which is also helped, by the through strung bridge, pinched harmonics work really well. I designed it to suit my own playing style it does this perfectly; this is the guitar I play the most.
P8-S10-Q3

Octave-Guitar-Banjo 2007
A bit of nonsense really, salvaged from the wreck of an English banjo with a broken neck. It works fine with some chords and is next to useless with others! Would probably work better as a ukulele. Suffers from the same problem as the mandos in that the corner of the headstock digs into your hand if you play an open B7 or similar chord.
P1-S3?-Q5

Headless Bass 2008
I wish I was a better bass player! It's light, well balanced and the sound is ten times better than the Westone guitar that the bolt on neck came from. The active electronics work well as do the tuners .I have lent it to semi pro bassist Garry Holder to accompany me on stage and he really like it. It’s my bestengineered design, shame I don't play it much.
P-10-S10-Q5

Cigar Box Ukulele 2009
At first glance you wouldn’t expect too much from this instrument. But I have tested it against ukes costing several hundred pounds and compared to some I actually prefer it’s more mellow sound! In comparison the cheap Chinese instruments are next to useless! A totally unexpected success!
P-8 –S10-Q5

Didley bow 2010
How much can you expect from a plank of wood with a single string stretched across it? The output from the improvised pick up is a little low but it sounds like the real deal and the colour coded screw heads help you stay in tune! Cost £2.50 for the tuner.
P?-S9-Q0!

Mountain Dulcimer 2011
I’ve played prettier sounding dulcimers (in my local folk music shop) but it is my first fully acoustic instrument (barring cigar boxes!) and it’s perfectly good for a plywood instrument costing about £30 to make, it’s got me totally hooked!
P7-S8-Q5

2001-2010 A decade building my own musical instruments.

2011-03-25T12:04:00.001-07:00

(Click on photos to enlarge)

As promised as soon as the weather was nice I lugged all my instruments in the garden to photograph them.
It kind of looks like an outdoor music shop but none are for sale, that's not why I built them- well ok one!
L to R Oldest to newest
Mosrite copy/Elelctric 12 string ("Lady V")/Mando Guitar/Mando Guitar ("Bluey")/ The "Les Pew" (made from a Slaugham church pew)/Octave banjo guitar thing!?/Headless Bass/ Cigar box Ukulele? Diddley Bow/ Mountain Dulcimer
Notice how they get more folksy and cheaper to build as time goes on! Also it always seems that at any time half of them need new strings!
Note there is no acoustic guitar! This has to be put right! I've been mulling over designs in my head for a few years now and can visualize the finished article! Conventional it isn't! The wood is already in my work shop!

Ten Ten

2011-03-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

It's only just occurred to me that I've built 10 instruments in 10 years! That's not to mention the spinning speaker, tube amp etc!
When the weather is up to it I'll take a photo of them lined up against the garden fence all in chronological order!

Mosrite copy 2001
12 string ("Lady V")2004
Mando guitar 2005
Mando Guitar ("Bluey") 2006
"Les Pew" 2007
Octave-Banjo-Guitar 2007?
Headless Bass 2008
Cigar box ukulele 2009
Didley Bow 2010
Dulcimer 2011

Finished dulcimer photo!

2011-02-21T00:28:00.000-08:00

The cold weather on Saturday stopped me rushing to get the strings on so I put a coat of varnish on a retaired back into the house. By Sunday it was dry enough for me to drill out the holes for the string retaining pins and...........................let's cut to the chase, it sounds amazing!!!! Ok not quite as pretty as the £250 I tested in the shop I bought my strings from but as good as any recording I've heard and pretty loud too! I've been picking out tunes all evening.
I've a few things to go back and finish ,I'll do the high fret lunch time and later varnish the back, fit a piece of wood at the base of the headstock etc but I think I'll put those things off while I learn something to play for the open floor at the folk club next Sunday.

My dulcimer finally in one piece!

2011-02-15T01:12:00.000-08:00

It's nice to finally have my dulcimer in one peice! There are a few jobs to be done, the main one is to chisel the peg head slot into more of a wedge shape to give the strings clearance also there are a few problems to over come like repair the corner where the top has been cut too small (Duh) and I've discoved that the sides are only stained and if you even some much as touch them with a tool they need to be touched up. But I think it will scrub up nicely when it is varnished (or laquered) Being plywoodI'm not expecting too much in the way of bright tone but I held a string on an electric guitar on the bridge and it sounded pretty loud. One thing that seperates a dulc from a guitar is that a ducimer's top is not a structual part so does not effect sustain, the body is simply a sound box, an acoustic amplifier if you like, the structusal part is called the staff, mine has a peice of mahogany running all the way from the nut to the bridge. Can't wait to get it strung up!

Spot the error!

2011-02-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

Can you see it?
I only noticed I'd cut the end of my dulcimer finger board out of true once I'd actually fitted the frets and they were all on the....slant! It won't effect the way it plays but will probably annoy me every time I look at it! Aghhhh well!'ll have to live with it I'm sure the original Appellation dulcimers with bailing wire for frets weren't 100% perfect! By the way the top hasn't been fitted yet so sides have not been trimmed to shape and no I haven't forgotten the dot markers, it's not having any.

Wireless World

2011-02-04T03:55:00.001-08:00

American readers please note: valve = tube.
Back in the 1970’s jumble sales where a regular charily fund raiser, unfortunately after a while the quality of the jumble went down and down as the majority of the pile of old clothes and broken toys appeared at each subsequent sale and jumble sale got the stigma of being junk sales. The answer was to re brand it as “good as new “ sales or table top sales which if you read between the lines means we don’t want heaving piles of junk, only some select stuff so we can still see the table top! Of course this was all before people thought about keeping the money for themselves and invented the car boot sale. But jumble sales were if nothing else cheap! I can remember at the age of about 12 going to almost every church jumble sale with 10p in my pocket , not too early mind you, I didn’t want to get caught up in the stampede of old biddies shoving their way to the front as soon as doors opened! I was there in the hope there would be an interesting radio for sale, perfectly serviceable valve radios or wirelesses where discarded in their thousands!, the 70's where all about looking forward to the future; tomorrows world; solid state transistorised electronics, the status symbols of the day were colour TV and a shiny new Fidelity music centre. By the way our family didn’t have a TV my parents decided that it was an unsociable time waster, I have to agree. (Though a do have one) but back then there was more to listen to on the radio, I’d listen to Radio 1 but mainly the pirate station Radio Caroline transmitted from a rusty old hulk of a ship out in the North Sea! (The MV Mi Amigo - sank in 1980) Of course I could have listened on a transistor portable but I loved these seemingly ancient valve sets (they where only 20-30 years old), I guess they shared a lot in common with my other passion- steam engines!.I loved tinkering and restoring things, there where seemingly infinite design variations, they weren’t the cold lifeless technology we are used to today, these things had a warm glow, warm sound and contained potentially lethal voltages! Before long my Dad put up more shelves in my room for my collection which totalled 14 I believe though I’ve forgotten some and can only recall 9. Strangely enough my favourite was a Frankenstein’s Monster of a set , a bare chassis from a radio gram so it had no cabinet or for that matter an amplifier or power supply, these must have been separate unit probably at the bottom, so to make it function it was permanently wired to a set my parents gave to me that I only remember acting as a record player amplifier since my Dad’s friend tried to tweak it’s alignment to make it more sensitive and broke a coil slug. It was an expensive set too!
There where several reasons why I got rid of them, they took up a lot of space, we were about to move house and most of all I wanted hifi equipment…valve hifi equipment! My school friend Colin had a similar collection but his came not from jumble sales but from the local amenity dump, I say local but he would think nothing of carrying a huge radio or tape recorder almost as heavy as he was the four miles back to his house! We used to put them at the end of the garden plugged into a long extension lead plugged it into a socket in the shed a safe distance away then we would flick the wall switch and wait... usually we'd hear static and had to dare to get close enough to tune the thing in, nearly every set worked perfectly.
Colin had two things I wanted: A 1961 Ferrograph series 4 reel to reel tape recorder and better still a pair of Quad 2 valve hifi power amplifiers!! :) So in 1977 (or was it 78?) a deal was struck.

Colin and I lost touch until last year when I found his facebook profile...with photos of some of my old radios on it! I was always a little sad that i didn't keep just one so I put a comment on a little 1946 set saying if he wanted to sell it I'd be interested, at first he declined because for the same reasons I chose it (it was small) then a few days a go he said it was mine! I picked it up at lunch time from his work place just round the corner from mine. We had a good old chat and about 33 years later the IR Aria 461 is back in my ownership... and it still works perfectly! Which is fine if you want to listen to talk sport which seems to be about the only Uk station left on medium wave.
I found out a little info about it from a guy who’s selling one on the net.
Aria ( Radio Industries) was a small radio manufacturer based in Croydon. The 461 was a cheap post war (1946) model manufactured for the most part with ex war materials. The set came in the one model shape but in many colours. Most were white however. I have not seen a natural wood finish before. Perhaps they did make one or perhaps the paint finish was removed at some time and stained and polished as in your version. They were not the best of sets in regard to selectivity and sensitivity and need an aerial a mile long to do justice. But the set you have looks to be in fine condition and I am sure that at 63 years old she continues to work well,

I remember now it wasn't a patch on my 1946 Cossor but in the 80’s I purchased an Eddystone 940 communication receiver for short wave listening , at the age of 65 it's more of an ornament now and prettier than the Cossor also I like the rarity aspect and local connection. This time round I understand nostalgia!

Thanks Col if you're reading this! I'll be round to visit the others soon!

A new year and supposedly a new decade!

2011-01-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

Well it certainly been a busy year for me as far as project building goes even though I only completed one musical instrument and that took only a few days ! My first build was a valve, or if you prefer tube amplifier made from the remnants of a 1960’s hifi receiver that I used to use as a teenager. Then the rebuild of another 60’s circuit a treble booster that incorporated a Tone Bender distortion circuit both using original 60’s transistors. That only finished instrument was a one string diddley bow made famous by Sea Sick Steve. In mid summer I assembled my church pew and we had to throw out an old plywood display cabinet to make space in the kitchen/diner and this gave me the idea of making my first acoustic instrument with real bent sides, a mountain dulcimer, a nice and easy to play a tune instrument which will fit nicely into my local folk club scene…this was coming on well until it got side lined by a winter youth group project which is making radio control yachts, these have gotten as far as being bare wood shells which we can now start fitting the radio gear into before they get a coat of paint inside and have the decks are fitted , after that we will paint them with our own personal colour schemes and move on to making the masts and sails! We are planning a regatta race day event for the spring! So what for 2011? Well I must get back to music and apart from finishing that dulcimer I really would like to complete a cd of my songs, it’s something I’ve never done and even though it will probably only get circulated amongst family and friends-including internet friends! I feel I’ll be able to tick off one of those things I’ve always wanted to do.
One last thought; if 2011 is the start of a new decade didn't we celebrate the new millennium a year too early?

Going For A Spin

2010-09-27T04:47:00.024-07:00

It's been a while since I posted a music related blog here but things have been quiet and my dulcimer project has been side lined in favour of my youth group work (See Fleet Of Footies blog) Anyway I played a cover of a Jamie Cullum song at the folk club last night, no not someone you'd associate with folk or the electric guitar, not that every thing that is played at the club is strictly folk, it's nice to have a little variation too. But "All At Sea" is one of his more laid back numbers which inspired me when watched him play it live with an orchestra at the proms, with rain effects created by to blokes dressed as fishermen holding up punctured containers of water, I attempted to recreate an atmospheric sound with the whirl of my rotary speaker, I'd never taken it to the club before because I considered it to be too gimmicky but it turns out it's mellow non directinal singing sound exactly fits the bill, it got several compliments! Btw It's blue paint work meant it even blended in with the furniture. In fact they seemed to like the Les Pew more too, during the interval a couple of people had a play of it, something that's never happened before. One thing about the rotatary speaker is nobody is ever in it's direct line of fire (for too long) as they would be with a fixed speaker and also I hear exactly the same effect and similar volume when I'm sitting right over it. Next time I think I'll play something more outright jazzy, it sounds soooo good if you play anything with major and minor 7th chords in it! Only thing is I think I need to put wheels on it! It's a really awkward to carry- I still havn't unloaded it from the car yet.

Something's a foot!

2010-09-09T03:59:00.001-07:00

Check out my new blog - Fleet Of Footys here!
http://fleetoffootys.blogspot.com/

more of the same

2010-09-05T12:08:00.001-07:00

The dulcimer is progressing quickly, yes my lining blocks are unevenly spaced but I'll hopefully never see them again once the top is glued down, which I must resist doing until I glue the staff & fingerboard on to it because it'll be easier to clamp. Not everything has gone to plan, the sides slope inwards just forward of the waist but I can't give up now!

The glider is finished and has been tested by being hand launched now the sky's the limit!

Real progress at last!

2010-08-29T14:29:00.001-07:00

By getting the sides glued on I feel like I've made some real progress with the dulcimer at last! I'm so embarrassed by my attempts to clamp it all up that I didn't take any photos in case they fell off! But making proper mould to hold one instrument seems a lot of extra work. It's far from perfect (as usual!) and now contains rather a lot of glue mixed with sawdust to fill the gaps around the bottom but I think it will come out OK. (from a distance) Since this photo I have glued on the rosewood cap that sits at the base and cut the six vent slots in the sides that allow the air to move between the bottoms, this is my own slant on the design which yet is to be proved!
Btw on the glider front I have managed to coax my 1980's radio control into life so will get that fitted soon, then it's all down the the weather, it's been raining, windy and quite chilly here and feels like Autumn is all ready here!
Before I go I just have to mention that we went to see Jamie Cullum in concert at the proms on Thursday!!! An amazing evening! We were in the prommers (standing crowd) and were just a few feet from the stage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WYIY0a-T2U

2010-08-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Most instrument builders won't even look at plywood but my cigar box ukulele is plywood and I think sounds better than many solid uke's and these are hard times, anyway I like the fact that dulcimer was made from a 1950's? glass fronted cabinet that came from my mother in laws front room, it gives it a some personal history and makes it more folksy! But the top has been niggling me because when I tapped my knuckle the first top I made sounded just dead, no resonant bong,no tone at all, same if I rapped my nails on it, but I noticed the piece from the shelf is different all together! Very loud! So I abandoned the old one and drilled out all the sound holes again, this time using a hole saw to no tear outs as it when though the top of the grain though I forgot to rest it on another piece of wood so I got some nasty rips underneath! Doh!
So obviously even plywood is not all made equal.
Note in the picture I now have the timber for my ebony fingerboard and mahogany staff (that the bit that goes underneath) also note the double bottomed bottom! It means that when you lay it on your lap you aren't stopping the bottom from vibrating, my version will have six vent slots along the sides which is different from the traditional method of gluing lots of small blocks between the two bottoms my own stamp on the design- after all it's an English Handcross hill dulcimer rather than the more common Appalachian Mountain variety!

2010-08-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of instrument building blogging but I've been spending some quality time building a 6 foot wing span radio control glider with my 15 year old son as a summer project.Nearly ready to fly!

Dull-cimer? Possibly,I'm completely in unknown territory here and I'm making this recession busting instrument from an old plywood cabinet. What I have discovered is that because the body of a dulcimer doesn't bear the load of the string tension like a guitar it more a box to act as a sound amplifier and back in the day even cardboard dulcimers have been known!
To give my dulc a fighting chance I'm constructing it with a double back, this allows the (inner) back to freely vibrate when you lay it on your lap or stand it on a table. I'm not doing this the traditional way (of course) but am extending the sides right to the bottom and having vent slots in them.
Today I ordered some ebony for the fingerboard and a proper timber for the stock which unknown to me until I placed my order goes underneath the fingerboard to make up the thickness, (a bit like a neck) and is the bit that goes right to the bridge (Thank you David Dyke for you're help!)
Anyhow I'm thinking this dulcimer might sound a little more thin a nasal than the quality solid wood top quality ones I've seen and heard but never mind I quite like that sound I don't want it to sound too guitar like.
More photos and further blogs soon!

Summer update

2010-08-06T03:51:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say that as you can see by the photo the glider is progessing and we hope tp be able to fly it before the school holidays are over. On a musical theme (which is what this blog is suppssed to be about!) the dulcimer is coming along too and I will post some photos of that soon!

Summer break

2010-07-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Well it’s mid summer, the folk club is having abreak till September and my next booked open mic isn’t till October. So a break from music for a bit and time to spend with my family. I have a cunning plan to keep my 15 year old son off of the computer ,I’ve just bought a 2 metre wingspan radio controlled model glider/sail plane kit , it will be good to spend some quality father /son time building and learning how to fly it! I notice that people are fixing phones and cameras to their models and uploading their aerial movies to youtube, I guess I’ll have to risk taking my ipod for a flight!
Here’s one I found taken on the hill we hope to fly our from, who needs to charter a helicopter to make films like these? Ok not very summery but a good movie!

Testing my clock

2010-07-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

My home made clock-next I have to add buttons so I can set the time then maybe chimes,not ugly electronic one but a relay connected to a little hammer striking a wind chime style tube would sound nice!

PENdulum test (BIC actually)

2010-06-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a short video of my testing my pendulum system out, it's running a little fast so I need make the pendulum longer and the only way to accommodate t in that case is to raise the top and the coil up higher. I've already mover the opto sensor to the back and have a little pin in the back of the pendulum interrupting the beam. Even though the stanley knife bade fulcrum should be pretty well friction free bcz the coils magnetism has to jump a bit of a gap it's not so efficient and those 60 pulses a second are going to eat the batteries! Maybe a solar panel on top?

Video of me playing at Gary's club

2010-06-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

About time I posted a video of myself playing here, I played at Gary's Club at the weekend, I think it went well. Anyway here's a couple of videos so you can make up your own mind!
Note I'm playing the Les Pew through the "new" amp and the rotary speaker, the copper gardening tags I found in a hardware shop have made much improved rotating speaker contacts! I wrote the songs too.

Bird's nest wiring!

2010-06-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Something that seems fairly simple in theory doesn't always work out like that in practice. It's certainly put my eye sight to the test! Though the bird's nest lay out is easier to trace than it looks you could hardly call it neat! (Dare I admit wiring is my trade?) Bcz the minute LEDs are small and are easy to destroy by over heating with the iron I decided to only wire one wire to each pin there is still the wiring for the seconds LEDs to be added but as these are larger I should be able to link them daisy chain style to keep down the bulk of the wiring! Oh-and I must order the IC's or it won't be doing anything!

Time - warp. (sorry that's the best I could come up with!)

2010-06-12T06:42:00.001-07:00

Inspired by Time Hunkin's web site I thought I'd build a clock (also it makes a change to make something totally non musical)
It will have 132 LEDs _ and five cmos counters fanned out in a star shape in the center.
The outer ring will have yellow LEDs indicating the seconds- middle ring red for minutes and the inner rectangular green LEDS for the hour hands.
Yes a CNC machine would have made a better job of drilling those holes! Think of it as art! I will get them a little better as I glue them it place then fill any gaps.
it won't have a pcb of any kind all will have to be point to point hand wired! I must be mad! I want it to keep time via a pendulum with optical sensor and might add hourly chimes later.

The dulcimer is coming along, the side bending was a little bit of a struggle as I used a large soldering iron to steam them! No they don't want to stay in exactly the right curvature but are now bend easily into place.
I'm held up now as I need to put in an order for glue and might as well buy the finger board etc though my regular luthier suppliers in the UK don't seem to offer anything dulcimer sized!

Tim Hunkin - Engineer - Artist

2010-05-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

Does any one remember the TV sries The Secret Life Of Machines back in the late 80’s? Hosted by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod it explained the inner workings of domestic and later office equipment through experimentation, stunts and wacky cartoons! I considered this compulsory viewing!
A few day ago I looked on youtube to see if any clips were on it and indeed there where but then I discovered the website where you can (legally) download all 18 shows to keep!
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/SLOM/
If this wasn’t enough I found Tim’s own website and realised he had been rather busy since that series was made to put it mildly! http://www.timhunkin.com/
What a mine of inspiration not to mention a great way to earn a living! If only I could do a similar thing but with a musical slant to it? !
Sorry the links don't link here ,I've never managed to get them to work.

Dulcimer back and sides

2010-05-25T04:33:00.001-07:00

The laminate on the inside of the side panels was damaged from where I had taken the cabinet apart but that was probably because it wasn’t very well stuck down in the first place and half an hour with a chisel had it all removed, what I have left is about 3 mm thick and can’t be described as ply because the grain of two layers of wood go in the same direction so it’s just a layer of birch and something prettier on top. These pieces will become the top and sides of my dulcimer the bottom is what used to be the cabinet’s top so is rather thick 5 ply. Rather than conventionally gluing the sides on top of it I’m going to stick them round the edge this will have the advantage of acting as a former, hide the fact it is ply and save me fitting kurfeling as I have a thick edge to glue to! I have already cut a maple wedge block for the tail and have off cut of rose wood to cap the end. Now I’m thinking about the headstock, I don’t have the wood for the finger board though and I guess it ought to match rosewood or Mahogany would look nice and I think I have some Mahogany in the cabinet/box of that digital amp project that I scrapped. Many dulcimer makers just seem to glue the headstock separately to the end block but I want mine to be extend to that area for strength so I need to make the headstock before I start bending the sides a challenge I must conquer but am not looking forward to! Just as well I have a spare strip to practice on!

Taking Stock

2010-05-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

I‘ve just realised that this Dulcimer would be my tenth home made instrument! So I though it would be a good time to take stock of what I had built then I went on adding projects to the list and all this in the last ten years!

1. Mosrite copy – “Mozzie” Solid Poplar Body –Vox tremolo ( Bolt on Neck from old Eko stock)
2. Electric 12 string “Lady V” Semi Hollow Ash body, book matched flame maple top .
3. 12 string Mando Guitar “Woody” Maple Body homemade bridge
4. 12 String Mando Guitar-“Bluey” Quadruple strung! Ukulele
5. Electric Guitar “The Les Pew” 150 year old Semi hollow Pine Body
6. 6 String Octave banjo (A new shorter neck made for broken English Zither banjo)
7. Headless Bass -Pine body (Neck from a Westone Thunder 1A Bass)
8. Cigar Box Ukulele – Drift wood mahogany neck
9. 1 string Diddley Bow - Pew Body/neck
10. Mountain Dulcimer –in progress!

Other projects

Rotary speaker- utilising chocolate tins!
Beer bottle cap percussion machine (waiting reworking)
Double Treble booster/tone bender pedal
100watt general purpose amplifier rebuild (unfinished)
17watt Valve Amplifier-+ speaker cab From modified English 1960’s Hifi amplifier.
Digital amplifier (scrapped) –power amp is in the rotary speaker
Ultra low power valve amp (scrapped)

Song writing (listed only those I publicly perform)

The Grand Old Pier
Black River
Need and Want
Elise
Albert

Painting (Haven’t done any for a few years!) These spring to mind;

Nancy Kelly’s A Christmas Dream Cd cover (sold to NK)
Virginia Haze portrait (sold to “VH”)
The Muffs (on The Muffs myspace page)

Plus helping out with a youth group and of course a full time job! Well it beats watching TV! ..or washing the car. How does my wife put up with me?

First real Dulcimer blog

2010-05-19T08:46:00.001-07:00

I have found a design I like, (though won't have heart sound holes) have scaled the photo up to a full size template and what do you know it fits my available wood from that plywood cabinet exactly!

Timber from top to bottom;

The top!

The sides- will have to have the varnish sanded right off so the steam/water can penetrate it for bending - scary must take my time!

THe bottom - Not ideal as it has an off set-unmatched join in the laminate but does have a piece of mahogany laminate stuck to the other side that will show nicely through the sound holes!

This is my first real acoustic instrument, this time no cigar boxes or tobacco tin sound box so it will be a challenge!

Mulling over yesterdays post

2010-05-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well I flirted with the idea of a fret board that could be moved up and down under the strings rather that moving the stings and also a twin "neck" with side by side dulcimer and lap slide but maybe I should just make myself a a conventional dulcimer. Albiet rectangular.
Here is photo of the two sides of that cabinet, one showing the inside the other the outside ,they are both the same. Pretty eh?

The Dulcide? Slideimer? - Americana in a box!

2010-05-15T09:49:00.001-07:00

When we put the pew into the kitchen it made a rather plain 1960's? glass fronted cabinet homeless, so plain that my wife actually let me take it apart (with a few taps of a hammer) and keep the wood. It's thin ply with rather a nice laminate on it so ideal for the back and sides of an acoustic instrument of some kind! I'd just have to buy a solid top. Square guitars went through my mind, a kind of unplugged version of Bo Diddley's Gretsch but now I'm thinking DUlcimer and Lap Steel all at the same time! YOu see I'd like both but don't have the space so why not make a convertible instrument where the 6 stings can be raised for slide playing then (and here's the clever bit) with a flick of a lever two two they drop down , four over the frets and two into slots running down the fret board so they are out of play and leave the correct spaces for a dulcimer! It won't be instant as the strings would have to be slacked and re-tuned but it should only take a few minutes also I might have to compromise with gauge I have yet to do any research, just remember you saw it here first! I hope!

Also... Note the photo below of the box I found in some junk- it reminds me of a small mixing desk ,it used to be fairly common to build your own but nobody bothers any more because they are so cheap, but so what! As you can see I've laid out some knobs to get an idea of what it could accommodate-about 5 stereo channels with pan and two band eq.
Anyhow no promises I'll build either but I keep you updated as always!

Diddley Cam!

2010-05-04T05:18:00.000-07:00

Note: The key is permanently screwed to the tin now! (and this one isn't actually my back door key)

Diddley bow at open mic night.

2010-05-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

I've just got back from playing my diddley bow at my folk club's open mic.

I arrived to pretty full hall (HELP!) and the way to my seat (the one nearest the power outlet) the stainless steel nut I was using as a bridge fell off and rolled away under a table so I had to improvise using my back door key which was probably more authentic anyway, I explained this in my introduction speech along with a little back ground history, anyway after about a minute or so of playing I had pretty much exhausted all I had learnt in a day and was wondering how to finish when my key slipped out from under the string bringing me to an abrupt halt! I explained that my back door key had fallen off which got a good laugh and was referred to by other musicians several time during the rest of the evening! Anyhow I think it's novelty value won them over because they loved it! I even got the offer to play a duet with a harmonica player but we ran out of time. Maybe another time then. I tried to get them to stomp along with the beat but they wouldn't play ball so next time I'll play it with my foot operated - beer cap- shaky stick thing. Now I need a mic and a way to inject my voice into my guitar amp so I can keep up with the volume!Ok better not push it too far! Oh and write some blues songs.
So it seems you can play cranked up electric rock and roll at a traditional folk cub as long as you call it blues and play it on a diddley bow!;)

The rest of the pew installed in our kitchen.

Going electric

2010-04-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to say that I have just installed my security door magnet pickup and it sounds great! Demo hopefully coming soon!
Ok so why should this work? This is how it's designed to work: In the center is a permanent magnet, that keeps the door locked (or in some cases open) even without the power needing to be on, around this is a coil, an electro magnet but this is connected up so that when 24 volts is applied to it it cancels out the permanent one and you can open the door! Anyhow a permanent magnet surrounded by a coil is exactly what a guitar pick up is!Now the magnet is a bit too strong and the coil should have a few more turns on it but it does seem to work and work pretty darn well! Btw I have it bcz it got scrapped bcz it's fixing hole's thread is missing.

Diddley Pew blog number two!

2010-04-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

I have my Diddley pew playing and it's great fun! I've been using a large drill bit as a slide for now!
It's made from the other half of the back rest top rail of that 150 year old church pew I'm sitting on in my header photo. With a little experimentation I have got the sound quite loud, the upturned tin that acts as a resonator has no lid and overhangs the wood where it's curved so lets the sound out. It has no actual top nut because the tuner's roller does that job.
It just think looks a little plain at the moment and part of the fun of making these is customizing them, maybe I should carve the interval positions into the top.
Funny that the end section looks like a Fender guitar headstock, maybe I should paint the ends a brighter colour.
I am at work now and have found a potential pick up in our scrap! It’s actually an electro magnetic door catch. The kind of thing they use in keypad access security doors. Well it’s a coil wrapped around magnet isn’t it! And a quick test by plugging it into my PC speakers and pinging a taught length of ferrous wire over it reveals a good loud boing! Can’t wait to try it out for real!

Diddley Pew

2010-04-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Shelley's Rickey's Piggy diddley bow http://shelleyrickey.blogspot.com/2010/04/oh-oh-lil-piggy-spam-lam.html I decided to build one of my own using up one of my last pieces of pew I found whilst tidying up my shed. Diddley Pew? I was stuck for a tuning peg so am hoping to use a bicycle gear change lever! See I'm using up that cycle junk already! Photos and demo soon! Pepare your selves for some authentic deep south (of England) blues!
Meanwhile here is Sea Sick Steve showing us how it should be done!

Btw When I say everything I do on it sounds bad you'll probobly just have to agree.

Recycled drum machine?

2010-04-27T02:45:00.000-07:00

For a while I’ve been thinking I need to have a few more up tempo songs or just a fuller sound to my devopelping set , when I went to the shed to unpadlock my bicycle at the weekend I realized how many old bike frames ,wheels and parts I had in there I got a flash of inspiration! Well maybe only I would look at this pile of scrap and think mechanical drum machine! Not the giant one like James Taylor used on stage but one more the size of my rotary speaker. A search on google shows a few but they are all electronically controlled and have solenoids (electro magnets) operating the drums, cymbals or what ever but I think that is cheating a little and it isn’t so obvious to an audience how it works, I rather something that is a piece of kinetic sculpture. I’m thinking more like a bicycle wheel with bolt heads sticking out around it lifting and dropping rods, I could even have a derailleur on it to change the speed! It doesn’t need to be able to play more than one or two rhythm variations as I’ll only use it for a few songs. I remember as a child of about five being memorized by a 5 minute film of this huge 20 foot tall kinetic sculpture on Play School and somehow I feel that since digital music and the lack oa spinning disc or hypnotically revolving reels something has been lost, it’s all a bit sterile. Anyhow it fits in with my eccentric inventor image! I’ll keep you posted of course if this idea develops into anything more than just an idea.

Treble booster/Tone Bender Mk2

2010-04-22T10:24:00.001-07:00

I've had my homemade 1960's copy treble booster and Tone Bender distortion box for a about a year now and found the sounds really useful but the way they were constructed were really impractical so I decided to rebuild into one neat box and configure them in a way that would be useful on stage. I used the steel case of an old internal pc DVD drive and covered it with my last off cuts from the amp and speaker cab.
It now has two treble boosters. The top row of controls sets up the first booster (Gain 1) for my main guitar sound and the other controls the second (Gain 2) which can be switched into a following Tone bender (Red labels) for the lead solo sound (or maybe just a different song) Both treble boosters and bender are full bypass switchable so the box can stay in line all the time.The foot switch simply switches between the two channels. As there's nothing worse than a flat battery during a gig so I included a volt meter I had knocking around.
All I need to do is find some more suitable knobs. For you geeks it contains Mullard OC44,OC 75 & OC82D transistors. People are selling pedals like this on the net for silly money, there's not a lot in them but they do sound good! Btw the insides were photographed on my bench at work you can see I couldn't resist putting on one of my tested stickers!

The Fiddlelele

2010-04-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

The cigar box Fiddlelele –a cross between a cigar box fiddle and ukulele.
A crazy idea I know and only an idea but the thinking goes something like this: Guitarists can easily play the ukulele as it is tuned to the four highest guitar strings –as if they were capoed 5 frets up.(Ignore the re-entrant tuned detail) Well then they can play the fiddlelele! As it’s tuned the same and has (curved) frets so you know were to place your fingers you just have to get to grips with a bow! No it won’t have the range of a violin and purists will hate it but come on it’s got to be worth trying! Both instruments have similar scale lengths after all and Jazz violinist Mike Piggott bursts into a little George Formby during a gig on a standard violin! He can also bow all four strings at once too but you’ll have to go to a gig to see how he does that! Anyhow it seems like a good summer project and should cost next to nothing. A little Googeling reveals there was in the past such a thing as a Ukelin and a Violin-uke but both of these look like bowed zithers. Well there’s an idea but as you know my plans keep changing all the time!First I have to rebuild my treble boost/ distortion pedal box and also I have a little job to do on my 2nd electric mando guitar as I think the first two frets a fractionally out of place and explains why it always sounds out of tune! This has been driving me mad since I built it and since modified it to play as an extended 12 string ukulele (you play full guitar chords on doubled up strings- the top 6 strings being re-entrant (an octave up) so some notes are quadruped up!) tonally it sounds amazing so I want to get it sorted it’s just a nightmare to work on with 12 strings!

Amplifier video demo

2010-04-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

FInished! (well almost)

2010-04-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

What a nightmare, so many corners! But finally it is covered and the finished amplifier and speaker can be relieved!Just a few more smaller jobs left now.

2010-03-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have to post this picture of the cabinet with the tapestry grill fitted! Just when it felt spring was around the corner the good old British weather has got wet and cold again! It's like February! I went out to the shed and hastily fitted the cloth and moved it all back indoors -so I can at least play it. It's supposed to get colder and stay that way for Easter. :( When the weather warms up I will finish shaping the woodwork and cover it to match the amp. (though I think it doesn't look bad in bare wood)

Speaker cloth discovery!

2010-03-29T05:09:00.000-07:00

I visited my local branch of Hobbycraft in my lunch break looking for that elusive speaker cloth and the only thing I thought might do was hessian which I could lightly spray paint to the desired colour. But while lining up to ask the shop assistant to cut some off for me something caught my eye lying on the counter. BINGO! Strong -a dull Browny gold in colour –square open weave- TAPESTY cloth! It’s perfect like it’s been manufactured to my specification! And £9.99/meter (half the price of real speaker cloth) Photos to follow!

Coming together!

2010-03-28T06:41:00.000-07:00

My next task is to find some cloth to stretch over the baffle that I have just painted black, not easy because I don't want it to look like a standard guitar amplifier. Then to route curves on the edges of the cabinet like wise file off the sharp edges off the three bars and paint them black. I guess it will look like a negative of what you see here! ...I've just routed those curves!

I'm wondering if I should have made it the same size as the amplifier head now, oh well it's too late!

The baffle wasn't baffling at all!

2010-03-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

As it turns out with very little modification the baffle from my old amplifier fits perfectly! It couldn't have worked out better if I had measured it!
I told you my plans would change! Btw It's called a baffles imply because it baffles the unwanted sound from the back of the speaker.

2010-03-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

The speaker cabinet being glued together. The slats are only hanging there temporarily just to give me an idea what they'll look like. You can tell I've had to improvise because I'm short of long clamps!

I'll turn the photo around so it's the right way up to give you a better idea what it will look like.

The baffle that the actual speaker fits into won't be conventional either, what is the point of cutting a huge hole in a large peice of ply just to throw most of it away? I'll mount it on blocks than fill the four corners in with small triangular pieces and have an upright at each end for the fabric to stretch around, well that's the plan but my plans always seem to change!

Fuzzy picture of speaker cab progress

2010-03-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update:
The sides resting on the top and bottom of my speaker,I guess it's the pine that makes it look like an Ikea flat pack.
The bars go into those cut outs to give them some rigidity.

Speaker cabinet ideas

2010-03-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a little sketch.

It's a little more difficult to build but I'm thinking of a design with gold speaker cloth that wraps around the corners with three black bars that protect it , this means that I can use ordinary material for the cloth as it only has to keep dust out is far cheaper and I get far more choice of styles, I don't anything to be recognized as looking like it from anther manufacturer eg Marshall or Vox,I want my gear to look different and eye catching! The words Hi Fidelity are a nod towards it's origins and are true too, rather out of the ordinary for a guitar amplifier!

Onwards! The Speaker Cabinet!

2010-03-16T04:29:00.000-07:00

Next job is to build a matching speaker cabinet. I have a 12" British made Grampian speaker from about 1960 it came with a rather rubbish RSC valve amp and was then used with my Selmer Treble 'n' Bass, later it was built into my homemade MOSFET amp.
I was concerned that I couldn't use it because a check with my multimeter revealed it was 12.5 ohms and not 4,8, or 16 which I have tappings for on the new amp. but this is it's resistance during DC reading-direct current and not it's AC (alternating current) impedance which gets higher with frequency (and you can't get lower bass than DC!) To get the correct impedance multiply by 1.3 = 16.25 ohms!Plenty good enough! A 12" speaker is much more efficient than a smaller one just because the same coil is moving a bigger cone and therefore more air and at a mere 15-17 watts I think it'll need this when I gig it in a large hall. (Gary's Club in June!)

So I'm planning on carrying on the black and gold theme and partly to save costs rather than buying proper speaker cloth I will use something thinner this will also give me more choice so I can find something more original than the usual Fender or Marshall cloth and I'll fit bars across it to protect it. This weekend I'll look in my local timber merchant for pine to build the cabinet.

PS Am testing the 12" speaker, it sounds far more open and clear than the smaller one but is somehow less jazzy and has far less bass at domestic volumes. But you should hear it when I crank it up a little......clear punchy defined bass wow! I was a little disappointed with the smaller one at the church evening bcz it sounded boxy.

MY "NEW" HOMEMADE AMP REVEALED!

2010-03-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

I got a little handy with the vinyl covering this morning and actual quite enjoyed the whole process! It's not like painting or varnishing as soon as it's stuck it's done! Instant gratification! I think with a little more practice I could do a perfect job but I'm pleased enough with what I have achieved. The badge is made from three lengths of tin-copper wire twisted together in a drill then bent with pliers and painted. The whole effect reminds me of British Norton and Vellocette motor bikes. :0)

Plan C!

2010-03-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

Plan C!
Despite saying they had one length of Vox basket weave covering in stock I got a call from Kate at Allparts UK saying when she went to pull it off the roll it was far too short. So I changed my order to a pretty standard black Fender covering which is fine. I may even have enough to make a matching speaker cab, I'll see.
To break up the black on the front panel I've decided to fit two gold lengths of piping. I felt like a bit of a vandal today as I cut those two deep slots into the front of the cabinet, maybe because two sections of the ply panel came loose, one has fallen off! Probably because I didn't clamp it properly while drying. Any how does my amp look (British) 60's or what!Well the way I (just) remember it anyway! (Btw the slots left from sawing in the sides are filled, the piping only goes across the middle panel and no the piping isn't glued in yet) Can't wait to see the full effect but MUST take my time!

2010-03-05T04:34:00.000-08:00

I only discovered this Vox amp a couple of weeks ago and am disturbed by it’s similarities to mine, I wanted to make something original not just copy an existing design!
It's not just cosmetic either. It has a similar output using the same tubes , an EF86 tube channel (with a single tone control) that I know I borrowed from Vox but also has the second ECC83/12AX7 channel with treble and bass controls with the panel laid out in a very similar way. I know there is only so many ways to build an amplifier but this is eerie!
Ok the differences: Mine was 95% made in England. (Only the two small toggle switches and the two Russian EL84 tubes weren’t!)
Mine is vintage- a little rearranged maybe !
Mine was once a hifi so uses negative feedback so doesn’t distort, that may sound like I’m missing out on the holy grail of tube amp design but it still sounds like a vintage rock’n’roll amp and can be used for jazz too, yesterday I discovered it makes a pretty good bass amp, something you can’t do if it distorts!
(I’ll use my home made - from 60’s parts - Range Master and Tone Bender for that!)

Plan B

2010-03-05T04:33:00.001-08:00

After much searching I can't find the coloured 60's style covering I want anywhere so I have a new much simpler plan:
Cover the amp in black Vox type material so it matches my digital Vox AD30 combo. Remove the amplifier chassis and Vox handle and badge from the AD30 and convert it into a plain speaker cabinet making it a new full height speaker baffle with a proper cloth (I hate that steel grill!!) The only fly in the ointment is that it is just a fraction narrower (less than half an inch) than the new amplifier head I just hope it won't look top heavy but I can't have everything!
Then make a new head cabinet for the old digital chassis,and fit the Vox badge etc. This way I have plenty of flexibility, I can use either amp head with the speaker and use the Vox amp to power the rotary speaker!(This sounds far better than it's existing one I've tried it!)
Then add some gold colour piping to set off the black (the tube amp will have gold ventilation gills) and make the whole set up look more classy!:)

My tube amp's projects history in photos.

2010-02-23T05:57:00.000-08:00

A potted history and some photos I’ve found on the web relating to my valve (tube) amplifier
It was built between 1963 and 1966 by Armstrong Audio as a 226s (stereo) hifi radio/amplifier in their factory above a row of shops in the borough of Islington, London. (Building demolished in 1980)
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/200/200page1.html
Here is a link for some photos of the 1960’s production line, scroll to the bottom that woman with the bouffant could be building mine!
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/pandp/prod1.html
I can remember it as part of my hifi system when I was about 19-20 in the late 1970’s and I thought it was old then! It had a bad tendency to crackle and because I had a pair of far superior Quad valve amplifiers (which I still have) and it was so bulky (in had a tiny bedroom) in around 1985 I stripped it down discarded the radio and used just part of the chassis to make a basic guitar amplifier, but with the original compromised ECL86 valves which was maybe the reason I can’t remember it being that good in either form!
In 2010 I discovered the remains in my attic and decided to use it as the basis of a proper guitar amplifier and the rest you have probably read in this blog. I converted it to use EL84 valves, ( by adding an extra ECC83) increasing the power from 10 watts (rms) to around 17 and added an EF86 channel and all I can say is it sounds stunning! Pure 1960’s! The problem with digital amplifiers is they may have umpteen simulation of different amplifiers on them BUT they make all of your guitars sound the same! Maybe a good analogy would be its like listening to a digital recording of an electric guitar. I’ve discovered by building this that valves are the REAL sound of the electric guitar and bring out all of the character of your pickups and switch settings AND GET THIS - this is an amp that is perfectly clean-no in built overdrive, no crunch just how amps used to be. Valves are so much more than distortion! (I’ll use my home made - from 60’s parts - Range Master and Tone Bender for that!) Needless to say my (Chinese made) digital Vox AD30 has been relegated to an emergency standby amp.
I’m trying to decide on a badge to put on the front just to finish it off.
Either AS 10-65
Or AS/45
AS= my initials or Armstrong –even Arm-Stone
10-65 =2010 & 1965
or
45= an amp built from 45 year old components!
I still haven’t decided whether to paint it over cover it.

The tube amp in action!

2010-02-22T02:44:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I played at my church's home grown entertainment evening even though I used to played in church it's the first time I've sung solo in front of my church friends rather than a folk club. It was a great evening, it would have been nice to see a few more people there but there were enough for it to not feel too empty.Thank you to The Rev Gary Simmons and son Sam for the hilarous Monty Python Cheese shop sketch and Paul Hollinshead for the immitation bouzouki playing on guitar! The video came out a bit echoey and sometimes the guitar sounds distorted but I know it was better than this in reality coz I was there! It definaletly isn't the right song for distortion! But anyway the amp didn't blow up or for that matter fall apart which was a real possiblility because I had only glued on the front of the cabinet that day and only took the wood working clamps off an hour before I put it into the car!
So here i am with one of my own songs played on my homemade "Les Pew" guitar and that amp.

Power on and it sounds great!

2010-02-06T05:19:00.000-08:00

The first time my homemade valve amplifier has had a guitar plugged into it! Now to build it a better cabinet than a cardboard box. It sounds 10 x better than my digital modelling VOX AD30 even though the speaker has no cabinet!

Wow, it actually works!

2010-01-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

At lunch break today I finally dared to switch on my home made valve (tube) guitar amplifier and to my work mates surprise and my relief no bang, smoke or sizzling noises! So I connected it temporarily to the PC's sound and it came out loud and clear with NO hum! Can't wait to plug a guitar into it! Tomorrow I have to take multiple voltage measurements and do some maths to work out how hard the new tubes are working -too lower wattage and they won't sound their best-too much and they won't last as long. Then I can see if I can get the final (or first) tube working, it's just an option and can be switched in and out but I'm still a couple of components short. I've learnt so much already by building this thing!

Tube amplifier progress

2010-01-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

The valve amplifier is coming together nicely, as most of it is over 40 years old I'm hunting through my parts to try to keep it vintage looking. Although it is a separate head the controls are on the top like a Vox so I can access them easily, putting them on the front only seems to make sense if it is up high on a huge speaker stack and I assure you it won't be! I'll keep you updated and maybe post a video once it's all working.
Hopefully at my next gig at Gary's Club I can play my own songs on my homemade guitars AND amp
Optional techie bit;
The chassis came from the remains of an Armstrong 127m stereo tuner/amplifier, it originally used ECL86 triode-pentode valves but these are hard to find and not as good as the EL84s pentodes which are found in most smaller British amps so I have rewired the holders for El84s and added a separate ECC83/12AX7 for the two triodes (Driver/phase splitter stage) Also I want to add a switchable EF86 pentode at the input try try and capture some of that VOX chime but I'll add that later.-The rectifier is solid state. THe whole thing should push out 10 watts in A class, I'm not too worried about distortion though a nice overdrive would be a plus.

One man's junk....

2010-01-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

Junk? Oh nooo! Gold dust! This is the remains of a guitar amp I built about 20 years ago from the remains of a valve hifi amp from the 1960's! I found it in the attic and I'm rebuilding it and converting it to take readily available (and better) valves. It's a 10 watt class A amp that is similar to a Vox AC10 except it hasn't got the EF86 valve (tube) in the preamp so I'm planning to add one. No I haven't finished the last amp yet! I'm building these in the warm at work during my lunch breaks and come the spring I should have two working ones to take out to the shed and put into cabinets!

A new year and new projects to build!

2010-01-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

LET ME START BY WISHING ALL MY FRIENDS A HAPPY 2010!

2010? It it doesn't look like a date does it? More like something out of Star Trek! Star date 2010-- thing is I've just seen Bernard Cribbens on Dr Who acting like Luke Skywalker what is going on?

Anyhow I have a couple of nearly empty roses chocolate tins on the kitchen table, anyone got ideas what to do with them?

Actually I'm starting the year with at least potential six projects waiting to be built! I have 3 (no make that 2 as I have to build a ukulele for a friend) cigar boxes and one larger wooden box waiting to become various strange woodsy acoustic instruments. Also my newly rebuilt 100 watt sold state guitar amp has been tested and is all working that is except the swanky 5 control tone mixing circuit which needs sorting! And also I unearthed over the Christmas break a valve (or tube) amplifier I built about 20 years ago from some ancient hifi equipment Some of the valves are missing though and are hard to find nowadays so I needs to redesign it a little- I think i know what I'm doing!

All shall be blogged as usual! Just don't tell my wife as I'm rapidly running out of space! That's the good thing about song writing!

Merry Christmas! (& free festive music download)

2009-12-24T01:32:00.000-08:00

A Merry Christmas to anybody who might be looking in and enjoy this FREE festive EP download from my favorite Ukulele(and mouth trumpet)player Victoria Vox!

http://victoriavox.bandcamp.com/

Open Mic at Gary's Club including video

2009-12-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Open mic night at Gary's club.
I had a great open mic at Gary's club last night. I felt far more confident and go to grips (at last) with singing through a microphone!
Unlike a normal open mic where you only get to do one or two songs Gary pre-books you in for a 20 minute slot so you can really
start to develop a proper set. It was a great evening with 6 of these slots and a really varied selection of styles and I was asked back
to do another in about 4 or 5 months or so,in the mean time I'll definitely be back to watch!

100 watt homemade guitar amplifier MK 3

2009-12-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

My main homemade guitar amplifier is undergoing its third reincarnation!
It is based around Maplin 100watt Mosfet power amplifier kit which was popular for use as a disco amplifier in the 1980’s and is no longer made.
I remember I originally built it as a general purpose amp in the early 90’s then in 1997 (see photo) I built it into an old tape recorder cabinet cobbled together with a hodge podge of different projects which included several relays, one valve (tube), five power supplies and a loud speaker from the late1950’s to make a very useful amp indeed! I used it for many a Prison Fellowship visit into jail in the trio El Camino and despite its heath Robertson nature and being shaken up on a bone rattling trolley it never let me down even surviving being dropped and landing upside down! Its only problem was it had so many controls I would get to the end of a gig and wonder why my sound wasn’t quite right to find a knob on the wrong setting!
After we’d stopped doing the prison visits it languished in my shed for a few years and when I fired it up last year I discovered that part of it had ceased to function and rather than trace the fault in it rats nest wiring pulled it to pieces and put the components aside for later.
My modern digital VOX ACD30 is great but somehow I feel I should be playing through something homemade and also I’m missing the thunderous roar of my old 100 watt monster so I’m rebuilding it (neatly this time!) into an old (digital!) 30watt amplifier cabinet, I’m not sure if I can shoehorn the old speaker in there yet!
Co-worker Graham is kindly building it a new neater Craig Anderton “Super Tone Control” circuit, I have already got the powers supplies into the new chassis.
Photos etc to follow!
For the geeky here is a list of its circuits: (so far!)
Germanium transistor “range master” booster (New to this build)
Preamp from a tiny Fender mini twin battery amp
“Super Tone Control” from the Craig Anderton book Projects for Musicians
Maplin Spring line reverb driver

“ line driver & 100 watt mosfet amplifier

I’ve just remembered that I want to put in a microphone input too so I can use it as a joint guitar amp and PA system like Carvin make. This is going to be an epic project!

2009-11-26T05:50:00.000-08:00

Last night I got my song Want and Need to work on the ukulele and it has given me the upbeat ukulele tune that I needed (or was that wanted?) so now I have a four song acoustic mini set finalised for the Gary’s club open mic in two weeks time.

I’ll play two on my Faith jumbo acoustic and two on the uke. No pew guitar or spinning speakers this time I’m concentrating on the songs! Just need to decide which order to play them in. and practice!

Set list:
Want and Need
The Last Days of Summer
Black River
The Grand Old Pier

Event details:
Admission £4 in advance or on the door.

Friday December 11th 2009
7.30pm for 8pm start, Coolham Village Hall, A272 nr Billingshurst, West Sussex RH13 8QN
Free tea & coffee available, bring your own mug.
(Performers slots now fully booked 11/09/09)

Event is open to general public, all welcome.
The stage will be full concert set up with lighting & PA. Seating with tables for audience members provided numbers fall within the fire regulations or it will be concert seating format.

Performers on Friday December 11th 2009
Stick In A Pot
Andrew Perry & Peter Clifton
Andy Stone
Dianan Plummer & Chris Wolferstan
Charlie Davies
Les Elvin

Headline performance 10pm - 10.30pm
'3 Of Us'

Please contact Gary on 01403 785674 for information.

Mando-guitar to Mandolele in an hour!

2009-11-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

How to make a Ukulele in an hour!
Bluey my 2nd mando guitar is no longer! No don't worry she's undergone a little tuning change and is now a double 6 steel string ukulele! (approximately concert size) I've changed a few string gauges around and she now tuned ADGCEA All the pairs are in unison but the extra A&D also tuned like the G in what Ukulele players call re-entery or in plain English an octave up from what you'd expect. So I play my standard guitar chords but have no bass but can now play melody lines on what usually are the bottom strings! Weird! Strum across the strings once and it sounds like twice! (Is that like Nashville style tuning Ed?) I just need t o replace all the stings I stole from Mando guitar Woody! (Who is made to a standard mando scale length but tuned DGCFAD and capoed to save string breakage!) I made Bluey shorter so she could easily tune up the whole octave but I choose Bluey to adapt mainly because being shorter her bass strings sound a bit duller and has a zero fret and so it's nut is therefore less fussy about string gauges. So the result is a new instrument in about an hour!

Compareing the Ukulele! Simples!

2009-10-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went back to “Hobgoblin” my local folk music shop where I bought the tuners and strings for my uke because the staff there where curious to see how it turned out, I was slightly apprehensive bcz I knew I would want to try out some of the real ukuleles they had for sale and didn’t know if I was going to go away disappointed with my effort.
I needn’t have worried the cheap models weren’t much more than toys and only the pricy £206 ($312) one sounded immediately better than mine, it was louder as it projected the sound better but maybe the tone was a little too pure because to my ears mine still sounded warmer and I think sweeter. I was told mine has cheap strings on it too! They sat and played mine and seemed to love it! I don’t think they had a cigar box instrument in the store before and loved the novelty of being able to open the lid to alter the tone.. They even took my photo with to put on the shop wall! Maybe I can email them and get a copy.
So I came away feeling rather pleased with myself and my little rectangular uke!
(It still needs a name btw)

Anyway you can judge for yourself because here’s a little video I made with my new iPod nano, it’s so handy having a sleek multipurpose device that plays my mp3s (mainly artists I’ve found on myspace!) but also shoots video and records sound for recording song ideas! It’s worth every penny!
Btw I never use the headphones but plug it into my pc speakers at work.
Oh back to the video, I made it in my lunch break, what a div! That was my first attempt at “Don’t Worry-Be Happy”, I think I’ll practice it for the folk club but do I look irritatingly happy enough?(or at all) Maybe I should just do it with a dead pan face little like Jack Dee.(Don’t you dare make comments about Lead Balloons!) I could finish it off with a round of “I know a song that’ll get on yer nerves-get on yer nerves-get on yer nerves!” Know wot I mean Ellen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llMHta980go
And like in Nancy Kelly’s latest Dulcet Dreams blog I’ll have to just post a link because I can’t find the embed code either!
What have youtube done? Why can’t sites leave things alone!

Finished cigar box ukulele!

2009-10-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

A quick update just to show it off now it's been varnished! Looking far more like a vintage musical instrument and less like something thats just been bought at Ikea!

Hopefully I will be able to upload a video of it in action soon!

Strung up.

2009-10-22T01:40:00.001-07:00

It plays! Not only that it sounds good too! It has a rich full sound maybe it hasn’t got quite the brightness of a koa topped professional uke like Victoria Vox’s but doesn’t sound a mile off and not the least bit plinky and toy like like I had feared it might. I just have to finish filing the nut slots down the correct height and replace that nail which is acting as a temporary bridge with a piece of fret wire…and sort out a buzzy fret! (There had to be one!)
I think I’ll play it for a bit then strip it down and varnish it, it’s the wrong time of year to be varnishing, it’ll take ages to dry.
I like the way the original writing on the cigar box all lines up with the spaces between the strings!
I can tell it is going to influence my guitar playing, and will probably improve my rhythm playing.

Uke progress.

2009-10-13T12:33:00.001-07:00

My cigar box ukulele is coming together fast!

should be getting the tuners I ordered sometime this week and then I will plane the sides of the headstock down a little slimmer to suit them.

Tomorrow I will drill the holes for the fretboard markers which will be dots made from the wooden handle of an old paint brush, then I'll flatten the board and fit the frets.

The ancient adjustable hole cutter which i think might have belonged to my Grandfather did a nice job on the sound hole.

I've seen lots of cigar ukes with the bridge right at the end of the body which can't be good for the sound so mine is far closer to the middle. The box has been re-enforced with a block of hard wood which the neck will be glued into using a wooden dowel. to make a positive fit.

Being a tenor ukulele it doesn't look as toy like as you might think and the neck don't feel in any way cramped.

I'll keep you updated as always!

Photos from my recent gig at Gary's Music Club

2009-10-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Gary playing my home made bass
Explaining how to make a rotary speaker out of chocolate tins and an old school chair!

All Photo by Claire Downes

Cigar Box Ukulele build.

2009-10-01T05:27:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday while out in town shopping with my wife I popped into an old fashioned tobacconists, (old fashioned in the truest sense because the shop is in a building that looks like came straight out of a Dickens novel) this was just a bit out of character for a life long non smoker so what was I up to? Well you could have guessed it was something to do with my latest instrument build. I was after empty cigar boxes as I want to build a cigar box ukulele! These instrument sem to have become a bit of a craze and there are lots of sites related to them not in the least the social network site Cigar Box Nation http://www.cigarboxnation.com/

I asked if she sold them off as I had read on a blog that £1 was about the going rate but she said no we give them away but only have one at the moment and presented me with a nice ply box with nicely finger jointed corners. A plain bu other wise pretty box except it had a sticker on the back with a distressing photo of a central American guy with a huge ugly red seeping growth on his throat with the caption SMOKING CAN LEAD TO SLOW AND PAINFIL DEATH. Not the most attractive thing to have adorning your musical instrument! So I removed that though I might keep the standard Smoking Kills sticker. So with the body of the uke taken care of all I need is a neck, I have a piece of teak that I found in a rock pool on the beach, my banjo guitar has some of it as the fingerboard already and I am hoping it will make a good one piece neck, teak would be far too heavy on a guitar but as this is such a small instrument I’m hoping it will just make it feel a bit more substantial and not make it too neck heavy. I can always glue a bock into the back of the box to balance it if it is. I’m going to make it into a tenor size uke (17” scale length)as Victoria Vox’s always sounds nice and it should be a little less cramped to play than either a soprano (13”) or concert (15”) size

Cigar box Uke blog part 2

The Ukulele neck is coming on well and as you can see I've attached some extension blocks to the headstock area to make it wide enough and am gluing together a couple of maple off cuts and strip of rosewood to make a nice laminate which will be glued on top for the headstock facing.

Gary's music Club Gig

2009-09-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

The gig at Gary’s went pretty well and the Mike Piggott trio where brilliant as always as for me the rotary speaker preformed perfectly and I even got a few laughs but I was annoyed as I made a bit of a mistake in my Beatles rendition but recovered from it ok. The worst thing was I let down by not having a sound check and worse still nobody on the sound system as my mic wasn’t loud enough! Thankfully two of my three songs were instruments but it spoilt it somewhat for me. Gary was cool about it all though and has asked me to play another 20 minute spot at the open mic in December. A bit of a consolation was that I won tickets in the raffle to see Angie Palmer at the next show which I was keen to go to anyway.
Here is a shaky clip of me with Gary on my homemade bass playing my instrumental adaption of Nancy Kelly's song Manzanita Wind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9HGELQbtAo

It don't impress me much.

2009-09-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

My co-worker has been going on about his “new” car so in a way of reply here is the beginning of a song I’ve been writing:

(To the traditional tune)

Oh Lord DON’T you buy me a Mercedes Benz
I couldn’t afford to service it or pay the insurance premiums
I’d rather buy an old Nissan Primera for a song
Five hundred thousand Asian taxi drivers can’t be wrong.

To Be Continued….

A second guest appearance at Gary's Club.

2009-09-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'm getting excited because on Saturday 19th September I'm playing another 20 minute guest spot at Gary's Club, I'll be playing a couple of instrumentals using my homemade gear namely my "Les Pew" guitar and my rotary speaker, even the Ale-o-phone might make an appearance!

The main attraction is The Mike Piggott Trio. Advance booking is recommended, reservations are coming in already & a sell out is anticipated.

Other performers during the evening include,
The Maypole Band
Resolution

My friend Claire Downes is the club's resident photographer so I should have some professional pictures to post here soon afterwards!

7.30pm for 8pm start, Coolham Village Hall, A272 nr Billingshurst, West Sussex RH13 8QNhttp://www.bassistgaryholder.com/fr_concertnight.cfm

Crazy pianola idea!

2009-08-21T03:12:00.000-07:00

I am thinking about building a machine to play simple repeated riffs or maybe a solo (at the push of a foot control) on my little melodica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MelodicaLike a piano player or a barrel organ! The melodia wouldn’t need any modification; it would be blown into by an electric pump and played by mechanical fingers. I can generate piano roll paper from midi using garageband on the computer, all I need to do is print it out, punch out the holes and roll it into a tube, it will be then read using light and a stack photo resistors! To keep it mechanically simple sharp/flat (black) notes are played by punching out the holes for the two natural notes (white) either side of it and using a little CMOS (electronic) logic to decode it the black key is depressed and white keys aren’t, I have already worked out this circuit! Even the way the way the keys are depressed is going to be unusual as I feel conventional solenoids (electro-magnets) are inefficient and expensive (old pianolas and barrel organs used vacuum) and propose to use electro-magnetic clutches in other words smaller electro-magnets maybe from relay coils that grip a stack of revolving discs so each magnet can be just a fraction away from it’s disc (so it doesn't need to be so powerful) and simply gripping it will drag and it’s finger on to the key. Maybe if this is successful some day I could scale it up to play a full size piano??!!! But anyway I think this would be good on stage playing my keyboard parts, I could build it so that all the moving parts are visible from the front.
It’s sad to me that we live in a world where every thing is solid state and sealed up, there is no longer that sense of fascination and wonder of watching things turn and mechanisms whirl like there was when I was younger, this thing would be a like apiece of kinetic art! It would be a big project but something I can work away at piece by piece, don’t expect to see anything working too soon!
Oh I suppose I should make a drum machine version too!

A rotary speaker tune

2009-08-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

As you can hear it has a strange whrily- floaty sound, almost like an electric piano. What you are missing out on is the amazing stereo effect bcz it is recorded in mono. I am playing the "Les Pew" (See my first blog) it's just out of camera shot bcz I couldn't get the camera any further back even though it is out side of the shed door! I can just about get my two amps and pedal board into my tiny workshop and have enough room to play but I wouldn't get to practice much with it if I had to set it up in the front room! I wish we had a garage!

Every monkey stick needs a monkey!

2009-08-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

From wikipedia

The name "monkey stick" comes from a modern practice: in homage to the trained monkeys formerly used by buskers to solicit money from passers-by, a number of musicians have taken to fixing a small stuffed toy monkey to the tops of their instruments.

I found this guy in a greetings card shop reduced to 99p I'll attach him to the pole somewhere.

Finished! - In one week!

2009-07-31T08:23:00.001-07:00

My finished Ale-o-phone or Foot operated Mendoza / Monkey stick makes all the right noises, now it's just a case of getting them to happen at the right times!

Aren't the bottle caps pretty! Some have pictures of British wildlife including a badger a bee, and a mouse. (Click on the photo to enlarge.) I need a lot more yet before they'll jingle loud enough so I'd better get to work! Burp! Once i get a bit better I'll post a video!

Ale-o-phone Successes!

2009-07-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

IT WORKS!

Not kind of well but really well! Easy to control and sounds something like a real drum kit (to my ears anyway!) If there are any furry creatures living under my shed floor they must have a headache now!

The broom handle has been painted dark brown and the the bottle caps will be attached tomorrow.

There are one or two finishing touches to add but basically it's done!

Photos and video soon! Maybe even a song!

For now here is a lttle history of the original hand operated version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagerphone

So I guess it could be called a mechanical mendoza too!

To keep with tradition with the monkey stick name I could have a toy monkey attached to the top of the hi hat rod so he bobs up and down. Maybe he could have his fingers stuck in his ears!

First Ale-O-Phone photo!

2009-07-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

It's coming together far faster than I thought it would and all the design side is worked out, I just have to finnish it and fine tune it. My real concern is is it playable! I'm a little worried that the pedal won't have a natural bounce to it like a bass drum pedal has and will make it hard to keep in time. The only way to find out is to put it together and find out! I think it will look less like a stick leaning against a hi hat once the bottle caps are fitted...and no it won't make much noise standing on grass!

Real Drummers look away now!

2009-07-27T02:09:00.000-07:00

The "Ale-o-phone" has got more complicated already as I now what to keep the hi hat working as well so starting from the mid point on the pedal pushing down it goes boom as the broom handle hits the stage (with a chink from the bottle tops) and by releasing it all the way up the hi hat opens and the top of the broom stick hits the top symbol which is now at the bottom and returning it back to the mid point you get a ca-chunk ! So for example operating the pedal in a down-down-down-release pattern rewards you with Boom-boom-boom-ca-chunk- all with one foot! This involves adjustable collars and springs I think I'd better draw this idea out and measure it all this time!

New project- The foot operated ale-o-phone.

2009-07-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

New project

I thought i would like to add a little simple percussion to my music and the traditional folk instrument and indeed by product of the genre the beer cap encrusted broom handle shaker thingy seems to fit the bill but how to play it when playing the guitar?

When my daughter was about 12 she decided that she wanted to take up the drums and really did show a lot of early promise but thankfully for our sanity it went no further other than a friend(?) donating what was supposed to become the first installment of her first drum kit; a high hat with a rather rusty stand. This stand has languished in our shed for about 8 years and has surprisingly not got anymore rusty Anyhow I guess by now you might have put two and two together, yes it's the Foot operated Largerphone! Well it is called a lagerphone in Australia but as I'm from England and my beer bottle caps are from bottles of bitter maybe it should be a bitterphone or even a real ale-o-phone-ok not very catchy. But this Largerphone will hit the stage to make it stomp in true Seasick Steve style. So it will be half drum kit high hat stand half beer bottle cap shaky foot stompy thing, how folk rock is that?! Also (as if I've ever needed it) I have an excuse to buy beer! Photos to follow!

This chap seem to have the right idea:

http://www.carolynmark.com/People%20Places%20Things/album/slides/Sean%20Dallimore%20on%20the%20Boot%20Sticks.html

Rotary Speaker Project.

2009-06-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

As this is a new blog page I'd better explain my rotary speaker project so here I am on youtube before I'd

built it that blue cabinet that you can see in the photo above with my effects pedals all neatly cased up and ready for it's first gig!

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Fast Food or Home Cooking?

2009-06-25T04:39:00.000-07:00

Someone on twitter has just posed the question: If somebody asks you what music do you like what do you say? I replied. Independent singer/songwriter folky stuff.- Real people telling me their story.
I’m not impressed by celebrities or their life style. It leaves me cold.

Hear are two good examples of people like:

Victoria Vox drives all around America playing gigs with her pineapple shaped ukuleles writing and promoting her own music. She also plays the mouth trumpet! You can’t help but like her. Click here and you can listen to her latest album.
http://www.victoriavox.com/

My other example is Nancy Kelly who simply documents her life in song; her family, faith and the places and houses she has lived in.
She plays her keyboard and mountain dulcimer in coffee shops, farmers markets and festivals around Boise, Idaho.
She like to see her music as “Brightening the world one song at a time.” I totaly agree!
http://www.nancykellymusic.com/home.html

I don’t listen to the radio anymore, I get all of my music from independent musicians on the internet, it’s like the difference between fast food and home cooking, which would you prefer?

Links to other artists I like:
Aimee Mann http://www.aimeemann.com/media.php
Devon Sproule http://www.devonsproule.com/
Carolyn Mark http://www.carolynmark.com/multimedia.html
I’ve only just discovered Barnaby Bright, here there new album here! http://barnabybright.bandcamp.com/album/wake-the-hero

Welcome! / The Les Pew

2009-06-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog!
This is more of a guitar creations blog than a creating bcz I have already built a collection of rather individual electric instruments and have virtually - no actually run out of room for any more! Though there might be a headless travel ukulele in the pipe line, I'm not joking!
As I'm not really interested in building more to sell the next step is to get out gigging more with both the guitars, equipment and my own songs. Despite building and playing electric guitars I am not a rock player but am into folk, Americana and a little jazz.
Anyhow I'll mix together some of my previous guitar build blogs from myspace (including the progress of my homemade rotatory speaker) and anything music related that I feel I want to share with you.
First let me introduce you to my main guitar- The Les Pew!

My guitar is...The "Les Pew"My guitar is-- "The Les Pew"Written for Guitarist Magazine (UK) in 2007 for their unusual readers guitars column

When my church decided reorder their building to make it more lighter, warmer and adaptable for the 21st century they decided to remove the Victorian pews from their building I bought one for my kitchen but they only came in seven foot lengths, so I decided to shorten it to fit into my cottage but what would I do with the remaining wood? Being an amateur guitar maker after making a 12 string semi at a adult education course I had toyed with idea of building the body of a guitar from one but didn't think that pine was a suitable tone wood but with reassurance from a luthier on the internet I went ahead.I was keen to leave the original finish on the back and front, the top is the back rest of the pew and the back the seat.I'm not exactly a conventional player as I love electics but play with my fingers (No I'm not Jeff Beck) I just that I don't get on with electro-acoustics and prefer the longer sustain you get from an electric guitar. So I decided to build a semi but a 14th fret neck-body join to aid tone/stabilty. The headstock is a visual clue to it's more traditional past existence.The tone is incredible! I guess somewhere between an acoustic and an arch top, very full and warm yet defined and crisp. Pine is a wonderful tone wood, I often play it at my local folk club.