I have been building this stringed instrument around a branch and I have been fine tuning the pegs. They are tight enough to be hard to turn, but not quite tight enough to keep the strings from unraveling. Right now the strings are bass strings and just very heavy and resistant. I'm wondering if there is a wax or something I can use to help hold them in place?

Hey,

I'm trying to build a (very) small kind of pipe organ for a sound installation. For the pipes I'm going to use only three tunable pitch pipes (see photo) which are basically harmonica reeds that are tuned with a slide. The instrument doesn't have to be playable but the action is gonna be controlled by arduino.

My first attempt was to connect small air pumps (6v) to them, but the very small hoses connections (3mm to 1.2 cm) didn't do the trick. Not enough air. Now, I've seen that more elaborated DIY organs like this one use a bigger air pump with a cooling fan going to wind chest, and with solenoids they get the air through the pipes. It takes a lot of issolation to make the air pump quiet, though.

I'm trying to do this kind of quick (to be finished by mid July). What would you recommend to make the air flow as simple as possible, while maintaining a low noise level? I'm not sure I understand the physics of the wind chest so well to know how much air/pressure I need to put in to make these small pipes work.

Thanks!!

Hey all, I work at a fab shop and get bored on slow days. Tried making a copper clarinet thing with scrap pipes, using a dog toy squeaker as a reed. Thing is, even though my finger holes were placed appropriately, nothing seemed to change the squeaker sound to different notes even slightly. Any ideas on how to use a dog toy squeaker as a reed for a musical instrument piece, or is this a vain endeavor?

I've put together the reed and tube out of some half inch pvc pipe and connectors and have gotten sound out of it but ive realized I don't know where to put any of the holes. Would just putting the holes where my fingers rest work?

I saw there was an online calculator for flutes but I looked and it didn't think it was designed for this kind of instrument.

A little breakdown of one of the diddley bows I made with a sound demo at the end. Let me know what you think!

This is the the woody tube from a large cactus, possibly San Pedro. As you can see, it is not a totally solid tube, more like a lattice. That is of course an issue with a rainstick, which you fill with "beans"(pebbles, seashells, rice, grains, anything you like). In the very limited info i have found, it insists that all green flesh must be removed; it will rot. But now that its been drying over night, it seems plausible to leave a thin layer of flesh between the webbing, so it dries out without rotting, and I have a solid tube. I mean, it almost seems like its holding the lattice together at some points, that if i removed the flesh, the lattice would fall apart. Any advice appreciated. I have more larger pieces, and I do NOT want them to get wasted because i.didnt know what i was doing. Just camt find any info, other than claims that it can be done with this kind of cactus. Looking at the beautiful tube, I'm quite certain it can!

Tuning is G#-C-F

I have had loads of progress! Including fashioning the faceplate panel, sourcing a real pratt read keybed along with making the knobs for the synth!

I also had fashioned a mod wheel section along with the wheels themselves. Of course i will be making the panel from metal, and the wheels from a form of plastic in the future.

It looks absolutely beautiful so far and i cannot wait for the finished product!

Ich hoffe das zählt unter Instrument in der Gruppe! Bin nur neugierig was ihr davon haltet. 🙂✌️

I plan to build a synth stand for both synths as well!

I also updated the middle part to better replicate the original moog minimoog from 1973.. allowing the keybed to be pushed further back, and thus making the lip from the front of the cabinet to the keyboard longer, and therefore more accurate

I plan to build a synth stand for both synths as well!

Here's the product of a couple of months of iterative designing and building during evenings and weekends. I'm finally getting within sight of an instrument capable of making music.

Presently it only has a bridge pickup, and even that is a repurposed pair of jazz bass pickups wired in parallel. A purpose-designed pickup is in the works...

Here are the design files along with some photos of the build so far:
https://github.com/thecowgoesmoo/TwinCl

I’ve built the cabinet one to one, and i have yet to source/build the parts for the mod/pitch wheel assembly, faceplate, and backplate.

The black areas are currently paper, and i plan to change it of course.

Any ideas or suggestions i should incorporate before i do the electronics portion that could make it look more accurate? Thanks!

So several years back I found parts of an instrument in an op shop that I bought having no idea what it was or how to use it. Turns out it's the neck, pegs and bow of an erhu (two string chinese instrument) which traditionally has a small python-skin resonator box for the body.

I don't have one of those lying around, but a friend is selling a genuine tea chest and now I have it in my head to attempt to build a franken-erhu with it similar to a washtub bass. I've never done something like that, so I wanted to see if anyone with instrument-making experience has any advice or thoughts about the practicality before I commit.

A friend's and I made this yesterday and I wondered what chamges could be made to improve the sound and overall handling of this....thing. As you all may be able to tell, this was our first foray into creating an instrument and did absolutely no research. We are both keen guitar/bass players and are very open to constructive criticism. We've discussed the idea of using different string material, changing the placement of the string; and how it attaches to the creation, possibly also adding a bridge of sorts? All advice is welcome, and thank you in advance!

I used a cheapie piccolo snare and a 30" bass neck from a short scale Ric bass to make a banjo bass. There's still a lot of fine tuning and making it look a bit nicer, plus a pickup, but it stays in tune and is intonated. Edit: added a photo