djarrett Posted December 5, 2002 Share Posted December 5, 2002 Hey, Peanut... or should we call you NUTS! Hey, I am allowed ... You are building a marimba! Do you have to let Rosewood "cure" or "dry out" any before you start the project?> DJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenton Trott Posted December 6, 2002 Share Posted December 6, 2002 Definitely keep posting, I'm interested. I'm not a player although I did quite a bit of marimba recording in the late eighties. Good luck with it. Cheers Brenton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 6, 2002 Share Posted December 6, 2002 Hank, Congratulations on your new adventure...! A decade or so ago I built a few instruments... A Glass Marimba (2" wide glass bars w/ 1.5" dia. PVC resonators) A Bass Marimba (6" wide aluminum slabs w/ 4" dia. resonators) Several Tubulons (.75" EMT tubing - no resonators necessary) Tuned-Tube Drums (3" dia. tubes w/ plywood or latex heads) Several Flutes (1.25" PVC) And 'modified' several guitars, cellos, mandolins, organs, accordions, melodicas, pennywhistles, kalimbas, xylophones, etc... An excellent resource book is: SOUND DESIGNS by Reinhold Banek & Jon Scoville http://www.opengroup.com/mubooks/089/0898157757.shtml Many good ideas, plus charts on how to calculate bar lengths, node points, resonator lengths, etc... Another great book with incredible instruments including many bizarre marimba types is: GENESIS OF A MUSIC by Harry Partch http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?chunk=25&skip=0&wauth=harry%20partch Partch was a man in his own universe, to be sure... You really should check out both of these tomes as you proceed with your marimba project... Good luck, can't wait to hear your recordings...! Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buddytown Posted December 6, 2002 Share Posted December 6, 2002 Yea buddy Inhale...Exhale...Just got an ounce in the mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John O. Lennon Posted December 6, 2002 Share Posted December 6, 2002 To your listening list you should add (if you're not already hip to him) Captain Beefheart who incorporated marimba (played by Art Tripp, mostly) on several of his records.They're not only interesting music but illustrate ways the instrument can be used outside its usual settings.Cantact me if you're interested in specific recommendations...& keep us informed of your progress! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-_dup1 Posted December 6, 2002 Author Share Posted December 6, 2002 Originally posted by 20to20: A decade or so ago I built a few instruments... A Glass Marimba (2" wide glass bars w/ 1.5" dia. PVC resonators) A Bass Marimba (6" wide aluminum slabs w/ 4" dia. resonators) Several Tubulons (.75" EMT tubing - no resonators necessary) Tuned-Tube Drums (3" dia. tubes w/ plywood or latex heads) Several Flutes (1.25" PVC) And 'modified' several guitars, cellos, mandolins, organs, accordions, melodicas, pennywhistles, kalimbas, xylophones, etc...Cool! You don't happen to have any pictures of these instruments up on a web site, do you? Originally posted by 20to20: An excellent resource book is: SOUND DESIGNS by Reinhold Banek & Jon Scoville http://www.opengroup.com/mubooks/089/0898157757.shtml Yep, that's a great book -- I've checked it out at the library a couple times now... One of these days I may build a set of temple blocks like how it's described in that book. Thanks for the encouragement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted December 6, 2002 Share Posted December 6, 2002 Hank, before you go and buy all your ABS tubing I'd suggest buying one tube of each ABS and PVC, and do a quick soundcheck. PVC is (if I'm remembering correctly) harder than ABS and that could have a rather drastic effect on the tone. Better or worse I've no idea. You can always paint the white ones black if they end up sounding better. I wish we lived closer, this sounds like a great project! Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted December 6, 2002 Share Posted December 6, 2002 Now that you mention it, I know luthiers put all kinds of time and effort into the "face" of a guitar, the soundboard, while taking much more liberty with the sides and back (wood type, design, etc). Heck, witness the resonator portion of Ovation guitars, round shape and plastic, yet they sound fantastic! A related question: will you have to carefully cut the tubes to a particular length? I know you'll have to "tune" the bars themselves to just the right length/mass for each note, do the tubes have to be "tuned" for their respective bars, too? Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audiobotica Posted December 7, 2002 Share Posted December 7, 2002 Originally posted by 20to20: Hank, An excellent resource book is: SOUND DESIGNS by Reinhold Banek & Jon Scoville http://www.opengroup.com/mubooks/089/0898157757.shtml Many good ideas, plus charts on how to calculate bar lengths, node points, resonator lengths, etc... Another great book with incredible instruments including many bizarre marimba types is: GENESIS OF A MUSIC by Harry Partch http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?chunk=25&skip=0&wauth=harry%20partch Thanks for the book recs. Ordered them both from the library! Yours in Music, Ben Fury Yours in Music, Ben Fury Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 7, 2002 Share Posted December 7, 2002 When I was making marimbas ABS was difficult to find in my area (against the building code?) and when I did use some it was more costly than PVC... I found no diff in the resonator's abilities with either material... I did paint my lightly-sanded PVC tubes with flat black spray paint... I 'tuned' each resonator with air-tight (sliding) plugs that I had left over from my kaleidoscope-making days... There are also methods of a 'rough-tuned' placement of a fixed block, and then 'fine-tuning' by filling with a little sand [or sometimes water!]... Each resonator, for those that don't know, must be in tune with and in close proximity to the tuned bar with which it is intended to acoustically-couple and reinforce [make louder]... As in your linked photo: http://www.marimbaone.com/ your resonator assembly's 'curve' can be determined aesthetically, because each tube is accurately stopped(tuned)internally... BTW, the song 'Intruder' on Peter Gabriel '3' [Melty Face] has a great xylo-solo... Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 8, 2002 Share Posted December 8, 2002 Hank, To get around the cap problems,you could go with thin, cheapmolded (styrene, maybe?) plastic plugs... Nothing visible from theoutside of the resonator... You can get them in many sizes,and they're pennies each... Most come with a flange molded on[to prevent them from slidingtoo far into a tube - usually a bad thing]... But it's not too bad of a taskto cut the flange off... Then you have an air-tight,sliding tuning-plug... Also, if you use internal tuning-plugs,your resonators can be cut to any desired(aesthetic) length, then fine tuned... Good luck, Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 8, 2002 Share Posted December 8, 2002 Hank, The plugs to which I was referring arenot PVC, but styrene or some such... The are injection-molded, and veryflexible and easy to cut (the flange must come off for the plug to beinserted into your resonator)... They are sold as Caplugs for industrialpurposes and come in many sizes... http://www.caplugs.com/catalog/search.asp?classid=221 They are not threaded; they simply slideinto the resonator and can be adjustedto whatever position you choose... The seal must be air-tight to workproperly and if you used the PVC capsthey would have to be cemented inplace, eliminating the ability tore-tune due to seasonal/humidity changes... Good luck Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted December 9, 2002 Share Posted December 9, 2002 Hank, you did good by buying oak instead of pine. Pine would've been kind of soft, susceptible to dings, and is difficult to finish with either paint or clear finish (it stains terribly, and the resin in the wood can screw up your painted finish months after the project is completed). The only thing bad about oak is (you will find this out) you will get splinters very easily, keep the tweezers close by! Once the wood is finished its not a problem. You'll also get more accurate cuts on a table saw than with a circular saw, if you can wait that long. I didn't know a marimba's resonators are capped; I thought they were open tubes. Learn something new every day. Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted December 10, 2002 Share Posted December 10, 2002 Originally posted by Hank The Cave Peanut: Here's something which I'll probably be dealing with soon... Does anyone have any suggestions as far as cleaning up the scratches on the ABS tubes? I was thinking of using steel wool to kind of sand out the scratches, then using some sort of wax (?) to make them shiny. Heck, I might just paint them with a glossy black paint (which kinda defeats the purpose of getting ABS tubes, but...). Any ideas?[/QB]I would try a compound you can get at a motorcycle shop, its made for polishing the scratches out of plastic helmet face shields. You might just like the satin look if you polished them all over with steel wool, too. Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djarrett Posted December 10, 2002 Share Posted December 10, 2002 Hank, I have found the PVC caps in black in the past for some other drum project.I am wondering why you opted *not* to go with aluminum resonators?I have a friend that builds windchimes, and he says aluminum is cheap?DJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted December 11, 2002 Share Posted December 11, 2002 Originally posted by Hank The Cave Peanut: I haven't looked into this, but maybe there might be some sort of rubber stopper thing I could use instead...?How about rubber balls? I've got these 4" squeaky dog-toy rubber balls that were an impulse buy at the grocery store once (no dog ). A small rubber ball could work on a pipe that is slightly smaller in diameter- just shove it up there and it should stay. Adjust with a stick from either end. And maybe there's some type of rubber gasket that you could sandwich between washers... http://www.youroffshoresource.com/images/rubber.jpg I'm just guessing here, though. I have no marimba-building experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted December 11, 2002 Share Posted December 11, 2002 So you're trying to make a zillion little Y's that close together a little at the top. Dang! Can you bend the eye open to a C with pliers, then bend the whole eye back & down so it's a U? You might need longer screws. Also, if the screws went in to the frame at 45%, you might gain some... uh, some 'U.' If you're going to keep the eyes closed, you could string each key to the frame separately instead of blacks & whites strung together in a row. Is that sort of what 5) is? I would think the main reason for stringing them all together is so they're all together and in order when you take the keys off for transportation. Will you be taking it apart and moving it often? Unrelated: What is the low note, and what are the dimensions of that key? Also: is every key going to be a different width? Just curious. Thanks for letting us watch. Hey- got pics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted December 11, 2002 Share Posted December 11, 2002 Originally posted by Brakka.: If you're going to keep the eyes closed, you could string each key to the frame separately instead of blacks & whites strung together in a row. Is that sort of what 5) is? Originally posted by Hank The Cave Peanut: No... Actually, there's two separate rows -- one for the "black" and one for the "white" keys, just like a piano. There are two spots where the rope goes through the keys (they're in the nodes -- the two spots where the wood barely vibrates when you chisel out the pitch of the wood). Idea #5 was to have two entire loops of rope for each key, rather than one big loop that goes through all of the white or all of the black keys. --- Yeah, I did mean blacks & whites strung together separately- with two big loops. Vibes are done the same way. But I was thinking that you could string each key seperately with one loop, not two. One smaller loop that goes through both holes in the key, and attatches to the eyes in four screws (each screw holds a key on either side). I think your idea is to use one really small loop for each hole, so one loop goes through one hole twice (round-trip) and attatches to a screw on either side, right? That seems pretty sound, too. No need to reply- you just keep working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audiobotica Posted December 12, 2002 Share Posted December 12, 2002 Can't wait to see the pics... and eventually hear some sound files! Yours in Music, Ben Fury Yours in Music, Ben Fury Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 12, 2002 Share Posted December 12, 2002 Maybe a Dremel Moto-Tool could cut the (closed) Eye-bolts without breaking the solder joint...? Moto-Tool would be very useful later for coarse- and fine-tuning the bars, as well... Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 14, 2002 Share Posted December 14, 2002 When I recommended the Dremel, I was thinking of using it with the 'abrasive cut-off wheels'... [Not drill bits...] The wheels turn the Dremel into a highly efficient rotary hack saw... Perfect for your delicate eye-bolt task... Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20to20 Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 Originally posted by Hank The Cave Peanut: ...I'm going to try using canned foam... It's supposedly air-tight, so we'll see... Try Silicone 'caulk'... Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audiobotica Posted December 19, 2002 Share Posted December 19, 2002 Yeah, avoid the canned foam. It expands up to 300% and makes a mess. Silicone is much more controllable and less toxic to work with. Yours in Music, Ben Fury Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted December 22, 2002 Share Posted December 22, 2002 Looking good so far. Er- sounding good. No... good reading! Can I be an internet voice of reason for a moment? Experiment on two eye bolts before buying a whole bunch of them Hey- save those wood scraps (from the keys) and you can make some small picture frames for your Christmas gifts next year. I've done it and it goes over BIG. ---- I'm still following your project, and I look forward to photos. I may build one myself one day. When I have lots of time. And money. And I sure am glad you decided to put this thread in the Drum Forum- could you imagine what a mess it might be if it was in SSS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djarrett Posted December 24, 2002 Share Posted December 24, 2002 Come on Hank!We are all reading this! Inquiring minds want to know! DJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hush Posted December 24, 2002 Share Posted December 24, 2002 Merry Christmas Hank!! Thanks for the diary. I love the sound of a marimba. I have a mini one with none of the sharps or flats. It's a little limited with what you can do. But I have fun. I've built my own electric guitar and that was a bit of work. This project makes mine look trivial. Keep plugging away. Seems like you're going to wind up with a great instrument! Marc Searching for a new sig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dwarf Posted December 25, 2002 Share Posted December 25, 2002 Hey Hank, Merry Christmas to you too. While I have no interest in making a marimba per se, I am greatly enjoying your diary. It's nice to see someone else running into the same kind of mess that I usually run into when I try to make things. Keep the diary coming! -- Rob I have the mind of a criminal genius.....I keep it in the freezer next to mother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 No pics yet? Hey, I had some marimba thoughts recently. It would sound different without the resonators. The highest notes would be about the same, but the lower ones would be just overtones. The middle range could sound useful though. Does your plan include a way to block the pvc or mount the keys only? Actually, just raising the keys up from the resonators somehow would do it. I know it's crazy... you'd probably rather just EQ out the lows. I was really just envisioning a marimba like that in my place, and I just can't see it. But if it was more versitile, it might be worth sticking in the corner. I'd build a cover so I could stack other lightweight gear on top of it when I wasn't using it. Another thought I had was building a marimba in two parts. the top two octaves wouldn't take up much space at all, and could be sitting around anywhere all the time. Very easy to transport. Then the extension is over in the corner: a bigger 2-octave C-B. It could even have some sort of shelf that folds out on its right side, and you set the smaller upper octaves (C-C) on it, or maybe clamp it on. It's easy to imagine stuff like that when I'm not actually building one You mentioned that the low note of your marimba is of course a C, but what octave? Get back to work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 Originally posted by Hank The Cave Peanut: I don't know if I completely understand what you're trying to go for; Are you looking for something which is smaller than a 4 octave marimba, something quieter, or something where you don't have resonators underneath so you could store stuff under there if necessary? Please explain... Really all I was saying was that I'd love to maybe build a marimba myself someday, but I think that the usefulness-to-size ratio is too low for me. Or is that too high? It's a large instrument, somewhat delicate, and it has pretty much one sound (although you can use different mallets). If it was either smaller or somehow more versatile, I'd be building one already. ... A xylophone has wooden keys with resonators on the lower keys, but it's a very high-pitched instrument so the resonators are very short. They use plastic or rubber mallets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 Hank, I'm glad your Dad (a cool dude!) got that drill press, it'd have been a shame if you'd screwed up several keys and had to buy even more rosewood using the hand drill. Using Pro Tools to tune the keys is brilliant! I daresay you may have a better marimba in the end than a lot of "pro" instruments! And you were correct in rejecting any wood that has a knot or other disfigurement in it, it needs to be clear wood. Really enjoying this project. Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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