Electric Violins

Got the videos from the Brockport Christmas Extravaganza up on youtube now! Watch, rate, share and enjoy!

Siberian Sleigh Ride

Christmas Eve / Sarajevo aka Carol of the Bells

Had one of the best shows EVER last night – 3 friends and I played 3 Trans-Siberian Orchestra covers at a Christmas Extravaganza show in Brockport NY. We played an extended version of Siberian Sleigh Ride, Wizards in Winter, and Christmas Eve / Sarajeva (aka Carol of the Bells). It went so well! (Which was great because we’d only been playing with our drummer for a sum total of 6 hours up to the show)

Videos shall come as soon as the people who videotaped it get the files to me, but rest assured they will be up on youtube asap.

Here’s a great picture that kinda covers the event!

And a link to the photo gallery.

So the wordpress theme I’ve been using broke when I updated wordpress, so I’m using this one temporarily / maybe permanently, gotta do some configuring first. Who knows!

Added some pictures of my current recording rig to the Equipment album… For some reason nextgen gallery wont integrate with my updates.

New video! Took part in an online virtual youtube cover project – playing Journey From Mariabronn by Kansas. Turned out GREAT!

Virtual Kansas Collab

Just click on this to see!

Anyways the new violin is coming along great – the new neodymium magnets on the pickups get the output nice and strong, the circuitry is working nicely (gotta fix a buzz on the tone control) and everything fits together and plays well! All the blue tape on the violin is temporary – I still havent attached the fingerboard yet, and im trying to keep the paint around the jack from getting to scratched up right now.

Just have to finish shaping the fingerboard and fit the bridge now, so close to completion!

http://skudmunky.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=569

Here is the very first sound clip of my hand wound electromagnetic pickups – http://www.skudmunky.com/handwoundviolinpickups.mp3
be gentle!
The pickups are pretty microphonic (hand wound, unpotted), and the strings arent perfectly balanced volume wise yet, since the distances from the strings to the blade arent all correct, but for my first try I think it’s not bad at all. Sounds like a violin at least!

So I probably should have posted it a month ago when it was actually happening, but whatever. I got onto the Make Magazine website! Way cool. To bad the video sounds like crap – terrible temporary pickup, lots of background noise, and the crappy camera mic really destroy the violin’s tone.

Anyways, the violin has not progressed much. I’m back at school now, and getting off campus to buy some gloves and masks so I can paint the violin is proving tough. On the plus side, the only thing standing between me and the finished violin is painting it, so I’m close!

My electromagnetic pickups are being problematic. Basically, I need some stronger magnets to make them work efficiently, since they don’t output a strong enough signal currently. Right now I have alnico 5 bar magnets, and those arent strong enough. Need to find some superstrong neodymium bar magnets.

Also, I’m currently working on migrating to a new photo gallery: New, easier to browse photo gallery located here! http://skudmunky.com/gallery/main.php maybe I’ll figure out how to integrate it into wordpress some day.

Picture! and another picture!

I’ve been building my own electric violin for the last few weeks. I designed the entire thing myself, used the CNC router at work to cut out the main body pieces, and just recently I was able to string it up for a test play. Go check out the Images page for more pictures.

Spec wise it is a 15″ long body, so technically a viola. I designed it for 5 strings, C G D A E. All the strings are steel cored strings, for use with my electro-magnetic pickups. I’ve been wanting a 5 string violin for a long time, and building my own is significantly cheaper than buying one.

In addition to building my own custom body, I’m working on winding my own electro-magnetic pickups for the violin. This is fairly tricky, because I have to shape the magnetic piece in the center to match the different heights of the string along the bridge, so that each string outputs the correct volume. Once I get some pickups wound, I’ll post a whole new batch of pictures and some videos demoing the sound.

I also still need to paint the violin. I’m going to order some transparent red stain and aerosol lacquers soon.

I’m now 98% done with my RBBB (Really Bare Bones Board) controlled Midi footswitcher. Need to get another programmer for the board though, my friend went back home from the summer and took his with him.

Anyways, I fabricated an enclosure at the South End Technology Center in Boston, found a rocking footswitch at the MIT Swapfest, and now I’m in business.

Midi Controller 1

Midi Controller 2

Right now the external footswich controls Next and Previous programs – allowing me to cycle through Whammy modes on the fly. The 2 stop buttons on the red enclosure itself will be for 2 Favorite Programs. The 4 LEDs are there to signify when a button was pressed.

More pictures in the gallery, share and  enjoy!

Ever since I bought the Whammy effects pedal, I’ve been looking for a good way to change modes on the fly, while playing. The knob on the Whammy is great, but not very accessable mid song. I was thinking of buying a midi stompbox, but those are expensive and I only need basic functionality.

Enter the Arduino! Using the information from this webpage: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Learning/MidiFoot I was able to build my own Whammy mode switcher. Obviously it’s just a prototype right now, but the code works and it works perfectly with the Whammy. The Arduino processes the momentary buttons and sends midi program change next or previous commands to the whammy. Now I will be able to quickly switch whammy modes on the fly.

midi-footswitch-arduino-1.jpg

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Next step is to buy a RBBB and put together a nice small stompbox with everything I need.

To the right you can play a snippet of the first “real” original song I’m working on – it’s tentatively titled Rise Again right now. I’m doing the violin work (obviously), a friend of mine is doing bass, and we’re sequencing drums and synths, since we don’t have a drummer.

In other news, a friend and I are thinking about trying to play a gig or 2 this summer. Any drummers in the Boston area who might want to play around with an electric violin and a bass?