I once saw someone with a stick loosely covered in beer bottle caps that rattled when they banged it on the floor. I'm thinking of building a stomp box and want to include something that gives a loud rattle when I stomp my foot. Wondering how I could incorporate the beer bottle idea into it. Any ideas guys? Gives me an excuse to drink morre beer too :)
You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!
Sounds like a Newfoundland Ugly Stick. There are a couple of good videos of'em bein' played on youtube. If you google it, you'll find some good info on'em. Got a rubber boot on the bottom that you tap up and down. Beat it with a serated dowel and rake the dowell across it for more sound. I hope to build one someday.
"Stump fiddle" eh? Leave it to us hill billies here in NC to come up with something like that. :)
Anyways, check out this video of a little foot shaker. This would not be hard to make. Basically one foot pedal moves an egg shaped shaker up and down. (You could make the egg part out of an altoids tin with bbs in it.) And the other foot pedal has finger cymbols clapping down against each other.
I have 3 bottle caps loosely on a screw on one of my CB basses so I can pluck the string for a "thump" and hit the box near the screw with my thumb for a backbeat "chirp". I have to tap very lightly to keep the chirp from totally obscuring the thump through the piezo.
I think it would work better if you flattened (or mostly flattened) the bottle caps, but I haven't tried that.
Thanks Brian, that's given me some food for thought and some ideas to work on. I was thinking I needed some sort of levered movement to get them really rattling rather than just relying on the vibration of the box when I stomp it. Would I get enough volume from bottle tops? I think I need to try a mock-up first.
smojo just add them to the side of the stomp box in a row on both sides but they must be loose like you said and if you can put two on the same screw so they rattle against each other for more effect like on a tambourine. if you want to get technical make holes on the side of your stomp box and put the caps in the holes with the screw in the top of the hole where the shaft of the screw goes through the cap and put two caps in each hole with a washer for a spacer between them. look at tambourine construction and you will see what i mean for the technical version of this idea. same principal with good results. or just get a tambourine and deconstruct it and use the metal parts in the tambourine for your stomp box and drink more beer while you are working on the switchover and save the caps for a later stompbox beer cap version.ha ha hope this helps you my friend.
Replies
here's a pic:
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/stumpf-fiddle?context=user
Anyways, check out this video of a little foot shaker. This would not be hard to make. Basically one foot pedal moves an egg shaped shaker up and down. (You could make the egg part out of an altoids tin with bbs in it.) And the other foot pedal has finger cymbols clapping down against each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqnno2VTTTs
And if you really wanted to be a crazy footdrummer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEyIZygy6CE&feature=related
I know that last video is a bit much. But it's cool to see musicians pushing the envelope with something that's actually pleasing to the ears. . . . .
http://www.davidholt.com/music/stumpfiddledetail.html
He gets down / back beat by thumping the thing on the floor, and then tapping the top
with another stick on the upbeat.
I think it would work better if you flattened (or mostly flattened) the bottle caps, but I haven't tried that.