So today I visited three cigar shops, A440 tuning fork in hand, listening to the resonant qualities of any promising-looking box I could find. Yes, I got some strange looks, but I'm used to that. Never one for moderation, I came home with 14 boxes that I can use to learn how to build these things on. Just for grins, I arranged them on the floor from left to right, bottom to top in order of decreasing resonance. For your boredom, I have included a pic. In a couple of cases I was surprised by which ones were loud. The big Casablanca boxes sound superb and I would expect that since they're like 13 x 8 x 2.5 inches. The boxes on the left 2 rows in the pic sound great. The yellow Siglo box is 3.5 inches deep! Really sounds great. This is such fun. Now I need to get all the other parts. Wait until the people at the hardware store see me touching the sink drain covers and bolts with a buzzing tuning fork ...
Corey: If I were you I would just use the Casablanca boxes for your Christmas project. I have a couple of them as well and they are great. They May need some extra reinforcement around the edges on the inside.
What box works best for what you want to do depends on if you are going - All acoustic. Accoustic with a pzieo pickup, or using wound pickups. If you are going all acoustic then it pays to do extra work inside the box with corner reinforcement and either ladder or cross bracing. See some of Kurt Schoene's building tips.
The Casablanca's will be as good or better than the two I pulled out for you.
Will definitely post the about that. Good idea to do so. Just made my first instrument, a simple slide diddley bow for my little girl. I used the shallowest box I had which sounded pretty "thuddy" under the tuning fork, but it sounds nice as a d-bow. - C
marcianx said:
I'd like to know how that approach works for you when you've used enough of these boxes and can compare them side by side. It would be very interesting to see if the tuning fork is a good predictor of the quality of sound attained. Very interesting indeed.
I have a number of the Partagas boxes (beautiful boxes) and 1 or 2 of the Ashtons. If the tuning fork works, I have a lot of boxes to start testing including some large 'cigar sampler' boxes that are pretty oversized for cigar boxes.
I'd like to know how that approach works for you when you've used enough of these boxes and can compare them side by side. It would be very interesting to see if the tuning fork is a good predictor of the quality of sound attained. Very interesting indeed.
I have a number of the Partagas boxes (beautiful boxes) and 1 or 2 of the Ashtons. If the tuning fork works, I have a lot of boxes to start testing including some large 'cigar sampler' boxes that are pretty oversized for cigar boxes.
Thanks for fixing my picture posting. Still learning!
No worries! You should be able to use the camera icon pretty much anywhere you enter text on the site to upload a photo, or link to one you have uploaded already. I would reserve the "attachment" fields for things which aren't images (ZIP files, PDFs, etc.).
Neat idea!! But don't discount those boxes on the right. My first build looked like crap and the box ended up being 3/8" thick HDF, not even wood at all....but, when I electrified it the thing sounded really cool. Very hollow and haunting. That's one reason these things are so awesome! They all sound different.
Replies
What box works best for what you want to do depends on if you are going - All acoustic. Accoustic with a pzieo pickup, or using wound pickups. If you are going all acoustic then it pays to do extra work inside the box with corner reinforcement and either ladder or cross bracing. See some of Kurt Schoene's building tips.
The Casablanca's will be as good or better than the two I pulled out for you.
JAB
marcianx said:
I have a number of the Partagas boxes (beautiful boxes) and 1 or 2 of the Ashtons. If the tuning fork works, I have a lot of boxes to start testing including some large 'cigar sampler' boxes that are pretty oversized for cigar boxes.
No worries! You should be able to use the camera icon pretty much anywhere you enter text on the site to upload a photo, or link to one you have uploaded already. I would reserve the "attachment" fields for things which aren't images (ZIP files, PDFs, etc.).
Tres Seaver said:
Travis