Ok, it's not exactly a tea chest bass, but it'a similar. Part CBG, part Cajon, part... crap from my garage.
Since I don't come across legitimate tea chests much (ever), I decided to take some leftovers from cajon building and make something a little more portable. Figured it would round out the bottom end of the collection too!
Box is nothing special. Roughly 8x12x18, 1/2" ply. Bottom is 1/4" ply. Top is 1/8" luan. Works great on my CBGs and cajons, so decided to give it a try. Top is braced to increase durablity, sustain and potentially damp the resonances a bit in an amplified situation.
What is special about the box is that it is slot loaded (ported/tuned) like a speaker cabinet. Computer modeled to 40 Hz - and it measures 43 Hz in the real world. Not bad.
Stick is a $5 tool handle from HD. String is weed eater line and already needs tightened. I used a 1.5" steel ring to act as sort of a capo/nut. Marked a scale length of 43" since that's the scale of an upright bass.
But what does it sound like? Sorry I don't have a sample yet, but it sounds a lot like an upright bass - maybe a little more mellow. Amplified, it sounds pretty much the same, only louder. So far, it's really hard to find the notes, but when you do, they ring true.
I have a lot of tweaking to do yet, but it's playable and a lot of fun. Three of my kids pounded away on it for 30 minutes or more, smiling all the time.
Why didn't I just make one out of a bucket or a wash tub? Where's the challenge in that?!
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Just in case anyone is interested, I plugged this thing in today - into a real sound system. Holy cow!
I run sound at my church and, after early morning rehearsal today, I swapped the bass player's D/I cable into my tea chest bass. Just for reference, he plays a custom 5-string and uses some nice processing. His rig can easily rattle the building hardware. I have a 27mm piezo disc attached to a 1/4" jack :-)
Well, it turns out I can rattle things too. In fact, my little box-and-stick ran roughly 12dB louder than his setup and immediately began earthquake-grade feedback as soon as we un-muted the channel. Once we got it dialed in, the sound was clean, clear and LOW.
I still consider this a very early prototype but am really encouraged by what I've heard so far. Having a hand-made instrument that can easily cover the bottom octave is a lot of fun.
Here's an audio sample from the Tea Chest Bass. Be kind, I have no idea how to play this thing!
First pass is microphone, about 1 foot away. 2nd pass is pickup. Last bit is blended, showing range and sustain. No processing, just a little volume matching.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxwh81Ea1qyNVkVEWjA2UEtyaGM/view?u...