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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 28, 2019 at 10:26am

I bought one of those wooden project frames that people use for crafts at Walmart for 10 bucks. It's 10"x10"x1&3/4". Then I glued in some braces.Then I added some components: Acoustic preamp with EQ, a Psycho Knob and put together a spring reverb with 2 piezo's.So this my CBG Pedal Board. The preamp will be great for piezo's or as a EQ Boost effect for electric guitar/cbg, the Psycho knob for distortion and a spring reverb effect with level knob. It's all going to be True bypass for the signal and the battery power at the stomp switches(hopefully). ;) Almost done just need a couple of jacks I'm ordering from Gitty.

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Permalink Reply by Kigar on July 28, 2019 at 2:46pm

The pedal board is very cool!  Can you explain how the reverb works?

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 29, 2019 at 7:25am

I haven't tried this yet, it's based on something I've thought about and I heard of someone else doing it. Most of the spring reverbs I've seen use a small opamp circuit or a tube to make it all work.

A Stratocaster guitar has those springs in the tremolo cavity and the vibration in the body activates those springs and adds to the guitars overall tone. Shane Speal put springs in the box of a CBG and got a different tone for his CBG. I know that round piezo's can be used as a sending device as well as a receiving devise, so the thought came to me to use them on a spring assembly to try it out. With the acoustic preamp boosting the signal through all this, I think it'll work fine.

We'll find out.

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Permalink Reply by François on July 29, 2019 at 8:21am

The springs in the strat are just there to get the tremolo bridge to return to it's zero position. Other than that their effect on the tone is negligible.

Now when it comes to putting springs inside a CBG, things are different since it has a cavity that amplifies pretty much every sound.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 29, 2019 at 8:46am

Well the spring in the Strat weren't there to get a tone, just to pull the bridge back in tune. However, they do add to the overall tone of the guitar. If you play a regular Strat and then play a hardtail Strat afterwards, you would hear the difference. It is a slight benefit to the tone with the springs. If those springs were less stiff, then the tone benefit would be greater, but the tremolo wouldn't work as good.

Shane said that he got the idea to put springs in the box of his CBG because of the Strat's spring effects on tone. The springs in a box works better because of the box's acoustic properties and the less stiff springs. When you think about it, a cigar box with springs is just a larger scale model of the Strat tremolo cavity. ;)

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Walter on July 30, 2019 at 9:21am

how about a chime arrangement for a tremolo? don''t think it's been done, but i'm gonna do it if nobody else wants to try. i have many from my antique clock cases i built amps from, but you can get them "new", or NOS.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 30, 2019 at 6:27pm

Some Hawaiian Ukes made back in the 1920's had thin flat pieces of metal in them that would vibrate like a spring, but had a slightly different sound than a spring does. Shane Speal did a write up on it and a couple of people were going to try it out(including me and didn't get to it), but I haven't heard of any yet. I was going to use metal tines from a old yard rake.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on July 30, 2019 at 6:31pm

I was replacing the heating element in my clothes dryer(just a bunch of springs in a metal tube) and it got me to thinking that I could do the piezo thing in it and get a bit of Echo effect from it too. Especially if I put a small speaker in one end.

Yes, I'm really crazy. Bwahahahaha

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Walter on July 31, 2019 at 3:49am

So what about clock chimes in the box? Talk about being crazy.

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Permalink Reply by François on July 29, 2019 at 4:32am

Yeah, I'm kinda curious about that too as I have been wanting to build a spring reverb for quite some time.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on September 17, 2019 at 9:57am

So I have an update. The Preamp and Psycho Knob don't play well together when using a walwart. Had a sine wave going through when trying to use them. I'll switch over to individual batteries and see if there's any interference. Someone else tried this before and had the same issue.

The reverb. The piezo for transmitting signal through the springs isn't working. The receiving piezo works, I can tap the box and it comes through to the amp. I though the Piezo would work on the transmitting side sense it is a transducer, maybe the signal needs to be boosted more?

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on September 18, 2019 at 3:23am

piezeo wont work as a transmitter. to make sound they are usually driven in the ultrasonic range.. thats why they are used as buzzers, and those misters you see in fog/vapour effects. you have to drive them hard.. you could try a small speaker like a headphone speaker to excite the spring..

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