Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Fwd: Re: [tuning-math] Re: Choob pricing?

Moving this here from tuning-math....

>At 07:39 PM 4/22/2007, you wrote:
>>--- In tuning-math@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@...> wrote:
>>>
>>> Heya Dave-
>>>
>>> A little off-topic, but what's the queue like for
>>> Keenan-built choobs, and what's the pricing like?
>>
>>Gidday Carl,
>>
>>The last time someone asked that, I think I put them off with a "Lets
>>wait and see how the first two choobs go".
>>
>>Robin seems happy with his choob so far. He's named it "Roz" after
>>Roswell, New Mexico. A refresher: It's an 8 string in microtempered
>>7-limit JI with an otonal tetrad on the low 4 open strings and utonal
>>on the high 4.
>>
>>When he came to take delivery it was awesome to see and hear him play
>>it so well so quickly. He had clearly been thinking about the tuning
>>and the guitar design deeply and for a long time.
>>
>>At the moment he's unhappy about being unable to play it. He badly cut
>>his left thumb at work (4 stitches). :-(
>
>I think I heard something about that on MMM. :(
>
>>This is the first
>>Choob to use clear fretline and I'm currently installing a red neon
>>tube inside it, to be powered via the second channel of a stereo cable.
>
>Awesome!
>
>>But you're right, there'd be no harm in having a queue, in which case
>>you'll be the first on it, after me. I've been thinking about pricing.
>>Here's a formula I could live with. This is Australian dollars.
>>
>>$200 + $30 per string + $5 per fret or fretlet
>>
>>So a 6-string with 24 frets comes to AU$500.
>>
>>But right now (I can't say for how long) I'll give a 20% discount to
>>any brave soul willing to take a risk on something new.
>
>Wow! I should just write you a check. I'd like to consult with
>you a bit on tuning at some point, maybe off-list. I'm thinking
>of 22-ET, but the Roz tuning sounds interesting.
>
>>These prices include a strap and sock and hard case. The sock is the
>>black cloth tube that you slip over the choob before you slide it
>>inside it's case. Internal lighting will be extra (I haven't worked
>>that out yet). You can pay by electronic transfer or PayPal. I may ask
>>for payment in advance if I don't know you well. (Not you Carl)
>
>I'll pay in advance anyway. What's your e-mail address for
>purposes of PayPal?
>
>>When shipping outside Australia I figure I should ship it with the
>>ballast chamber empty and open. I'll assemble it to test it, and then
>>take it apart enough to give access. I wouldn't want customs to have
>>to take it apart just to prove there's nothing in there but a little
>>bit of Aussie beach. So I'm afraid you'll have to source your own wet
>>sand and complete the assembly. Instructions will of course be provided.
>>
>>Assistance with designing a guitar or bass for your desired microtonal
>>tuning will be provided free of charge, as always, since that's pure
>>fun. :-) The design discussion can be carried out on one of the tuning
>>lists if you think others would be interested, or by email.
>
>Well this is just great news.
>
>I was thinking about buying one of these
>http://blackbirdguitars.com
>and maybe I still will, but I think a Choob has a lot of things
>going for it as a first step into guitarland.
>
>By the way, I asked my friend who's a guitarist 'seduced into being
>a guitar tech' about piezo vs. magnetic, and he says piezos:
> * tend to sound brittle
> * don't overdrive as well
>I'm not worried about either of these, and at any rate observations
>made on a normal guitar may not apply to choobs.
>
>Oh: string material. Are these steel? I have soft hands, owing
>to never having done an honest day's work in my life (as I like
>to quip), and the high string on a normal steel 6-string often hurts
>my fingers. Classical/nylon guitars don't bother me as much, nor
>do baritone or bass guitars. Since it's piezo I guess nylon would
>work as well (?). Thoughts appreciated.
>
>-Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

One more from tuning-math. I hope I'm forwarding the right
stuff. I'd asked Dave about choob pricing....

>>> By the way, I asked my friend who's a guitarist 'seduced into being
>>> a guitar tech' about piezo vs. magnetic, and he says piezos:
>>> * tend to sound brittle
>>> * don't overdrive as well
>>> I'm not worried about either of these, and at any rate observations
>>> made on a normal guitar may not apply to choobs.
>>
>>How right you are.
>
>I'm curious as to why it might be, though, especially the
>second point.
>
>>> Oh: string material. Are these steel? I have soft hands, owing
>>> to never having done an honest day's work in my life (as I like
>>> to quip), and the high string on a normal steel 6-string often hurts
>>> my fingers. Classical/nylon guitars don't bother me as much, nor
>>> do baritone or bass guitars. Since it's piezo I guess nylon would
>>> work as well (?). Thoughts appreciated.
>>
>>There is no problem with using classical guitar strings. I only used
>>steel because I wanted an electric guitar sound. Nylon doesn't have
>>the same sustain, as you would appreciate. There would also be nothing
>>to stop you changing from nylon to steel at some later date, except
>>that the saddle-setback may need to change slightly to maintain
>>accurate intonation on the high frets and this is not adjustable
>>except by cutting the old saddle off the bridge and gluing on a new one.
>>
>>Should we move this to MMM? If so, you might repost your previous
>>message there (that contains my previous one quoted). Or start over
>>with your original question if you want and we'll reconstruct the
>>whole conversation there. I don't want to be posting commercial
>>advertising -- but since it was in response to an unprompted question...
>
>Sure, will do.
>
>-Carl

🔗Dave Keenan <d.keenan@...>

First a correction. I mistakenly wrote of Robin Perry's choob "Roz":
"It's an 8 string in microtempered 7-limit JI with an otonal tetrad on
the low 4 open strings and utonal on the high 4."

It actually has a 3:4:5:6:7 on the low 5 open strings and the inverse
on the high 5. The 6:7 in the middle is common to both. Robin's clever
idea I believe.

Carl wrote:
> I'd like to consult with
> you a bit on tuning at some point, maybe off-list. I'm thinking
> of 22-ET, but the Roz tuning sounds interesting.

If you're unsure about particular microtonal guitar tunings, the Choob
opens up the possibility of prototyping them at low cost to try them out.

The prototype is just a bare PVC tube with frets and strings and
tuning screws. Not something you'd want to show off to your friends.
No paint, no pickup, no strap buttons, no ballast chamber, no truss
wires, no fret centre locating holes and high action to allow for
worst case string gauges, but enough to let you hear it (softly) and
get the feel of it. If you decide you don't like it you can try a
different fretting. You just fill the old fret-end holes and drill new
ones on a new line offset around the curve by say 5 millimetres. You
could do this maybe 5 times with the same tube.

Then when you've got a tuning you like, you can turn it into a
full-blown Choob. Alternatively you could have the tuning implemented
on a conventional guitar.

Unfortunately this doesn't make quite so much sense if I'm building
the Choob for you and you're not in Australia, as the freight costs
could add up (about AU$25 each way for airmail). But it's not entirely
out of the question.

I suspect a lot of good microtonal guitar ideas never see the light of
day because of the high level of financial risk associated with
implementing them when they may not work. Well now there's no excuse. :-)

>By the way, I asked my friend who's a guitarist 'seduced into being
>a guitar tech' about piezo vs. magnetic, and he says piezos:
> * tend to sound brittle
> * don't overdrive as well
>I'm not worried about either of these, and at any rate observations
>made on a normal guitar may not apply to choobs.

How right you are.

I assume by "sound brittle" he means either lacking in bass or
exaggerating the treble or having sharp resonances in the treble. And
by "don't overdrive" he means they have a low output level and so
cannot be made to drive the amplifier input stages so far into the
beloved distortion.

I have to agree that they often sound like that when added on to
existing instruments. I had heard them myself and so wasn't expecting
much. Which is why I leapt from my bathtub shouting "Eureka Stockade"
and ran down the street naked with my alligator clips dangling, when I
heard the result with the Choob.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_%28word%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade

These problems definitely do not occur with the Choob. I don't know
for sure why, but I have some theories (fairly well grounded I think).
A piezo transducer is a piece of anisotropic material that converts
pressure along a preferred direction into electrical charge. The type
I'm using is called a bender as it is laminated onto a thin sheet of
brass in such a way that it responds most to bending (e.g. support the
edges and push on the middle.

When added on to an existing instrument the piezo is effectively
acting as an accellerometer relying on its own small mass to convert
motion into pressure. This is pretty ineffective at low frequencies
and the piezo itself has resonances right in the middle of the audio
band. And it produces a low output level because it is only tapping
off a tiny portion of the string motion.

With the Choob a lot of synergy/serendipity happened. Because of the
curvature, the bridge is an arch and because it is PVC it is
lightweight. So I am effectively supporting the entire lightweight
bridge on a pillar standing on the middle of the piezo(s). The full
pressure variation of the vibrating string is brought to bear on the
piezo, hence the high level, and it really is transducing pressure.
The tube underneath it is fairly rigid and packed with wet sand so the
piezo's own mass becomes irrelevant and the resonances are pushed
below the audio band. The mating of bridge and guitar-body surfaces to
piezo surfaces is hermetic as it is put in with PVC solvent cement
which conforms to the piezo's shape.

It is however important to have a high impedance input to your amp or
you will lose bass. But magnetic pickups need high impedance too, so
any guitar amp should be fine. It may not work well into your stereo
or computer without a preamp, but preamps are not expensive anyway.

By the way, the wet sand ballasted tube isn't quite as good as a solid
wood body for preventing feedback, but it's certainly good enough to
play loud enough to annoy your neighbours without feeding back. And as
David Gilmore famously muttered in "Live at Pompeii" when the
recording engineer cut him off because of feedback, "Don't worry about
that. Christ. What would rock and roll be without feedback?".
http://www.amazon.com/Pink-Floyd-Live-Pompeii-Directors/dp/fun-facts/B0000DBJDM

-- Dave Keenan

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

Hiya Dave,

>>By the way, I asked my friend who's a guitarist 'seduced into being
>>a guitar tech' about piezo vs. magnetic, and he says piezos:
>> * tend to sound brittle
>> * don't overdrive as well
>>I'm not worried about either of these, and at any rate observations
>>made on a normal guitar may not apply to choobs.
>
>How right you are.
>
>I assume by "sound brittle" he means either lacking in bass or
>exaggerating the treble or having sharp resonances in the treble.

Yes, I think spot on.

>And
>by "don't overdrive" he means they have a low output level and so
>cannot be made to drive the amplifier input stages so far into the
>beloved distortion.

Rather, I think he was complaining about the quality of the
distorted sound -- apparently the brittleness gets worse, or
something. I was fantasizing that in the case of magnetic
pickups, some load push/pull thing (for lack of knowing what
I'm talking about) might be going on with amp.

>These problems definitely do not occur with the Choob. I don't know
>for sure why, but I have some theories (fairly well grounded I think).
>A piezo transducer is a piece of anisotropic material that converts
>pressure along a preferred direction into electrical charge. The type
>I'm using is called a bender as it is laminated onto a thin sheet of
>brass in such a way that it responds most to bending (e.g. support the
>edges and push on the middle.
>
>When added on to an existing instrument the piezo is effectively
>acting as an accellerometer relying on its own small mass to convert
>motion into pressure. This is pretty ineffective at low frequencies
>and the piezo itself has resonances right in the middle of the audio
>band. And it produces a low output level because it is only tapping
>off a tiny portion of the string motion.
>
>With the Choob a lot of synergy/serendipity happened. Because of the
>curvature, the bridge is an arch and because it is PVC it is
>lightweight. So I am effectively supporting the entire lightweight
>bridge on a pillar standing on the middle of the piezo(s). The full
>pressure variation of the vibrating string is brought to bear on the
>piezo, hence the high level, and it really is transducing pressure.
>The tube underneath it is fairly rigid and packed with wet sand so the
>piezo's own mass becomes irrelevant and the resonances are pushed
>below the audio band.

Ok.

>The mating of bridge and guitar-body surfaces to
>piezo surfaces is hermetic as it is put in with PVC solvent cement
>which conforms to the piezo's shape.

Whoa!

>but preamps are not expensive anyway.

Tell that to my friend! :)

>By the way, the wet sand ballasted tube isn't quite as good as a solid
>wood body for preventing feedback, but it's certainly good enough to
>play loud enough to annoy your neighbours without feeding back. And as
>David Gilmore famously muttered in "Live at Pompeii" when the
>recording engineer cut him off because of feedback, "Don't worry about
>that. Christ. What would rock and roll be without feedback?".

I'm a bit worried about spoilage with the wet sand. Please tell
me I'm all wet.

-Carl

🔗paolovalladolid <phv40@...>

🔗Robin Perry <jinto83@...>

🔗paolovalladolid <phv40@...>

I would definitely like this information when the Choob is ready for
sale. :)

Paolo

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Perry" <jinto83@...> wrote:
>
> Wow! I'm delighted that there's interest in the Roz tuning. If you
> have any questions about how it's set up and what sorts of scales
> are available on Roz, please let me know. I can send a spreadsheet
> of the fretting/string tuning with a lattice diagram of how it all
> fits together.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robin
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@...m, "paolovalladolid" <phv40@>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@> wrote:
> >
> > > >>Here's a formula I could live with. This is Australian dollars.
> > > >>
> > > >>$200 + $30 per string + $5 per fret or fretlet
> > > >>
> > > >>So a 6-string with 24 frets comes to AU$500.
> > > >>
> > > >>But right now (I can't say for how long) I'll give a 20%
> discount to
> > > >>any brave soul willing to take a risk on something new.
> >
> > I am unclear on this, so forgive me, but am I to understand Choobs
> are
> > now available for sale?
> >
> > As I am yet unmarried to a particular tuning, I'd like to order one
> > with the Roz tuning.
> >
> > Paolo
> >
>