Tag: electric cello

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Sabbatical: Week 13 Update

I am pretty much where I hoped I’d be at this point for the past couple of weeks. I recorded seven phrases this week. While this may not sound like much, it is pretty good given that it has been a three day work week due to Thanksgiving. These six of the phrases were on the electric cello for middle sections of TriStar, 737, A300, 727, DC-10, and DC-9. This allowed me to complete my electric cello recordings. The one additional phrase was a middle section phrase for DC-10 on an alto Taishogoto.

The Taishogoto, also called the Nagoya Harp, was invented by musician Goro Morita in 1912. The instrument uses a typewriter like mechanism to change the pitch of a series of identically tuned strings, which are typically strummed with a plectrum. Some instruments also feature one or more drone strings, often tuned an octave lower. The instrument I have, manufactured by Suzuki, is an Alto Taishogoto with no drone. This instrument does have four strings, one of which is pitched an octave lower than the rest. Modern Taishogotos, such as the one I have, are usually setup as an electric instrument, featuring a volume and tone knob, as well as a standard 1/4″ audio out. Having the instrument electrified makes it an excellent option for pairing with guitar effects pedals. I however, recorded the instrument dry so I may choose my pick of effects in LogicPro during the mix process.

I do not plan on recording Taishogoto on every movement. After recording some phrases for a variety of movements next week, I plan on moving over to putting together the final mixes starting during the end of next week. Since I shared the new mix of A300, I will reshare the score for the string quartet for those who want to follow along. This movement is in B minor / dorian, with the notes B, C#, D, F# and G# used during the middle section and B, C#, F#, and A# used in the beginning and end sections. I particularly like the end of this excerpt, with the first violin moving down to the dominant (F#), while the second violin settles on the tonic (B), ending on an open fifth.

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Sabbatical: Week 12 Update

It has been a productive week, with 13 phrases recorded on electric cello. I recorded phrases for the beginning and end sections for TriStar, A300, 727, DC-10, and DC-9. I also recorded phrases for the center sections of DC-8, 707, and 747. This leaves only six electric cello phrases to record next week, although it is a short work week due to Thanksgiving. Last week I mentioned that I was thinning out the orchestra samples in some of the movements. This week I continued that process, thinning out A300, DC-8, 727, 707, and DC-10. In fact, I only have two more movements to thin out.

On the next album front, I now have three working algorithms from the first batch of six movements from the album. Between ME7ROPOL17AN 7RANSPOR7A71ON AU74OR17Y and Rotate, I’ve been having a lot of fun creating and releasing albums. Given that the next major album will not be ready for three or four years, my plan is to sneak in some lower stakes albums in the meanwhile. One of them may be an album of live performances of Rotate. On Tuesday I will be performing with the New London Drone Orchestra. Since I’ve been playing electric cello for the last couple of weeks, I figure I’ll play that instrument while I’m good and warmed up. I’ll be running the instrument through a bunch of effects, and I hope to record the audio of my contribution to the performance. Assuming all goes well, I may continue to perform with the group a couple of times every year. I may be able to take my recordings from those performances to put together an ambient album.

Since I’m sharing the audio for 727 this week, I figured I’d include the score to the string quartet part for those who want to follow along. At rehearsal H, only the notes A, C, D, and E are used. These notes work out really well for bowed strings, as they’re all open strings on one or more of the instruments. This allows me to use harmonics, a favorite musical sound of mine, for the last four measures.

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Sabbatical: Week 11 Update

This week I managed to mix and incorporate the Jetliner String Quartet recording for 737. I also was able to record eight phrases on my electric cello. All in all, I recorded two phrases for each of the following: 737, DC-8, 707, & 747. While I haven’t played cello regularly in nearly 40 years, I find that I am slightly better at it than playing the trombone. I’m still not particularly good at playing the instrument, but if you slap a bunch of effects on it, it does sound nice and spacey.

I’ve also been re-editing the string orchestra samples. One of the first things I did for the Rotate project was to add samples of Musiversal’s Budapest String Orchestra that I had recorded for my previous album. These samples were added right after the backing tracks were recorded. Accordingly, I added a lot of them, and now that the recordings are getting kind of thick, I want to thin out the string orchestra samples so they do not compete as much with the string quartet recordings. I managed to thin out TriStar and 737 in this manner. All in all, it was a decent amount of work accomplished for a week in which I was driving to tech rehearsals in Andover, MA for more than half of the week. It puts me a bit ahead of the game in terms of what I hope to accomplish next week.

Since I’ve been posting teasers related to the next album project over the last couple of updates, I’ll share a bit more. I’m pleased to announce that I have working algorithms for two of the six movements that I plan on recording the backing tracks for this coming summer. At the rate I’m crafting these algorithms, I could be ready to record those backing tracks sometime in early 2024. Regardless, I will start sharing examples from these algorithms in early in the new year.

As I posted a link to the new mix of DC-8 featuring the Jetliner String Quartet record, I’ll repost the string score for the movement. This is the only movement that uses quarter note arpeggiations. I’m also fond of the D# diminished chord over an E pedal at rehearsal C. I think it’s a particularly tasty harmony.

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Building an Electric Cello

I used to play cello when I was in my early teens. For the past several years I’ve wanted to start playing cello again. However, the problem is that I currently don’t have proper storage space for an acoustic cello. Besides taking up space, an acoustic cello has to be treated tenderly. While it is not super fragile, it is not the sort of instrument that you want to just aggressively shove into a closet. I realized that a solid body electric cello, when put in a soft case, could be shoved in a closet without much fear of damage.

Photo 1: Rough cut of the neck / head.

The one thing I hate about acoustic cellos is the wooden tuning pegs. Anytime there is a drastic change in humidity the instrument can go greatly out of tune, and it can be very difficult to get it to stay in tune. Thus I looked for electric cellos that had electric bass style tuners. I could only find one such instrument in my price range, and the online reviews were not great.

Photo 2: Neck / Head with nut and purchased fingerboard attached.

Photo 3: One of the boards for the body with a channel cut for the endpin.

Thus, with Professor Gernes serving as an advisor, I decided to build an electric cello. I found a design online that seemed suitable. I made a couple of changes. I decided to make the head and neck out a single piece of wood instead of using separate pieces. I also decided to make the body a little thicker, and make it out of two pieces of wood, which allowed me to cut a channel down the center of the instrument, yielding a place to put an endpin.

Photo 4: A test to see if the tuners fit.

Photo 5: Neck / head assembly attached to the body (via a neck plate), with the endpin inserted. Note the piece of wood added to the body near the endpin (the wood seemed a little narrow on the face where the endpin is, so I thickened it a bit).

The design I used did not account for a solution for a belly rest or a place for the legs to grip the instrument like an acoustic cello. Several people online came up with their own solution to the problem, but I did not like any of the solutions I saw. Eventually I came up with the idea of bending copper pipe in the same manner of the volume antennae for a theremin, allowing for a lightweight modular way to build out from the instrument. However, I was not able to bend the pipe with a tight enough radius without putting kinks in the pipe (even though I had used a set of pipe bending tubes). I came up with the solution of using small pieces of wood that would be connected to the body using copper pipe, utilizing compression fittings attached to the side pieces and body of the cello.

Photo 6: A profile of the neck showing the cut down from the neck to the head. Note that I later carved down the connection between the neck and head so that it is smoother.

Photo 7:  Here I’ve added compression fittings to the body for the side pieces and the belly rest, with the belly rest in place using copper pipe to connect it.

I built the instrument using a small amount of finished pieces. I bought a fingerboard, an endpin assembly, a bridge, tuners, and a tailpiece (though I have been carving a tailpiece that I may use to replace the manufactured one I’ve been using at some point). The piece is finished using five coats of tru-oil. One mistake I’ve made in building the instrument is that the strings a bit high off of the fingerboard near the nut. This is easily fixable though by simply filing down the grooves for the strings in the nut. Initially, I made the mistake of buying cheap tuners. This made it so I could not bring the A string up to pitch. Since these photos I have replaced the tuner on the A string allowing me to bring it up to pitch.

Photo 8: Side pieces and belly rest are added. Note that the side pieces and belly rest can be easily removed for compact storage.

Photo 9: Here is the instrument after adding five coats of Tru-Oil, but before adding the strings, bridge, and tailpiece.

Electrifying the instrument is easy. I attach a clip on microphone made by Korg to the bridge, and I run that into a pre-amp. The output from the pre-amp can either be fed into a guitar pedal, or straight into an amplifier. The instrument actually sounds pretty darned good, but I won’t post an audio file yet, as I’ve barely begun to practice.

Photo 10: Here is a photo of my first test of the instrument. Note that the clip on microphone is not attached, and that the side pieces may need to be shortened slightly.