General Music Chat

My 4 string cigar box guitar changed my musical life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNvBUdhs2Q

Yes I must have misunderstood your meaning.
I didn't get that you were already describing a midi controller here.

i dont think making electric panpipes would be all that difficult.. different length tubes cut to make different sounds, just blow into the pipe to make the sound you want.. if i were to make electric panpipes id put a piezo in the bottom with a relief hole drilled in the side to let air pressure out.. then when you blow into it the air pressure will register with the piezo, be converted into an electrical signal and then fed through an effects processor, amp, etc

anyway, i think im going to buy a clarinet and fabricate a new mouthpiece that will hold a bagpipes double-reed with a cap over top.. make a clarinet sound like a bagpipe and student clarinets for me to experiment with are like $100 and tons of resources out there for learning them vs oboe

A double reed in a clarinet will not sound very much like a typical bagpipe. A clarinet (as well as some east European and middle Eastern bagpipes) has a cylindrical bore, whereas Scottish and most west European bagpipes, (as well as oboes, bassoons, saxophones,) have a conical bore.

Here is an example of a double reed instrument with a cylindrical bore.
http://youtu.be/35jcEA3yups

The cylindrical bore overblows to the 12th, the conical bore overblows to the octave.

not all bagpipes are conical though, many are cylindrical

My 4 string cigar box guitar changed my musical life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNvBUdhs2Q

did you tune it DGBE.. or something else like CGDA or GDAE?

C,G,C,Eflat. That changed my life too. Check it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9_mVi_pS-c

Yes I must have misunderstood your meaning.
I didn't get that you were already describing a midi controller here.

i dont think making electric panpipes would be all that difficult.. different length tubes cut to make different sounds, just blow into the pipe to make the sound you want.. if i were to make electric panpipes id put a piezo in the bottom with a relief hole drilled in the side to let air pressure out.. then when you blow into it the air pressure will register with the piezo, be converted into an electrical signal and then fed through an effects processor, amp, etc

anyway, i think im going to buy a clarinet and fabricate a new mouthpiece that will hold a bagpipes double-reed with a cap over top.. make a clarinet sound like a bagpipe and student clarinets for me to experiment with are like $100 and tons of resources out there for learning them vs oboe

A double reed in a clarinet will not sound very much like a typical bagpipe. A clarinet (as well as some east European and middle Eastern bagpipes) has a cylindrical bore, whereas Scottish and most west European bagpipes, (as well as oboes, bassoons, saxophones,) have a conical bore.

Here is an example of a double reed instrument with a cylindrical bore.
http://youtu.be/35jcEA3yups

The cylindrical bore overblows to the 12th, the conical bore overblows to the octave.

not all bagpipes are conical though, many are cylindrical

Yes, and not all bagpipes use double reeds, many use single reeds

It would be interesting to hear what results you could get attaching a bagpipe double reed to the bore of a clarinet.
Maybe like a fat crumhorn? Crumhorns and small-pipes tend to have much narrower bores than clarinets.
http://youtu.be/6Pthv29TgRE

yeah.. maybe, but the reed would likely have to be modified a bit to make it in tune.. i mean, for the fingerings to work id probably have to tune the reed to play the instrument in its intended key.. B flat i believe?.. so i probably wouldnt take a reed from a bagpipe, but make my own tuned like the clarinets single-reed.. otherwise itll sound so god awful

yeah.. maybe, but the reed would likely have to be modified a bit to make it in tune.. i mean, for the fingerings to work id probably have to tune the reed to play the instrument in its intended key.. B flat i believe?.. so i probably wouldnt take a reed from a bagpipe, but make my own tuned like the clarinets single-reed.. otherwise itll sound so god awful

God awful is not good?

http://youtu.be/_pYhO8bl4no

http://youtu.be/ufb8rFNiUIY

http://youtu.be/GkH_vbrZPIs

well just think.. if that bagpipe reed wasnt in tune with the clarinet reed.. ALL the finger holes would be off, nothing would be in tune, it would sound soooooo horrible

I always thought that the sound from a sax is awesome. Complimented by piano, you could do a lot of good stuff knowing both. It would have to have a jazz or blues influence to work probably, but still, it would be a killer combo.

heres the problem i have with sax, clarinet, etc, i never hear anyone doing anything different with it.. 99 out of 100 times all i hear the saxophone playing is jazz.. id like to hear atleast someone try something different with it... but its not something im likely to see.. i guess its just stuck in a stereotype.. its used so much in jazz, so mostly jazz players buy them, and what do they do after that?.. make more jazz, kind of like a catch 22

Have any links to your music?

heres the problem i have with sax, clarinet, etc, i never hear anyone doing anything different with it.. 99 out of 100 times all i hear the saxophone playing is jazz.. id like to hear atleast someone try something different with it... but its not something im likely to see.. i guess its just stuck in a stereotype.. its used so much in jazz, so mostly jazz players buy them, and what do they do after that?.. make more jazz, kind of like a catch 22

Maybe you can get a cheap clarinet and explore the uncharted territory in that 1%?

If you made some alterations to the reed bed on the mouthpiece, using a standard clarinet reed, you might be able to put a cap over the top and attach it to a bag. A baguette!

heres the problem i have with sax, clarinet, etc, i never hear anyone doing anything different with it.. 99 out of 100 times all i hear the saxophone playing is jazz.. id like to hear atleast someone try something different with it... but its not something im likely to see.. i guess its just stuck in a stereotype.. its used so much in jazz, so mostly jazz players buy them, and what do they do after that?.. make more jazz, kind of like a catch 22

Maybe you can get a cheap clarinet and explore the uncharted territory in that 1%?

If you made some alterations to the reed bed on the mouthpiece, using a standard clarinet reed, you might be able to put a cap over the top and attach it to a bag. A baguette!

maybe, but there are single-reed bagpipes out there such as the swedish sackpipa.. problem is they sound sound nearly as good as the double reed instruments.. so id want to preserve that double-reed sound with a modification to the clarinet, but moreso i wouldnt mind exploring what something like the sax or clarinet can do on its own.. maybe with some added effect pedals

the only issue with that is that saxs and clarinets are made the be played live, they are very loud instruments that could still possibly be heard over the amplifiers

so.. another thing id like to explore is the electric reed instrument i mentioned.. using a piezo to detect reed vibration which can translate different tonguing and blowing techniques to that piezo pickup, and just use the keys to modulate the sound the reed generates into different pitches.. because thats how a reed instrument works anyway, the reed creates all the sound and the tone holes just change the tone as its existing the instrument

so.. modified clarinet mouthpiece, buttons for keys, and probably create my own pre-amp that cleans up the noise of the piezo but also processes the keys pushed into tonal changes before entering the amplifier or effects processors

so convert the clarinet body to an enclosed double reed instrument, convert the clarinet mouth piece into an electric reed instrument (NOT a midi controller) and that should give me two fun little projects out of the same cheap $100 clarinet

so convert the clarinet body to an enclosed double reed instrument, convert the clarinet mouth piece into an electric reed instrument (NOT a midi controller) and that should give me two fun little projects out of the same cheap $100 clarinet

That sounds like it will be a good creative adventure! Good luck!

Maybe you could use reeds made of thin steel and using an electro magnetic pickup, amplify the vibrations. You could then add an electro magnetic driver on the other side and feedback the signal from pickup into the driver for an infinitely sustaining ebow/bagpipe effect.

i thought about trying it with a metal reed, but hard to say how thats going to sound.. another option if i decide to go with an electromagnetic pickup like a guitar pickup would be to just put a small piece of metal inside the reed near the tip.. but i think a piezo would work just fine

what i want to do for the body of the electric reed instrument is use buttons that will take that electrical signal from the piezo and change the pitch depending on which buttons are pressed.. all analog too, no digital, no midi, the buttons will just tweak the electrical signal to match the pitch of the keys you're pressing for a completely analog electric reed instrument that could then be plugged into a preamp and then into an amp