Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eric Salvi on January 5, 2016 at 12:41pm

Not a bad idea. I forgot to add two more photos of two more shapes. Any idea on those?

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Permalink Reply by gary herget on January 5, 2016 at 1:02pm

Don't forget there are no rules, so size, shape, whatever doesn't matter, it's what you like and what you want to do. Personally I think they would make great guit's.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 5, 2016 at 11:50pm

Sorry that's bs. The 'no rules' thing is cute, it's a slogan which serves two specific and virtuous purposes:- it gets people who would otherwise be intimidated by the process off their arses and building something, and it lends courage to people to share their art. But it is not true. Size Does matter. Shape does matter. Soundboard thickness does matter. If you doubt this, go build some more. The placement of the frets, the string compensation. It all matters. Why? The science. Which is rules. And which entirely trumps slogans.

Of course I respect your opinion that they'd make great guitars, but there are sizes and shapes that will not, surely :)

Best.

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Permalink Reply by JL on January 7, 2016 at 2:48am

I can't resist chiming in with my 2.01E-2 denominational units on the bovine output compendium.....

there are no rules is 100% correct.  there are, however,  well demonstrated and repeatable patterns that you can choose to follow that are the result of many thousands of years of trial and error experimentation and refinement that evolved the commercial instruments in your local store.  but they wouldn't have gotten there without imaginative people trying a "what if..." and learning from it.  The art is still evolving from hobbyists making "what if" creations and sharing the pro/con of the results.

Somebody was the first to try the fan-fret, the mag pickup, a flat back instead of a bowl back, wire for strings instead of sheep gut, etc.

Physics dictate what the result will be, the human mind interprets the quality/success of that result.  A string tensioned between two fixed points can be made to vibrate.  A resonance device attached to at least one of the fixed points will conduct more of that vibrational energy to the air increasing the volume. turtle shells, gourds, large flat boards (piano soundboard), animal skulls, the musician's own mouth, and many others have been used to increase the transfer of the string's vibration to the air.  thickness/density/elasticity/rigidity/perimeter-transition all affect the tone/timber of the sound that the human ear judges as good or not.

Frets 'could' be put anywhere you want but you may or may not get a consensus that the sound is 'good'.  You could choose to place them using an established pattern such as the western equal-tempered chromatic scale, or you could choose the Helmholtz scale based on harmonic ratios, or even one of the eastern scales based on an odd numbered interval of quarter-tones. You can even try to invent one of your own, perhaps using an inversion of the Fibonacci series or a Hailstone sequence for spacing.  how 'good' the result is would still be subjective.

um, er, oh, ah, sorry, ran on a tangent again, I'll crawl back under my academic rock now, sorry, sorry......

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on March 2, 2016 at 11:24pm

My words Phrygian Kid, and "no rules" is just another rule... Sometimes it would be important to know whether we speak about acoustic or amplified CBGs. My father was an aeronautics engineer, he used to say "with a powerful engine even a barn door flies", but for a real airplane there are some rules...

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Permalink Reply by Sean on January 5, 2016 at 6:32pm

The Padilla would make a sweet diddley bow or chugger flipped over. The git would be super comfortable I bet.

I'd tend towards amps for the other two, though I also see a box-canjo with the first one.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 5, 2016 at 11:34pm

Yes it's an (stereo) amp (the hexagonal one) with 2 wedge speakers.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 8, 2016 at 4:04am

Yep. Ported wedge speakers.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Salvi on January 7, 2016 at 5:09am

Thanks everyone for this great dialogue. This place truly is an awesome place.

I've never thought about using them as speakers and Amps. Anyone know where to start and the cost involved in turning them into amps?

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Permalink Reply by Lane Martin on January 7, 2016 at 5:47am

CBGitty sells an amp kit that you install in your box for around $35. I got "Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred" for my birthday and it has the details on making a "Dirt Cheap Amp." Several other places online that lay out the basics of amp design. This is on my to-do list also.

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Permalink Reply by JL on January 8, 2016 at 2:21am

any idea where to find a reverb circuit card to add to a CBGitty amp kit like the overdrive circuit card CBGitty sells?

Shane has a video where he talks about using his microcube when playing in his 'vendor' booth to crank the reverb up and then the CBGs sell like hotcakes.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 8, 2016 at 4:07am

You could always build your own:

http://www.diyaudiocircuits.com

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