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Piezos From Outer Space!!!

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The simple Piezo Disc pickup is one of the most underrated sound devices. Sure, they work great as internal pickups for our cigar box guitars, but have you ever considered other possibilities?

See Shane Speal's "Spring Thing" instrument (below) created by Shane Speal as a way to introduce you to new options for sound design, special effects and possibly inventing new and exotic instruments.

Post your weird creations, sound machines and otherworldly piezo instruments here!

Members: 32
Latest Activity: Jul 16, 2021

6 members like this

Discussion Forum

Know nothing of piezo...

Started by James Pobog. Last reply by BrianQ. Sep 25, 2019. 2 Replies 0 Likes

So I bought the tin can mike kit, and am a bit...underwhelmed.Used hot glue. The disk does not touch the metal because of the glue. Should I have glued from the top?If it doesn;t matter, even with…Continue

Spring Things Revisited.. and Other Piezos from Outer Space Stuff

Started by Mikala Aug 29, 2019. 0 Replies 0 Likes

A great thread from Shane, new stuff in the last few years, some fascinating and thought provoking:Yaybahar: …Continue

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Comment by The Phrygian Kid on September 27, 2014 at 2:09am: Thanks mate, there's a build blog on it in my solidbodies group, although I lost interest and never finished the blog. If you click on one of the pics it should take you to the photobucket, there's a whole bunch of progress pics. It's local blackwood, which is a lot like Hawaiian Koa.

Comment by Seth Kent on September 26, 2014 at 6:01am: Kid, I love the look of that crazy guitar!

Comment by The Phrygian Kid on September 26, 2014 at 1:08am: in 2012 I made this resonator guitar

the 'cone' is a cookie tin lid which has a buzzer glued to it. The buzzer receives an amplified signal from a second coil on the neck pickup there, making a mechanical sustainer unit / feedback loop. The amplifier is a Hannah Montana headphone amp which came with a Washburn electric guitar and it has an overdrive switch which unfortunately brings howling feedback as soon as you're plugged in, but makes for 'acoustic distortion' when you're not.

The experiment was not 100% successful because of the feedback issues, but Id very much like to try it again someday with a better internal amplifier.

Comment by the anonymous pick on September 25, 2014 at 3:55pm: *not my kazoo ,, please don't credit or blame me for it ;-)

lol.

Comment by the anonymous pick on September 25, 2014 at 3:54pm

Comment by Primitive Acoustics on September 25, 2014 at 3:29pm: Whoa!!!!! This will be a fun group. Great idea Shane, very creative!!

Comment by Thomas "Duck" Petry on September 25, 2014 at 1:49pm: I'm seeing some interesting mutations coming from this group in the near future.

Comment by Ben "C. B. Gitty" Baker on September 25, 2014 at 12:51pm: I am excited to see what sorts of weird and wild creations we can come up with. When Shane first posted the pics and vid of his sound effects machine today, I wanted to drop what I was doing, run out to the my junk shelves in the shop, and start nailing rusty old stuff to cigar boxes!

Comment by Cigar Box Nation on September 25, 2014 at 9:52am

Comment by Clock The Wolf on September 25, 2014 at 9:30am: "Cause cheap stogie boxes are cardboard anyway."
Disc piezo inside of a small metal cigar tin , inside of a cardboard box, wrapped in rubberband "strings" raised above the surface by some metal bits. Strummable and thumpable, used in many things over the years...

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