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Something zitherish
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Antimon



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PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:32 pm    Post subject: Something zitherish Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

So I've had this fantasy about an electric zither for some time. I asked about it in another thread somewhere - ah here it is: http://www.electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?highlight=zither&t=26480 (maybe a candidate to be moved here?). A great tip from jnuary there that I was thinking about using.

Anyway, a local music shop was closing down and selling out, and they sold some guitar maintenance things like knobs and tuners, so I bought a handful of tuners, knobs, and two single coil guitar pickups. I have some boards and stuff in the attic, and figured I'd do a bit of carpentry and fit some tuners at one end, something to tie strings at the other, and mic in between.

I'm saving up the energy to get started, but before I go maybe someone has some good insight into things that would be useless to try out. I'm thinking about fitting the pickups closer to where the strings a tied than to where the tuners are, like on a guitar. I'm not really picky about the fine points of the sound quality at this stage - should I care about what kind of wood I choose anyway? It would be fun to use what I have, but if there is some kind of wood that is easy to get hold of cheaply I might try to look something up. Also, is there some trick to fastening tuners, or will the most obvious way do (i.e. drilling a hole that the stick fits perfectly in, then fastening the tuners with some kind of tiny nail or screw)?

/Stefan

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blue hell
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:37 pm    Post subject: Re: Something zitherish Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Antimon wrote:
(maybe a candidate to be moved here?)


Sure, it's your thread anyway Wink done!

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also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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BobTheDog



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PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

What kind of tuners do you have?
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Antimon



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PostPosted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Here's a picture of a couple of tuners and the pickups. I'm also wondering about the height of the individual metal pieces in the pickups - I guess I'll have to adjust the height of the strings (or those bits of metal) if the string frequencies don't match those of he average set of guitar string.

Edit: forgot to add the picture - duh!

/Stefan


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 12:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well the machine head on the right looks like it would just be held in with a screw, the one on the left I can't see but it looks similar.

The magnets in the pickup should move up and down, a couple of them look too low.
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