Electric Kalimba Upgrade

Beefed Up Electric Padron Kalimba

Last year I gave my wife, Anita Gayle, a birthday present of a cigarbox kalimba that I made from a Padron cigar box. Originally the kalimba was equipped with a piezo disc pickup and volume control so that it could be amplified through a combo speaker/amp. It worked just OK since the tone from the kalimba was kind of muffled, produced a slight hum, and needed to be boosted with an additional preamp, an attempted fix that really was not that satisfactory. Since piezo pickups work by picking up vibrations, they will also pickup any vibration that might be made through incidental handling and movement, not just the musical sound of the instrument it is attached to. So, piezos are a bit touchy and also prone to feedback when used at higher amplified volumes.

After a few weeks of thinking about it, I thought, since the tines that produce the vibration are likely made of ferrous metal (steel), why couldn't I replace the piezo pup with a humbucker which would likely increase the volume able to be produced and get rid of the hum. 

I consulted with my goto humbucker supplier, Elmar Zeilhofer in Vienna, Austria. He thought my idea might work but told me that another client had tried to amplify his kalimba with one of Elmar's Flatpup Humbuckers and was not satisfied with it because it sounded too "thumpy". But, I reasoned, "thumpy" would be a great way to describe the tone that naturally emanates from a kalimba when it is not amplified or when played acoustically without any amplification. "Thumpy" makes a kilimba sound like a kalimba.

I measured Anita Gayle's Kalimba so I could order the right size flatpups, determined that the the metal tines were, indeed, made of ferrous metal (able to be picked up by a humbucker pickup) with the never-fail magnet test.

So, I ordered two of Elmar's 6-string Flatpup Humbuckers, installed them on the Pedron Cigarbox Kalimba, wired it up and, jeez, what a difference in the sound. The replacement of the piezo pickup really makes a big improvement in the strength of the signal to the amplifier AND reproduces a wider range of tone, too. Anita plays it a lot more, too.

Worth all the effort and expense. An electric kalimba cranked up to 11 with just a touch a reverb is a "bootiful thang".

Kodakaster Take 3

My third version of the Kodakaster Film Can 3-String Canjo has taken shape. This time I used an oak neck, gold machine/tuners, gold ferules, with gold bolts for the bridge and nut. I've also installed another piezo electric pickup attached inside the can with a guitar cord jack and volume control. I keep thinking that I will become faster at making these but I learn something building each new version and try to make each new model better than the last. So, as my Dad used to say, slow and steady wins the race.

The next Kodakaster I will build (#4) will feature a sapele neck (a beautiful dark-red African hardwood similar to mahogany), gold fixtures and two new elements. Instead of the shiny silver metal 35mm film cans that I recycled from my collection for the first three Kodakasters, I will be using a gold colored, matte finished film can that I purchased on eBay for $1.90 (shipping was $8). In addition, another new variation will be the addition of a guitar-style pickup, called a Flatpup, that I found online that I think will be a perfect addition to the next variant of the Kodakaster.

Hand crafted by Elmar Zeilhofer of Vienna, Austria, these beautiful humbucker pickups are only 4mm thick so, unlike conventional humbuckers which are much thicker and would necessitate being installed through a hole cut into the top of my canjo, Flatpups can be glued to the top of my film can on the outside with the small wires entering the body of the canjo through a small hole underneath it.

As I have found out, there is a perceptive difference in the sound gathering properties between piezo and magnetic guitar pickups. Piezo pickups can sound more harsh in the mid and higher frequencies while magnetic pickups like the Flatpup Humbuckers made by Elmar Zeilhofer generally produce a more aggressive, pleasant, full spectrum sound than a piezo pickup without equalization.

So, now the waiting begins until a small package arrives from Europe with my shiny new humbucker. I can't wait to glue it onto Kodakaster #4, plug it into the closest amplifier and crank 'er up!