The Gear We've Collected

iMac work station with M-Audio speaker/monitors and Axiom 25 midi keyboard

Cigar box kilimba - parts from C.B. Gitty assembled by Billy Radd

Peavey PV6 audio mixer

Toca djembe with African cow bells

Mojohound electric Stomp box

Alesis practice drum pad

Zildjian crash ride cymbal and stand

AC or battery powered Roland Cube Street combo amp

Battery powered cigar box amplifier made by
Dave Bustos, Black Wolf Instruments

Woodstock Percussion all - metal Kazoo

Latin Percussion multi - guiro with metal scraper

Jumbie Jam steel drum

Latin Percussion Standard & Mini Afuche/cabasas

Steel Cuica

Double African shaker, claves, and wood block

Film can snare drum assembled by Billy Radd

3-string film-can canjo with Flatpup & sanpele neck
made by Billy Radd

Fender acoustic/electric dreadnought guitar

Axiom 25 midi keyboard

Humbucker pickup on Fender Telecaster Custom electric guitar

250 watt amplifier/mixer with 12 inch Eminence speaker
built in a General Electric TV set cabinet by Billy Radd

Headstock of Fender Telecaster Custom electric guitar

Ampeg B10N Portaflex fliptop bass combo amp

Kala acoustic spruce-top U-Bass

Ampeg B10N Portaflex fliptop bass combo amp

Fender Rumbler 15 bass practice amp

Fender Deluxe Active P Bass Special

Djembe from Mali

Bowed psaltery made by Dave Lucas

One-string "Spamjo" Canjo made by Henry Hoover

Kala Concert Ukulele with tweed case

Tibetan singing bowl

Fender Telecaster, Kala u-bass & Kala concert uke

Red Giant redwood tongue drum made by Steve Roberts

Chimes, brass gong, wind chimes & triangle on c-stand rack

Fender Mini Deluxe Combo Amp & Mini Rockers Guitar

Latin Percussion Aspire bongos

Toca Surf Drum

Boghram drum

Honer Big River Harp & Opera Superior harmonica

Goodlin Accordion Squeeze Box

Kilimba made by Steve Catania with "JD" piezo pup attached

Tascam D-40 portable digital recorder

DigiTech RP 1000 integrated effects switching system

Kala California solid swamp ash U-bass

Metal tone drum made by Carl Peverall

Tone drum, Casio 465 Sound Tone Bank,  Ampeg B10N bass combo amp and Peavey Decade practice combo amp

3-String Cigar box guitar with hand-crafted humbucker
made by Milton Cable

Supro High-Gain mini amp

Hand-carved West African krin

1964 Fender DuoSonic electric guitar

Film can speaker with Behringer preamp booster
and film canjo (speaker and canjo by Billy Radd)

Mountain Ocarina, Aulos recorder & Guiness model tin whistle

Ceramic wind chimes

Keven Spears model autographed electric alto
Hugh Tracey African kalimba

Percussion Plus cajon

 Kala Tweed 5 Watt Combo Amp

Kala Ukelimba by Steve Einhorn

Gibson SG Special Bass

MoogerFoogers by Moog

Moog Sub Phatty Synthisizer

Ibanez GIO 6-String Bass

Gretsch Electromatic Hollowbody Guitar

The Birthday Kalimba

I found a large wooden button at a craft store, drilled a few more holes in it, and glued it on to cover for a very effective sound hole.

The kalimba kit came with a Padron cigar box, the kalimba hardware and instructions. But, I thought it should be electrified so I added a piezo pickup and guitar cord jack.

My wife, Anita Gayle has always asked our three daughters to make her something for her birthday instead of buying a gift because she really doesn’t need anything, and even a hand-written note or poem celebrating her birthday means so much more to her than anything else they might buy. And, although she has always been very gracious to accept any gift with a smile and expressions of thanks to whom ever gives it, I know that hand-made things mean a lot more to her because she knows what it is to create something versus purchasing it.

So, this year I decided to make her a birthday present myself. And, I’m glad I did because I think she really liked it and was touched that I would spend the time to make something just for her.

The cigar box kalimba, a cool kit I purchased from C.B. Gitty Crafters Supply, turned out to be the perfect gift for someone who appreciates a good thumb piano, as they are also known. Since I have used some parts C.B. Gitty makes at their plant in Vermont to build film can canjos (that I call Kodakasters), I ordered the kit online with confidence that it would, first, be made of quality parts, and second, something I could probably put together even with my relative inexperience in making anything musical.

I suppose that it took me about two hours all told, and I have to admit, it does make pretty musical tones.  The hardest part was tuning it to the key of C major after it was assembled, but luckily the Gitty kit also included instructions complete with a simple tuning tutorial. I already own a couple of electronic guitar tuners which made my tuning task even easier. About halfway through the process I realized that recycling old cigar boxes is probably the best thing about cigars.

The only real glitch in my birthday kalimba project was when I left the printed instructions in my pants pocket and they went through the wash, which resulted in a tomato-sized lump of useless soggy paper.

But no worries. I emailed C.B. Gitty about my predicament and they emailed me a link to a PDF of the entire instruction booklet within an hour of my asking for help. 

Hey! Gotta love those guys!

Fender CD-60CE Dreadnought

Picked up a nice acoustic electric guitar, a Fender CD-60CE, this week from a local music shop. It sounds great either as an acoustic or electric guitar. I have to admit it's about as big an instrument as I can manage, but it really fills a room with mellow tones without amplification. 

The reason I bought it was primarily that this dreadnought cutaway boasts features you’d expect on much more expensive instruments, with a spruce top and choice of natural, sunburst and black finishes.

It also has upgrades including a new black pickguard and mother-of-pearl acrylic rosette design, rosewood bridge with compensated Graphtech® Nubone™ saddle, white bridge pins with black dots and smaller (3 mm) dot fingerboard inlays. Other quality features include scalloped X bracing, black body binding, 20-fret fingerboard, dual-action truss rod, die-cast tuners and Fishman® pickup system with active onboard preamp, tuner, volume and tone controls. It also came with a nice and correspondingly huge hard-shell case with a cool wooden Fender logo on it.

It is made and sold as an entry-level guitar by Fender, and of course, is made in China, but that doesn't mean it isn't build to last. And, since I purchased it for $269.99, which is the same as it goes for in all the online music stores I checked, got to play it first before I bought it, didn't have to wait for 5 days to get it through the mail, and believed the salesman (who showed me three other guitars with comparable prices) when he said he would buy this one himself (he is also a luthier and does repairs at the shop), I am a happy camper.

Maybe after a few years of practicing scales and arpeggios I'll outgrow this pretty beast, but until then, I think this Fender CD-60 will fulfill my needs very well.

Kodakaster 4 - Sapele Gold

I saw this 35mm bulk film can for sale on eBay a few weeks ago and had the thought that the gold color might be a nice color contrast with Flatpup humbucker that I wanted to try with my next canjo build. So, I went online and bought the gold can (the buy now option), and the hand-wound copper wire humbucker made and sold online by Elmar Zeilhofer in Vienna, Austria.

The film can arrived here first and, since I already had stained and polished the dark red, mohogony-like sapele wood neck from C. B. Gitty, I began assembling my next Kodakaster 3-string electric slide canjo, my fourth attempt since I began building them 6 months ago.

The humbucker arrived here in Asheville from Austria a few days ago and the first thing I did was glue it into place on the top of the film can under where the strings would be strung above it. The glue took about 72 hours to cure and since we have been having thunder showers almost without stop for about three weeks, I figured I'd better give the glue a few extra days to harden because of the unusually high humidity we are experiencing in the Blue Ridge Mountains this summer.

This morning, I wired the pup to the electronics, installed the strings, plugged it in and fired up my newest Kodakaster through my little Fender Rumble 15 bass practice amp. It really sounds great with a more full-frequency spectrum from the humbucker than from the other piezo pickups that I used for two of my first three Kodakasters. It amplifies the slide chords without any hum or feedback and has a very clean, bluesy tone.

And, I think my Kodakaster 4 looks pretty cool, too.

Live and learn, eh? Onward!

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!

The Dymaxion Film Can Combo Amp/Speaker

“Do More with Less” was an admonition from the late, great educator, philosopher, architect, and design scientist/futurist R. Buckminster Fuller who, among his various inventions in the last century, included practical applications of the geodesic dome.

The word Dymaxion, a brand name that Fuller used for several of his inventions, is a portmanteau (a combination of two or more words and their definitions, into one new word) from the words dynamic, maximum, and tension.

This brand name was needed for Fuller's first architectural model of a synergistically designed single family dwelling, later known as the Dymaxion house. He also used the word for many of his other futuristic inventions including the Dymaxion house, the Dymaxion car, and the Dymaxion World Map.

As a very-much lesser inventor myself, and having a need for a inexpensive, simple,  portable, battery-powered combo speaker/amplifier to use with my other “invention”, the 3-string film electric canjo I call the Kodakaster, I decided to try to use another larger film can similar to one I used for the canjo (this one 14 inched in diameter) in the spirit of  the modern mantra, “recycle - reuse”.

My thinking was that I might find some way to turn the empty metal film can to my purposes by applying a so-called tactile transducer inside the can. I had to look no further for such a devise than the wonderful online store, Parts Express. The Dayton Audio QEX19 Quadpod Self-Amplified Sound Exciter fit my purposes perfectly since it is small and relatively inexpensive at $18.90. As the Parts Express site proudly declares, “the QEX19 Self-Amplified Sound Exciter turns virtually any solid object into a speaker by vibrating it at speeds of up to 20,000 cycles per second. Built-in amplifier allows you to put sound virtually anywhere!”

After consulting with a knowledgeable tech expert at Parts Express via email, I also purchased a Behringer PB100 Preamp / Volume Booster Stomp Box ($24.99) to boost the piezo pickup output from my Kodacaster canjo to match regular amplifier input of the Dayton Audio exciter.

My order from Parts Express arrived a few days later in the mail and I assembled my new canjo amp, which only took about 20 minutes since each electronic component was a self-contained module and the film can only needed a small hole to run the exciter’s wire through from the inside.

I inserted batteries into the two components, fired up my newest musical tool and, golly-bob-howdy, the sucker worked. 

Next, I built a short triangular stand from some spare wood sticks and hardware on-hand, plugged the canjo, going through the pre-amp, into the film can combo speaker and began evaluating the intensely funky sound of sliding open chords up and down the strings of my canjo’s neck.

But, I also noticed that the can produced a more pleasing tone if the bottom of it, where I had attached the exciter in the center of the inside, was facing forward toward where an audience would be. The only problem was that the bottom was completely clean without the old film laboratory label that was affixed to the top.

Then, it hit me. 

I had a decal/sticker that I'd gotten at a R. Buckminster Fuller exhibition at the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center in Asheville last year. It fit the bottom of the can, now facing forward, as if made for that purpose, and that’s when I thought of calling it the Dymaxion Film Can Combo Amp/Speaker.

Since I’m not planning to reproduce and market my canjo speaker, I don’t think The Fuller Foundation will bother to come after me for using the brand name, Dymaxion.

And, somehow I don’t think Bucky would mind either.