I was very fortunate enough to be made one of the prototype versions of Helen Leigh Steers amazing Mini.mu gloves, it uses micro:bit to create a gestural controller and is aimed at getting younger people into the more fun/physical things that coding and tech can do. I’ve been pushing what this little, cheap product can…
Category: Tips and Tutorials
Springything Tutorial
My Springything has become a staple instrument wherever I go and whatever event it is I am at. The range and variety of noises and textures I’ve figured out how to conjure from this instrument always amaze me considering how simple an instrument it actually is. It works using one of the most basic…
How to make a basic dulcimer from one piece of wood!
Here’s a quick tutorial on how to make a quick, acoustic dulcimer from a single piece of wood… Start with a nice chunky bit of timber: Trim a piece off the end: Trim a thin piece off the top, the thinner the better as this will be your soundboard: This was much thicker than it…
Fret Placement Tutorial
I get asked quite often about how I figure out where to put the frets on my instruments. Building proper guitars takes incredibly precise measurements, the length of the neck and the height of the nut and all sorts of different factors go into measuring the exact placement of guitar frets. My stuff tends to…
The sweet spot tool.
I have 2 commissions coming to a close in the next few weeks, but in the meantime I’d like to share with you this tool I created. Now the maths and physics behind surface resonance and bridge placement in instruments is complicated. Especially if your instruments are a bit special, like mine. That’s why I…
Instructable on the Tennis Racketar
I’ve finally made a how-to on the Tennis Racketar that I made all those years ago, I’ve put it all up on Instructables for your viewing/learning pleasures. http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-a-Tennis-Racket-into-a-3-stringed-guitar/ I did another video too, although the playing skills are really no different!
How-To: The 5 minute tunable 1-stringed instrument
This is a quick how-to on how to build yourself the easiest/quickest tunable stringed instrument in the world out of bits you probably have lying around your house. The wire I used was from the inside of a washing line, however you can use a plethora of other types of wire/fishing line/old guitar strings etc….
A Note on DIY Tuning Pegs
Tuning pegs might be one of the trickiest parts of a stringed instrument to get right while still remaining DIY. There are easy, time tested methods of accurately and reliably tuning strings; such as a set of machine heads like these: Or zither pins (these are actually amazingly useful, I ordered 100 when I started out…
9V motor-electric-pickup with mono-slide
Most toys/gadgets/walkmans/tape players/electronic object that needs something to move will have a motor of some kind inside it. These can be easily turned into pickups thusly: The inside of the motor will look a bit like this, with the magnets around the edge and the coils around an axle in the middle: Drill a small…
The 10p Tuning Peg!
To me, the trickiest part to a completely DIY stringed instrument is the tuning pegs. Which is why I came up with this incredibly simple (and must have been done before somewhere) 10 pence tuning peg! UPDATE: I’ve written a new post on various tuning pegs ideas I’ve come up with, check it out here!…
