Tatsumi's minimal guitar

Saw yesterday in the gallery -able a noise concert by Tatsumi Ryusui and Kyota Koyama - and here are a few pictures of Tatsumi's home made guitar, plus some of the effects and other sound generators he uses.

Doppelcaster project | stage 6.2

Melobaritone project 3

Melobaritone project: gear

I had the opportunity to acquire this  B-stock Steinberger-like tremolo that will fit perfectely to the Melobaritone project - yes it is now a concrete project, I decided to go for it (have to find a better name though, this is not a Melobar copy anymore)! 

I've been thinking about the aluminium neck (with some help from the  Aluminium T-beam Guitar blog) and consider a.o. a tubular neck - since a fretboard is unnecessary -, a little bit like on a Gittler guitar.

Doppelcaster project | stage 6.1

Doppelcaster project | stage 5

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Doppelcaster project | stage 4

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Melobaritone project 2

I started to work on the Doppelcaster but my brain is still busy with the Melobaritone idea... I did put some more thinking on it, and updated the project (I want a new instrument, not just a Melobar copy).

First I would do it with an aluminium neck - there's no need to build something as complicated as a regular wooden neck with a truss rod, and I've always been interested in alu neck, so building an alternative guitar is a good opportunity to try it. Also I would put a Floyd Rose trem (with an headless system) - I used one for the first time last month and really enjoyed it.

One would object that a trem on a slide guitar is superfluous, this is true if you play old school blues, but for me it's more like a two-in-one instrument - for a noise maker such as I am, the sound of extremely distended strings is very interesting, and since I wouldn't purchase a guitar just for its Floyd Rose, I'll take this occasion.

I could easily put in this project all the gear I bought for the neckless guitar - it's been on stand-by for months now - and make it my next project after the doubleneck one...

Z. Cat auto-wah pedal

Got myself a Z. Cat auto-wah pedal - I've noticed this brand of hand-made pedals from Latvia a while ago, and decided to try this one - and I'm not disappointed. I still have to play it on a tube amp but so far it has a beautiful sound with overdrive - I will have to find the right settings for clean sound but I don't use this so much anyway...

So I keep feeding noise music with psychedelic vintage analog effects and I'm quite happy with it!

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Doppelcaster project | stage 3

Doppelcaster project | stage 2

The Doppelcaster project was quickly decided and is already on its track: after designing it last month, I have now most of the material - the 2 Squiers Teles, and GFS pickups and gear freshly shipped from the US. Tomorrow I will start to dismantle them and remove the finish - but I have to find my woodwork book to  start the serious stuff (and I have to learn how to sold a humbucker). Any advice is welcome!

Melobaritone project

My latest infatuation is the Melobar, a portable lap steel guitar conceived in the 60s by Melobar and released a.o. by Mosrite - and revived lately by Manson for John Paul Jones. 

I think that this instrument is probably less difficult to build than a regular guitar, because it evacuates the whole neck/ fret/ scale/ fretboard/ radius issue - more or less you nail the gear on a planck and you have a lap steel! Actually I never played a lap steel guitar, but I like bottleneck a lot, and I think that learning how to play a new instrument is easier than to go over my limitations as a guitarist (it worked with bass).

So a home-made Melobar could be a cool project - it would be a baritone to create an instrument that doesn't exist, I see it with six-string so I can use regular gear - a wraparound bridge, a mini-humbucker and a lipstick pickup both in bridge position, a telecaster control plate... 

That's an exciting idea, will see if it can make an exciting project - I have other ones cooking...

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concert review: The Dead Weather in Huxleys Neue Welt, Berlin

A few days ago I was at the concert of the Dead Weather in Berlin - a quite amazing performance I must say. I've been following the Kills for a while now, so when Alison Mosshart joined the Dead Weather, I was quite curious about this new band - though I never really listened to the White Stripes, the Queens of the Stone Age or the Raconteurs.

The Dead Weather have been posting great live videos on the Web so for a while I was happy just with them and bought their first album just a few months ago - and realised that they were more than just another supergroup à la Them Crooked Vulture (though I'd like to see them on stage too actually).

Anyway, the concert was really impressive, everything seemed really thought and mastered, but the whole thing kept spontaneous and emotional. Usually I'm just interested in the music but the stage set - a giant eye in a baroque architecture painted on  a canvas and lit with black light - and the light show were sharp and beautiful, contributing to the strong atmosphere. I love the almost primitive simplicity of the Dead Weather's music, and Mosshart's voice and stage presence are at the core of it. Having superstar Jack White as a side man creates a strange tension, because thus she can never really be the central focus, also with Dean Fertita being essential playing guitar and keyboards.

This night's version of Will There Be Enough Water? was mind-blowing - it's the only quiet song in a quite energetic set, and then White handles his infamous custom white Gretsch Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird for a beautiful and powerful solo, his only one of the concert - more was not necessary (I checked afterward different live versions of the song on YouTube, I can tell that the Berlin one was exceptional).

Didn't see a rock concert with guitars for a long time - I think that all my last concerts were about electronic ultranoise - and I'm happy I waited for something so good - though it doesn't console me of having missed PJ Harvey + John Parish last year!

A last thing, the sound engineers of Harvey's Neu Welt sabotaged the sound of the opening act, like often. People who do that are pure morons. They have all the material, they could do a proper job even if the guys are not world famous. Wonder if these people even care about music.

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