Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

One of the nice features of buying cheap, non-“virtuoso” style Indian musical instruments (or any musical instruments, for that matter, but Indian instruments seem to have the biggest low-budget marketshare) is that I don’t feel too terrible “hacking” them.  Yeah, it’d suck ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

This sunday, I made what turned out to be a pretty respectable set of attempts at recording some dhols. Not perfect, but it was certainly a step in the right direction. There’s scant little information on dealing with what is, to most western engineers, a fairly esoteric ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.


( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.




I finished it.

It took a few weeks, required a few redesigns, and it can probably stand for a few tweaks yet, but it’s up and running and sounds pretty decent.

It was an interesting project for me.  I am not known for my woodworking skills, and while I managed to hide ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

I am apologizing in advance to Wendy, the cats, and my neighbors.

I just ordered a dhol.

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

Well.

This is turning out to be slightly more difficult than I anticipated.

first, I’ve discovered that the bulbul tarang I’ve purchased is not, as I hoped, just a big empty box.  It has a few hidden pieces of chunky structural lumber in it.  This became a problem when ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

My bulbul tarang arrived over lunch.

It’s neat.  I can get it to make a respectable sound.  However, I need to make a few design improvements on it.

1. Tuning machines.  Dear god are zither keys annoying.
2. A few of the keys stick.  I need to sand them down so there’s more space ( Read more... )

Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.

After some hand-wringing about just what I could afford to buy, I broke down last week and bought a bulbul tarang - the Indian “wave of nightingales” insturment that’s sort of like the love child of an omniharp and a mountain dulcimer.   The hand-wringing occurred because a ( Read more... )