Big Axe Bass - Tool Using Animal Instrument of Mass Intonation

Speak softly and carry a big shtick. Reflect on the musings of our street philosophizer Tool Using Animal. Poetry with a driving beat...and beatitude. That's what this manly thumping stick is for. Pump out the rhythym and be one with the universe(of course, you might need a Stargate gong to accent the harmony).

From it's humble beginnings as an old replacement tire tube long forgotten on the garage shelf and pieces of scrap lumber collecting dust, make this instrument of mass intonation, The Big Axe Bass. OK, it only has one "string" but it sings in the lower registers.

Add a simple piezo pickup to this and amplify the signal to broadcast to those beyond earshot "Behold the Big Axe Bass of Righteousness, make one to spread the groove, as long as it is not rap...maybe disco too"

WARNING: Do not crank the amp up to 11. May signal Armageddon and/or your nasty neighbor who doesn't appreciate good music at three in the morning. Subsonic booms do carry further in open environments.  Has not been used to stun fish. Word.

Note: Video was taken with one hand holding the camera while the other hand was playing with the Big Axe Bass set down on a table.  I had tried to chew gum at the same time and it didn't work.

BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL:  FOR THE FIRST THREE  PEOPLE TO POST A VIDEO IN THE COMMENTS OF THEM PLAYING A BIG AXE BASS THATTHEY MADE, I WILL GIVE  A 3-month PRO MEMBERSHIP from my stash from being featured a lot.  BONUS POINTS TO THE ONE I THINK MOST CREATIVELY MODS THE BASIC DESIGN, YEAH, KNEX MIGHT WORK... EXTRA BONUS POINTS FOR PLAYING IT DRESSED UP LIKE GENE SIMMONS FROM THE ROCK GROUP KISS.

Step 1 Shoplifting list

One bicycle inner tube - doesn't really matter if you prefer schrader or presta valves or if the tire can hold air or not.  Mine was actually sitting on a utility shelf in the garage for about 20 years or more, that's the last time I rode my little red Bottechia road bike.  I guess I am not as crazy as I used to be when I was riding around in the streets of Brooklyn...wait...

A long piece of wood 1"x3"x6'. Fancy if you have oak or another exotic wood.

Another scrap of wood, a block 2"x4"x"6" or whatever cutoff you have to act as the bridge of our bass guitar.

A cardboard box  big enough to make a reasonable facsimilie of an axe head.

Piezo buzzer pickup - I'll show you how to make one
(piezo buzzer, shielded 2 conductor cable or speaker wire, 1/4" plug to fit instrument input jack on instrument amplifier or female 1/4 jack to fit instrument cord to amplifier)

Soldering iron and solder( Lead and earthquake warning for residents of California, tag not to be removed under penalty of law)

Instrument amplifier - may work plugged into a set of computer speakers, haven't tried to see how well the piezo pickup works on the mic or line input of a computer sound card.

Some black or red construction paper, glue

Aluminum duct sealing tape to mimic the metal edge of the axe

No woodworking skillz or tools necessary, hopefully


CAUTION: Working with sharp tools is only fun when no one gets hurt. Exercise care and know how to use your tools. Wear eye protection.
 

Comments

[Pumpkin$]

Pickups=?

[caitlinsdad]

Not sure what your question/comment is.
Regular electronic coil guitar pickups/transducers cannot be used because there is no moving metal parts like the string vibrating above it. The guitar string here is the rubber inner tube. The piezo element acts like a microphone picking up the sound vibrations to amplify.

[Pumpkin$]

That's literally what I meant, I didn't know how it functioned without a metal string..

[abadfart]

the piezo uses the vibration of the body to generate the sound

[ilpug]

i wonder what it would sound like if you put guitar strings inside the inner tube...

[ilpug]

oak is an exotic wood?

[caitlinsdad]

Only if you read that sentence real fast.

It would be a finer instrument if you use a better quality/grade other than pine. Oak has more figure/grain and is denser. Exotic woods are usually not stocked by the home centers where they only carry the more common pine, spruce, fir, maple, oak, poplar.

[ilpug]

ok, gotcha. Oak is a great wood to build stuff out of, but when i think of exotic wood i think of zebra wood or mahogany or something. its all good.

[Hibatchi cow]

i am really wishing i had a souldering iron right know. I'd get one but my budget sucks.

[ilpug]

solder with a lighter and a nail. super ghetto, but it works.

[Tool Using Animal]

I'm honored.

Slightly dismayed and scared.

But mostly honored.

And as such, I'll match Caitlinsdad's offer.  3 free months on top of his 3 for the first 3 videos.

PS.  CD, lemme know who those 3 are in case I forget.

[caitlinsdad]

Tool is way too cool.

[Tool Using Animal]

Nobody's stepped up? Sad, I'm going to have to expire my offer. Sorry folks, gonna send them out to some cyberfriends.

[caitlinsdad]

That's fine, seems no one bit on the others I also put up. Maybe there needs to be an instructable on doing something you saw in an instructable and how to post back that you did it. Oh wells. If you need a few codes to pass on, lemme know, I have no cyberfriends *sigh*

[Tool Using Animal]

I"m your cyberfriend. ~sniffle~

Thanks, but I have years worth. I could be registered free through March 2014 if I wanted.

[doubleshockz]

nice now i can chop wood and play music at the same time.... i like this u got my vote

[caitlinsdad]

Thx, You gotta have the chops for it.

[rhoddity]

*facepalm*

[jeff-o]

+10 points for use of humorous innuendo. LOL.

[caitlinsdad]

_{* in Southern drawl, not that there's anything wrong with that *} Why jeff-o, whatever do you mean?

[Lithium Rain]

Ah resemble that there re-mahk.

[caitlinsdad]

But I reckon you were always a question mark,...well, at least questionable.

[altair ibn la ahad]

needs better pickups

[caitlinsdad]

Gotta fool around with where to place the pickup. My digital camera taking a video doesn't have a mic-in so direct recording would have sounded much better. But hey, an essentially "free" pickup if you have the parts.

[altair ibn la ahad]

i had one on my custom strat but my dad sold it

[noahh]

Very well done. I have been working on making a contact mic from a piezo disk, and when I finish, maybe I'll try something like this.

[caitlinsdad]

It is very simple to do. I think you can solder directly onto the disk itself. It is pretty sensitive when you crank up the amp.

[noahh]

The biggest problem is that the only amp I have (and the only one I can afford) is a hacked RadioShack 9-volt pocket amp, and it's so bad that it's often hard to tell whether my project doesn't work or if it's just the amp.

[The Ideanator]

Very nice, I can see a very sweet instrument coming out of this with some tweaking and multiple channels/pickups.

[caitlinsdad]

I guess you can also go traditional washtub basin acoustic. Cutting the tube would have gave me thinner rubber bands to work with, probably a better tone.