DIY Music Box Pickup

Have you written an awesome song on your DIY music box?
Do you want to digitize and cherish it forever?

I have made a pickup to the DIY music box by ThinkGeek, so that it can be plugged into any computer to record your composition.

Step 1 Get your Block

To enhance and provide a base for my pickup, I used a large wooden block.
I chose wood because wood is a very good acoustic medium.
Just place your music box on a wood table, and you will hear the sound amplify and come from the table, not just the music box

I'm not sure what kind of wood this is, i tried a couple and this seemed best. Experiment with what you have.

Comments

[zs]

could have used a piezo element

[tekija]

I am not shure is it very wise soundwise to use electret microphone as contanct mic. Would it be better to use real contact microphones? They are not even more expensive. Well... Might sound better with ofcouse, but I boubt it. You should try that too.

[bishely]

i agree. electrets will work ok, but a piezo or something would be better. and if the purpose is just to plug in to a computer to record compositions, then using the woodblock as a resonator is unnecessary - you might as well just stick the electret mic to a straw with plasticine, jam the straw into a base made of plasticine, and hit record. the woodblock resonator idea might be useful if you wanted to use your music box live alongside loud instruments (although it'd probably be better to sample the notes and play back from a keyboard, which is less likely to break and ruin your set)... also, with a solid lump of wood you're bound to lose a lot of high frequency detail. all the same though, nice idea. set me thinking anyways...

[jeff-o]

Looks like a plain old spruce 2x4 to me!

[jaxthecob]

Very sorry about that. Title fixed!

[alex-sharetskiy]

the first picture is slightly misleading

[Cartermarquis]

The title is slightly misleading as well. It should be more like, "DIY Music Box Pickup".