The Violog

by The Bottomless Paddling Pool

10K456

Intro: The Violog

A while ago I made the Violog as an instrument for my band to use. It's a cross between a violin and a log, hence the name...
The sound is picked up through a piezoelectric disc on the bridge.
All materials were dumpster dived or acquired from scrap bins in my workshop.
If you want to hear it in action you'll have to wait until we finish mixing our current album and then I'll post some links to a couple of youtube vids.
So far it has been played with the bow, a tennis ball, a hessian sack, by whacking it on the ground, hitting it with strings, scratching it with fingernails and bits of wood... The list goes on. It is a very sensitive instrument and capable of many different sounds. We always have it going through an FX box or pedal and everyone in the band plays it (at different times of course!).

Right now I'm making a 2 stringed bass from the violin body and an old busted up guitar, I'll post more slideshows soon with any hope.

Enjoy!

6 Comments

firedancer9191 13 years ago

can you get a video up of this instrument being played? I'd love to see it in action.

FutureMillennium 13 years ago

This is brilliant :) Do you have any sound clips of this?

thing 2 14 years ago

this is cool I can't wait to here it! I play violin!

jpond009 14 years ago

I have always been curious about making home-made/DIY electric instruments, what was the piezoelectric unit you used (and where can I get one), how does this sound (good quality sound)? Otherwise, it looks absolutely brilliant, uncomfortable to play maybe, but definitely awesome for awesome's sake!

The Bottomless Paddling Pool 14 years ago

The piezo was just a random one I found in some old electronics in a dumpster. I'm pretty sure you can use almost any piezo to get sounds from, the diameter may have an effect. Really, with me, everything I do is trial and error. I'd say to you to experiment, it's the best way. As long as the bow is rosined well it sounds much like a normal violin, only not excellent quality (I don't care about that, anyway), but still is pretty good for an untrained ear. As my band is based in the genre of noise we aren't too concerned with getting everything perfect in that sense. Regardless of that the FX we put the Violog through change the sound to whatever we want :)

robert.a.scheffler 14 years ago

While it doesn't appear this instrument would be capable of making a very pleasing sound...it just looks amazing. I love it as a project & would be interested to hear it in action. Great job!