Cigar Box Piccolo Bass Guitar Finished

Today I installed both a salvaged magnetic straight coil pickup, and a second, piezo electric one in my piccolo bass cigar box guitar project.

No volume, switching or blending is provided on the box, just two adjacent output jacks. I can choose one or the other.

Or I can run one line to my old Roland Cube amp, and the other output to my bigger Fender Rumble LT25.

Blending is achieved by adjusting each amp’s volume and gain.

Both my student amps feature more than umpteen different model amps, plus compression, and many mediocre effects to try, as well as 3× several drum tracks on the Roland.

The possibilities are manifold. I’ll never get my dishes washed now.

So I’m calling this project completed, in so far as these projects are ever really finished.

Here’s the piezo before I installed the magnetic pickup. I covered over my old, unnecessary sound holes with masking tape to try for more acoustic volume because of the large size of my cutout.

It has some hum when using the old Behringer straight pickup, probably due to no box shielding.

I sure grounded the daylights out ot it, probably incorrectly. Any tips are welcome.

The piezo I salvaged from a BBG cigar box guitar kit and it sounds surprisingly good, but naturally acts as a loud drum when any part of the box is inadvertently tapped or scraped. Or breathed on.

Valuable training in finger control and useful for making drum tracks.

Note the field expedient twin washer string tree to try for a better angle. Irregular machine head spacing is not an issue.
And next is Organ Leroy, at his organ again.

It’s a hoot to run flanger on one amp and chorus on the other, tremolo + reverb, delay and compression together. Some combinations sound truly weird.

Adding this foam block under the pickup really boosted the signal. In fact I needed to compress the foam by tightening the mounting screws to calm it down.

Tone sample below used the Fender LT25 bass amp running chorus effect.

The variations would take years to listen to even once, some are melodious and some cacophony but it’s fun to explore.

The fretboard looks lots darker and prettier after lemon oil treatment.

Overall, the box has good tone and sounds very piccolo bass like, with good low end using the magnetic pickup, and clear sharp treble using the piezo.

And sounds never heard before are possible by blending the two pups and using effects.

Below is a pentatonic blues turnaround in A maj. Clanky and raw, better strings or wearing in these noisy roundwounds would mellow it out. Done staccato:

I just bought a TC Ditto looper and am eager to try it with this rig.

OK, bad bass playing afficionados, binge:

The box seems to sound best using the Fender’s Upright Bass mode, though sounding not very double bass like to my ruined ears.

Rumble mode, naturally, sounds good from the Rumble amp: and Hand of Doom also rocks. Drum tracks from my old Roland Cube, which sports some good ones.

Number 14, Chorus effect, is nice and can be heard above. Also can be heard above is Organ LeRoi’s fine tickling of the (virtual) ivories using the Organ mode effect, charming. Thanks.

Unless noted, all text, images, audio and video by todgermanica.com.

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