I am imagining a HD controlled Hurdy-Gurdy. Get one with 12 strings and a rotating Rosined Disc… holy crap.
Note about this design, I noticed the beefyness of your bridge. if you made the bridge ALOT thinner and out of something lightweight and strong (traditionally maple) you’d get alot more volume.
Awesome Prototype!
I love hacked together instruments!

@spork.
Are you seriously posting using my name?

While that is a cool concept, I prefer a real guitar. For the major advantage of finger picking, I can hit like 5-6 notes in the time that it takes to hit one on the multichord.

“While that is a cool concept, I prefer a real guitar. For the major advantage of finger picking, I can hit like 5-6 notes in the time that it takes to hit one on the multichord.”

What, an instrument that’s been around for hundreds of years is more fully developed than one that someone developed recently?

My main concern is that he seems to have limited musical knowledge… He claims a 12 note scale with ‘no sharps or flats.’ His tonic is ‘c at 220 hz’ His writeup suggests this is misspoken, as his charts have 220hz correctly named as A.

I’d be much more interested in this project if there was some sort of feedback, as the string will undoubtedly stretch with use and cause his instrument to go flat, as his project depends on applying pre-measured voltage values.

@Spork #2

While a guitar is a cool concept, I prefer a piano. I can hit like 10 notes in the time that it takes to hit 5-6 on the guitar. :)

It’s a proof of concept- perhaps in a later design it will produce computer controlled sounds that a guitar can’t. No need to be disparaging.

kinda odd the device is called a multichord, but yet cant play a single chord

whatever, kinda neat just from the tech side of it

@Sobachatina
I just meant that as personal preference, not an attack on the multichord. I love the piano as well, but I was thinking in terms of a string-type instrument.

@Aged Cheddar
Haha, I figured someone would call me on that. It is actually why I called it a string-type instrument instead of the actual category “stringed”. Can’t very well use finger picking on a piano though, can we?

“That would be infeasible with the current fixed resistors; suggestions?”

Use PWM or a DAC(Resistor ladder?) from a microcontroller.

Might it be more accurate to say the string is attached to the hard drive arm? (It bothers me when people refer to the entire hard drive arm as “the head”.)

you would have wasted it anyway

:)

Ugh this is very underwhelming. I guess this is what you post while waiting for the iPad unboxing.

I was getting into it during the intro and then he played the thing. How utterly boring. It’s quiet, it can’t tune many notes because of the tension required and the relative weak strength of a RW head. Just not really the best application for this.

There’s nothing multi or chord about it,
however, it’s a nice hack.

“Technically the piano is a stringed or string-type instrument. ;) JK – I know/surmise that you meant portables like ukes, fiddles/violins and guitars.”

@Aged Cheddar – if you’re going to nit pick, the Piano is classified as a percussion instrument since it has hammers hitting the strings to create the sound (i.e percussive).

“take off the lid, and set it on its side, pick away”

@osgeld – try picking the bottom C on a piano a couple of hundred times. Better still, try it with top C and really give it some wellie, like you’re playing guitar – oh and keep a bowl of ice under the piano to catch your fingers as they slice off.