ProgKaZoo Quest Continues
Gray Builds the ProgKaZoo (Chapter II)
ProgKaZoo Quest: Day Two...
Went to Maplin and got the extra bits I wanted, which included buying some better cable which was not as thick and easier to use, some cable ties to secure the wire on the ProgKaZoo body and help to give a nicer finish to the instrument. I also thought I'd best buy some more tape, as you can never have too many rolls of tape cluttering up the house.
First job was to dismantle the ProgKaZoo V1 and try to clean up the jack plug socket, which I managed to not make a great job of, but I did my best in the time I had. After stripping the wires off and undoing the joins on the piezo mic, I was ready to start again. This time, I thought I'd build two ProgKaZoos. One will be given to Rich so we can have Theramin / ProgKaZoo battles and even do some mega-harmonies, which will sound so damn Prog, it's untrue. The POO-BAH himself will weep with joy.
This time, I read the instructions and information and found exactly what I'd screwed up last time. This time, I managed to sort out the unit quite fast this time and I tested the parts at each stage to make sure everything worked (without waking up number one son!) I almost ripped the wires off the mic, but I narrowly escaped disaster and a load of re-soldering at the last second, which was a blessed relief. This left the path clear to prepare the workings for the ProgKaZoo V2b so I would have two working microphones before mounting them both up to the kazoo bodies. Both microphones were working and looking great, thanks to going through the process quite a few time by this time! The first mic was then ready to be attached to the body.
Firstly, the wires leading from the main cable to the mic were taped up as neatly as I could in five minutes and with the distraction of watching 'Property Ladder' on the telly. I was going to use some heat shrink tube stuff, but I liked the rough and ready look of the tape. With this done, two black cable ties were used to secure the cable to the top of the body and tape was then wrapped and trimmed around it to form some sort of handle area and to give some strength to the wire anchoring of the cable ties (as the body of the kazoo is sloped, it needed something to keep the tie from slipping off.) After this was done, the mic was then taped to the top of the bit where the paper circle produces the kazoo sound... ProgKaZoo V2a was pretty much done. As you can see, Pocoyo approved.
The process was then started on ProgKaZoo V2b. There were few problems on this one, but by the time I'd secured the cable to the body, 'Grand Designs' was finishing and I wanted to go to sleep, so I left it there. There was one last test for the night, which involved basically tapping the top of each ProgKaZoo whilst plugged into the amp, to see if it popped cleanly, which they both did. As you can see from the photos, they're nearly done. I need to finish taping up the mic on ProgKaZoo V2b and then test them properly. I won't be able to do this tonight, unfortunately, but hopefully tomorrow evening. I also need another guitar lead so I can pipe them through the effects unit and rock some Prog effects on the ProgKaZoos. I also need to think of some subtly Prog decoration for the bodies of instruments. Something grand and lovely... which will probably end up being some shiny star stickers!
I'm hoping that when the amp is cranked up and the ProgKaZoo is played cleanly that the sound should be pretty good, but it'll only probably sound really cool when cranked up in the rehearsal room next week with some effects on it. The problem with testing quietly is that you need to give the kazoo a good blast to make it sound decent and then you need to amp it louder than the actual sound so you can get the effects and noise on it. Still, it should be very cool!
More news as it breaks... Keep it here, people!
Site Accessibility
© 2006 Graham T. Ebbrell