» MAKE: NOISE — Discuss this article

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• Home-made instruments rock! (sry for the pun)
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  Home-made instruments have always fasinated me. I even made my own sewer-pipe flute. To play an instrument the best you can, you have to understand the principles, science, and history involved. The best way to do most of that is to make your own!

  Posted by MCPhilip on November 10, 2005 at 20:48:56 Pacific Time

• Alternate tuners?
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  I am having the hardest time finding eye bolts in London. Anyone have any good ideas for alternate tuners that you could find in a hardware store? I may try super-gluing a wing nut onto the end of a regular bolt... I've tried something like this without gluing the wing nut, but I keep shredding the string.

  Posted by Ben77 on November 14, 2005 at 05:22:37 Pacific Time

• Thanks!
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  I made one on these about two years ago and use it as a slide guitar, since
  I could never figure out a good way to do the frets or pickup. Until now.
  
  The action and frets are pretty high which gives its a great twangy, wavery Indian sound, like a tamboura, so I think the next step is to install some sympathetic strings inside the cigar box to make an Electric Cigar Box Sitar

  Posted by cookalexv on November 21, 2005 at 06:34:17 Pacific Time

• Electric Version to Computer?
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  In the little video I thought I heard him say he was going to add the pickup and connect it to his computer? How would I go about doing this and what software would I need?

  Posted by Nygerman on November 26, 2005 at 12:14:55 Pacific Time

• Bart Hopkin
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  If you are interested in building instruments I recommend Bart Hopkin's 'Musical instrument design' .
  It is not only a very easy read for novices, but it is very educational for someone who has been a player for years.
  It is not so much a step-by-step as a discussion on the principles, this means you can make what you like based on a sound theoretical foundation.
  
  I am not him BTW ;)
  

  Posted by Angstrom on December 08, 2005 at 08:42:53 Pacific Time

• alternative frets
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  some more minimalistic frets can be made by supergluing square wooden toothpicks on the fretboard. this actually works well with non-metallic strings.

  Posted by yanggers on December 09, 2005 at 10:55:59 Pacific Time

• Alternate Tuning Suggestion
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  After building two CBG's over the holidays (dueling CBG's) with a fellow Maker, we found that tuning the tenor string to an A led to a high velocity (dangerous) string break. One (tested) alternate tuning for the CBG is E (bass), B (middle), E (Tenor).
  
  Make (safely)on,
  wispyhair.

  Posted by wispyhair on January 03, 2006 at 07:46:28 Pacific Time

• Cigarbox Guitar Video
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  That guy's awesome. I made one my self, but after seeing the video I think I screwed up somewhere. XD

  Posted by evil_zman on January 26, 2006 at 19:26:38 Pacific Time

• Why not use a traditional design?
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  Warning: rant ahead!
  
  First, I'll confess that I didn't actually read the original article in the print version of the magazine. Much of that decision has to do with the pictures I saw, and the pictures that I continue to see.
  
  Most cigar box guitars work like an actual guitar: the strings are either attached to the thin wooden top of cigar box (at the "bridge"), or press down directly on the thin wooden top of the cigar box (again, at the "bridge"). The thin wood of the box is a bit like a membrane: it vibrates, causing amplification of the string vibration.
  
  All of the designs I've seen connected the the Make project miss this point entirely, as if the makers have a fundimental lack of understanding of how a wooden stringed instrument such as a guitar of a violin works.
  
  Much of the excitement of making such instruments is learning about a Helmholtz resonator, and about how the vibrations in all parts of the instrument are coupled to each other through physical contact, and how all of this is very accessable to the maker: small variations in design cause very noticable changes in the sound of the instrument. The maker has so much control!
  
  All of this is lost your design. Okay, such a design simplifies the construction... less cutting and aligning, higher probability of success. But to me, the trade off is just too great. The whole point of being a maker is that complex and exciting things are accessable to me... I can tinker with them, and learn to control them. I can have successes and failures that teach me things. I'm not just a consumer who accepts what it given to me as the only option. I never accept the watered down, dumbed down oversimplified version of anything. When I see an object, I see possibility.
  
  I had hoped that Make magazine would be for the me the maker, but looking at your cigar box guitar, it looks to me like the magazine is more for the fifth grade science fair: it's the dumbed down, easy version that fails to excite the maker after day one.
  
  Am I missing any reasons you don't use the traditional bridge-on-the-box design?
  
  Tim Dellinger

  Posted by tmdellinger on February 15, 2006 at 09:37:41 Pacific Time

• question about string...
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  I can't find #15 Mason Twine in any hardware store in San francisco, they only carry #18 and everything else. Any suggestion other than the hardstore? If I switch to use the real guitar string instead , do I also need to install the real guitar pegs too? Thanks!

  Posted by ChiT on March 15, 2006 at 12:11:49 Pacific Time

• Thanks
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  I've built two CBGs so far, one based on your article and one improvising a bit on what I learned the first time around. I have some pictures of the second one, and to celebrate finishing it I recorded this.
  
  Thanks for writing the article. It's brought me great fun.

  Posted by Dji on May 07, 2006 at 18:17:47 Pacific Time

• Piezo Buzzer Problem
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  My son and I had fun making a CBG, but the piezo buzzer pickup was a complete failure. We tried three different piezos, and tried running them through a small Fender guitar amp, but we never heard a sound from it. Has anyone actually made this work? Is there a trick to it that we missed?
  
  Thanks, and keep'em coming.

  Posted by abostwick on May 11, 2006 at 20:14:11 Pacific Time

• Ed - Thanks for a great project.
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  Ed,
  
  I would like to personally thank you for a great project. Reading about the CBG brought back all of the fun that I had as a young boy putting together similar devices out of cigar boxes, nails, and kite string. Only problem as a kid is that I never quite knew how to tune the darn things. You've neatly patched that hole in knowledge. I'm collecting parts for my new electric CBG right now and will get back to you with an update once I've put the thing together.
  
  Mike A.

  Posted by silvernitrate on January 31, 2007 at 18:02:25 Pacific Time

• Radio Shack piezo transducer pickup
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  Help - I'm getting lots of feed back on my cigar box guitar and I don't know what to do!!
  I put two Radio Shack piezo pickups in my cigar box guitar. Wiring was simple, red to red, black to black, red to positive on input jack, black to negative on input jack. Should there be another ground?? Any suggestions<<

  Posted by ride07 on July 20, 2008 at 10:31:16 Pacific Time