Marxoguitar

[newey]

Ashcatlt's recent foray into the Doors, and specifically "Alabama Song", triggered some old memories. My first rock and roll LP was the first Doors album, which I purchased at age 10 when it was first released in 1967. Up to then, I had only bought 45s.

I recalled knowing, at the time, that Ray Manzarek had played some odd instrument on "Alabama Song", but I couldn't recall what it was. Forty years ago, I might have lost sleep wondering what it was, but nowadays, it's Google to the rescue. It was a "Marxophone".

And, as usual, Googling one thing usually leads to another. In this case, the Marxophone led me to the "Marxoguitar", which I thought was interesting.

www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/4368328625/in/photostream/

I expect that 4real will soon have a build thread going on one of these . . .

[sumgai]

A better shot of what it can do:





Some history here:

home.comcast.net/~rblang/marxo/marxop.htm


Google didn't show me any new ones being made as of today, but there are probably 4 dozen or so up for sale on eBay.


Nice find, newey!

[Deleted]

Hmmm it strikes me how close this is to an instrument called "santouri" played by Greeks of Asia Minor.

Here is a girl from Asia Minor playing santouri :

[4real]

Jul 27, 2013 8:21:34 GMT -5 newey said:

Ashcatlt's recent foray into the Doors, and specifically "Alabama Song", triggered some old memories. My first rock and roll LP was the first Doors album, which I purchased at age 10 when it was first released in 1967. Up to then, I had only bought 45s.

I recalled knowing, at the time, that Ray Manzarek had played some odd instrument on "Alabama Song", but I couldn't recall what it was. Forty years ago, I might have lost sleep wondering what it was, but nowadays, it's Google to the rescue. It was a "Marxophone".

And, as usual, Googling one thing usually leads to another. In this case, the Marxophone led me to the "Marxoguitar", which I thought was interesting.

www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/4368328625/in/photostream/

I expect that 4real will soon have a build thread going on one of these . . .

LOL...that is very cool. The gizmotron used to make sounds like this if put on slow or pick off some of the rotary pics...how do I know...cause many years ago I made one out of an electric toothbrush hahaha

I'd always dreamed of a 'sitar' effect made a bit like a 'damper' that one could lift up under the strings right next to the bridge...better than trying to balance a paperclip 'just right' as I'vbe been known to do. Or thread a bit of foil between the strings for a 'banjo effect'...

But alas, this would play havoc withthe damping technique now wouldn't it...still, interesting...

At one time, someone was selling a tiny curved 'bow' so you could violin a guitar...I wonder what efecr happened to that idea...perhaps someone will bring back the mechanisim for the wirly-gig with rotary bows to give endless 'sustin'...doh...!!!

I wonder though if you couldn't get a similar effect electronically some how as an effect pedal, and if so, if anyone would want it?

[ashcatlt]

Well, I completely missed this thread!

I was told that it was a "tack piano" on the Doors version, but watching sumgai's link there, it's pretty obvious.

My first ever real-world job was in 1993 at a record store/headshop/"cool kids shop" downtown called the Electric Fetus. There we sold, for no apparent reason, all kinds of actual music gear including the cheapest guitar strings in town, Rickenbacker guitars (is how I got mine), ProCo pedals, and etc...

One of the things that we had in that area of the shop was this contraption that I think stuck to the guitar via suction cups that had keys and hammers for striking the strings much like you see there. This one was made of black plastic, and I don't think it was meant to bounce repeatedly like this. I remember we busted it out of the package to try it out one day, and kind of wrote it off as a novelty. I have no idea who manufactured it, or what it was called, but we got our "accessories" from the Kaman distributor. For years I've wished I could get my hands on one just for the giggles, but I cannot come up with anything meaningful in the way of search terms.