Electric saw!

[ranchtooth]

Not really a guitar... a saw! Yes, a saw!

Played with a bow, its a genuinely weird sound! I'm trying to put together an amplified version of a saw, and need some help doing it.

What I'm wondering is if a guitar pickup fastened to the blade with its pole pieces in contact with the blade itself would pick up the vibration from the bow and be able to amplify it? Any thoughts or suggestions?

[dunkelfalke]

why not glue a piezo pickup to it?

a saw is an old russian folk instrument btw.

[ranchtooth]

I might give that a go in the future... What I've got on hand right now is a saw, an old humbucker out of a jackson, some wires and a mono jack. I think I'll rig this up with duct tape and EXPERIMENT!

[UnklMickey]

experimentation will be in order here. this is uncharted territory, at least for GuitarNuts2.

i think having the pole pieces in contact with the blade will not work well.

but i might be wrong.

definitely include in your experiment, attaching the pickup to the handle (via a bracket). the pickup would be suspended above, but not touching the saw blade. if the pickup too close to the handle, the vibrations on the blade will be too small, and the output will be weak. if the pickup is too far from the handle, the gap between the blade and the pickup will change dramatically when the blade is bent.

[ChrisK]

"Saw"tooth (ooohh now yer a "marked man", er a "marked handle" that is!) ;D

attaching the pickup to the handle (via a bracket). the pickup would be suspended above, but not touching the saw blade

Absolutely, the presence of your hand on the handle will help remove the effect of the added pickup mass from affecting the tone (ButWhatTheH do we'all know about saw-tone anyway ).

if the pickup too close to the handle, the vibrations on the blade will be too small, and the output will be weak.

Ya, but there be a lot of magnetic mass in the blade. (You did check to see if the blade is magnetically attractive as opposed to "just being shiny"?)

if the pickup is too far from the handle, the gap between the blade and the pickup will change dramatically when the blade is bent.

Sounds like you need a happy medium (be sure to pay her!)


You might try mounting the the length of the pickup in-line with the length of the blade as opposed to at a right angle to garner both the harmonics near the handle as well as the longer osculations down the blade.

Heck, try 'em all. I just don't want to see a TremoLeo mounted on it. ;D

[ChrisK]

a saw is an old russian folk instrument btw

I don't know. I'm an old Russian and I've never played one as a musical instrument (although I do tend to use a wood board fer my "bow").

'Course, in the full course of GAS, we'll need saws with hum/hum, hum/single/single, and single/singe/single pickup configs in both rip and crosscut.


I'm already working on my Jimmy Page model....

[dunkelfalke]

maybe because you are not THAT old russian

you'll read it in russian folk tales all the time, about someone in a village playing a пила - а woodsaw. nowadays it is pretty much reduced at some performances at the circus.

[ranchtooth]

That Jimmy page saw is brilliant Chris! We will need a Rick Nielsen model too, with 5 blades for maximum danger to the player.

My first test was with the pickup mounted at the handle with the pole pieces in contact with the metal. It did produce a sound, but it was very weak, and I had to crank my amp to get a strong tone. I'm gonna aim for the happy medium next, with the pickup not touching the metal.

I'm inspired by the marginal success of my first trial run, so I'm going to keep at it until I have a saw I can be proud of!

[ChrisK]

No, I'm just being myself. I have heard them played over the years.

Based on my father's description (he's an older Russian) I briefly fooled around with one when I was a teenager to little avail. He then said "that's nice, now get back to work cutting those boards." We didn't need to go to the gym in those days, we had hand saws and buckets of bricks and mortar.


And then we invented synthesizers......


He also had my brother and myself straightening used nails with a hammer and a brick when we were about 10 years old (he grew up during the depression) until my mother reminded him as to what wasn't good for him. The dialog began with "are you completely out of your mind....."

I think I'll rig this up with duct tape and EXPERIMENT!

Duct tape is like the Force.
It has a light side,
And a dark side,
And it holds the universe together.


However, in this case I'd use a stiff bracket a'screwed to the handle to mount the pickup. Stiffness will lead to better harmonic detection. A metal bracket would be best, but you could fashion a thin wood one (you DO have a saw after all).


Be sure to post your results on "SawNuts2"

[dunkelfalke]

He also had my brother and myself straightening used nails with a hammer and a brick when we were about 10 years old (he grew up during the depression) until my mother reminded him as to what wasn't good for him. The dialog began with "are you completely out of your mind....."

now that's strange. straightening used nails was normal practise for me when i still lived in the ussr as a child.

[JohnH]

We definitely need more musical tools in the woodshed, to go with all our axes.

I think to get the full sound out, you need the blade to be magnetically attractive, ie steel, which I suppose it is, plus, mount a guitar pup supported from a long bracket from the handle, to reach out to the middle of the saw, but not touching the blade.

The saw blade has no relative movement with the handle at the wide end, because it is rigid with it. This is totally different to a guitar string which moves from the bridge, as if it were hinged there. Hence theres no effective equivalent of a bridge pup in this electric saw!.

cheers
John

[UnklMickey]

chrisk said:

...Heck, try 'em all. I just don't want to see a TremoLeo mounted on it. ;D

IMHO the whole thing IS a TremoLeo.

chrisk said:

...And then we invented synthesizers....

and the theremin.

[UnklMickey]

johnh said:

...
The saw blade has no relative movement with the handle at the wide end, because it is rigid with it. This is totally different to a guitar string which moves from the bridge, as if it were hinged there. Hence theres no effective equivalent of a bridge pup in this electric saw!.

cheers
John

Hey John,

it's exactly the same..................only different.

i sorta think, right at the edge of the handle, the blade will be quite nearly silent.

but, as you move away, there will probably be a region, somewhat similar to the near-bridge area on a string. modest in amplitude, and rich in harmonics.

of course, i'm just guessing.

chrisk said:

...Be sure to post your results on "SawNuts2"

or TotallyNutz2

[avoriaz]

Mounting the pickup on the saw blade will not work as the pickup will move with the blade. You need to mount the pickup in a fixed position and allow the saw blade to vibrate close to it, preferably along the long axis of the top smooth edge.

Mount a rigid wire frame to the handle extending all the way along the edge of the blade. Then mount the pickup to this wire in such a way that you can slide it along to any position. This will allow you to select bridge, middle and neck equivalent positions by sliding the pickup. You will need to have an adequate locking mechanism for the pickup to prevent lateral or rotational movement that will seriously degrade the sound.

If the saw is non magnetic, you could attach an electric guitar string to it and allow that to transmit the vibration to the pickup. You will need to choose the gauge of the string carefully as if it is too heavy it may degrade the natural tonal qualities and harmonics of the saw blade.

[RandomHero]

Even though I'm imagining the bowed sawblade to not have that much of a displacement, if the blade has any ferrous content at all, it'll feed the pup en masse. Guitar pickups are tuned to sense a string less than a hundredth of an inch around! A big slab of vibrating iron will make one -loud- signal coming through your average pup, if placed a comparable distance as you might from strings.

Keep in mind the same physics apply here that add to or subtract from the sustain of an instrument. The less moving parts, the better; solid construction leaves no gaps for you to lose kinetic energy in.

Better make sure that handle is good tonewood/toneplastic/toneimpactrubber.

[ranchtooth]

So far things are working out, with one small snag; When attempting to bend the saw to the highest notes, the area where the pickups are... picking up.. is dampened from vibration from the curve of the steel, making the high notes exceptionally weak. The obvious solution would be to extend the pickups further along the blade, but that would result in bending the blade causing the pickups to come in contact with the metal...

Im considering several courses of action: 1) to use a treble booster pedal with the saw, while cutting some mid and bass on the amp.

2) to rig up some kind of piezo pickup system

and 3) to give up and play acoustic. option 3 is not an option!

[gfxbss]

i would go w/ a stick on piezo. it seems much less of a hassle unless you already have a treble booster. although i must admit, it would be fun to put that thing through a daisy chain of pedals.

[Ripper]

Eddie Van Halens been playing his " Frankinsaw" for years guys!


Sorry, I had too! ;D