The space bass.
The director of Und had specified in his script that he wanted a low drone at the beginning of the play. Seth and I had a bit of a problem with this as we really didn't have anything that we could use to make one. There is no PA in the space so all of the sounds have to be created acoustically.
In the end I came up with this. It's a triangular tube about 8 feet tall with a 3mm wire stretched from end to end with a couple of sound holes cut into the front.
Not being a luthier (or anything near) this thing is a bit of a nightmare in many ways. The string is tied to a small bar of wood at each end and then runs between two tines of a fork. The other end of the fork is pushed against the bar of wood - this means when the string is tightened the tension actually holds the wood in place - that is as long as there are some other bits and pieces of wood and metal exerting pressure on the fork and the wood and the case of the bass itself.
It's great when it works, but the string attachments generally have to be rebuilt before every performance. All the pieces of wood on the floor are alternative bridges and nuts for it - this is because I never know how tight the string will be after I have fixed it up so I never know how big a bridge or nut I will need.
The sound is quite cool though - very low pitch and has a similar timbre to a cello, although it is not very loud. Having built this thing I am going to look into techniques involved in building real acoustic instruments.
The sound for Und seems to have been received really well by the audiences and as a team we all seem to be getting on and hitting our cues perfectly now. Tonight we have two performances and then one more tomorrow until it is time to pack up and put the space bass in the bin where I found the reinforced plastic to make it from in the first place.
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