Pure Acoustic Stompbox

[Trevor Gore]

I have an enquiry for a purely acoustic stomp box, something that will give a wooden porch type sound on a concrete floor, as rhythm accompaniment for acoustic guitar, played standing, i.e. the player stands on the box, so it must bear the player's total weight. I'm thinking of something about 600mm square. Anyone built one of these? Timbers? Dimensions? I'm trying to avoid an extended development program!!

Cheers, Trevor.

[Nick]

I think Luke is the man you may need for this task Trevor, he's into all things unusual, recycled & folky.Try PM'ing him as I haven't seen him on here for a while.

[Mark McLean]

Hi Trevor
This video will probably give you some ideas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvXNv4XX ... re=related

This is an interesting and simple cigar-box foot drum idea. http://www.chicagofretworks.com/2008/06 ... -stompbox/

Not exactly a stomp box, but there are some cool ideas that you could steal from the Farmer brand of pedals and foot drums http://www.footdrums.com/

I saw Chris Smither live a while ago. He uses a lot of foot percussion and just brings a square of plywood to the gig and places a mike on a small stand to pick up the foot-taps.
cheers
Mark

[Tod Gilding]

This Could Possibly help Trevor

http://www.ellisguitars.com.au/stompbox.html

[Luke]

Thought I would chime in as Nick mentioned not been about for a while i may have some ideas but alas just for a straight out acoustic version with no amplification not gone down that route other than a hat box kick drum played like a normal kick drum.

If you want a low bass duff sound than it has to have some hight and size to get that sound also strong enough to stand on
so experimenting with cheap ply would be my how i would go see what kind of sound you get I know from experiments with an amplified set ups timber type doesn't make any difference. Hard to see you getting a sound other than basic tapping or mid range duff unless its a big box, just like a bass string instrument.

the simplest way and I have a friend whom performs on a piece of marine ply 19mm it's be big enough to stand on and move around a bit its on some rails three sides 20/30 mm high open at the back, think a big rectangle lid, and you put under one those old Tandy/Realistic PZM microphones it works a treat and cheap as chips if you already own the mic.
with this set up it is not to high easy to cart around. I read that Jeff Lang has used similar a road case lid and used an expensive crown PZM mic.
Hope this is of help.
Have recently finished another crazy instrument for the Recycled String Band perhaps you guys might want a look.
Cheers Luke

[Trevor Gore]

Thanks Nick, Mark, Tod and Luke.

Still not sure whether or not to take this on. Currently I'm thinking a ported box ~600mm square and about 100mm high. Top of ply, 8-10mm thick, bottom of ply ~3mm thick, with some feet to keep the bottom raised an inch or two. The idea is that the bottom and top couple to give a lower box frequency than you might otherwise get. Should work in theory, but in practice, I reckon you've got to build one and see!

Thanks for the ideas.

[Jeremy D]

Hi Trevor,

I have a friend who has a single pedal one of these. It is quite loud un-amplified and has a good base drum like sound. I tried it sitting on it playing guitar and it was a load of fun.

http://www.threeworlds.com.au/store/pro ... Cajon.html

[woodrat]

Jeremy D beat me to it but I thought that I would post too...Mark Apsland certainly gets some groovy sounds out of that box of his. He displays each year at the National Folk Festival and basically plays it for four days to demo it....Its a great thing...and he can really play it.

John

[Trevor Gore]

Thanks, Jeremy and John. Some potential there, me thinks...