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Topic: Any sitar owners out there? |
David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 18 Apr 2009 3:50 am |
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Devil-Dave Easley had an idea for a real-er "sitar" bar - not just a flat-spotted round bar. He has an actual gig in an Indian restaurant now (nothing like getting PAID to experiment on the clients, sez the Nazi doctor....  ) If anyone has a sitar, can you please measure/guess an approximate radius of the curve of the bridge? For reference porpoises, an old, old Fender fingerboard had a 7.25" radius, and newer guitars go from 10" - 16".
My initial idea would be a delrin bar that would look like a 1.375"-high guitar pick, in cross-section. But getting the curve of the sides just right will be important. (With a varying radii, you could use it from either side and have a great deal of control over the buzziness.) I'm going to do a few pine->maple mockups before dedicating myself to Delrin Fury - the stuff is ANTI-abrasive, not PRO-abrasive... personally, I just do the 5 millisecond - 95% repeat electronic fakie-sitar when the urge strikes, which is darn infrequent. I was looking at this pic (1/2 way down), but any more pix or better yet a real measurement/guesstimate would be greatly appreciated:
http://www.chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/sitar/sitar_making.html
The Ease-Man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI19M5cZ4rk
No there's only one of them - weep, chops  -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw2b73Yk7Hk&feature=related |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 18 Apr 2009 4:42 am
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| I'm not following you--I could take photos but I'm not sure what you need--they would pretty much be the same shots that you see in the chandrakantha link. And I can estimate radii but...of what? The frets, the nut, the bridge? (all different). |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 18 Apr 2009 5:23 am
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| The main bridge - it's slightly curved, maybe anywhere from 7" to 12" radius? A guess will be a start, I just want to try to keep the bar as narrow as possible. The bar will be doing the buzz function that the bridge does on a real sitar. I've been trying wine bottles, the cat's bowl, all sorts of comic endeavours - they're all too small a radius. |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 18 Apr 2009 6:02 am
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ooops. Gotta put a charge on my dead camera. Note the graphic, though, and the text at that site (as I'm sure you have).
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| Notice that the bridge has a very characteristic curve to it. This is extremely critical and it takes a lot of experience to be able to produce just the right contour. |
photos linked from http://www.chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/sitar/sitar_making.html
I'm only including the graphics to make this more entertaining. I'm sure you have studied all of this.
Trial & error will be more meaningful than radius specs. It really is a broad radius--the fall-away after the apex is quite a bit more like a flat-spot than like a fingerboard contour. If anything I'd guess it to be more like that flattest neck you'll find--like 16" radius.
Now---my sitar is a VERY cheap POS that I bought in '69. The bridge appears to have less radius than that reference photo and I would certainly defer to the instrument there over my Rogue brand axe.
I'll post pics later if I can get anything informative. |
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