What is the Resonator?
What is the Resonator?
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The Resonator draws its inspiration from the sympathetic resonance strings of a sitar, but opens up the possibilities by taking in any audio source.
In contrast to a sitar where the sympathetic resonance is powered by plucked strings, the Resonator is driven by external audio. A feature of this is the custom designed driver bridge. This works much like a speaker, but pushes guitar strings rather than air to make sound. Guitar pickups then send out the resulting vibrations as a new audio signal that can be used on its own or mixed back with the original sound.
Why make it?
Why make it?
I am passionate about music and have played various instruments for over twenty years. Back in 2011 while experimenting with slinky spring reverbs I began to wonder if it would be possible to make a reverb out of guitar strings. As I built some early prototypes I realised I would need more strings, but the more strings I added, the more power required. As such, many tactile transducers were harmed in the making!
After the first iterations it became clear that no off the shelf components would suffice. This then lead me deep into the world of magnets, copper coils and speaker design principals. By 2018 I had a Resonator that worked well enough to use in recordings but the set up meant it was essentially stuck in the recording studio.
I have continued to refine the Resonator, with successive prototypes that incrementally improved the power, tone and ease of use. As the design challenges have become more technical I have drawn upon precise production methods like CNC machining and 3D printing to refine the manufacturing process.
The Details
The Details
Main Construction: Plywood core with hardwood top layer, headstock and frame stabilised with two truss rods.
Components: Premium off the shelf items or custom made stainless steel hardware and 3d printed parts where appropriate.
Dimensions : 1120mm X 280mm X 120mm,
Weight: Approx. 12kg
Coarse Tuning Pins: Piano tuning pins
Tensioning Bridge: Maintains consistent downwards tension as the strings go back to the tuning pins
Driver bridge: The star of the show, responsible shaking the strings with the audio signal
Key Selector: Mutes out notes that are not in the selected key signature to limit dissonant resonance
Pickups: Lace Alumitone Noiseless lap steel pickups
Bridge Assembly. Contains a foot controlled felt mute bar, and adjustable buzz bridge and a stainless steel tensioner bar.
Fine Tuners: Witner Cello and Viola fine tuners repurposed to allow fine control over 36 strings in a small space
Driver Bridge
Driver Bridge
The driver bridge consists of several copper coils wired up in series. These each clamp onto a register of strings. This gives the bridge some room to vibrate up and down, and allows for the coils to be aligned to powerful magnets which are fixed to the baseplate. When the audio signal is amplified through the coils they push and pull against the magnets just like a speaker.
Key Selector
Key Selector
The key selector relies on a handy aspect of the cycle of 5ths. As you go around the circle, each next key signature has only one note that is different from the adjacent key signature. As the dial is rotated between each position, one string is muted and one string is released so that any key signature can be achieved. The whole mechanism can be disengaged if the chaos of open chromatic tuning is desired.
Bridge Assembly
Bridge Assembly
The hand carved buzz bridge is made with a curve that is drawn from the bridge of a sitar. This is designed to interrupt the perfect oscillations of the string and trigger higher overtones for a rich and more complex sound. The buzz bridge sits on an aluminium plate with 3 screws that adjsut the height and tilt of the bridge to control tone and buzz characteristics.
The Red strip in-between the buzz bridge and the pickup is a felt pad which is controlled by a foot pedal that connects to the resonator body underneath via a bike brake cable. Pushing the pedal raises the felt and mutes the strings.
How does sympathetic resonance work?
How does sympathetic resonance work?
Sympathetic resonance is a physics principal that core to how the Resonator functions. It is the same principal that drives the behaviour of a skipping rope.
If you shake a rope up and down too slowly or quickly nothing much happens. However, when you get the frequency right all of a sudden the middle of the rope is moving much more than the end that you are holding. This is because you have hit the 'fundamental frequency'. If you want it to skip faster (or increase the fundamental frequency) then you need to pull the rope tighter to add more tension, like tuning a guitar string to a higher note.
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