Sitanpura, the Sitar Tanpura mod
Good news for the thousands of “tourist”-grade cheap and crappy sitars, bought in India by trusting tourists eager for buying a “real” sitar as a souvenir. For many of them there is life after years of exile to the attic: the sitanpura is born! I turned this old innocent…
Benares tanpura repair
One day I received a quite damaged and almost demolished tanpura. “Children have been playing with it…” was the comment of the owner. I wonder what game they have been playing, but it was certainly not a peaceful game. Or, at least at some time it went out of…
2 more Plexitar sitars
This year I’ve completed 2 plexiglass sitars. They are 100% See-Tar cloned replicas according to the original Purbayan Chatterjee copy as seen here on this site. Plexiglass sitar Sound sample: Comes with a solid AUER CP 12416 Protective case Pro with locks & wheels in beautiful “blutorange” (vermilion) color.
SBS-02, with 3 Lipstick pickups
I have improved the sound of my solid body sitar SBS-O2. I added one Lipstick ‘bridge’- pickup to the combination. The earlier 2 ‘neck’-pickups can be switched in parallel or in series and now smoothly be mixed with the additional ‘bridge’ pickup by means of one of the pot-meters.…
Drowned Sitar
More than one year ago, an awfull sitar was brought to me. At first sight it looked like it was burnt, but actually it was only drowned for some time. This sitar was stored in a basement which has been filled with water due to an inundation. Only after…
Tabli Info
Dear friends, please hereby find some info about different styles of tabli. Clicking on the pictures will show up a drawing presenting the thickness (in mm) on different locations of the tabli and a zoom showing details of the surface finishing on the backside. Notice the increased thickness at…
More Dieter Zarnitz ghoraj
A new set of ghorajs made by Dieter Zarnitz. The wood comes from leftover pieces of a construction. “Cumaru” is a very fine, hard and durable construction-wood. “Angelim Amargoso” is very heavy and rougher than Cumaru. Both grow in South America. The colour you see is the natural one.…
Vicitra Veena massacre
… without words … Technical info on strings & tuning: Baj tar: steel 0,37mm (N°5) tuned to F#2 (MA) Sa tar: bronze 0,46mm (N°26) tuned to C#2 (SA) PA tar: bronze 0,56mm (N°24) tuned to G#2 (PA) Laraj: bronze 0,72mm (N°22) tuned to C#1 (SA) Kharaj: flatwound bronze 0,92mm…
Hybrid Sitar mod
… the ultimate guitar for sitarists … Frédéric t’Serstevens is a young and talented sitarist and disciple of Shubhendra Rao and Kushal Das. Since in the beginning he was a dedicated (bass) guitarplayer, he came up with this rather common idea to convert a sitar into a guitar. But…
Tumba cosmetics repair
It began with an ordinary crack in the tumba. Yet another case of overzealous luggage handling at airports. Very regrettable, but in this case it revealed an underlying and overwhelming problem. A tumba is made out of a gourd, which is a natural product. As it grows on the…
Engravings on Elforyn
Elforyn™ is a modern synthetic ivory substitute and can easily be engraved. The technique is identical to traditional decorative engravings on real ivory, bone, celluloid and plastics. You only need a “pencil” with a hard and sharp end, coloured wax and a scraper. The pencil can be made out…