↓
 

Sitar Factory

sitarfactory.be is a casual magazine about sitar making and repair

  • Projects
    • Hybrid Sitar, a real Guitar Sitar
    • See-Tar, the Plexiglass Sitar
    • New style sitars SAS & SBS
    • The Solid Body Sitar
    • Sitar Mods
    • Restoration
  • Repairs
    • Joint Repair
    • Kunti Repair
    • Kunti Bushing
    • Neck Bend Repair
    • Tarav Mogara Repair
    • Tumba Repair
  • Maintenance
    • Body Cleaning
    • Jawari
    • Tools
      • Floor bench vice
      • Gauge Meter
      • String Wire Conversion
    • Tuning
  • Resources
    • Sitar Factory Shop
      • other for sale
    • Hari Chand’s shop
      • Kartar Chand Hari Chand history
    • Kartar Chand’s shop
    • Indian Music Teachers
    • Sitar Buying Tips
    • Info
  • Contact
<< 1 2 3 >>

Tag Archives: electric

Post navigation

<< 1 2 3 >>

SBS-03 & SBS-04 ready

Sitar Factory Posted on Monday, 24 August 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

SBS-03 pardas

The 2 bodies have undergone the finishing strokes : fine sanding, Danish oil treatment, parda making & setting, stringing and jiwari. And after assembling the hardware I could finally mount the pickups and electronics. A Kent Armstrong Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup is on one of them, together with two black buttons : one for volume and one for tone control. The other sitar remains without a pickup. Thus leaving the option open to mount a customer’s desired type or combination.

CURRENTLY ONE FOR SALE @ SITAR FACTORY SHOP

Posted in making | Tagged electric, fusion, SBS, SitarMaking | Leave a reply

Pyramid strings

Sitar Factory Posted on Saturday, 27 June 2009 by AnandaFriday, 10 August 2012

German stringmaker Pyramid has made some special strings, suitable for “electric” (working with electro-magnetic pickup) full size sitars. They make brass wound polished strings for laraj & kharaj 0.55mm (.021) & 0.74mm (.030) and heavy kharaj 0.92mm (.036). And also brass coated steel wire ranging from 0.18mm (.007) to 0.38mm (.015), good for all other strings such as tarav, cikari, baj and jora tar.

I ‘ve ordered and tried the brass flatwounds for laraj & kharaj and brass coated steel wire for jora on my SAS-01 and SAS-02. The brass flatwounds sound very good, brilliant and accurate but a little more harsh than I am used with the bronze flatwounds from India. They are also not as flat as their bronze indian brothers. But the latter are very fragile. The bronze winding breaks easily while playing heavy meend. I don’t know (yet) how strong the pyramids are. The brass coated steel wire behaves quite similar to the full steel jora string. There is a noticeable improvement to the jora tar tuning problem but the overall sound volume remains the same. I had hoped that by using this brass coating the volume difference between baj and jora tar would become less. There is only a very small improvement. The only solution seems to be the fitting of a thinner jora string. Or, maybe someone can make me some bronze coated steel wire instead of brass coated ??

Posted in maintenance, making, playing | Tagged electric, JazzSitar, Jora, kharaj, SAS, SBS, steelstring | 6 Replies

Adapted Multichannel Sitar

Sitar Factory Posted on Friday, 1 May 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

Another weirdie… to whom it may concern???…

… the Adapted Multichannel Sitar.
Specialized Multichannel pickups zither module, and resonator modification by Leo Knapp. Strumpad, keyboard, MIDI sliders, MIDI switches, and electronics constructed and installed by Graham Bruce.

To be seen on this site.

Posted in curiosity | Tagged electric, fusion, varisitari | Leave a reply

Jazz Sitar in Delhi, a soundscape

Sitar Factory Posted on Saturday, 28 March 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

As every year when I am in Delhi, our dear Swedish friend Hans (Hasse) came to visit me -and this time also my new sitar- in Hari Chands sitar shop. Hans is living half of the year in India and the other half in his house on Gotland. He plays sitar and guitar in many Indian and western bands. Amongst them is Parikrama, a famous rock band from New Delhi.

Play Listen to Hans playing raga Bairagi at the entrance door of the shop.

It became a nice and realistic soundscape with live Paharganj streetnoise. For Hans it was the first time in months he touched a sitar. Considering this I think he is doing very well on a brandnew 24 parda sitar. The rich and warm sound and easy playability inspired him at once to improvise on Bairagi in the middle of the hectic New Delhi ambiance. Shame on us and sorry for you that we didn’t notice the laraj was a bit out of tune…

Posted in listen, me & i | Tagged electric, fusion, HariChand, India, JazzSitar, SAS | Leave a reply

Jazz Sitar in Delhi, a report

Sitar Factory Posted on Saturday, 21 March 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

I arrived safe and well  at Indira Gandhi Airport Terminal in New Delhi. Also my new SAS-02 in its solid stormcase came out unharmed. It was past midnight when we finally entered my dearest Hari Chand’s house in Dashrathpuri, so everybody went straight to bed…

The next morning I was very eager to show my instrument to my beloved friend and teacher. We started this project together in august 2003, while he was on a visit in my house in Bierbeek. At that time Hariji was an essential help to me in making the first solid body sitar SBS-01. This prototype has been tested by many of my sitar playing friends in Belgium, but Hari Chand never saw even this instrument completed. Immediately after this original and very promising experiment I started making plans for a series of new style sitars as can be seen on this blog (see tags SAS or SBS). In december 2008 this instruments trio was completed (see new style sitars).

Hari Chand was very impressed and uttermost pleased to finally see the result of my work.  But, all this would never have been possible without his mastership and ever patient and precise teachings about this unique craftmanship to me. I will forever be grateful to him and his late brother Kartar Chand.

Soon Hariji’s young apprentice Rahul Gupta arrived in the shop and he played some nice tunes on the electric sitar during the noontime siësta. The Roland microCUBE -a very light and portable amp- is a fine companion to the Kent Armstrong Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup. Rahul only had some minor problems getting used to the 24 pardas edition (“chromatic” as they say in India).

Later I visited S.Raj & Sanjeev Sharma at Raj Musicals, Rikhi Ram Sanjay Sharma and my good friend and N°1 jiwarimaster Kartar Chand Dhiman. They all examinated the SAS-02, thoroughly checking every parda on its position and meend playability but they could not detect any anomaly. Also the jiwari passed the serious tests. Most intriguing were the rather unusual selection of wood (walnut and mahogany), their finishing touch (danish oil) and the most accurate joints between the different parts. Minus points were noted to be the slight difference in weight and pure acoustic sound in comparison with a traditional sitar. But, it has never been my purpose to compete with a pure acoustic musical instrument. I only wanted to inspire the advanced and professional sitar players to a new world of sound.

Posted in making, me & i | Tagged electric, fusion, HariChand, India, JazzSitar, SAS | 1 Reply

Extended Sitar

Sitar Factory Posted on Friday, 13 March 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

Really, what’s up next…? The USB Sitar…? The Sitar Over IP…?

This is the Extended Sitar… read more? Website is here.

Posted in curiosity | Tagged electric, fusion, varisitari | 1 Reply

Jazz Sitar in India

Sitar Factory Posted on Saturday, 28 February 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

From monday 2/03/2009 till 12/03/2009 I will be in New Delhi, India with one of my new sitars. I will be visiting my best friend and sitarmaker Hari Chand to whom I want to show my new style sitars. But since I cannot take them all with me, I ‘ve choosen the SAS-02 “Jazz Sitar light” to go on this journey. I ‘ve also bought a tiny red but overall good sounding portable guitar amp MicroCUBE from Roland. Here is my sitar travel set:

If you are interested in exploring this sitar in India, you are always welcome to visit Hari Chand and me in his sitar shop in New Delhi. Adress: 9050, Gali N°1, Multani Dhanda, Paharganj, New Delhi 110055.

Look out for this shop board :

Phone: 0091 1125 391089 (home, after 19:00hr)

Mobile: 0091 987 1570393

Posted in me & i, playing | Tagged electric, fusion, India, JazzSitar, SAS | Leave a reply

New style sitars SAS & SBS

Sitar Factory Posted on Saturday, 17 January 2009 by AnandaWednesday, 13 April 2022

Semi Acoustic Sitar & Solid Body Sitar

 

SAS-01 (–SOLD–)

  • front view
  • tabli
  • head
  • neck
  • back view
  • head back
  • joint
  • pick-up
  • tabli back

 

SAS-02 (–SOLD–)

  • front view
  • tabli
  • head
  • back view
  • head back
  • joint
  • pick-up
  • tabli back

 

SBS-02

  • front view
  • tabli
  • head
  • back view
  • head back
  • joint
  • pick-up
  • tabli back

 

SBS-03 (–SOLD–)

  • front view
  • tabli
  • head
  • back view
  • head back
  • side
  • pick-up
  • tabli back
  • neck back

 

SBS-04

  • front view
  • tabli
  • head
  • back view
  • head back
  • joint
  • side
  • tabli back
  • neck back

Most pictures made by Luc De Gezelle 08/2009.

 

In december 2008 these 3 first unique new style sitars were completed. Click on the pictures to read the specs or download the new style sitars pdf brochure. All information about the making of these instruments can be found on this blog. Follow this link to read all posts about the making of the semi acoustic sitars SAS-01 & SAS-02, and hit this link to read all posts about the making of the solid body sitar SBS-02.

frontside frontside

Click on the pictures to zoom in …

backside backside

A fine instrument needs a safe and secure travel case : “StormCase™ “, model iM3300. This is a lightweight but very tough and rugged fiber case. It is dent-resistant, shatter-resistant, virtually unbreakable and also watertight and airtight… and it has rubber handles and wheels!!

CURRENTLY ONE FOR SALE @ SITAR FACTORY SHOP

13 Replies

Double Neck Electric Sitar

Sitar Factory Posted on Tuesday, 13 January 2009 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

Where will it end ??? “We need a sitar … a double neck actually … with humbucking pickups … and a Floyd Rose bridge … and it all has to function properly.  We need some mock-up renderings by tomorrow and the finished product completed in the next couple of weeks”  This is the phone call that David Hill received some months ago from the production company of Mike Myers’ new movie “Love Guru”.

Read the rest of the story and see some unique photos about the making of this extravagant sitar by David Hill & Brady Milloy at the “12 fret” website …

Posted in curiosity | Tagged electric, fusion, neck, varisitari | 1 Reply

SAS-02, the Jazz Sitar “light”

Sitar Factory Posted on Thursday, 25 December 2008 by AnandaSaturday, 1 May 2021

Finaly, the third new sitar SAS-02 is also ready. The same Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup, made by Kent Armstrong, as with the SAS-01, Jazz Sitar is used. The only difference with SAS-01 is that on this sitar the taravs and taravbar are not installed. So, I call it the Jazz Sitar “light”…

Continue reading →

Posted in making | Tagged electric, fusion, JazzSitar, SAS, SitarMaking | 2 Replies

Post navigation

<< 1 2 3 >>

Vishwakarma

unloaded picture, try CTRL + F5

FOR SALE @ SITARFACTORY SHOP:

Sitarfactory Sitars for sale

(click here)

OR

other Sitar, Surbahar & Tanpura for sale

(click here)
 

+++ MUST SEE +++

A photo report about the making of...

A Hybrid Sitar

... the ultimate guitar for sitarists

The See-Tar

... a sitar in plexiglass


Blog Tags

cikari Concerts eco electric ForSale fusion ghoraj guitar HariChand HirenRoy India Jawari JazzSitar joint Jora Kanailal KartarChand kharaj Kunti Lipstick lutherie Mizrab neck parda Pathak plexiglass RajMusicals Restoration RikhiRam Sarod SAS SBS See-Tar SherMohammad SitarMaking SitarMods SitarRepair steelstring Surbahar Tanpura tarav tumba tuning varisitari veena

Categories

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Ananda on other for sale
  • Fahim Khan on other for sale
  • Luis C. on How to make a Mizrab … in one minute
  • bob the record guy on Electric Zeetar
  • bob the record guy on Electric Zeetar
  • bob the record guy on Electric Zeetar
  • kyle lane on Electric Zeetar

India Soundscapes

Play
Stop
Next»
«Prev
HIDE PLAYLIST
launch POP-OUT PLAYER

Listen to India Soundscapes in popout player

Sitar Makers Links

  • Kartar Chand Dhiman
  • Hansraj Sharma
  • Waseem Maner
  • Naeem Naushad
  • Altab Mehboob
  • Ajay Sharma
  • Sanjay Sharma
  • Hari Chand Sharma
  • Hari Chand's shop
  • Dieter Zarnitz
  • Green Onion Sitars
  • Solid Body Sitar
  • Solid Body Sitar
  • Alan Arthur Suits
  • Tony Karasek
  • Jay Scott Hackleman
  • Harry Shaffer
  • Chandrakantha
  • Vintage Sitars

Lutherie Links

  • CMB
  • MIMF
  • GUL
  • FRETS

Sitar Sale Links

  • Sitarfactory.be
  • Raincitymusic.com
  • India-instruments.de
  • Sitar Buying Tips

Friends Sites

  • Moviganta
  • Flugzeug Music Art Design
  • Débloque-Notes
  • Sitar Music
  • Sitarplayer.be
  • Shivoham
  • Manoj Gautam
  • Wannes
  • Music Fund
  • CSA
  • Wervel
  • Low Tech magazine
  • The Meatrix
  • MO
  • Planktone

Login

  • Log in
©2023 - Sitar Factory
↑ Scroll