Sarod Guitar / mod II
Ever fallen in love with a sarod but you couldn’t find one? Personally I love the sound of sarod very much but can’t play it. That’s pretty the same problem. Here’s a way out: A simple solution is to convert an existing old guitar into a Sarod guitar. In…
Hemen tumba repair with K&K Big Twin internal mount
Yet another Hemen sitar crosses my path. This time with a seriously broken tumba and damaged lacquer. There is a big hole in the tumba and fortunately all the pieces are still in it. It will be “puzzling” again. Because the hole is so big, it seems like an…
K&K Big Twin external mount
I mounted a K&K sound Big Twin internal transducer on a Raj Musicals sitar by Joël Van Roode (Alpacas Collective – Flugzeug Music Art Design). Since it is not always obvious to open a tabli, we chose to do an external mount. That is, the transducers are mounted on…
Slimbucker on Studiositar
I mounted a Kent Armstrong Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup on a beautiful new Waseem Maner vintage style studiositar. The sitar sounds very natural, with an extra warmth due to enhanced low frequency response typical for this kind of humbucker electro-magnetic pickups. The pickup is tilted to meet the cikaris…
Mayur sitar with K&K transducer
This new Mayur sitar, made by Waseem Maner, Miraj 2022, belongs to Visjal Auwerx. K&K Sound make natural-sounding acoustic amplification products and affordable pickups. Their Pure Pickup for acoustic guitars, installed on the guitar’s bridge plate, is a very good choice for achieving a rich, natural guitar sound —…
Sitanpura in F
Another very good looking but cheap and inferior sitar has been transformed into a tanpura, giving it a new life. It is an old and beautiful body with a nice and big tumba. This time I converted it into a regular 4-string female tanpura, tuned to F. The mounted…
Surtanpura, a Surbahar Tanpura mod
Following the Sitanpura, here is now a surbahar transformed into a 5-string tanpura. This one has a mini swarmandal facility with 13 strings under the main strings (= the former taravs). The lazy Gurusoundz products are good for something after all… 😉 This surtanpura sounds awesome. The scale measures…
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…
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…
Hybrid Sitar, a real Guitar Sitar
The modification of an acoustic travel sitar into an electric hybrid guitar-sitar. Specifications Materials Drawings The modification process This instrument has been made on demand The original idea comes from Frédéric t’Serstevens (March 2016) Design & drawings by Klaas Janssens @ Sitar Factory (April 2016) Completion by Klaas Janssens…
White Tanpura
Inspired by the white sitar mod i’ve painted this tanpurabody also in white using Bio Pin™ waterbased organic white paint and Colortone™ high gloss waterbased finish. The patri, jawari and mankas are all made from Elforyn™, a modern synthetic ivory substitute. So also this one became a real “organic…
Right to left hand modification
Modifying a sitar from right-hand play to left-hand play… It is not easy to find a suitable sitar if you are left-handed and want to engage yourself into the world of sitar playing. There are good left-hand sitars for sale, but they are very rare and if you find…