Tag Archives: SitarMaking

Travel Sitar Mods (3A)

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Both Rikhi Ram brothers Ajay & Sanjay, and after them many others, make and sell this handy and compact sitar. Some call it “Ovation” sitar, some call it “Studio” sitar and also “Travel” sitar is commonly used for this successful innovative musical instrument. Commercially it is a succes. No doubt about that.

But here is a list of remarks and complaints with which players came to me after they have been buying a new travel sitar in New Delhi.   In my opinion there are a number of improvements that could be achieved rather easily:

The pickup doesn’t sound good, and comes loose in no time. So you can install a better one. (see Travel Sitar Mods (1) )

The tuning machines are cheap and crappy, and can get stuck after a few string changes. Also here it’s a good investment to install better ones. (see Travel Sitar Mods (1) )

Not much care has been taken to fit the jora tar properly.  Only one travel sitar from Sanjay’s Rikhi Ram was ok. Too often there is need for intonation adjustment. (see Travel Sitar Mods (2) )

There are also some complaints about the finishing touch:

Parda’s which were made too short are installed anyways. A friend of mine has lost a parda while performing on stage with his “brand new” instrument. Floops, suddenly there it goes…

The new style decoration strips look like a cheap copy of simple western repetitive patterns. And when they are fit on the body they are not always correctly matching.

And finally there is my personal opinion concerning the “amputated” head. Of course this square leftover stump is one of the main basic improvements made to recent sitar making and playing in general since many years. But to me, it doesn’t look beautiful. I regret the  lack of creativity. Isn’t it a missed chance to make this sitar look nicer on stage?

So, inspired by my own developed series of new style sitars I want to introduce my ultimate travel sitar modification. For this experiment I use a travel sitar body which I’ve been buying from Raj Musicals in New Delhi.

I started with opening the sitar neck and removing the square stump piece. Then  I created a new head piece derived from the SAS and SBS sitar heads draft. In order to maintain strenght in the new construction the original neck’s top plate also had to be renewed. The celluloid decoration will be re-used on top of the new plate.

To be continued…

SBS-03 & SBS-04 ready

Sitar Factory Posted on by

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

SBS-03 & SBS-04 coming…

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Since the end of march 2009 I started constructing 2 new solid body sitars after the example of SBS-02. It is a tremendous improvement in time because plans are now available and I have a steady work experience.

Bodies and head are made from honduras mahogany leftovers. The neck is again made from african mahogany, but now stripped with two pieces of maple. And a piece of indian rosewood is glued on the head top.

New style sitars SAS & SBS

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Semi Acoustic Sitar & Solid Body Sitar

 

SAS-01 (–SOLD–)

  • front view

 

SAS-02 (–SOLD–)

  • front view

 

SBS-02

  • front view

 

SBS-03 (–SOLD–)

  • front view

 

SBS-04

  • front view

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

Jora tar intonation on SAS & SBS sitars

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Many sitars suffer from an improper intonation. Mostly affected are jora and laraj kharaj strings. If you are lucky you should be able to play comfortable on the first couple of frets only. After this, immediately pulling meend to correct the tone becomes a must. It is almost a part of the advanced sitar learning process…!!?

On my electric sitars only steel strings are used. Bronze flatwounded strings for laraj & kharaj and plain steel strings for jora. And this thick steel jora again causes some weird troubles. The intonation is far from correct and has this strange behaviour that the tone is too high rather than too low. This means that pulling meend to correct the difference is extra complex. One can only play a higher note on the particular parda…!!

The solution is to shorten the jora string. This is done by adding an intonation block to the tar daan under the jora. This block needs to be made at a particular lenght. My good friend and fine sitarplayer Bert Cornelis helped me to tune the sitars very accurately. Then we temporarily fixed a small piece of bone under the string to immitate the intonation block and as such we were able to measure its desired lenght. SAS-01 needs 10mm of intonation block lenght, SAS-02 only 6mm and SBS-02 12mm.

Day 68 & 69: The intonation block on the SBS-02 and SAS-02 is made out of a piece of extra hard and strong indian rosewood. The block is inserted into the tar daan and is armed with a short pin into the head to make sure it will not become loose when playing meend on the jora.

On the SAS-01 a small piece of stagg horn is used. It is also armed with a steel pin into the head’s wood. Now these sitars are very comfortable playing on the jora without hardly any correction up to reaching the middle SA parda.

SAS-02, the Jazz Sitar “light”

Sitar Factory Posted on by

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 →

SAS-02, body finish and assembling

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Day 63: Removing the hardware to be able to finish the body: Sanding with grid 240 & 400 followed by 2 x pumice powder treatment, which is applied with alcohol and shellack. Ultimate finish counts 4 layers of Danish oil subsequently rubbed with 000 steel wool and drying periods during the following days. Continue reading →

SAS-02 also with soundholes

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Day 61: Started with sanding the body with grid 80 & 150. Then making and fitting a tar dan out of extreme hard Indian rosewood.

Day 62: Making a new ghodi on walnut wooden feet, and fitting a chrome tailpiece and the main machine heads.

Fitting the (5) main strings on the sitar body and tune them for a test. And then the same exciting decision: drill soundholes, or not …?? So again, first I made a short recording with the closed body. After the delicate surgery I recorded in the same conditions and distance to the microphone.

The soundholes

Play the sound WITHOUT soundholes

Play the sound WITH soundholes

The recorder again registered a gain profit of +8 dB. And also again the low frequencies are much better and more in balance with the rest of the strings. This confirms the same result as when creating soundholes on the SAS-01 for the first time. The overall sound is very similar to that sitar.

SAS-01, The Jazz Sitar

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Day 60: Same story as with the semi-acoustic guitar avatar. Many archtop guitars are equipped with a decent pickup. So, I choose to try on this sitar a very slim but warm sounding pickup model Slimbucker™ Jazz made by famous american pickup maker Kent Armstrong.

This sitar sounds very natural, with extra warmth due to enhanced low frequency response. The pickup is tilted to meet the cikaris and adjusted between the taravs and playing strings to balance the taravs response. (Hit the picture)

Specifications of the Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup:

Alnico bar magnet / DC = 8K / humbucker made by Kent Armstrong.

Size :   0,95cm (.375”) thick – 6,8cm (2.68”) long – 2,8cm (1.10”) wide.

SAS-02 body completed

Sitar Factory Posted on by

Day 57: Back to body 3: Glueing the neck front plate and tabli to the body using hot glue. Another delicate job…

When glueing the tabli, I used profiled plates to keep the klemsia’s in place. This works a bit more comfortable in stead of using a rope.

Day 58: After sufficient drying, I started carving the heel and backside and finished roughly sanding the body sides.

Day 59: Sanding the backside of the neck, making it nicely round and fluently connecting to the heel. The rest of the day I spent on further sanding the whole body with grid 80 and 150.