OT: 3" Extension speaker on long stretchy cable

[Primus]

There was a discussion on the old forums (forgot to bookmark it) but it had something to do with this trick Frank Clarke worked on. He would take a 3" speaker and a long cable and run it from the extension speaker jack on his amp. The idea is you stick the speaker to your guitar to get weird feedback patterns. The feedback is delayed since the speaker must first resonate the wood, then the strings. I'd like to do this since it sounds like a fun little project. I just wanted to be aware of any risks of 1. electrical shock 2. damage to my amplifier (fender '65 deluxe reverb reissue) 3. what the speaker should be rated at.

Also, if anyone has done this before, it would be helpful to get some kind of build report.

[Fret Wire]

How was this attached to the guitar? 3M double sided tape, or a similar method? Isn't that small extension speaker idea similar to what Ian Anderson does in the middle of Aqualung?

[Primus]

As far as how it is attached, I have heard of some people using 3M tape to stick a metal plate to the headstock or body of the guitar. I think I would probably just rest it on the back side of the headstock flush w/ the tuners and then stick a sweatband around the whole mess to hold it together.

As far as whether or not this was used on aqualung... I have no idea : )

[Fret Wire]

As far as whether or not this was used on aqualung... I have no idea : )

On Aqualung, something similar was used for the vocals in the middle section, a small, crappy sounding extension speaker, I believe. Sorry for being vague.

[Primus]

As far as whether or not this was used on aqualung... I have no idea : )

On Aqualung, something similar was used for the vocals in the middle section, a small, crappy sounding extension speaker, I believe. Sorry for being vague.

Oh, I'm following you now. I get what you mean, but the idea here would be to actually put the speaker in contact w/ a guitar so that it would create a strange feedback loop. Similar equipment, slightly different protocol, I think.

[Ansil]

i did a smaller version of this with an onboard battery preamp over at progect gutiar forum

[Eric H]

There was a discussion on the old forums (forgot to bookmark it) but it had something to do with this trick Frank Clarke worked on. He would take a 3" speaker and a long cable and run it from the extension speaker jack on his amp.
The idea is you stick the speaker to your guitar to get weird feedback patterns. The feedback is delayed since the speaker must first resonate the wood, then the strings. I'd like to do this since it sounds like a fun little project. I just wanted to be aware of any risks of 1. electrical shock 2. damage to my amplifier (fender '65 deluxe reverb reissue) 3. what the speaker should be rated at.

Also, if anyone has done this before, it would be helpful to get some kind of build report.

That was a couple of years ago
That's been a large part of my free-improv stuff ever since.
You want a small speaker with a fairly large watt-rating (mine's 25-watt)
I use a neodymium magnet I scrounged from an old floppy-drive double-stick taped to the back of my headstock.
This is a small, flat and very powerful magnet that holds the speaker firmly (magnet-to-magnet). I simply run the lead to the amp and attach it in parallel with the main speaker. Both speakers are 8 ohms giving me a 4 ohm impedance --which matched the output transformer fine.
Most tube amps can handle a small impedance mismatch with no problem.
It is a more subtle effect than you might expect --though I find it very useful.

When I get a bit more time I'll post a clip or two.



Eric

[Primus]

Hey Eric!
Glad to be able to continue this discussion a little bit now. That was a couple of years ago, although it doesn't seem like it to me now. I had to sell my guitar to pay for food during some unemployed college time, but now I'm making a bit more money so I'm back into playing and working on effects projects.

Thanks for the great tips on speaker wattage, etc. If you could post a pic w/ those sound samples I would owe you a huge debt of gratitude. : )

My current amp is a 1x12 fender circuit w/ 22 watts @ 8ohms. A 25 watt speaker should do just fine, but I am not sure if my OT can handle 4 ohms. There is definitely a jack for an extension cabinet, but I don't know how the circuit works for it (whether parallel or not [and plus I can't find my service schematic]).

Can I just assume I should try an 8 ohm speaker here or I am running into some danger with that kind of guessing?

[petemoore]

Having never tried this..
 I would be thinking about a separate amp for something like this.
 If you parallel your little speaker with the speaker in the amps cabinet, I think the little speaker would be freaking out or blow at normal amp levels usage. If they're both the same ohmage...a 3'' would be in a hard spot for to handle power wise.
 Having it on a separate amp would make It alot easier to keep that little speaker at the right [different] level, as you change the volume on you amp.
 Also X signal [what are you driving into it...distortion/ and clip-wise..I would think would tend to alter the effect it has as far as sympathetically vibrating the strings...