Crazy reverb idea

[psiico]

I might be nuts here but I was just plucking at a  guitar while watching a movie with it unplugged and getting annoyed as usual with the sound of the tremolo springs vibrating with the notes.  Has anyone ever tried to harness that vibration into use an effect?  Not necessarily anyone in here but have you even heard of it?  Could it be harnessed with a similar setup to a reverb unit do you think?

It seems to resonate better with some notes then others and it doesn't last long so it wouldn't be a long reverb but it should do something to the signal of the guitar.  I wonder what it would sound like divebombing the bar while resonating?  Might be something you only ever use once but has anyone done something with that vibration?

I saw a website where a guy made a tremolo out of Slinky Jr. and he used torsional rotation on the spring, I don't know how regular reverb tanks work but I don't think torsional vibration would be the way to go.  The vibrations are already there so all it would need would be a pickup probably best placed in the middle of the springs to get the most vibration.  It'd probably sound like crap and prone to unwanted noise but some of the best effects are like that, lol.  Like I said something you only use once.

So am I nuts?

[christian]

I attached a small microphone to the back of a strat once, cause I heard that same effect too and thought that it would be nice.
But it really doesnt sound all that well. It always has the same frequency and that differs from the notes you play. Plus if you accidentally bang your guitar or anything, it'll reverb then too.

ch.

[Nasse]

I think this was discussed long ago and someone mentioned  a commercial mechanical reverb for acoustic guitar, I think I have seen the link and some guitar mag article said it sounded quite useable. Sometimes such toys can be found, like a "karaoke" mic for kids

[Ge_Whiz]

It's hard to be sure, but I think that the effect is already present in the sound of the guitar as heard acoustically or via the pickups, and is probably one of the many reasons why a vibrato bridge instrument (such as a strat) sounds different from a hard-tail instrument like a Tele.

[JimRayden]

I think this was discussed long ago and someone mentioned  a commercial mechanical reverb for acoustic guitar, I think I have seen the link and some guitar mag article said it sounded quite useable. Sometimes such toys can be found, like a "karaoke" mic for kids

Oh yeah I've seen one of these. For those who don't know about it, it's a microphone-shaped reverb tank. No electronic parts, just the spring, and a boingy reverb is heard when you scream into it. I never thought of using it for guitar. Sounds like a cool thing to try though.

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Jimbo

[Coriolis]

Can't remember where I saw it, but some guy built a strat-style guitar with extra long trem springs and miked them with a piezo. I think they were twice the length of normal trem springs. One problem might be that those are pretty heavy springs, and, since they're pretty taut, don't vibrate very long...But it would be fun to do something with that, cause I love spring reverb!
I would build myself a slinky-reverb, but here in Denmark, toystores only sell plastic slinkies...

C

[John Lyons]

A lot of fun sounds can be had with a Piezo element.
Go to radio shack etc. and buy one of thier black plastic buzzers that is about an inch in diameter. Carefully break apart the plastic and extract the piezo wafer. (easy to do if you are carefull)
Solder a small two conductor wire (shileded would be best) to the wafer with the hot wire connected to the inside and the ground to the ouside ring. Attach a male 1/4 plug or a fema jack so you can use a longer cable...
Now you have was is inside a piezo pickup equipped guitar, it's the same thing just a different size.

You can spread epoxy all over the top where the wires connect to make it stronder and to hold the wire in place...they are sort of fragile and the wafer peels up or you rough handle it.
Tape this to  the headstock of any guitar (acoustic works well and is louder but electric will work fine)
Basically this thing will reproduce all the acoustic sounds you care to experiment with. Try different locations. The headstock is my favorite but the bridge and a few other places are nice. The main sound is a woody/dobro/delta blues type sound. I've used these on piano, large springs as a mega reverb/gong. Experiment....

You have to crank the gain and watch out for feedback. Add an eq pedal to tame the nasties. Super fun.

[RDV]

I've always had to mute the springs as that sound with the amount of gain I use drives me crazy.

RDV

[Paul Marossy]

Can't remember where I saw it, but some guy built a strat-style guitar with extra long trem springs and miked them with a piezo.

http://www.diyguitarist.com/Guitars/Reverbitar.doc

I don't remember who made this, but I saved it to an MS Word file a couple of years ago. I uploaded it to my site for your viewing.