Fuzz, funny

[Nasse]

So last month I got an idea for a mechanical fuzz kind of thing. There was a topic in the lounge few times ago and did few searches about certain popular and cheap kid´s instrument. I was thinkin about how it does kind of distortion, and then I got the idea how I could connect my guitar or whatever audio to it. I realised that I had all other parts at my home and so I drove to a music shop in the nearby city. It was cold winter day. When I arrived home I think it took some 20 minutes when I had the system up and running.

I decided that I make my idea public, and I think this is good forum for doing that, some talk if somebody likes my idea. I don´t know if anybody has had similar idea before me. Can´t understand why anybody does not have discovered it... I dont have time to post pics or sound samples just now...

Here is the idea: I used a cheap kazoo as distortion device. I just had my small solid state chip-amp, a modelling preamp, Shure SM57 copy wannabe, cheap mixer, audio interface and computer, power supply for the amp, few cables and such, one guitar, compression horn driver and thats it. I put the kazoo in the round hole in the horn driver, sealed the seam with some aluminium foil and one brown shoelace. Then I connected the other channel of my 2x22 watts chip amp to the driver, and connected the preamp to the amp. Plugged in my partscaster and carefully turned up the volume... Yes it did sound like a kazoo

[DougH]

That's pretty funny.

Now you can finally get that "crosstown traffic" sound accurately! 

[MikeH]

So it's like a talk-box but with a kazoo instead of the hose?

[Mark Hammer]

My first fuzzbox, around 1965-1966, involved taping a Canadian nickel (important, by virtue of weight/size/resonance!) to the lower bout of my cheap Regent round-hole acoustic, such that it hung loosely, perpendicular to the ground, at roughly the same location that you might find a tone control if it was a Les Paul.  The nickel rested lightly on the top of the guitar, and when I hit a chord, it vibrated in sympathy with the strings.  Didn't work with a penny, a dime or a quarter.  HAD to be a nickel.  Because it was hanging loosely, it vibrated for a long time, and because it had just the right weight, it vibrated easily.  Haven't tried it in decades since I haven't really owned a flat top for well over 25 years, so I don't know if it would seem okay to my ears now, but at the time it sounded exactly the way I wanted it to sound.  Playing the riff from "Satisfaction" or "Taxman" sounded exactly like the record, and it tided me over until I was eventually able to buy an electric a year or two later.

So rigging up an ersatz guitar-operated kazoo is not that far-fetched from where I stand.

[biggy boy]

some aluminium foil and one brown shoelace. 

Try swapping out the brown shoelace for a white one, it should increase the treble.
And if you replace the brown one with a black one you should get more bass. 

[petemoore]

   I tried all three and went back to the original brown [not].
  That is cool, and funny, kazoo's are funny !

[Nasse]

Thanks again Pete, I try to take more tests some other day later. I think brown works for more "allround" purposes just well.

If I start to sell these, I have plans for blue ribbon for more bluesy distortion, and perhaps certain kind yellow rose hue for "texas" sound. For hippies I sell beeswax adapter instead of thet aluminium foil. I was gonna use duct tape, but lucky I could not find the roll.

I know this is bass weak but if you mike it close the proximity effect helps a bit. I listened some bass kazoo samples at ytube and they sound like farting, and thats I just don´t want now, but this what I  have is a world class idea

EDIT I was thinkin a name for that device, and because it was easter holidays time I thought that "Easter Egg" might be nice name.

[Projectile]

Pictures and soundclips or it didn't happen. 

[Nasse]

Hope the link works

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/Schematics-etc/easter_egg_for_you_all.jpg.html

[Projectile]

Hope the link works

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/Schematics-etc/easter_egg_for_you_all.jpg.html

LOL, you're not by any chance a Libra are you?