Violet Kantele Universum 2

In the last episode I described plausible developmental ways of my universe. Because of limited budget I did not decide yet to change bridge or coils. It's worth to do it someday, but it won't be any brand name construction. The best choice for bridge will be still something like floyd-rose, because limiting to one-sided tremolo would be a loss when guitar body construction enables adaptation of two-sided. However I will search for some cheaper coils solutions, maybe there are coils magnetically shielded yet. I could use an active humbucker also.

Until now I have finished some toughest workings, I mean instalation of stars, power sources, regulators and a switch. During carving the traces for wires I didn't avoid some scratches on the neck and, unfortunately, once I drilled troughout it. Scratches are not visible too much, but maybe some day I would like to draw something on neck and the hole is actually on the 12th fret, so it also might be an advantage, because it's easier to orientate about position of hand during playing. If it will be helpful I may match some other frets this way.

I have installed 12 blue stars on neck and 6 orange on the guitar body. Brightness of its light can be adjusted with two potentiometers (500 Ohm and 1 kOhm). Junctions of electrodes appeared not to be identical for each of them, so it gives an interesting effect of shining with different intensity. Orange diodes shine dependently on actual position of 5-positional switch and show which coils are actually turn on. There was a problem with isolation between coils circuit (alternating voltage) and diodes circuit (direct voltage). It was necessary to do it, not to carry direct signal to a signal from the guitar (audible hum in loudspeakers guaranteed). Transformer separation was out of question - too much of thinking and not to much space. Configuration of photodiodes would have to be made very precisely, so mechanical separation was the best solution. There was needed a curved wire, head of a pin and unmounted ethernet socket.

Blue and orange diodes are powered by separate circuits. The switch (yes, I know it's rose, but only rose were tripple and had the best shape) enables turning on two circuits separately and gives a possibility of application other solutions. The whole thing is now powered by two 1,5V batteries places in a casket, which I got from an old clock-toy in shape of a duck. The casket with socket for electrodes endings fitted perfectly in space between springs retracting the bridge.

Meanwhile there is such an astronomical phenomenon like blueshift, which consists on a fact that spectrum lines of an electromagnetical radiation, that come from some stars or galaxies, are shifted to decrese in wavelength (increse in frequency), which in visible lights causes a blueshift exactly. It's because of Doppler effect connected with movement of a source towards the observer. This kinds of spectra can be seen for some stars placed quite near to the Earth in our Galaxy. Analogous phenomenon to blueshift is redshift, which is connected with objects that are moving away from the observer.

My stars depend on themselves, because they use the same power source, so intensity of their shining depends on regulation of resistance and actual position of 5-positional switch (in two positions shine 4 diodes and in other three - two diodes shine). It turned out that blue diodes shine the most when humbucker is turned on.

It's possible to expand the structure by adaptation a system of powering the diodes from outside using transformer or impulse adapter. I will also think about the instalation of a solar panel instead of a hatch at the bottom side of the guitar body, but it's still hard to find something cheap, which would be easy to adapt to efficiency of accumulators (in question of speed of charging and occupied space) and diodes requirements. But now my universe works quite well, especially with connection with usual kitchen clock, which I use as a metronome.

Violet Kantele Universum

Primary version of String Theory a.k.a. Bosonic String Theory was created in 1970. Present String Theory - Superstring Theory from 1984 take Supersymmetry into consideration (1971). One of Superstring Theory versions is a particular case of two dimensional p-brane from general M-theory (1995), that is 2-brane. String Theory predict that space, in which we are living, has at least 10 dimensions, 3 dimensions are open and others are reduced to subatomic sizes. In my instrument these strings are hooked on the bridge and the saddle on the other side. Their tension can be adjusted with worm gearboxes. The bridge is hooked on two pins, which are fulcrums and tonnage of strings is balanced by two springs fastened to a piece of aluminium which is attached to a bottom side of a guitar body. Using two screws it's possible to adjust position of the bridge in a plane parallel to the board and also influence the tension of strings. There is also a wire from electromechanical mechanism soldered to it. Thanks to that touching strings during playing in heavy electromagnetic activity field helps reduce hum.

Electromagnetic mechanism is a structure of three pick-ups, two of them are singles and one is a humbucker, which means two coils winded inversely in relation to the ground, which reduces some hum itself. Switching between these coils is realized by 5-positional switch, while two potentiometers which knobs are at the top side of a guitar body enable volume and tone regulations of a signal derived to a "jack" plug attached to the edge of the board coloured like a finnish sky.

In Finland kantele is acknowledged as a national symbol. Mythical creation of this instrument describes national epic novel Kalevala. According to it the founder of kantele was hero Väinämöinen. He uses reindeer's bones to construct it, strings was hooked on pike's jaws, which were descended from horse's tail that belonged to demon Hiisi.

In my guitar, board is made from quite hard wood and it's a separate part from neck and thanks to that it's possible to take it to pieces and put to a rucksack for example, of course after taken strings off. Guitars are often made from one piece of wood to obtain better sound propagation from strings that vibrate little more stable and longer then thanks to greater resonance (but just a little). Neck was cut off at the end and the head was carved separately and glued after that to cut the lines of grains in the wood and to reduce the risk (which is small anyway) of cracking the neck, which tension (and by the way the distance between neck and strings) can be adjusted with a special rod builded in. The neck is quite thin and frets also, so in Vai style rather than Malmsteen's, but i play with thick picks, about 2mm.

I've got it for 7-8 years and since that time it spoiled a bit, the board has some scratches, "jack" plug relieved. I made scalloped fretboard with knife and files, not to thorough, but I wanted it that way (it's made from hard ebony wood) just not to grapple the fretboard with fingers during playing and to have greater ability of tremolo. I rubbed off most of lacquer from the head and grinded edges, now it looks cool. I should change the bridge long ago, because I can't even adjust active length of a string separately, which hampers tuning the instrument right on the octaves, floyd-rose would be useful. I should also change coils from "no names" to Duncans for example. Besides I'm planning to match fretboard with diodes, but first I need to calculate resistance and loading current capacity with efficiency of batteries. But first I need to have some sleep, because it's 6 o'clock in the morning, but when I wake up, it would be worth to fix some things in the universe.