Custom Marimbas Canada

As promised - photos of resonator configuration on the latest custom 5.0 build. Not yet fully happy with the paint job on these - but the tuning and configuration is great! Best yet! C2-G #2 are tunable and plugs are very accessible. Bends are generally very low and 135 degrees rather than 180 degrees. Physically balanced to so they hang straight!

Contra-Bass Marimba Project update! As Promised, I spent a little of the weekend tweaking the instrument. I fitted that extra wheel and added a carpet strip to the rolling bass for the bottom octave - that seems to have solved the sag issue and all the resonators now sit pretty flat and without extraneous vibration. To this end as well as just safety/structure - I added 3 paracord/spring tie lines. These loop over the resonator box mouths to hold them firmly together - one over the naturals and one each over the two groups of sharps. This make sure they don't wobble at all and keep position - makes sure that even when rolling the cart, you can't have one on the end tip over!

MOST importantly I was experimenting with getting the best sound. One important factor with bars this size is that you simply cannot buy a mallet that really suits them - both in terms of head weight/type and in terms of shaft length. SO it needs custom mallets. I settled on three pairs plus one single to go along with the instrument. The yellow and brown are similar - both with 30" long 1/2" diameter handles and big soft rubber "wheel" cores - difference is just in the amount of winding. Then there's the single softest mallet - same handle but a smaller diameter but longer cork core - this wrapped in a few layers of rubber sleeve = then LOTS of wool winding (2 windings) then 2 separate fluffy fabric coverings. This mallet is not too heavy but is the one you want for minimum contact sound when sustaining a roll on the lowest bars. Then the smaller red mallets have about 22" handles at 3/8" with medium rubber core rounded a little at the top - then with 200 winds of soft wool. These produce a good general "Bass" sound in the top octave and have a bit of a "two-tone" feel.

Despite the amazing generosity of sponsors, I'm still a little in the RED on this project, so any extra donations are still very welcome - https://www.gofundme.com/f/sponsor-a-bass-marimba-bar

Progress on the Contra-Bass Marimba is exactly on schedule and looking great! My plan was always to be finished by the end of tomorrow which leaves the weekend for any tweaking that might need doing - and frankly a bit of recovery! Today I had a new sponsor for the A1 bar - super big thank you! It allowed me to engrave/final tune/oil than bar too so now in this bottom octave only the F # and G # remain. The rest of the suspension sets are all done and bars suspended.

While all of these note can be individually moved, they also form a set which you might want to move all at once - so the height was calculated to be correct when on top of a 3" caster with 3/4 plywood. Today I cut out the basic footprint of the notes on the plywood - made it so it can be taken apart in sections - but fairly sturdy as one piece on heavy duty wheels. I might need to add one more wheel in the middle of the big end - I'll trial it tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning, any remaining unsponsored notes will have note names engraved and final tuning done regardless - so tonight is the last chance to sponsor if you want your name on a bar! There's the F #1 and G #1 as well as D2 and D #2 and G2 up to B2 also! Visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/sponsor-a-bass-marimba-bar before morning to lock yours in!

A day of good progress on the ContraBass Marimba Project. And I'm aiming to be string bars and being finished pretty soon! So last couple of days to sponsor a bar if you want your name engraved on it before final touch tuning done and bars strung up. Visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/sponsor-a-bass-marimba-bar if you are interested! :)

The remaining boxes got painted - the 1st lot of oak suspension posts got sanded back and a coat of polyurethane - the second lot got built and filled. I also knocked up the appropriate height riser for the B1 from scrap - the only box that could not get the required height otherwise.

Then to finish the day I managed to mill about half of the aluminum tuning slides. :) :) :)

ContraBass Marimba Project moving along nicely again to start of the last week! Finished welding up all the accidental extensions for me over the weekend, complete with the new string routing pegs! So job one was to fit them all to the boxes. Note how the pegs all end up at the same height even though the top of the boxes get higher as the note gets higher - that's because wider resonator mouths require greater gap to the bar so box heights were calculated to work out this way! Then I ground out the string slots, cleaned and painted them! Pic 2.

Pic 3 - Next was to start painting some boxes - A few got a full coat on by the end of the day.

Pic 4 - I made about half of the wood suspension blocks required to hold the strings the correct height from the boxes too - these are oak and will be finished nicely - tonight they wait for the filler to dry in the screw holes etc.

Pic 5. Final touch up tune was done today on all the bars that have been sponsored. Engraving your name on the bar changes the tuning very slightly so these needed a small tweak. That means there's not much time left if you want to get your name on a bar - there's three in this pic that are on their side and SAD because they have no sponsor yet - so I have left them without the final tuning to give a tiny bit more time.

Consider helping this along in these last few day of building - https://www.gofundme.com/f/sponsor-a-bass-marimba-bar ANY amount is appreciated!