Digideroo mic technique

[powerjoe]

Joel: didn't know you played Didj's man? I am working on finding some good wood to carv one I believe at the moment. Cavell suggested bamboo, but I am not sure what type would be best and where to get it locally here... I may just go find some Maple in the woods and go to town with it and see how it sounds. *shrugs* should be something making one atleast..

T'sup Chuck?

Bamboo=bad. It rattles and has little resonance. Seriously, if I was you, (and I am at this very moment!) I'd grab some PVC. Yep, I said it. It's cheap, you can get an okay sound out of it and it bends easily when heated to 200 degrees. "Bends"? Yep, you need to bend it to create Back Pressure. This is important for making the tool easy to play and to create vocalizations. A famous indigenous Australian named Djalu knocks on trees to see if they are hollow (to some degree), then cuts them to length and shoves rebar down the cavity (that termites started) to clear out the rest of the gum and to create hills and valleys inside the cavity. This provides back pressure and lends to the instruments tonality. I hate bamboo, because it is cheap, acts cheap and sounds cheap to my tin-ear. PVC my man. Hell, you might even twist one of my Dijs out of me. I think I have enough!

Joel

[superpenguin79]

Hmm... guess I gotta mess around with a few tries to make one.. Might just go stalk the woods this weekend and look for a good chunk of maple wood to carve into one. Maple always has sounded good on guitars that I have played before to me, so I'd be willing to give it a shot in making one I guess. I found Diji's at a local shop for $25-$45, but I guess I would like to try to make one for cheap first and try to play it before I even lay down much $$ on anything... don't know about the Bamboo... Cavell suggested that earlier as a good cheap way to try one out... I might make one with Michigan woods though... as for twisting dijs man, I don't want to make anyone part with one against their will...

[mkosacek]

Wow, didgeridoo's on digidesign.com. Now me thinks I've seen it all.

[Chris Cavell]

Joel, I've never run into any problems with my bamboo didjes ...but then again, I made those myself (except for a few that were given to me) out of very thick walled bamboo, about 3/8ths inch thick walls. Removing the nodes took a 75 pound thin driveshaft pounding full force down the shoot. These things are tough...

I absolutely love my 4'1" wooly butt though! It's a fantastic low drone but doesn't vocalize all that well, and takes a ton of air. You really have to get into the zone with the breathing to keep it up for any extended length. It's great when playing with others.

I usggested that charlie learn to play one first before trying to shop for one...as in my experience, everybody prefers different mouthpieces. I can't really play any of my bud's didje's because I need a rather large opening compared to most. For this reason, I think PVC is the perfect starter didje...cheap as hell, easy to make, easy to pick up a few different diameters and screw around with the mouthpiece to determine what fits you best before hunting for the genuine article, and comparitively super easy to play. If you don't feel like bending it, you just really need to make it longer than normal to build up the back pressure, like 4 to 5 feet, or put a 30 or 45 degree elbow fitting on the open end.

For micing, I tend to use one or two small di condensers fit for use in the diffuse field. If two, usually ORTF. You need a nice quiet room for this though...big and live if solo didje or minimalist recordings, completely dead if used in modern heavily produced stuff. A good distance b/w the didje and the mics is the only way I've ever really been able to capture a realistic sound on didje.

[superpenguin79]

yeah, concensus says PVC... however, I believe I will scout the woods this weekend and see if I can't find a good chunk of maple to mess with.. I will post the finished product when I finish up with it or if it doesn't work I'll let you guys know also... hehe

[F.J.]

I have used a SM58 on many occasions for the dij player in a live band situation and it worked well. As for the type of material used, he had a couple of wood ones and he also had a home made PVC pipe instrument that was actually made from 2 pieces. One was a little smaller diameter than the other, just enough to make it a snug fit inside the larger one and he used it like a trombone to change the pitch. It was very effective and it sounded great. Each piece was about 40" long. For the mouth piece he used bees wax molded around the end of the PVC.