I met Del Dettmar here in GR during his tour with Nik Turner during the "Nik Turner's Hawkwind show" about 6 years ago... It's a real Axe like you would get from your local hardware store... It has 1 string that goes accross a modified guitar pickup mounted on the blade of the Axe... The signal is fed into a home made wood box with a PC board that converts the signal to a suitable CV to drive a pair of the most beat up Synthi's you have ever seen... How he did this electronically I don't know but maybe this will give a clue to an electronics guru on the list that could figure it out!!! Del played it similar to the way you would with a ribbon controller by sliding his finger up and down the string but only better 'cause he would do hammer on's, pull off's and stretch that string all over the place to tweak the most incredable performance you would ever hear out of a controller.... When I saw the Axe up close (looked like he may have even chopped wood with it) it didn't have any knobs but he may have added them later...
BTW, have you heard any of Nik Turners latest project "Anubian Lights"? There are three albums now and they are great!!! Del is on them.. Alll three are available at CDNow.com....
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 11:46 AM
Subject: [motm] Del Dettmar's double headed synth wood-axe
The last two times I saw Nik Turner's Space Ritual Del was controlling his synths with a big wood axe set up as some kind of controller (great for when the crowd gets too rowdy!). I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how this was done. I'm assuming it was homemade. It looked like it had one string running the length of the handle and some knobs down by the blades. I'm still trying to decide on controllers for my eventual MOTM system and since Del's synth playing in Hawkwind is what made me buy my first synth( CZ 101!) I thought it would be cool to try and make something along those lines.
thanks,
Barry S.
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