MOTM

<elhardt@...> wrote:

> What we want is the synthesizer to freely generate the pitches and a
resonant
> acoustic body to give it the character needed. Using a $9 transducer like
LH
> pointed out should hopefully be all that's needed besides a mic to record
the
> sound back into electronic form. If that fails, then that's where I stop
> because I will have answered my question as to whether it can be done or
not.

Where there's a will, there's a way!

I have given some thought in the past about doing basically the same thing
with a cello body.  The experiments I have done (along with a cellist friend
of mine)  are primarally only half of what you are aiming to accomplish,
namely, signal pickup (via piezo) although I am hoping to at some point add
transducer stimulation of the bridge.  Our plan was to mount the cello to a
"holder" (which we would have to design & build), attach a metal plate to
the cello's bridge, and mount an electromagnet to the holder within
proximity to the bridge.  An amp module would have to be created that would
take as input a MOTM signal and output an appropriate level current to the
electromagnet, with voltage control over the "drive" of the current.

One thing we did verify is how markedly different the signal response is
based on the mounting location of the piezo pickup - no shock there.  One
solution I had envisioned was to mount multiple piezos around the bridge,
body and neck of the cello, amplify them separately and mix them using
multiple MOTM VCAs, thereby allowing for different timbres to be selected
under voltage control.  Never got around to that, unfortunately.

Cheers,
George