Sound sample: 

Play Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup on AER Compact 60 amp

Specifications of the Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup:

Alnico bar magnet / DC = 8K / humbucker made by Kent Armstrong.

Size :   0,95cm (.375”) thick – 6,8cm (2.68”) long – 2,8cm (1.10”) wide.

Strings made by Pyramid:

Silver plated steel Baj & Pancham .012 (0,30mm)
Silver plated steel Cikari & Taravs .009 (0,23mm)
Nickel flatwound Jora .018 (0,46mm)
Nickel flatwound Laraj .022 (0,56mm)
Nickel flatwound Kharaj .030 (0,76mm)

Black buffalo horn plate, as sold at Nordisches Handwerk website.

I’ve made a complete new hardware set out of black buffalo horn for my SAS-01 semi-acoustic sitar: ghoraj (main bridge), langoot (tail mount), mogara (cikari posts) and patri (neck bridge). And it looks good !! Click the pictures for fancy-zoom. 🙂

I ‘ve ordered and tried the brass flatwounds for laraj & kharaj and brass coated steel wire for jora on my SAS-01 and SAS-02. The brass flatwounds sound very good, brilliant and accurate but a little more harsh than I am used with the bronze flatwounds from India. They are also not as flat as their bronze indian brothers. But the latter are very fragile. The bronze winding breaks easily while playing heavy meend. I don’t know (yet) how strong the pyramids are. The brass coated steel wire behaves quite similar to the full steel jora string. There is a noticeable improvement to the jora tar tuning problem but the overall sound volume remains the same. I had hoped that by using this brass coating the volume difference between baj and jora tar would become less. There is only a very small improvement. The only solution seems to be the fitting of a thinner jora string. Or, maybe someone can make me some bronze coated steel wire instead of brass coated ??

Play Listen to Hans playing raga Bairagi at the entrance door of the shop.

It became a nice and realistic soundscape with live Paharganj streetnoise. For Hans it was the first time in months he touched a sitar. Considering this I think he is doing very well on a brandnew 24 parda sitar. The rich and warm sound and easy playability inspired him at once to improvise on Bairagi in the middle of the hectic New Delhi ambiance. Shame on us and sorry for you that we didn’t notice the laraj was a bit out of tune…

The next morning I was very eager to show my instrument to my beloved friend and teacher. We started this project together in august 2003, while he was on a visit in my house in Bierbeek. At that time Hariji was an essential help to me in making the first solid body sitar SBS-01. This prototype has been tested by many of my sitar playing friends in Belgium, but Hari Chand never saw even this instrument completed. Immediately after this original and very promising experiment I started making plans for a series of new style sitars as can be seen on this blog (see tags SAS or SBS). In december 2008 this instruments trio was completed (see new style sitars).

Hari Chand was very impressed and uttermost pleased to finally see the result of my work.  But, all this would never have been possible without his mastership and ever patient and precise teachings about this unique craftmanship to me. I will forever be grateful to him and his late brother Kartar Chand.

Soon Hariji’s young apprentice Rahul Gupta arrived in the shop and he played some nice tunes on the electric sitar during the noontime siësta. The Roland microCUBE -a very light and portable amp- is a fine companion to the Kent Armstrong Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup. Rahul only had some minor problems getting used to the 24 pardas edition (“chromatic” as they say in India).

Later I visited S.Raj & Sanjeev Sharma at Raj Musicals, Rikhi Ram Sanjay Sharma and my good friend and N°1 jiwarimaster Kartar Chand Dhiman. They all examinated the SAS-02, thoroughly checking every parda on its position and meend playability but they could not detect any anomaly. Also the jiwari passed the serious tests. Most intriguing were the rather unusual selection of wood (walnut and mahogany), their finishing touch (danish oil) and the most accurate joints between the different parts. Minus points were noted to be the slight difference in weight and pure acoustic sound in comparison with a traditional sitar. But, it has never been my purpose to compete with a pure acoustic musical instrument. I only wanted to inspire the advanced and professional sitar players to a new world of sound.

If you are interested in exploring this sitar in India, you are always welcome to visit Hari Chand and me in his sitar shop in New Delhi. Adress: 9050, Gali N°1, Multani Dhanda, Paharganj, New Delhi 110055.

Look out for this shop board :

Phone: 0091 1125 391089 (home, after 19:00hr)

Mobile: 0091 987 1570393

With this stormcase the project of making these 3 new style sitars came to an end. I compiled some info about these instruments on a new page under “projects”. You can also download the new style sitars pdf brochure.

Finaly, the third new sitar SAS-02 is also ready. The same Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup, made by Kent Armstrong, as with the SAS-01, Jazz Sitar is used. The only difference with SAS-01 is that on this sitar the taravs and taravbar are not installed. So, I call it the Jazz Sitar “light”…

Day 67: Installing another Kent Armstrong “Jazz Model” superslim pickup. First making a pickup mount, then glueing the pickup on it and soldering the wires, drilling a hole for the wire and one for the jack plug, and finaly mounting the pickup unit to the body…

Day 60: Same story as with the semi-acoustic guitar avatar. Many archtop guitars are equipped with a decent pickup. So, I choose to try on this sitar a very slim but warm sounding pickup model Slimbucker™ Jazz made by famous american pickup maker Kent Armstrong.

This sitar sounds very natural, with extra warmth due to enhanced low frequency response. The pickup is tilted to meet the cikaris and adjusted between the taravs and playing strings to balance the taravs response. (Hit the picture)

Specifications of the Slimbucker™ Jazz guitar pickup:

Alnico bar magnet / DC = 8K / humbucker made by Kent Armstrong.

Size :   0,95cm (.375”) thick – 6,8cm (2.68”) long – 2,8cm (1.10”) wide.

On the SAS-01 I use ordinary mini steel nails (diam. 1mm / lenght 8mm) as tarav mogara. They sound very good at the moment but I think this can be improved one day. But how? By bone, or horn, or… ? Anybody a suggestion ?