Technical

I'll just pass this letter along for the real vibe geeks!

This guy called Nico got information and then went to a machine shop to get the work done on his yamaha!!!

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Tony, Thanks you for introducing Nico Vanderplas to me after telling him about my Yamaha YV2700 keybed problems with the sounds of the last seven bars in the high register.

A highlight of the workshop! Nico talks about making a vibraphone! Here is an excerpt on tuning the bars.

Here's all the lessons on technical stuff for the instrument.

James Whiting posted a real pretty piece where he manually rotated the fan blades. Dr. Bob commented that he would like a crank on the side to override the motor and have the blades pop back to the open position. That made me wonder what I could make from things around the house to do that. Here is the result. I used a 7.5" Jumbo Rubber Band, Spring-type door stopper, shim, and a quick clamp. I screwed the door stopper into the shim and clamped it to the vibes. I replaced the original belt with the rubber band, gave it a twist so it would stay around the door stop.

So the M-48 has a big flaw. Those rails you take off bend down. then the notes don't dampen evenly or even well.

So Nico is making me a new keybed for the M-48. Then I'll have a great instrument. The keybed will fit on top of my M-48 legs. Is that cool?? Only Nico could do this!

Then my next step is to save more money and get him to make me a set of bars that will replace my Musser bars!

I also have an old M-55 and the legs are bent. So he's making me replacement legs for the M-55 which will make it sturdy again.

Getting around with the vibes can be a difficult thing. But I have it down. I have great soft cases and a rock and roller (see under check this out).

I can go up stairs, down the street. I can add my PA on the cart. I'm really flexible. You know getting your mobility together with this instrument is a real must. If you can't get around easily, it will deter you from getting to jam sessions, doing rehearsals and other great playing situations. The number one priority if you're learning this instrument is to get out and play with other people.

I was hanging online with barryk and I found used mussers for 4500 and 4800 dollars over at www.malletshop.com.

I couldn't believe that so I inquired why are they were so high priced. I thought I'd pass along the malletshop's answer:

I wonder what Nico thinks about all this.
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I just got the update to Band-in-a-Box. First impression is that it is really cool (as if it wasn't already cool). As usual, you enter the chord changes and BIAB automagically generates an accompaniment of bass, drums, piano, guitar, strings, etc. With the update, instead of using MIDI instruments, there is an option for BIAB to extract pre-recorded audio of session musicians playing real instruments over certain changes.