Tornipulator-inspired wiring ?

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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Flurko
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Tornipulator-inspired wiring ?

Post by Flurko » Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:19 am

Hi everyone,
I recently found this video of Dan Phelps explaining how his "Big Red" Koll guitar works : http://www.kollguitars.com/news/2017/6/ ... ns-big-red .
This particular guitar features a "Tornipulator" circuit, invented by the experimental guitarist David Torn, which features 4 momentary switches each activating a particular effect :
-Killswitch (which seems simple enough)
-60-cycle hum (but how ?)
-Sound from an external input
-Internal "shaker" mic.

I'd like to use my Jazzmaster rhythm circuit for a similar purpose, but I'm already hitting some roadblocks just thinking about it :

-How would one go about wiring a 60-cycle hum switch with the same dramatic noise featured in the video ?
-I really like the internal mic doing all kinds of weird feedback, but would a cheap lavallier-style mic work as well ? I don't want to spend money on an expensive harp-style microphone, and the small mic would be an easier fit inside the guitar
-AND for the million dollar question : is it possible to replace the momentary switches by a small metal part you would touch with your finger, like how you can make noise by touching a jack plug ? I had it in my mind to use the metal roller pots this way, or to use a small metal part under the pickguard that could be touched using the roller pot cutout.. I'd really like to not buy a new pickguard for this !

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the weird grammar, it's already hard to articulate this in french in my head !

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DrQuasar
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Re: Tornipulator-inspired wiring ?

Post by DrQuasar » Thu Sep 19, 2019 8:45 am

I've been looking for a schematic or something for the Tornipulator for a while but haven't found anything specific. Here is David Torn talking about it on the gear page: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... t-26271885

I have a project going so I might try to figure out how to incorporate some of these aspects. The external interrupt especially sounds cool to me. Like having a tape player going in and you hit the switch to play what's randomly on the tape or maybe have a separate looper that goes back into the external that you switch into now and then to "interrupt" what you're doing. It sounds radical.

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