Hello everyone. I finaly got my electric cello done that I have been working on all summer. I was so excited that I wanted to post a few pics to see what other cello players thought of it.

1 http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5928/dsc00123si3.jpg

2 http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/7997/playingro6.jpg

3 http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9057/playkn9.jpg

4 http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8798/fluffydeathoj4.jpg

Be as honest as you want; it may not apeal to everyone...or anyone for that matter but as long as I like it, I am happy.

Doesn't sound too bad but I need to finish the electronics, get a new bow, and buy good strings before I will really know. It must be the most comfortable cello I have ever played. It is nice because the leg braces are comfy and you don't need to support the top of the cello with your sternum because of the weight distribution so the only necessary contact point is your thighs.

Big big respect!

Ooh, cool. I think it look absolutely wicked. And it goes well with the cat. I hope it sounds as wow as it looks.

Looks really great. Did you make the neck from scratch or did you get it readymade from someplace? How do the guitar pickups work? Positioned like that,they seem to be quite far from the strings, is the signal strenght adequate? Ive been toying with the idea of making an electric viola or a 5-string fiddle if I ever have the time. I'd probably make it with a guitar-style headstock/tuning machines though(much easier to make than the traditional scroll and pegbox).Do you also have a piezo pickup or just the magnetic ones? I've also considered making a magnetic pickup for my electric violin, but on the other hand that would mean steel strings, which I don't like.But really, that's one good looking cello!

I bought the neck from ebay; it came off of a quite old cello. I striped the paint/varnish off (chemically) and painted it. The two single coil pickups work great in there current configuration. I have them wired in for humbucking and being perpendicular to there intended placement contributes no problems to their operation. What happens when you have the coils set up like that is that one coil picks up only C and G while the other picks up D and A. Believe it or not, having the coils arranged like this is better for signal strength. This is because you have more of the strings oscillations being caught by the pickups due to an increased magnetic field area.

I have the cello set up to take a piezo pickup but I don’t have the money to put it in yet. I actually don’t have any thing else in the cello now except the pickups and the ¼ jack due to money….or lack there of….

If you can believe this, the cello is actually way more comfortable than a traditional cello and fells much more solid when between your knees. There is no reason to have the top of the cello (where the neck meets the cello) rest on your sternum because of the weight distribution of the cello is so good.

Seeing I am pointing out all this info I guess I should mention the one downfall that I have found with this thing…actually, it really doesn’t matter once you get set up and start playing but this thing weighs about 15lbs! You can’t tell that it is heavy unless you are moving it around. The only reason I think that is a down fall is because it makes it very hard to play it over my head!

It looks different, but it's really cool.

....well.....it is suposed to look diffrent; that was the whole point of the project! I know that it is quite wild but it suits my style.

Very cool. I would love to hear an audio bit when you get it working. Do you plan to share the project particulars on the web at some future date?
Bob

I will see what I can do as soon as I have all the electronics done for it. That may be a while but we will see what I come up with. I supose sometime I will start posting how I built it and everything but for now, I want to be the only one with a cello this far out!

OK, I can understand. It is very cool. I hope everything works out well for you.
Have you seen some of the other cool cellos on the net? Here is one from England.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5MLNMgpywk&mode=related&search=

That was sweet! I always wanted to play like 3 parts all on one cello all at once but never had any help to do it. The cello looks nice, I am not a huge fan of shadow outline cellos (or violins) but that isn't bad looking at all.

I've always lamented the fact that most electric cellos are pretty stupid-looking, but yours looks pretty sweet! I'm also curious how it sounds... I'm not so sure about the pickups... there's a good chance of buzzing in the higher positions, and your fingers would go right on top of the pickups if you were to attempt a four-octave scale... although I really don't know how other electric cellos do it (or how they sound; I've never played one).

But it suits my style better too. Good work!

Actualy, the pickups are buried into the finger board so they don't get in the way (they are flush with the wood). Keeping in mind that I built this for me, I figured that it would be a very long time before I am playing any thumb position songs so it didn't really matter. Also, it is hard to play songs in thumb position on this cello that wouldn't seem out of place; Bach would be weird coming from my cello. The pickups are wired in humbucking configuration so they are relitively quiet with little noise. I am working on contact mic's for the bridge now.

Of course, I wasn't implying Bach... There's plenty of wicked metal-style solos that would go pretty high if you were to play them on the cello, even transposed. I'm working on Metallica's (Anesthesia)--Pulling Teeth it it goes WAAY up. We'll just see how they work when you get to thumb position things!

Now I want to build one too... too bad I have no time. Boo. Maybe someday...