Springtime In The Wasteland - eBow content

[James Mayer]

I got my first vax shot today, so this seems appropriate to share.

Springtime In The Wasteland - An Ennio Morricone "spaghetti western" inspired composition about emerging from isolation to learn who and what has survived a pandemic year.

Flamenco guitar: Jose L. Postigo blanca
Pedal steel guitar: Emmons GS-10 (push pull), eBow
Bass: Kala Rumbler uBass
Cümbüş: (Turkish, pronounced “joom besh” or “joom boosh”), copper bowl with custom neck rebuild by Kerry Char.
Electric guitar: Jerry Jones custom baritone (Danelectro replica).

https://youtu.be/Glvh7i02u-8

[Joe Cook]

That was great, James! I love spaghetti westerns and you nailed it. The cumbus has the perfect sound for this song.

[James Mayer]

Thanks! No western soundtrack features the cumbus but I feel like the instrument manages to fit in anywhere.

I actually wrote the steel parts as a string section but I don't play any bowed strings and I'm not really wanting to use something like sequenced midi instruments. The final result sounds more sci-fi like a synth or theremin. It's not how I imagined the piece sounding but I decided that it was kinda unique and let it be.

[Mike Neer]

I like it, man.
I used to go to Music Inn a lot back in the 80s and 90s (super funky Greenwich Village store with a multitude of world instruments). I came very close to buying a cumbus but instead bought a few other things, including one of those old Hawaiian Teachers’ fake Weissenborns. Anyway, when you say custom neck, I’m assuming you mean fretted because I remember them being fretless.

[James Mayer]

I like it, man.
I used to go to Music Inn a lot back in the 80s and 90s (super funky Greenwich Village store with a multitude of world instruments). I came very close to buying a cumbus but instead bought a few other things, including one of those old Hawaiian Teachers’ fake Weissenborns. Anyway, when you say custom neck, I’m assuming you mean fretted because I remember them being fretless.

I bought the cumbus in the family shop in Istanbul and it was fretted. The fretted versions are more rare but they used to be sold as "cumbus guitar". It had a formica fretboard, a hardened cardboard/pressboard bridge and poor intonation but I got it for $100. I had the luthier strip the formica and add a 1/4" ebony fretboard and new frets. I also had him widen the neck a little at the lower frets as they are usually much more tapered. He also made a rosewood bridge.

Since then, I found a fretless model with a copper bowl and put the custom neck on it and added a magnetic pickup(you can see it at the end of the fretboard). So, I now have a box of parts that contains a full fretless cumbus with an aluminum bowl.

[John McClung]

James, looks like a separate pickup for the eBow, what's going on there? Enjoyed the tune and the creative video vignettes fading in and out, that your work, too? Quite nice!

[James Mayer]

Thanks! Yeah, I did everything, including the video production

That’s a breakout box that I built to accommodate a Sentell pickup that slides under the strings. Jon Light was building something similar, at one point.

The box attaches to the front apron with a padded screw clamp I got off an IKEA desk lamp.

The box takes two inputs (the neck pickup and the primary output on the Emmons) and output to mono or stereo depending on the use of a toggle.

- There’s a 5-way pickup selector for neck/bridge/both/both out of phase/unused.
- volume and tone controls
- there’s a Rothstein varitone to change the range of the tone control
- there’s a toggle that switches the volume/tone/varitone to either pickup.

An ebow works much better with a neck pickup.