electric kalimba stories

Still making and Selling eKalimbas

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:22:17 GMT

I'm Still making and selling eKalimbas.

Beautiful Show coming up

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:09:29 GMT

I'm taking part in a beautiful show of hand-made instruments again this year. It will be a big room full of lovely guitars and violins and basses. And of course eKalimbas.

Plastic Fantastic

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:01:09 GMT

There is now a new page 5 kalimbas for sale. Four new plastic solid-body kalimbas. They have great sustain and tone. They look really good too.

new sound samples etc.

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:04:09 GMT

Bass Kalimba links:

http://media.imputor.com/ekalimba/rk233.mp3
http://media.imputor.com/ekalimba/rk421.mp3

http://media.imputor.com/ekalimba/rk369.mp3 (small bass baritone)
http://www.imputor.com/ekalimba/rk425.mp3
http://www.imputor.com/ekalimba/rk431.mp3

regular kalimbas
rk416 video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYLIrGd4p9w

http://www.imputor.com/ekalimba/RK412.mp3
http://www.imputor.com/ekalimba/RK422.mp3
http://www.imputor.com/ekalimba/RK424.mp3
http://www.imputor.com/ekalimba/RK436.mp3

violimba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhVFOGTEuWg

Darrin has been assisting me for a while now.

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:21:47 GMT

for several months now darrin has been coming to my house once a week to assist in the building and selling my ekalimbas. he is a great key maker and buzzer setter. he also has great web skills and has been central in website updates and sound samples. we use his ebay and youtube accounts to make my kalimbas more accessable.

New Page 4 Kalimbas for sale

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:12:51 GMT

the website got updated with a new new page 4. some changes were made to other pages too.

RK 410 A luge style electric Kalimba $250

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:38:09 GMT

this one has the evenest pick up yet.

back

luge style means that the main body of the kalimba is 3/8 inch birch plywood with stiffener hand holds glued to the edge. on this one the stiffeners are made of wenge wood.

it is currently tuned to D major.

RK 412 Solid-Body Wenge $250

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:15:31 GMT

this one turned out really well. it started out as a plank of wenge, a beautiful dark chocolate, light chocolate striped tropical hardwood that was 8 inches by 6 inches and fully an inch thick. then i rounded the corners with my router and sanded it a bit. actually you can still see the bandsaw marks slightly on the back. it has my usual highly engineered bridge system which is bound to the plank with two furniture bolts.

this is the ex-bridgable feature. if you undo the two furniture bolts the entire bridge and the tuned keys come off as a unit. the kalimba stays in tune. this would be good if you wanted to work on the wood and make it prettier.

the pickup system on this kalimba is all contained in the wood. the jack is placed in a slightly angled hole(to avoid hitting the center pressure bar bolt)on the top edge of the kalimba. it is held in this hole by a set screw. this hole communicates to the forstner bit dug, shallow hole on the front middle of the kalimba face under the tines. this is the best place for the pickup to *hear* the keys evenly.

the pickup, which is a brass disc an inch and an eighth in diameter with piezo crytal on one side, is soldered to co-axial wire which is soldered to the jack. over this is an aluminum bar which has been secured by two brass wood screws. this bar has been tapped to accept another set screw and keeper nut to apply just the right amount of downward pressure on the piezo disc for maximum volume.

does this all sound like a lot of work? well, it is, but the results are worth it. this kalimba sounds great and and it all can be undone to work on if there ever was a problem.(there never has been a problem yet)

this kalimba is currently tuned to C major but could be adjusted upward a bit. it has buzzers, which add a sweet sizzle to the notes, but since they are the *gravity fed graphic buzzalizer* type they can be turned off by simply leaning the kalimba down.

to see the front side of this instrument go here:

http://www.ekalimba.com/forsale2.html

this one is sold now.

New Looking Pages

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:43:01 GMT

at ekalimba.com i put up a new page:

for sale

and there is a lot of new stuff on the index page as well.

Home

RK 404 acoustic-electric $250

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:44:46 GMT

this is a solid little box kalimba, with 13 keys and buzzers. the top and the back are hand selected birch plywood.

the sides were a small shadow-box frame with spline joints.

it is currently tuned pentatonic, B C# D# F G. it of course can be retuned.

it sold for $250.