Delta blues improvisation on cigar box guitar smojomusic 2007-11-24 | A little bit of improvisation to show how a simple instrument like my hand made cigar box guitars can perform. It's run through an amp with bit of reverb and overdrive here. Just a bit of Delta inspired stuff to show you how you can play it heavy or soft, lead and rhythm. Great fun.
demo of my handbuilt electric resonator guitar smojomusic 2013-06-14 | Short demo of my hand built resonator guitar. Completely made from raw materials apart from the pre-slotted fretboard and hardware. I based it loosely on the National Resolectric but changed the cutaway shape and rearranged the controls for a more pleasing design. Fitted with Highlander biscuit bridge pickup.
The 333 - my three string solid body electric guitar based on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2013-06-14 | A short demo of the solid bodied three stringed guitar I built which is based on cigar box guitar. I wanted it to look like a pile of junk but play and sound wicked. I think it does.
Hacker radio guitar amp.wmv smojomusic 2012-01-30 | My second hacked radio into a guitar amp. This one is appropriately made by Hacker from 1966. British made, built like a battleship - fabulous. It's very loud when turned up and overdrives beautifully for that cool distortion. The camera mic doesn't do the sound justice but you get the idea.
how to make a guitar amp from an old transistor radio smojomusic 2012-01-26 | This was my first attempt to hack an old transistor radio and turn it into a cool little guitar amp using the original components. The inspiration came from a group on Cigar Box Nation created by a great guy calling himself BeetleJuice.
The Pulsillator Part 3 smojomusic 2011-07-12 | A hand made oscillator/drone box inspired by Nic Collins Handmade Electronic Music book. I call it The Pulsillator. The box is an old electrical tester. I fitted one set of hex inverters and one set of cascaded nand inverters, each providing four seperate oscillators controlled by the four pots with switchable light dependent resistors. The light pen can be hooked to one of the oscillator outputs to provide a flashing light to use on the LDRs. Sounds crap on this vid but put through some FX and a decent amp it's wicked.
The Pulsillator Part 2 smojomusic 2011-07-12 | A hand made oscillator/drone box inspired by Nic Collins Handmade Electronic Music book. I call it The Pulsillator. The box is an old electrical tester. I fitted one set of hex inverters and one set of cascaded nand inverters, each providing four seperate oscillators controlled by the four pots with switchable light dependent resistors. The light pen can be hooked to one of the oscillator outputs to provide a flashing light to use on the LDRs. Sounds crap on this vid but put through some FX and a decent amp it's wicked. Sorry about the low res, camerawork.
The Pulsillator Part 1 smojomusic 2011-07-12 | A hand made oscillator/drone box inspired by Nic Collins Handmade Electronic Music book. I call it The Pulsillator. The box is an old electrical tester. I fitted one set of hex inverters and one set of cascaded nand inverters, each providing four seperate oscillators controlled by the four pots with switchable light dependent resistors. The light pen can be hooked to one of the oscillator outputs to provide a flashing light to use on the LDRs. Sounds crap on this vid but put through some FX and a decent amp it's wicked.
ratrod guitar smojomusic 2011-03-17 | A rough demo to show you my hand built ratrod guitar. I used a cheap strat copy as the donor guitar and clad it in flattened out food cans and brass plate. Tuned to open G it makes a great slide guitar.
hand built tremolo box smojomusic 2011-03-17 | A simple trem box built by myslef from a circuit described in Nic Collins book Handmade electronic Music. Just to show you what it sounds like.
sungrown cigar box guitar smojomusic 2011-02-26 | One of my best guitars yet. Fretted 3-stringer and the luxury of a volume control. Just giving it a last minute play before shipping it off to it's new owner.
Circuit bent toy - is this the road to madness smojomusic 2011-02-14 | My second circuit bent project. Just the clock resistor changed for a 1 meg pot and a switchable photo-resistor across it. Another one picks up light from the LED giving a sort of tremolo effect.
circuit bent toy cellphone.wmv smojomusic 2011-02-12 | First attempts at circuit bending. This childs toy has now got a pitch control and switchable capacitors. Not particularly musical but it's fun to play with and has taught me some basics in circuit bending
a little boogie on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2011-01-15 | A little off-the-cuff boogie on my latest cigar box guitar, straight off the bench. This one has had a lot of treatment to make it look ratty. Usual piezo pickup, three strings tuned to open A and the luxury of frets! Sorry about the crap resolution, must get a better camcorder.
the smojo special cigar box guitar smojomusic 2010-03-23 | My latest and best cigar box guitar to date. I have a complete CBG kit that matches now - guitar, case, amp, slide. All hand made by myself, mostly from recycled materials. The guitar has an internal piezo pick-up under the bridge and a hand wired magnetic pick-up near the neck. To see some photos and description of the guitar, visit my blog about it at http://smojo-cigar-box-guitars.blogspot.com/2010/03/cgb-special-is-finished.html
gong made from a roasting pan smojomusic 2010-01-22 | A response to a challenge to make a musical instrument from kitchen items. I found an old roasting tin/pan someone had thrown away. I sprayed a design on it and blue border. Made a beater from a wooden spoon and a rubber ball. It was quick and easy to make and surprisingly good! Sorry about the background noise - rain on the roof window!
Harmony H44 and Akai E2 Headrush demo smojomusic 2009-11-29 | Another rough video. I'm noodling around in dropped d tuning with my Harmony H44 re-issue played through an Akai E2 Headrush echo/delay pedal. This is on the tape echo setting which is meant to emulate the old analogue tape echo machines. You can play around all day and not get bored with this thing.
cigar box guitar and Akai E2 Headrush demo smojomusic 2009-11-29 | A rough and ready demo of an Akai E2 Headrush delay/looping pedal and one of my cigar box guitars. Using the loop facility you can lay down a basic riff and get it to repeat indefinitley. Then build up a pattern by layering other riffs over it. Save it then you have something you can jam to.
open G tuning for a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2009-11-07 | How to tune your cigar box guitar to open G. Aimed at beginners who have just made one or maybe bought one and having difficulty getting it in tune. My apologies for the rough and ready nature of the vid, I did it straight off the cuff - no rehearsals.
open E tuning for a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2009-11-07 | How to tune your cigar box guitar to open E. Aimed at beginners who have just made one or maybe bought one and having difficulty getting it in tune. My apologies for the rough and ready nature of the vid, I did it straight off the cuff - no rehearsals.
open A tuning for a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2009-11-07 | How to tune your cigar box guitar to open A. Aimed at beginners who have just made one or maybe bought one and having difficulty getting it in tune. My apologies for the rough and ready nature of the vid, I did it straight off the cuff - no rehearsals.
setting the intonation, tuning on a cigar box guitar part 2 smojomusic 2009-11-07 | Part two of how to adjust the bridge to set the intonation on a cigar box guitar. Aimed at beginners who have just made one or maybe bought one and having difficulty getting it in tune. My apologies for the rough and ready nature of the vid, I did it straight off the cuff - no rehearsals.
setting the intonation, tuning on a cigar box guitar part 1 smojomusic 2009-11-07 | Part one of how to adjust the bridge to set the intonation on a cigar box guitar. Aimed at beginners who have just made one or maybe bought one and having difficulty getting it in tune. My apologies for the rough and ready nature of the vid, I did it straight off the cuff - no rehearsals.
choosing strings for a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2009-11-07 | First of a few rough and ready lessons for beginners to get you started on tuning your cigar box guitar. My apologies if I tend to waffle a bit but they were all more or less, one-takes and off the cuff without any rehearsals.
Tobacco tin microphone smojomusic 2009-11-03 | Demo of my hand made tobacco tin mic. Great for harp playing and pretty cool item. Check out the bowler hat too!
cigar box guitar played through a tobacco tin amp smojomusic 2009-10-19 | To complement my cigar box guitars, I made a tobacco tin amplifier. It's about 1/2 watt and surprisingly loud. It has a gain control that gives mild distortion at minimum gain, to heavy blow-your-socks-off distortion at full gain. Runs off a 9v battery and has an output socket to connect to a speaker cab. The bowler hat? Bought it at a junk sale and well - what else would you expect an Englishman to be wearing?
Bo Siddley aka Stuart at Birm CBG fest 2009 smojomusic 2009-10-09 | Open Mic session at the 1st UK CBG fest at Birmingham 2009. Stuart taking the vocals on a song he wrote in the morning.
Hollowbelly UK cigar box guitar fest 2009 smojomusic 2009-10-04 | The amazing Hollowbelly letting rip with 'Southside Girl' at the first UK cigar box guitar fest. A one day event held at Birmingham
First UK CBG fest 2009 smojomusic 2009-10-04 | Chickenbone John demo-ing Soundsogood's hand made electric cigar box guitar reso at the first UK cigar box fest in Birmingham Oct 2009. What a belter!
You gotta move on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2009-04-08 | My improvised version of You Gotta Move on one of my cigar box guitars - played clean then dirty. Sorry about the dodgy channel switches in the middle! Couldn't resist adding some fancy bits to the end too.
smojo boogie - blues on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2009-04-08 | Messin' about on one of my new cigar box guitars. Improvised boogie in open E
Cigar box guitar blues - pinched harmonics 2 smojomusic 2008-08-26 | Doodling some improvised blues again. This time showing you how I'm doing the pinched harmonics. I'm playing alternate licks with and without harmonics. Watch my thumb, it's sort of double picking the string with my index finger. The position on the string is also critical. Move up and down till you find the sweet spot.
Cigar box guitar blues - pinched harmonics 1 smojomusic 2008-08-26 | Just doodling some slide improvised blues on the cbg and experimenting with some pinched harmonics. Listen to the middle bit to here the harmonics, quite interesting effect if used in small doses.
cigar box guitar lonesome bluesy improvisation smojomusic 2008-03-03 | Just a quick vid to show my latest hand made CBG and mainly my cigar box amp. The clip starts with the amp switched off and guitar purely acoustic. Second bit with amp on and volume half way giving a clean sound. (Hard to tell on this but it is louder than the guitar on it's own). Then I turn amp up full to show the nice natural distortion. Lastly turned back down to clean sound.
Guess what on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2008-02-16 | My rough cigar box guitar version of a well known number. What is it though? Leave a comment if you can tell.
Amazing Grace - sort of bluesey on a chocolate tin guitar smojomusic 2008-01-20 | Another rough cut of a well know tune, a sort of bluesy version played with a lot of overdrive on my hand made chocolate tin guitar.
Spoonful and Baby Please Dont Go blues on cigar box guitar smojomusic 2008-01-20 | This is a sort of rough medley of the two blues songs played on one of my cigarbox guitars, this time plugged into an amp with a lot of overdrive.
Albatross on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2008-01-20 | A rought attempt at one of my favourite pieces. Not quite up to Peter Green's standard! Played on one of my hand made cigarbox guitars acoustically and in open A tuning.
Rollin n Tumblin blues on a cigar box guitar smojomusic 2007-11-24 | A snippet of "Rollin 'n Tumblin" played on one of my hand made cigar box guitars. Run through an amp with a bit of reverb and overdrive they sound pretty cool.
Cigar Box Guitar - Back Back Train smojomusic 2007-11-02 | First attempt at making a video. This is me playing one of my cigar box guitar creations. A small snippet of "Back Back Train"
