Slapaphone

[Hp_lovecraft]

Not paintball, but I have so many projects stuck half way done, I'm just happy to see something finished.
A slapaphone is a musical instrument consisting of a set of pipes of different length. When you "slap" one end of the pipe, you get a note.
The wavelength of the note is equal to the length of the pipe. So, C1 is 8". C2 is 4", C3 is 2", and all the other notes are between.

One of my kids asked me to build them one. Something simple, but I hated all the designs I saw on the internet. They were all giant, clunky and ugly looking. I wanted it small enough to be portable, but have a full range of notes, so it could play most anything. And it needed to have "symmetry". Not just random pipes.

And now its finally done. Just waiting for paint. In total: 150 feet of 2" PCV pipe, and 80 90-degree elbows.

[Nish]

Neat. Never heard of such a thing before.

[glaman5266]

This is so cool! I'd love to see what it looks like painted.

[Hp_lovecraft]

Here is a good demo. I built it for my 8 year old…. But so far he can only play “never Gonna give you up”.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=K_T-w3D2QKY&feature=share

[DocsMachine]

Neat. Never heard of such a thing before.

-You've never heard of the Blue Man Group?

Such instruments are central to their sound and have been for 20 years or more. It's a cool setup- they even have backpack setups for stage shows.

Doc.

[Nish]

I've heard of them, and I've seen Recycled Percussion which does similar shows, less lights more pyrotechnics I think. But never realized identified any of the obscure instruments.

[William the Third]

Really, you have never heard of BMG? They were so popular in the late 90's/early 00's that Intel used them in a bunch of TV ads.

[BrickHaus]

The second video is the stranger things intro song... mind blown.

[Walker]

HP', I would love to hear these when they are finished!


Walker

[moving_target]

Cleanest slapaphone I've seen outside of a BMG show.

[DocsMachine]

Cleanest slapaphone I've seen outside of a BMG show.

-I believe the Blue Men call it a "Tubulum". At least they used to. ''

Doc.

[moving_target]

-I believe the Blue Men call it a "Tubulum". At least they used to. ''

Doc.

That sounds about right. But i would argue all Tubulum are slapaphones, but not all slapaphone are tubulum.

[Hp_lovecraft]

That sounds about right. But i would argue all Tubulum are slapaphones, but not all slapaphone are tubulum.

You can actually find lots of different names. The reason is that companies want to be able to sell plans, so they need a unique name that can be trademarked.
The blue mans group version is nice that it avoids all 90-degree angles, trying to use only 45. This is to reduce the even number harmonics. But my priority was looks.

In fact, apart from my paintball collection, I also have a music instrument collection. A little bit of everything, but one thing that I have been looking for to add to my collection was a "Mortuary Organ". They were only built for a few years, and a very niche item in a niche market. But I was facinated by how organized the internals were, so I wanted to design my slapaphone to look like it:

[Spider!]

Old boiler control panels were plumbed in stainless tubing and valves the same way. It looks like you've got a good grip on the art!

I can't even find a good picture. I worked on some that were absolute art.
Not just ganged together neatly, but fully stuffed in a cabinet like that organ.

[Rainmaker]

Yeeeeeesssss! I've always wanted to make one of these. One day maybe!

This guy....

[Hp_lovecraft]

This was the first test before I added sharps, and I also added a low A and B

https://youtube.com/shorts/tX9bCnUX1M8?feature=share

[jokers]

How directional is that instrument? With speakers you can make a sweet spot if you want or you depending on the number of speakers you can expand that sweet spot out but there are sweet spots. From the video Rainmaker posted it would seem that in front of the instrument seems to be the best but around it works well. I wonder though if the music is all around and the only reason you do not see many people behind that artist is they are trying to see what he is doing and not so much hear it.

[Spider!]

I think the pipes are like horns, so the positioning of the outlet contributes to the distribution, especially with bunches of tubes. Microphones can move that too. The drumbone illustrates that, since the sleeves don't have the same (or consistent) contact for vibration on the surface of the tube.

https://youtu.be/q3Hzipyc-uQ

[Hp_lovecraft]

One quirk that hurts my head to think about- You can also "Haskel" the pipes. For example, if you built an 8 foot pipe, it will produce a C-note at about 65hz. If you take that 8" pipe, and put it inside another 8" pipe, it will produce a tone an octave lower. (about 32hz). You can also make "resultant" pipes, were you combine an 8" pipe with a mutation pipe for the first harmonic. The resulting sine wave mix also also produce a tone of an octave lower. I've been thinking about this in the event I want to add a set of pipes an octave down