
I designed and built this eCello for my good friend Carolyn Grant, the director of the Museum of Making Music. It is designed around the three contact points a cellist needs and incorporates many of the ideas I've been working with for the last couple of decades.
The eCello has three channels output; first, a magnetic that I designed around small neodymium magnets and relatively large magnet wire for a full range pickup that could mount far enough from the strings to avoid pulling them from their natural orbit. The second channel is a buffered piezo output that picks up the sound from the individual pickups at the bridge, then routs them to a high-fidelity preamp, and also to a digital converter. The digital sends the signal to an independent output for driving a synthesizer.
The drop tuner is my invention and doesn't affect the tension of the neck (as most drop tuners can), so the strings remain in tune. In essence, it is a single-string extended capo.
The finish is a hand-made, hand-silkscreened, Japanese paper. The paper is finished with shellac. The tailpiece and pickup and hardware are carbon fiber and aluminum.
Softcase included