The Sounds of a Home Made Didgeridoo

My last post about building a didgeridoo from scratch had a few people asking for videos or sound bites on how it sounds. I sat down yesterday and recorded a quick little sample of how it sounds. I added a little percussion to it in post just for fun.

Building a Didgeridoo

I decided to make a didgeridoo from scratch.
I've been into didgeridoos ever since I was a kid and first heard their calming rhythmic sound in the movie Crocodile Dundee. It's a shame I don't have a more interesting and less cringeworthy first encounter with a didg but whatever. Over the years I have learned how to play the didg and have purchased a few from various people and places and thought it that maybe it might be fun to make my own.

I was visiting friends on Saltspring Island who have a beautiful wooded property and were nice enough to let me tromp through the woods in search of the perfect tree to cut down. It was wet and snowy and cold but I found a good one in due time... and cut it down.

Then, once felled, I stripped the branches off and cut it into three pieces roughly the right size and shape. I lugged it home and was ready to get started. Except that after some research I found that to do it right I should let the wood dry for a year before I start. I don't have that kind of patience so I grabbed the worst piece of wood I got (the one with the most knots in it) and threw it in my friends workshop paint drying oven for 3 weeks. It helped dry it out quickly but also helped to give it some "character" cracks. I was now pretty sure that this was my test build.

I used the ban saw to shape the end closest to the  mouth piece area and make it a little narrower. Then I belt sanded it smooth.

I cut it in half length wise with the band saw and then hand chiseled out each half. That part sucked.

I glued and clamped the two sides back together and let it sit over night to dry.

Then I shaped the mouth piece a little more and sanded the crap out of it, getting it ready to be stained and then painted.

Then I coated it in a crystal clear epoxy resin. This was to strengthen it and fill in the few cracks that had occurred on account of speeding up the drying time in the paint oven. Lastly I heated up bees wax with a heat gun and shaped the mouth piece.

In the end it sounds great and I'm quite happy with it, I'm looking forward to making the next one.

Here is a quick little peak into the mixing process of one of the songs that will appear on the next Roche Limit album. The song is called "Dirty Contradictions" and is being mixed at Fader Master studios in Vancouver BC. The video was shot and edited on an iPhone 4S so it's fairly limited but you'll hopefully get an idea of how it goes. 

Shock Treatment Management has released a compilation CD for free download that includes one of my songs and can be downloaded here
It's also being handed out at colleges and universities of the Pacific Northwest for free to students, which is pretty awesome. It is a 17 track mix of many different styles and genres and is worth checking out.

New Song For Free Download

Happy Holidays Everyone!!
Here is a previously un-released song that never made it onto the last album for you to download for free!! It's called "I know" and I hope you enjoy it and have a great New Year.

I Know by rochelimit

Zombie Cover

ZOMBIE by rochelimit

Thought it was time for some streaming of the cover song I did called Zombie.

What Now? July 2010

What's on my iPod in heavy rotation at the moment?
Not much, a little disappointed in this summers tunes...

The Black Keys :new album Brothers is pretty great, and I'd say is one of the top albums I'm going through at the moment. Bluesy good times.

The Glitch Mob: "Drink the sea" is a wicked album that pretty much goes down anytime, instrumental electronic awesomeness is pretty much how I'd describe that one.

Dan Black: I'm listening to him a bit too... not sure if it's cheesy or not but I seem to be playing more than once so I must like it a little bit. Poppy electronic summer fun music.

That's kind of it at the moment, I'd love some suggestions if you'd be so kind.

Have a great summer...

PS. I've been slowly working on some new material for the next album, and it's coming along nicely.