written by: martinthompson
Erm, nope, England... is sugru an Irish word? I only know of this:On my wind controller (WX5), I used to block up the air outlet at the bottom of the instrument with a piece of Blutak, which allowed me to hold long notes just by keeping the pressure constant, and allowed circular breathing...
Am I likely to cause problems to my Pico if I do that to it?
Thanks,
Martin
Hi Martin
Probably not, although it's never been tested in that configuration (so the usual dull manufacturer warnings apply, 'your warranty will be void' etc etc) but I can't see any particular reason it should cause trouble. The one thing that might raise issues is that by doing that you can raise the air pressure in the bypass system way above normal values and it might cause an internal pipe to pop off, which would be a pain as it's a 'return to manufacturer' kind of repair since the keyboard would need re-calibration after taking the back off to put the pipe back on. It probably depends on how aggressive with the air pressure you are, if you take it moderately you'll probably be in safe territory. You might be alright blowing like a maniac, but the instruments aren't tested for that use before shipping (they are tested for normal blowing and sucking) so it'll be down to how firmly the internal pipes are pushed on their spigots, which is not a parameter we've ever included in our assembly tests as the final breath pipe function tests can catch any problems.
Give it a go - if you do have a problem we'll repair it this one time for free, just send it back to us. And please let us know how well you get on, it sounds like an interesting experiment. I wouldn't use Blutack btw, a small rubber bung (you could whittle one out of any stopper), or an appropriate bit of Tygon tubing fitted to the exhaust port with a knot tied in it would serve a lot better I suspect.
John
Hi Martin
it just occurred to me that you can avoid all that potential trouble by blocking the bypass airway at the top of the breath pipe itself. If you pull the mouthpiece off you will see a main air hole in the centre of the spigot. This is not needed for the air pressure (the pressure travels through the little side hole on the spigot in between the two 'O' rings) so you can block it and it should achieve your end. I would certainly be careful about how you block it - remember that pressure will tend to force a plug into the pipe at that point, and getting stuff back out of there is going to be difficult.
The other (and now that I think about it the best) alternative is to modify the actual mouthpiece. This is probably your best option of all, as it's an easily reversible change and you should already have a spare mouthpiece. Simply bung up the main, center aperture on the mouthpiece, right where you breathe into it, being careful to leave the two small holes to either side clear (which are the pressure sampling points) . Since this is modifying a spare mouthpiece, you could do it permanently with a foodsafe adhesive and then simply switch between the two sorts of behaviour by changing mouthpieces over, which only takes a second or so. Done this way you have no worries about potentially damaging the insides of the instrument.
John
Thanks John - I like the mouthpiece modification - might be a job for some sugru!
Sugru,? You're not in Ireland by any chance?
Erm, nope, England... is sugru an Irish word? I only know of this:
Sugru site... Ahah, I see - I've only just noticed the Irish link - in the past I've only noted the London university roots, no further back! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugru
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