Songs and Sonics

While researching how to construct a marimba, I ran across an incredibly helpful 1956 Mechanix Illustrated magazine article called “Build Your Own Marimba.” When I saw the guy on the first page, I knew that building this marimba was my destiny.

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My secondary source was a nice book called Make Your Own Marimbas. If you are considering making your own marimba, I highly recommend studying these sources. I also recommend having access to a table saw, a drill press, and a box of Band-Aids.

The Wood

The wooden keys are the most expensive part of a marimba.

The Mechanix Illustrated article mentions Brazilian rosewood as if it were as common as french fries at McDonalds. Nowadays, you will likely go to jail if some thug sells you Brazilian rosewood. I wanted a marimba badly, but not that badly.

Most modern professional marimbas use Honduran rosewood, which lends itself to a nice tone when struck. Budget/student marimbas usually use padouk wood. I’ve heard some good sound clips of padouk marimbas. However, professional marimba players usually run screaming at the thought of being within five miles of padouk. It’s a softer wood which has more potential to dent over time.

Honduran rosewood was, at the time I built the marimba, four times as expensive as padouk. If your motivation for building a marimba is because of the sound… skimping on the keys isn’t a good idea. The keys are responsible for most of the instrument’s tone.

And Honduran rosewood — while not illegal (as far as I know) — seems to be a bit tricky to find, too. After a lot of semi-clandestine phone calls, I finally found an out-of-state supplier who was willing to talk to me. When I had exhausted my supply and wanted to order more, they had run out. Apparently, all of the other marimba builders in the world had looted their warehouse.

When you pick up Honduran rosewood and thunk on it, it has a very clear, musical tone to it, unlike any wood I’ve ever worked with. Granted, I’ve only worked with the Home Depot “classics” — pine, plywood, oak, and particle board. But still… This is amazing stuff.

The Resonators

Underneath each key of the marimba is something called a resonator. A resonator amplifies the sound of the rosewood and creates a pleasant “after ring,” which is a big part of a marimba’s distinctive sound. Each resonator is tuned to the same pitch as the fundamental note of each key.

Most professional marimbas use aluminum or brass resonators. According to the Mechanix Illustrated article, the material that the resonator is made from does not matter much. This statement is accurate if your ears don’t work.

I made 49 properly-tuned resonators with PVC tubing. I’d seen many other homebuilt marimbas use PVC. But there’s one tiny problem with PVC tubing.

It sounds like PVC tubing.

So my trash pickup was larger than usual that week. I ended up recutting and retuning all 49 resonators with aluminum tubing.

Coming soon… The frame, the keys, and putting it all together!

One of the things I was hoping to do with Songs and Sonics was share some easy projects you can build for your home studio.

This project is not one of them.

In 2002, I got the idea that I needed a marimba for my home studio.

I don’t know why I needed a marimba. I just wanted that sound.

Marimbas are notoriously expensive. Professional marimbas start in the $2,000 range for a used instrument. New marimbas are in the $6,000-$12,000+ range.

I couldn’t justify spending that much for an instrument that was going to be one of dozens sitting in my studio. I was never going be a full-time marimba player. I just wanted that sound when working on a recording that called for it.

You can get a pretty realistic marimba sound by using a sampler. In fact, you can capture the timbre and make something sound even better than the real thing with a sampler. A really good sampled sound can sound almost hyper-realistic. You can trick listeners into thinking they’re hearing the “real thing.” I’ve been fooled, for sure.

But I don’t think you can capture the soul of an instrument that way.

The subtleties and imperfections are usually missing from a sampled or synthesized instrument, which is sometimes the most interesting part. If the subtleties are in there, they’re often exaggerated to a comical degree, or you need to really work at adding those fake subtleties back in.

Plus, playing a keyboard isn’t as fun as standing in front of an imposing piece of furniture with a couple mallets and jumping around to hit the keys. You can feel the vibrations move from the marimba key to the mallet to your arm. There’s a whole physical element missing if you’re working with a simulation.

So I decided to build my own marimba.

Several people asked me if I had the woodworking skills to build a marimba. After some hemming and hawing, the answer was… “Uh… no.”

On my previous woodworking project, I had trouble building a plywood box with all four sides of equal length. But I decided to go ahead with the marimba project anyway. It’s only wood, right? How hard could it be?

My dad offered his help, not really knowing what he was about to get into. But I guess those are the kinds of helpful things you do when you’re a dad. Neither of us consider ourselves professional woodworkers. We are practical, patient, and determined… and that’s about it.

Like all construction projects, it will always take longer, be more expensive, and be more difficult than you initially imagined.

But it was worth it.

To be continued…