I finished building 'The Autodrum' from the front end of a 1999 Honda Civic. It is a timpani-stype large drum with many different metallic playing surfaces and great resonance. I found someone on Craigslist who was about to junk their car, so I bought a bunch of panels and inner workings of his car. I built a wooden frame and put the front end of the car and driver-side door back together, piece by piece. I wanted to make the wheels work so I can transport it to the stage. I also got the lights to work so it should look good in the show.
The sound is quite cool. I had to play with placement of the wooden beams under the areas of the body that I wanted to resonate, so the sound wouldn't be dead. On the other hand, too much white noise is no good either. So I've found a good balance. The percussionist can play on different parts of the body to have different tonal sounds.
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| During construction |
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| Riding 'The Autodrum' with Nikki carrying/pushing it out of the garage for the first time |
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| Playing 'The Autodrum' |
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