News for 2024                                              July 2024

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Prices  I’ve been trying to live the life of a harmless woodland creature out here, but I was not able to avoid inflation forever. All my materials costs went up, and so the new pricelist reflects this.

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Used Instruments: Although I still have a backlog of about a year for building new instruments, I also do sometimes have a couple of used ones for sale. At present, there are also three of Sam Rizzetta's fretted dulcimers available, wonderfully warm, articulate instruments. You can check them out at samrizzetta.com, or come by to hear them in my shop.

 

Carbon fiber.  The  CF design Sam and I I used for some years, with  laid-up back and sides like a competition kayak,  produced a very durable instrument with a very nice sound . It was more tuning stable than the all-wood instruments, especially if sealed inside. It was , however, significantly more work and expense, and had the same weight.

    For some wanting an instrument, reduced weight is a real priority.  It was easy to build a light one with disappointing sound and unstable tuning.  But changing the design ( most importantly  to have a thinner layup of carbon fiber  and  a thicker core ) has fixed  that. It also is simpler ro build, and so closer to the cost of a regular wood Compact. For those wanting to pare ounces, I recommend the new LCF Compact, which is about ten pounds. I have also built LCF versions of the Forte and Extended Range, with similar results: with wood soundboards, they have lighter weight, great tone, very good tuning stability. Using CF laminate also for the soundboard gives the Extended Range a magisterial, articulate sound, good dynamic range, and amazing tuning stability: I took a LCF Extended Range to the Evart FunFest in mid July of 2022. I had tuned it in mid-June. Even bouncing to Michigan and back in my camper, and spending several days in the summer heat of the fairgrounds, I only needed to tune four bronze string courses once- and that was only because the instrument had toppled over in the camper.

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Weighty Matters. We've come a long way since 1900, when a typical hammered dulcimer had 12 courses, weighed 45 pounds: and still couldn't be tuned. But more and more people are trying to lighten their load these days. All the instruments I make come in a lighter form.  I can usually still shave yet a few more ounces- by using a lighter wood on the frame, for example. But remember that a good soft case will add 4 or 5 pounds.  Pedal dampers and TriStander legs and brackets adds several more. If you then throw a music book and music stand into the case pocket, with all of it you've likely turned a 10 pound HD into a 25 pound load on your shoulder. 

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 The LCF Forte has also been a success. With a longer scale, a Forte has got more dynamic range than the Compact.. It's also pretty tuning stable, because a longer string length will be less affected by humidity as well, so a longer-scale  Forte, even though it’s made of wood, will stay in tune better than a wood Compact. And as it changes pretty slowly, for doing a gig a Forte will stay tuned as well as a sealed carbon-fiber instrument. So, the LCF Forte will continue to have a wood soundboard.

 

Carbon fiber hammers. Sam Rizzetta started using flexible-shaft hammers some years back. They often will improve the sound of an instrument,  reducing the brittle attack that comes from using light hard wooden ones, and they are also a little easier to handle- if you tend to either grip your hammers too hard or drop them completely, they can really change your game. Making the shanks out of carbon fiber was the best for precisely controlling flex. I am making them in three stiffnesses: #0 ( flexible) #1 ( medium) and #2 (stiff). If you tried  playing them years ago and liked them then, #0 is probably what you used. If you’re a heavy hitter, #2 will hold up against your dynamic energy. For everyone else, try #1.

 

There are also people who have a hard time gripping any kind of hammer, have arthritis,  wrist or hand  problems. Sam’s designed some ergonomic hammers that work quite well. With a grip similar to  hackbrett hammers, they essentially clip into the hand between the fingers and require little bending of the wrist. If you can manipulate your hammers without pain, you don’t need these. But if you have been close to giving up playing at all, these may help.  There’s one stiffness- they need to be pretty flexible to work the way they should. You can see how they function at https://samrizzetta.com/contents/hammers.

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Sam Rizzetta

 

It’s been a couple of years since we lost Sam, and I still dearly miss him.

Recently someone dropped me a photo of an Extended Range HD from 1989, saying I might be interested: as the label had both my name and Sam’s on it, clearly he’d built it for me! I think perhaps I need to clarify. Sam Rizzetta, Paul; Reisler and I created Trapezoid Instruments in 1983, with Paul selling, Sam designing, and me in the shop. After making a number of those mellow Augusta Grandes, that business ended.  For years afterwards, though, I continued to make instruments for Sam. It was a somewhat fluid process. Often  Sam was wanting to make big design changes, and I was wanting to keep from throwing away all my jigs and fixtures. Sometimes I suggested changes, found useful improvements.  It was a somewhat fluid- and friendly- process. But, if you find a HD with both my name and Sam’s inside, it usually means I built the instrument, and Sam then spent some time voicing it- changing some strings, bridge caps, perhaps even bracing and bridges- and then often would add his own soundhole rose.  When he finally liked it ( which could take a while), he turned it over to the buyer. In his last years Sam built instruments entirely to his own inclination, was able to devote himself  entirely to experimentation.  So if you don’t see my name in the soundhole, I was not involved. Our last joint project was a completely CF fretted dulcimer, finished shortly before he died. The label just reads “Nick and Sam”.

Pickups  Jonathan Weinberg, a good player, sadly passed away just recently. He was a meticulous engineer, and did a series of experiments with placement of piezo tape sensors and  put up a few pages with useful information on pickups here (http://www.jonweinberg.com/music/Amplifying_Dulcimer.pdf) . As of right now, the pages are still up. I hope they will be for a while longer.

 

For years  made my own  sensors, embedding piezo cable in the treble bridge. I liked the way it captured the lower frequencies- mostly you hear too much of the bright treble of a HD amplified in concert. However, the cable was a bit noisy, compared to the tape sensors made by PickupThe World, and so I am now switching over to two PUTW unless otherwise requested. In the past I have also built my own preamps, designed by by astute engineer Tom Dawson. I still do, and like the sound, but Schatten's preamps are, for high-impedance purposes, just as good. They are also easy to replace- any instrument tech can easily wire one. For  High-Z installations, I will be using Schatten preamps. New piezo pickup systems are also being evaluated.

 

Tropical Wood and CITES. Instrument makers have been dealing for some time with the world restrictions on rare and endangered woods and natural products. Few of us would ever contemplate using ivory or tortoise shell, most of us know about banned Brazilian rosewood. I have never built anything with those materials. But recently, because of a large expansion of the Chinese demand for rosewood furniture, the list was expanded to cover all members of the Dalbergia genus. For most everything other than Brazilian rosewood- Honduran rosewood, Bubinga, African blackwood- the restrictions are for heavy objects of more than 22 kilos. Some of my instruments have been built with  Honduran Rosewood, Bolivian Rosewood, and Bubinga. Used only for bridges and frame overlay,  there’s no more than a kilo or two of such wood in a hammered dulcimer. HOWEVER, if anyone has one of my instruments that has some tropical wood in it and is worried about difficulties carrying it across a border, let me know. I can supply a statement as to what wood is in the instrument and when it was made, and usually can supply a photo ( though not of all my older instruments).  That should be enough to get it past customs.

 

International Sales have been a challenge in the past, as the US banking system does not splice into any other. IBAN and SWIFT transfers do not work here. I have recently gotten a Wise account, and find it works much better- and cheaper- than the alternatives.

 

Although most of my orders are for hammered dulcimers, I’ve posted some photos of salterios, scheitholts and a recent tambour de Béarn.

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