Electric Sitar on Amazon for $579? Pros and Cons, demo of the Maharaja Electric Sitar.
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- I was curious to know what an electric sitar from amazon.com under $600 would be like and thought many others out there might be too. In this video, I'm demo-ing the Maharaja electric sitar which is listed on amazon at $579. In this video I demo the instrument live and share my thoughts on the pros and cons of purchasing this instrument or something similar. Enjoy!
To learn more about my music, instrument shop and other offerings visit me here:
Website - www.willmarshm...
Instrument Shop - www.willmarshm....
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Bio - Will Marsh brings refined melody, imagination and devotion to all facets of his music. He has been performing classical sitar for fourteen years and guitar twenty. He is blessed to have studied under India’s greatest musicians. Will’s taleem (training) began under Ustad Aashish Khan (the eldest son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan) at the California Institute of the Arts, where Will received his M.F.A in World Music. He has also worked with sitar masters Roshan Jamal Bhartiya, Tushar Bhaita and Shakir Khan. Will resides in the California Bay Area where he is an active teacher, performer and recording artist.
Thank you for the video... and thank you for the SRF Altar 🙏
Thank you, Will. Extremely grateful for your videos.
I appreciate you for sharing this!
I had no idea that electric sitars were a thing, until now.
Thank you for all that info! You are a saint, as it was very helpful.
🙏
You inspire me to play Such a beautiful instrument I’m gonna save up for one:)
GONNA GRAB MYSELF AN ELECTRIC SITAR FOR MORE LOUD SOUND FROM THT BEAUTIFUL THERAPUTIC SOUND
That looks similar to the Silverado Canyon brand sitar, Ouroboros.
I got one not from Amazon but through eBay that was hopeless as a Sitar and the wooden tuning pegs for the sympathetic strings are frustrating as is the design of the chikari strings so I am converting it to a slide guitar but using the sitar bridges and guitar strings, to that end I decided the neck would need reinforcement and I wasn’t happy with 20 strings tied up at the same point and the sitar was unplayable and sitting under my bed so the other day I cut the top of the body off, the “pickup” is just a piece of gold coloured foil with wires attached to it, I am replacing the top with a spruce acoustic guitar soundboard and I am putting a hard wood block at the string anchor end that will meet the top and I am running the sympathetic strings through the body, through the block and out the top, they are then going, Mohan Veena style around posts in the neck to the sides to proper guitar tuners, hence the conversion to slide, I just want the harmonic tones of the sympathetic strings and the buzz bridges I can bend strings further on an electric guitar than on a Sitar, not to mention using a vibrato bar to go even further, for slide, I will need slightly thicker main strings so next I am pulling of the shallow area of the neck, nearly there but it has extra glue at the neck to body join and the headstock end but I need to reinforce the headstock to take more tension and if possible rebuild it completely as well as reinforcement inside the neck to mount the wood carrying the twelve modern machine heads but most of that will be putting wood dowel right through the holes where the tuning pegs were, to make it electric, I don’t know if it will work but I have several spare electric guitar pickups and I am going to try and mount a double coil humbucking pickup which has mounting tabs so it will clear the sympathetic strings, for the playing strings and then try out a fender Stratocaster single coil pickup mounted in the body wood under the sympathetic strings, and that’s about the only way you can get a good sound onboard, piezoelectric pickups in my opinion sound rubbish, the other option if you don’t want to do that is get a decent large diaphragm condenser mike and a portable audio interface, because they need phantom power, Zoom have some that run on batteries then amplify that. If I could take back the choice I would probably get a Sarod but those wooden tuning pegs are not good and are only used for tradition keeping the craftsmen in jobs it really isn’t necessary but I don’t have the engineering know how to convert it as a Sitar but a slide guitar I can do, Mohan Veena guitar use Jazz guitar bridges so they don’t have that shimmering sound and I expect me changing the top is going to sound different also but it will be unique and I have removed all the white decorations which I don’t like, and I’m going to veneer the top and the shallow dip in the neck where the sympathetic strings enter because I will probably break part of it removing it to get to the headstock join but it must be done because that headstock is flimsy and a bland shape also so I’m hoping to be able to either change it completely or I will glue extra timber on it, because it it thinner that a guitar headstock and I will shape it, move the tuners and do something about the chikari strings don’t like them hanging off the side until they get to their post so I will put some sort of guide so they go straight to the neck and then to their post and I will move the main strings over a bit because they are too close to the chikari strings, but yeah I plugged my Sitar in and I just got a loud ground hum, electric guitars are shielded with copper and earthed to the metal, so I don’t know it it’s possible but some jazz guitars have floating pickups, there is an electric veena available that sounds good and the electronics are in one of the tumba, I don’t know how much better pro Sitars are but from what I can see the chikari problem is the same, and it’s not originally an Indian instrument so I don’t understand why it is built with serious ergonomic problems but then maybe that’s why it sounds the way it does.
that's a really cool process you've undertaken with this sitar. It's really not that hard to mic a sitar internally properly, they just don't seem to use good parts in India. I use a custom built polymer sensor pickup which is like a piezo but uses polymer instead of glass or ceramic. The pickup then has a custom made low transistor pre-amp with minimal coloration powered by a 9v battery. It works really well.
Were you able to get the pickup working? Does it look tricky to get inside it and swap out the electronics? Looking at one similar to that one so I don't have to bring out my vintage one to gigs.
It looks pretty easy to get around inside however I wasn't able to get the pickup working. It needs to be replaced and I'm not quite familiar with what they're using. Generally, the pickups on Indian instruments are not so good so I'd invest in a new external pickup.
I got one that was hopeless as a Sitar and the wooden tuning pegs for the sympathetic strings are frustrating as is the design of the chikari strings so I am converting it to a slide guitar but using the sitar bridges and guitar strings, to that end I decided the neck would need reinforcement and I wasn’t happy with 20 strings tied up at the same point and the sitar was unplayable and sitting under my bed so the other day I cut the top of the body off, the “pickup” is just a piece of gold coloured foil with wires attached to it, I am replacing the top with a spruce acoustic guitar soundboard and I am putting a hard wood block at the string anchor end that will meet the top and I am running the sympathetic strings the body, through the block and out the top, they are then going, Mohan Veena style around posts in the neck to the sides to proper guitar tuners, hence the conversion to slide, I just want the harmonic tones of the sympathetic strings and the buzz bridges I can bend strings further on an electric guitar than on a Sitar, not to mention using a vibrato bar to go even further for slide, I will need slightly thicker main strings so next I am pulling of the shallow area of the neck, nearly there but it has extra glue at the neck to body join and the headstock end but I need to reinforce the headstock to take more tension and if possible rebuild it completely as well as reinforcement inside the neck to mount the wood carrying the twelve modern machine heads but most of that will be putting wood dowel right through the holes where the tuning pegs were, to answer your question I don’t know if it will work but I have several spare electric guitar pickups and I am going to try and mount a double coil humbucking pickup which has mounting tabs so it will clear the sympathetic strings, and then try out a fender Stratocaster single coil pickup mounted in the body wood under the sympathetic strings, and that’s about the only way you can get a good sound onboard, piezoelectric pickups in my opinion sound rubbish, the other option if you don’t want to do that is get a decent large diaphragm condenser mike and a portable audio interface, because they need phantom power, Zoom have some that run on batteries then amplify that.
PS here is a link for someone putting electric pickups in a Sitar but I noticed they didn’t do a sound test
BRIAN JONES GREATEST
I bought this model in Goa. Is the tuning the same as for acoustics? I seem to be snapping a lot of strings just trying to tune it. Does it use specific strings? They look like a lighter gauge in the video than for an acoustic.
the gauge for sympathetic strings is .009, also referred to as #0. The tuning is the same for acoustic or electric.
If arms doesn't set property because of its small gourd size then its wastage of money.
I agree.
so downside...it doesn't work!!!
lol correct
Damn..what a rip off for a non working crap. I was going to get one and now contemplating how to get a genuine product