Shruti box/drone note choice advice

[wes]

I never forget my first exposure to concertina, and the guy that played it had a shruti box. He played me a tune on his breathy old full of holes lachenal backed by that shruti. Magic. 

So I'm looking for informed opinions on what key I should purchase one in, for the usual c/g box irish scottish style of music.

This site has some quality looking ones to choose from.

http://www.buyraagini.com/mks-special-concert-shruti-large-box-natural-color-with-bag-fbb/

[Peter Laban]

you may also want to take a look at this site: https://www.shrutibox.co.uk/ 

 

The foot pedals they supply are a useful  addition to the box.

[SteveS]

Interesting - I took delivery of a new Shruti box 2 weeks ago.

It's a 2 octave instrument in key of C - and fully chromatic.

I decided on a Shruti box to add another dimension to the Nordic music I play on concertina and for the various Scandinavian whistles I play.

Here's a link to the chap, Stefan Cartwright, who made mine.

And a link to a similar one being played.

I also use a foot pedal to operate my Shruti box.

So far I'm playing the Shruti box along with a few Swedish bagpipe tunes to great effect.

Edited May 16, 2019 by SteveS

[Fane]

Jon Boden uses a shruti box Heath Robinson'ed with a kick drum pedal and a brake cable from a bike to make it foot-operated:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTTz_99LU1E

 

I can't recall him using it with a concertina when I saw him solo but he used it to underpin a few fiddle songs to great effect.

 

SteveS, I've been wanting to get into playing Nordic music for some time but it's hard to find a source of tunes/notation etc. Do you have any good tips on where to begin? Totally off-topic I know...

[tealeaf]

I was also inspired by Jon Boden's shruti-boxing to try this out, and have one on my medium-term wishlist. One option I'd advise is trying some of the excellent Android/iOS shruti box apps out there to play with it first and get a good idea of the settings and options. Some that I've tried and would say are worth a play before investing in a full hardware one are:

• Pocket Shruti Box (Android)
• iTablaPro (iOS)

[Wolf Molkentin]

On 5/16/2019 at 10:24 AM, wes said:

This site has some quality looking ones to choose from.

http://www.buyraagini.com/mks-special-concert-shruti-large-box-natural-color-with-bag-fbb/

 

I can encourage you to buy from them - my wife wanted one, and I was quite sceptical up to delivery, but the box (an even cheaper model) was very much in tune, and turned out to be sounding lovely...

 

Best wishes - ?

Edited May 21, 2019 by Wolf Molkentin