The Russian description translated with Google:
Hello everyone! What if Lemmy played the balalaika in Led Zeppelin?
My rather free excuse of the immortal masterpiece LZ. I play it on a contrabass-balalaika (I know that Jaco played on three strings, and he had enough, but this is not a bass in the form of a balalaika, this is a balalaika;)). The instrument was made in Romania and bought in Germany
Initially, it was the most ordinary acoustic double-bass balalaika, with three strings, frets "nails" (who does not know - these are such "frets" thick with a nail ten), an overlay made of plywood of indefinite type of tree (most likely stained aspen
), thick neck (much thicker than the handle of a shovel) and the usual "white" top. It was a little more than impossible to play on it. To begin with, the neck was completely redesigned. A rosewood fretboard and regular "guitar" frets are supplied. The "contour" of the neck has been changed. From a log, it turned into a fairly thick (thicker than the classic Warwick or Pressizna) but still more or less playable neck a la double bass. Then a ceramic guitar humbucker was installed with a direct connection to the jack. For a long time the instrument remained three-stringed, which, in principle, was quite enough for the tasks that were posed to it
But the strings themselves were too expensive. Then the idea came to remake the strings, so that you could use extra long scale strings for bass, which, although they cost a lot too, are ... less balalaika strings. I looked at the different tailpiece sizes and they were all too short, then I looked at the cello neck and it turned out to be the perfect size. Nuuu, and so as not to drill a hole in it under the A string (it is still small and wooden), I decided to drill a hole on my head under the G string;) while I was reworking, at the same time I peeled the varnish off the deck, repaired it in black and covered it with oil ... And a couple of years ago I also tore out the frets and now it is a "fretless double bass balalaika". So purists can start laying bricks
)) I was always interested in the practical use of musical instruments, and not their compliance with the "prescribed norms" and that is why, alas, I almost never play this big black mother anymore. Painfully, this instrument is "not musical".
