Electric Kalimba

Meandering through the internet one day, I stumbled upon something really cool – someone had made an Electric Kalimba and encorporated guitar pedals to give it some built-in reverb effects. The gentleman in question is Lottie Canto, and his Kalimba is called the Colour Palette!

Now, as enamored as I was with the idea, I’m neither a serious musician, nor am I made of money – but I did have a Kalimba lying around, so I set out to make one of my own!

After gathering my materials, the first step was to saw the poor thing in half, and drill a hole to install the pickup microphones.

This particular pickup had 3 mics, probably overkill in a tiny Kalimba, but I spread them out along the soundboard and installed the jack. They were a little too large to place directly on the soundboard, so I placed them on the ‘roof’ of the Kalimba’s hollow body instead. Some Kalimbas don’t have a hollow chamber at all, and my next attempt will probably be based on one of those – like an electric guitar, the Kalimba doesn’t really need any inbuilt amplification, in-fact, I think it might have a negative impact on the sound (more on that later).

Technical steps completed, all that was left was to tape her back together and give her a name! Since I had been inspired by Lottie Canto to make a lovingly shitty rip-off of his Colour Palette, I decided to name my Mk.1 Electric Kalimba the Pallid Cutlet!

It is done! And the sound is… good! Acceptable+! Though it could be the fault of my (also quite dinky) Amp, the sound is quiet without overdrive, and comes through with a subtle ambient reverb – a nice effect that would be nicer if it were optional. Additionally, the body of the Kalimba picks up and amplifies the sound of my fingers a bit louder than it should – it lets you do a little percussion, even when you don’t want to! I suspect that these issues will be fixed by using a solid-board style Kalimba in the MK.2, but for a first attempt, I couldn’t be happier with my Pallid Cutlet!

I’ve got quite a few plans for the MK.2: Integrated reverb and pitch shift, 3D printed or woodworked game-controller style handles, an input jack, so something else can be run through the integrated pedals, a solid-board design and better pickups and mic placement, and muuuuch more! Post Christmas, when life dies down again, I’ll be getting back to work on this project.

I’ll post a video of my skillless playing soon!