Building a Daxophone with Hans Reichel (2007)

http://dfiction.com/blog/

This is the long untold story of how I met Hans Reichel, the inventor of the Daxophone, and how together we built a daxophone. I refrained from sharing these pictures while Hans was alive, because I wanted to respect his control of information about the daxophone. Since 2006 or so, Hans’ website has featured a daxophone informational pdf, but the consistency of this source varies wildly from vague to revelatory. Hans ends the pdf with the following encouragement for exploration “By the end I’d say the phenomenon daxophone cannot be readily defined — one could even say it knows no bounds. The present construction and set-up (as described here) is just one of countless possibilities, leaving a lot of room for variation or even completely different solutions. I encourage all people who are interested in this matter to experiment by themselves. After all the basic principle of this instrument can’t be more simple: it’s a tongue, as well as a ruler at the edge of a table.” It seemed to me that Hans was reluctant to advertise or monetize his secrets, and although he did sell some daxophones, this was a rare occurrence. I believe Hans wanted to convey “just enough” information so that anyone could make informed discoveries, and add to the global pool of daxophone knowledge.

I backpacked around berlin with some clothes, my daxophone, and a battery powered amplifier.

Let me try to set the stage. It is 2006, I am 20 years old, and I am learning German with the private fantasy of meeting the inventor of an obscure german instrument invented just one year after my own birth. I had been emailing Hans Reichel for 2 years, documenting my personal daxophone growth, but all these emails went unanswered. I knew that he spoke perfect English, but thought that by learning his mother tongue I might turn some of the inertia around my German cultural studies into some sort of exchange, or, in my wildest dreams, a visit to Wuppertal. Finally, Hans wrote back. That summer, my studies brought me to Deutschland, and after many more unanswered emails, Hans finally invited me to visit his workshop with no real promise or disclaimer as to what we might or might not accomplish. I had no idea what to expect.

I used to play daxophone on the street on the AdmiralStraße bridge—in the so called “cultural center”
of berlin, here is one of only 5 humans who recognized this instrument! haha!
Long live the avant-garde!

What followed was the strangest Batman and Robin story I have ever known. I lived with Hans in his Wuppertal studio for 9 days, where we toiled round the clock to build my own personal daxophone. Hans opened his workshop to me, answered every question I had, and gave me unfathomable access to the deepest secrets of daxophonic lore. Yet, he refused to play even a note of music with me, and I will forever carry the wound of never playing music with the creator of my instrument. In Hans I found an unwilling teacher, a reticent mentor, an unrepentant alcoholic, a terrible role model, and a tentative friend. I’ve wondered for years whether it might be a violation of privacy to share these personal pictures from the inner sanctum of daxophone land. Now, 3 years after the Hans’ passing, I feel that the time has come to share this story.
I hope that you might read this and build an instrument. This was my pilgrimage.



A Gift for Hans
I took this on the train en route to Wuppertal. I selected 5 of my daxophones to give to Hans as a gift. I thought this gesture would mean a lot from one daxophonist to another, but truth be told I did not make these tongues expressly for Hans—I selected some I was proud of and made a gift out of them. Hans was bewildered to receive this gift. I wondered if he ever played them (unlikely).



Hans Reichel in his Studio
Here is Hans Reichel. On top of his wall are pieces of his old guitar; he explained that he mostly cannibalized old guitars to make new ones, so really never had old instruments lying around.



Archival Daxophone Materials
These are old soundboards and daxes, of notably different shapes than those described in Hans' online materials. This thread can be traced in the liner notes to his CDs, but I was mesmerized to notice in person the subtle variations, and the perfect execution of these experiments.



Warped Tongues
I'm not sure of the wood. Hans had daxophone tongues everywhere. I found them in dustbins, on shelves in his workshop, on prominent display at home, in boxes and crates. Some of them were actually quite rough, and I was surprised to find that these were too warped to even be playable instruments.



The Daxophone Wall (a)
Two entire walls of Reichel's Wuppertal apartment were dedicated to a jaw-dropping display of his tongues—his lifework. Take particular notice of the many variations—some of these are laminations, and some of them are really quite wild looking.



The Daxophone Wall (b)
A blurry picture of the other side of the wall revealed almost the entire Daxoph font rendered to scale out of a beautiful selection of hardwood.



Dax Wall (closeup)+



Playing Kicker
After showing me his studio, Hans and I spent the evening in Cafe du Congo, his favorite local haunt, drinking a lot. Once we played kickball (or Kicker auf Deutsch); he annihilated me. Hans loved to drink and smoke long into the evening, and I struggled to keep up. Somewhere around 4 in the morning, we ended up back at his apartment, drinking amaro and talking about Fred Frith. Hans began to uncork and recork the bottle, and listening to its squeaks, said, "this too is a daxophone. So, tomorrow we will start building your daxophone." I was without words. After his mirthless refusal to play music together, I could have hardly expected this generous promise. Maybe Hans was happier to have me around than he let on.



The First Cut
Day 1 of daxophone construction started with this purpleheart slab. I was amazed to find no powertools in Hans' studio besides a drill and drill press. He did almost all of his cuts with a ryoba saw. First we cut out the rough outline of the daxophone body from purpleheart.



Hans Behind the Ryoba Saw
Hans began to make the cuts. His precision with the saw, which had the tendency to curve to the side during the cut, was outstanding.



this is what I looked like in 2006.
I gave it a try and quickly tired. I also looked really goofy at age 20.

Saw Cuts on the Pull
Hans showed me that this saw cuts on the pull, not the push, and how to keep my whole arm in line with the blade to maximize my efficiency. I asked him, why not cut this on the table saw? He was appalled to consider the waste of precious wood involved.



Almost Free of Slab
You can see here the small daxophone body is almost free of the large slab.



Hans Cutting the Soundboard
Hans cuts the first diagonal on the daxophone body. In this manner we cut out the rough shape of the body. I love this iconic picture. Legendary Chest Hair.



Ryoba Closeup
The fine teeth of this precision tool left almost no scarring on the wood surface. The wood would be further shaped by rasp and steel wool.

Tripod Body Gets Leg Holes
By now you can see the rough outline of the body is formed. The correct angle (so that the the drill comes down perpendicular to the corresponding tripod "face") is secured by a template.



Cutting the Perpendicular Plane
After lopping off this chunk of wood, my daxophone would have another face for drilling another leg hole. Thus all three legs were precisely aligned.



"Another Picture?"
Hans grew weary of all my pictures. I wish I had taken a thousand more.



Angle Jig
Here's the other jig used to ensure a proper cut. Hans had obviously thought very carefully about the angles involved in the daxophone, and used these templates and jigs to ensure that even without using power tools, each daxophone would retain the ideal proportions.



Cutting the Body
Hans bears down on the cut.

Action Cut



An 'American' Daxophone
All three leg-holes have been drilled, but, clearly, an asymmetry has developed. Let me explain: I had insisted that we modify my soundboard's proportions to mirror my self-made daxophone, which had a soundboard twice as wide as Hans' design. Upon plugging each of them in, I was delighted to find that my crude design had a flatter frequency response. So, in designing my Reichel Tripod, we elongated the wide plane. The altered dimension resulted in this strange angle forming along the bottom.



Studio Backyard
Hans shared his studio with several other talented artists whose names I have forgotten. Thick with cigarette smoke and sodas, the backyard was a slow-paced haven from the deep concentration of studio work. 20 years old and nervous in front of der Daxophonmeister, I was fraught with worry, too impatient to appreciate this calm respite from our feverish work pace.

More Kicker



Making the Feet
Time to make the feet! Two pieces of mahogany are formed and glued together. When the daxophone is assembled, it is just taped to the ground with masking tape; thus these pieces needed to be almost flush to the ground.



Step 1: Pre-Glueup
A note about the bottom piece—this was formed with a rasp and sandpaper. It took a full 8 hour work day. I was exhausted by this repetitive task of sanding. I would have just taken this little piece to the sanding wheel and been done in 3 minutes. Once again, Hans had surprised me with his commitment to hand-shaped perfection.



Step 2: Hand-Clamping
The top piece is attached to the bottom with super glue, which sets fast!

Step 3: Don't move!
And all of a sudden, a beautiful sculpture, the delightful daxophone foot, takes shape. Repeat.



Soundboard Gets a Top
Here is the soundboard from atop, with a rare piece of rosewood as the resonating piece. An electronics/resonating cavity has been routed out of the purpleheart, and ridges remain on the side to support the top. Hans' older designs used woodscrews to affix the top, but when I visited him he had switched to glueing the top on permanently. I opted for the older design, since I wanted to use special out of production piezo microphones (my secret weapon!), and wanted to be able to modify their adhesion, attachment, and just in general be able to play inside there. It turned out I would open the soundboard many times in the future. Back in America, I attached the contact mics with double-sided tape, but was less than pleased with the sound. Compared to my homebrew daxophone, it was much quieter, much more shrill.

Daxophone Materials
Two feet, the duckbill, and the inside of the routed purpleheart cavity held in a vice. The inside of the instrument is shielded with conductive spray paint. Anyway, about the soundboard: I've gone back and forth on this design for years after my Wuppertal pilgrimage. In New York, I replaced the rosewood entirely with a piece of cedar to match that of my own homebrew daxophone. The sound improved! However, the unfinished cedar took on a patina of funk, and dented easily. One day it cracked along the grain! I repaired the crack with epoxy, and took the time to reattach the fragile contact mics with the same epoxy. The sound had significantly degraded! It must be that super glue is a much thinner adhesive than the piano-grade epoxy I was using. I'd always used superglue on my own homebrew soundboards.



Wooden Balls
Hans used these to anchor the tripod legs to the feet.



The Clamp
This piece was hand cut, and my vast inexperience can been plainly seen. After much time with the rasp and sander, it all got cleaned up, but this is what I started with. Hans was obsessed with taking a picture of this rough clamp. He took over 100 pictures, thinking about including it in the DaxoInfo pdr, but wasn't happy with the focus. Hans used to double up on his eyeglasses to check the finer details.



Hans' Other Guitar
I don't actually have a picture of Hans' famous doubleneck guitar. He kept his favorite daxophone tongues in his guitar case, and back on day 1, while showing me his favorite daxophone tongues ("My A-team"), I caught sight of this incredible machine as he opened the case. I instinctively reached out to touch, to understand, and Hans immediately scolded me. "Don't touch. And if you must, ask first." As if to clarify, he added, "I have to have my guitar." Later, when Hans was out at a party, I played Mountain Goats songs on his other guitar, pictured above. I took the time to measure the distance between the middle bridge and the "behind the bridge" space, and measured the open tuning of this guitar. I've been surprised to see that Hans' unique experiments in luthierie have been poorly documented—look forward to another post.



Progress

Clamp is finished, and the body has been sanded and shaped as much as I could stand. I've since lost the fire and impatience of youth, and long meticulous woodwork comes much more naturally. At the time, though, I could only handle a day of sanding.



The Soundboard after Sanding
The soundboard gets its final sanding after attaching the top—to make sure it's totally flush. To end the soundboard story: around 2012, I finally ripped off the cedar soundboard one more time, and glued the piezos to the Wuppertalian rosewood with extra thin superglue. I ABed the two soundboards. The rosewood top won. I left it installed in my instrument, once more, where it rests today.



The Soundboard after Sanding
The soundboard gets its final sanding after attaching the top—to make sure it's totally flush. To end the soundboard story: around 2012, I finally ripped off the cedar soundboard one more time, and glued the piezos to the Wuppertalian rosewood with extra thin superglue. I ABed the two soundboards. The rosewood top won. I left it installed in my instrument, once more, where it rests today.



Nightlife
The evening ritual returned us once more to Cafe du Congo, where we played Knobeln, the best drinking game. I had lot of fun saying "geladen schon" with these hard drinking fast friends, but it would be wrong to suggest that this was just fun and games. I had asked Hans repeatedly to play music with me, and he finally said, almost pityingly, "I just don't have the feeling". Why wouldn't he play music with me? I could hear him every morning, coughing out his hangover, his smoke addled lungs in the throes of a deep sickness not yet manifest. Hans, couldn't you see? I was to be your finest student, your American advocate, the next generation of daxophonists, your spiritual cousin or nephew or whatever. I began to fear that Hans was one of those old school assholes, those hard drinking Hemingway types, that awful masculine archetype of repressed emotion and expressed self-destruction. But that judgment is the coward's way out, an oversimplification of the tragedy at hand: I flew halfway around the world to meet my hero, and it didn't click.

The Only Picture of Hans Reichel and I Together
By now the comedy and tragedy of this situation are squarely 50-50.



Hans with Two Cigarettes

This only happened once. Hans used to smoke gauloises—the blue pack—and easily finished a pack or two a day. as he wrote on an imaginary cigarette case on daxo.de, "Rauchen ist Scheiße"

Building a Dax
Back to work. They make fretting jigs for cutting guitar fretboards, but they don't work on the curved surface of the dax, so it must be done by hand.



Hammering in Fretwire (i)
I had already built my own dax, so this wasn't too arcane for me. Hans mentioned "this is a really expensive piece of wood, so I can't give this to you for free." But he wouldn't say how much. Nor did he require me to buy this amazing daxophone as an instrument--a package he usually charged over 2000 euro for. I gave him 60 euro for the dax and he shrugged, "that's fine".



Hammering in Fretwire (ii)

unseen, but after finishing, the bottom of the dax is covered in "fotocarton"—

this mutes and mellows the sound somewhat.

Sabine und Hans
Sabine Hesseling, then assistant to the director of the Pina Bausch dance theater, joined Hans and I often for lunch. I was thrilled to get such a fabulous picture of these two friends, but Hans was again unsatisfied—it was too red.



Spray Finishing
We picked up a spray on polyurethane from the hardware store. Hans said, "I have no idea if this finish is good or not".



Spray Finishing (ii)
The holes come in handle for holding and allowing this stuff to dry.



Spray Finishing (iii)
Actually, i can't think of a good reason for taking three of these pictures. It's possible that I had simply run out of pictures to take.

Drilling Jig Close Up
the flash is awful here, and I had already attempted this shot. Though the soundboard is finished, it's clear that I'm grasping at straws for any reason to continue documenting. Why didn't I take pictures of his incredible apartment? Why not casual shots of our German sausage breakfasts? I guess the only thing we had in common was the daxophone.

out of pictures, and out of words. Besides one exchange, Hans and I never spoke again. I emailed regularly, once every couple of months or so, to no reply. One time his website went down, and, feeling something like panic, I wrote to him.

And that’s it. One year later, he died.

I’m not sure there’s a moral here. The daxophone remains my first weird thing, the first friendly face in the long journey I’ve taken. There was a time when I channeled my entire being through this bizarre idiophone, and so it made sense at the time to do anything in my power to meet its inventor—after all, didn’t he facilitate this whole thing? I don’t mean to succumb to nostalgia, but the word is lexicographically appropriate here. I sometimes feel that old wound, especially now, after Hans is gone, and there’s no chance to add more to our story together.

Let’s close with one more picture. Here’s my tripod, which we built together, here wearing its cedar soundboard. Attached is a vintage Reichel tongue made of wenge, which I found in the dust bin at Reichel’s apartment. It is one of five tongues which he gave to me.