Junkyard Jam Band

Introduction

Jack White (best known as the front man for The White Stripes) has a custom hollow-body electric guitar with a built-in bullet mic on a spring-loaded retractable cable. Bullet mics are traditionally harmonica mics, but White uses his for vocals. Spring-loaded cable reels are traditionally used in canister vacuum cleaners. This same guitar—he calls it the Triple Green Machine—also has a built-in phototheremin, which is a simple lightactivated synthesizer; you can build one using the schematics and notes found in “Oscillators and a Metronome” on page 359.

In some respects, building a guitar like the Triple Green Machine is patently insane. White paid Randy Parsons—a renowned luthier and master of traditional American hand-building ...