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Fineline Keeps A-Muse-d
Bristol-based fabrication specialists Fineline designed and built several specially customized items for Muse’s summer stadium shows for production manager Chris Vaughan of The Production Office.
Fineline’s brief here was to fit a KAWAI MP8 electronic grand piano into the shell of a classic instrument. The classic piano, also made by KAWAI, was shipped directly to Fineline’s warehouse in Bristol from the factory in Japan with no keys or strings. Liaising closely with Muse backline technician Des Broadbery, Fineline’s Dave Harris then took delivery of a KAWAI MP8 electronic grand piano, which had to be fitted inside the original.
The grand piano was carefully inserted into Fineline’s 5 axis router, where the key bay was machined into the correct shape to receive the MP8 keyboard. The MP8 was then stripped right down to its component parts and mounted correctly into the grand piano.
The piano’s left hand side block was machined so the Pitch Bend and Modulation wheels could be installed – by which time the keys were virtually indistinguishable from those of the original grand piano. The MP8’s Sustain and Damping pedals were also modified, keeping the original brass pedals of the grand piano.
The original lid was then removed, drawn and replaced with a 20mm thick acrylic version, again machined using Fineline’s 5-axis router. The result was a clear lid exactly the same shape as the original. Inside, five slots were machined, complete with fabricated brackets to install 5 PixelLine LED battens.
Chris Vaughan also asked Harris to produce a futuristic looking ‘radio controlled guitar technician’. He used the chassis of a battery driven golf caddy, stripped down and modified to take two guitars – one for Matt Bellamy to pick up and a space for his current guitar to be stashed - to make the swap-over easier. The unit was then ‘dressed’ to look futuristic, and clad with sheets of mirrored acrylic to ‘bling it up’, complete with a flashing xenon beacon and blue LED under-car style lighting. The stand uses two 180W 12V motors enabling ‘tank style’ steering, capable of carrying 20Kgs at a top speed of 6 kmph.
Specifically for the Wembley gigs, Harris created two fake guitar amplifier head units - the brief being to produce slightly different ‘Dr Evil’ style cartoonesque units, with moving and glowing green VU meters and “big knobs”! The housings were constructed from scratch and styled to replicate an off-the-shelf amplifier using buffalo effect cloth covering. The main panel design utilised vintage knobs, switches, lamps and two old moving coil meters per unit. Harris stripped the moving coil meters down and changed the scales from milliamps, voltage and revs to VU using Fineline’s Gerber vinyl printer - adding strips of flexible SMT LEDs. The vintage lamps were also modified to use 5mm white LEDs instead of filament lamps.
To make the meters move and some of the lamps flash, Harris built a simple 555 timer circuit acting as a flip-flop - the speed at which the needles move can be manually adjusted. The finishing touch was the machining of Muse’s logo from aluminium to give the illuminated fans on top of the unit an authentic fan guard look.
Twenty weatherized covers were made for a series of ‘satellite’ video screens made up from Barco Mi-Pix modules. They were manufactured from 3mm thick clear PETG material. The idea was that the clear covers allowed quick access to the MiPix modules for maintenance but kept them covered during the performance in case of rain.
21st August 2007
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