ps: Karl, i puked rainbows too when i saw Kevin’s video !
ps2: sorry for the repost i quote instead of edit .__.
Florian, what I have been wondering cause I have not tried that out is whether you could use a regular passive microphone and plug it into a regular effect pedal / amp system just like you would plug in your guitar cable in case one had a pickup on the guitar would that work or would it work with some active microphone or not at all? This may sound silly but I just never used a regular microphone except to record on computer and since it was crap I don’t currently have any microphone . . . anyway and although in part only from theoretic or hearing others experience I have come to conclude too that simply a good microphone should get one the most authentic sound as for acoustic instruments . . .
you mean passive mic like Shur SM58 or 57? Well of course you can use it just like a guitar , you only need a preamp before you enter the effect chain , otherwise you’ll get a very very little sound from the microphone , but again it will not be the easiest thing on stage , you’ll be stuck in front of the mic and that’s it.
You can use a little preamp like this http://www.pianotech.fr/perso/image/behringermic100.jpg
You can even use the preamp in a very tiny mixing desk , like the one or two way mixinkg desk , you can use the preamp inside , and then run into some pedals , and even a deluxe reverb , a good old Marshall plexi !
But if you want the heaviest sound with a shamisen , go for a Orange stack , with some Dallas Arbiter fuzz face in front 
, just the guitarist inside me talking !
But of course the microphone will always sound better than any contact microphone , because it gets the wave of sound in the air , what we actually hear. The contact microphone gets only the material vibrations , it’s great to see people using it to turn a street bench into a drum for exemple. But imho a microphone in front is the best sound you can get.
But when you’re a guy like Kevin , you need to be able to run like Eddy Van Halen on stage, you don’t wan’t any bleeding and feedback , the contact mic is the way to go .
ha just a little thing , i have to agree 100% with you, i would even say that the most authentic acoustic sound that i’ve heard is by placing a shoulder mic for an instrument like a guitar , you place it around the ears area , if you do your thing well , the sound will be almost like if you were playing the guitar!
Another good way to record instruments is to use binaural microphones , it sounds weird because it sounds like if you were actually in the room with the people recording.
Time for me to fly away after this long enough flood
ah yeah I guess I thought so as for the original question and answer thanks . . . and (seriously) also thanks for the other details . . . 
Hello Bachido,
how are you all doing? i am back from holidays. very busy now, but so excited…after relaxed, slow motion holiday i came back to Ireland and don know what should i do first, gotta move house, get back to work, and start college… am looking forward to the college tho, am doing MA in ethnomusicology and cant wait till it starts…
tmrw i am meeting my new indian sitar teacher, hope to learn ragas playing shamisen along with his sitar…am sure it will work perfectly, shamisen is fretless so suitable for indian music…
i had great holidays, but havent touched shamisen for nearly a month at all…didnt miss it too much tho, cause i practiced alot before and i was kinda getting fet up with playing the same things over and over…
however, i just had my first shamisen jam after holidays, …it was unbelievably awesome… i love shamisen…i was God of shamisen…i could play anything…i felt so relaxed and confident…and so cool…hehe…
i am glad you enjoyed the video i made for Blogcast. we had great time and I hope these kind of gatherings are going to be more frequent soon…we should all start traveling and meeting and jamming!!!
speaking of jamming… i play in a new band, well it just two of us, and have no name yet. anyway we have a gig next week…no rehearsal…just improv… i will play shamisen and Fujara (slovak overtone flute) run through the effect box…the weirdest sounds the better, thats the plan…hehe…will see how it goes
just watched the blogcast, was cool, spot on for me…
i am plugging my shamisen through the amps and effects now, experimenting with delays and distortions, destroying…
punk is not dead!!
uaaaaaa
and the lesson for chords?..
i play guitar and bass, but have only played tsugaru and nagauta style on shamisen so far. I got used to playing with just three fingers… stretched fingerings and wide positions of Kevins chords are definitely very new to me…it is a funny feeling, its like playing a bass guitar again…
The best wishes to Yousuke!! Be strong and Bachi on!!
cheers everybody
Sid
Thanks for your words Sid! Very inspirational! I am looking forward to hearing your Shamisen playing in the near future!
Still keeping in touch with Jack and the gang? Man! I really love unknown rooftops. I really think Jack is the most underrated artist in this field ! He’s one of my favorites next to Masahiro Nitta !
P.s.
Sid if you get around to it perhaps you could help me figure out this raga I learned many years ago. I took some sitar lesson in college but since then have lost some of my notes. I want to do something with it…play it publically or whatever but I can’t for the life of my recall which raga this is (it’s title) . . .???
hey Kevin,
i dunno about ragas much just yet, have only had one lesson so far, but we had great jam, shamisen and sitar sound together well,. i will figure out the notes of your raga and play it for my teacher, perhaps he will recognize it…
yeah i am in contact with Jack, well, didnt hear from him for about a month while i was gone, but was just checking him out on facebook and he seems to be very busy gigging. he plays in a band called Kao=S, and does many other projects as well…
i am planning on going to Japan in winter time, i hope to play a concert with Jack in Tokyo,hehe he owes me one…perhaps we could do another bachido gathering with Norm???
Sid,
I’m dying to hear some Shami + Sitar collab!
Would love to hang in Japan with you and Jack this winter!
Yeah I know all about Kao=S!
Oh and thanks for any help with info on the raga.
Bachi On!
hey, me too, i cant wait for next lesson, perhaps i will put on sneaky hidden camera.
hello Kevin, I sent the Youtube link to my new sitar teacher and here is his reply to it:
“That youtube shamisen piece is based on an exercise (a ‘sargam’) in Raga Yaman Kalyan, it is in Ravi Shankar’s first book ‘My Music My Life’. I love it, very funky.”
i hope it is helpful to you…he recommended that book to me to study and get a good foundation on the music from it…do you know the book???
Thanks so much Sid! That really helps me out in my search to figure out what that was.
Yes I’ve heard of that book.
I’ll look into it!
Thanks again!
Finally got around to watching this, and I gotta say, aside from all the legit educational value this video has, what I like best is that Kevin is super freaked out by some “nightmare” where a mild-mannered Japanese guitarist asks him to play chords, but not at all freaked out that someone has apparently been videotaping him while he sleeps.
Oh, hahaha!! I didn’t even realize that before!
The bloopers were my favorite part. Man, we were just dying in laughter. Faking horror is hard to do with a straight face (or a horrified face at that!)
Kyle,
Next month let’s plan to make more of these! There’s a lot more to do with chords and I’d like to touch upon the use of unusual scales for Shami as well! Octatonic, altered Phrygian harmonic minor, whole tone scales etc.
Plus this will give us a golden opportunity to expand on our great acting skills! Know what I’m sayin doggie?
Yo!
I’m very late to the conversation here, I know, but I’m actually just starting to experiment with piezo elements as pickups for the shamisen. I’m using my electronics/pro-audio building some from scratch (much cheaper that $15).
I’ll keep you posted on how things go, but, watching your video, I have a couple of questions:
First, why did you take off the plastic from the piezo? I’ve heard that keeping on the plastic cuts down on high frequency activity, and that might explain why the piezo recording you posted has so much high in it.
Also, why did you mount it on the inside skin? I feel like you’ll get too much of the percussive bachi sound there, combined with the internal resonance of the taiko, and not enough of the string sound. I was planning on mounting on the wood, either at the top or bottom of my taiko (partially because I play primarily acoustically, and I don’t want to damage my skins)
Anyway, I’m going to take some time and run some experiments (I’ve got a few different piezo elements and contact mics) over the weekend, and I’ll post some audio recordings.
I appreciate the knowledge base here though!
Hey Simon!
Great to have you back! Don’t be a stranger. 
Ooh, very intriguing. Yes, please keep me/us posted on your findings.
First, why did you take off the plastic from the piezo?
Ah yes, well, in normal circumstances, my response would be, “because I’m an idiot”, but in this case, it just seemed like a extra mass which would interfere with the vibration of the skin. Note, I have very little experience with pickups, so it was just going on instinct (or something).
On the other hand, the “shamisen pickup” I got from Japan had less plastic than the AXL, and sounded cleaner, imho. (Could be because of placement?)
Also, why did you mount it on the inside skin?
Both Katou san and Nitta san have their pickups attached on the inside, so I thought it’d be safe to do the same.
Interesting! Do you think you’d still be able to pick up the subtler sounds/tone of the shamisen when attaching it to the wood? On the same hand, do you think putting it on the wood might cut down on feedback (again, note that I am fabulously ignorant on this subject)? We tried to crank up the ‘shamisen pickup’ for a metal scenario, but the feedback was too extreme.
Thanks for offering to show us your results, Simon! I’m especially excited to hear how it sounds on the wood!
Hey Kyle,
Awesome. Thanks for the clarification.
That’s interesting about the plastic, I actually just have a bunch of uncoated piezo elements, so my first step was going to be to plasti-dip them, but maybe I’ll try a before and after too.
Thinking about it, since it’s a piezo pickup, and therefore a contact pickup, maybe it shouldn’t be affected by the resonance inside the body (so placing it inside wouldn’t increase feedback)… but I have to think about this some more.
I’ll try a few things, but, since I’ve got some gigs coming up, I’m not ready to cut my shamisen open just yet!
awesome . . . would very much appreciate you sharing your findings too . . . I was just wondering about this in another thread