Somogyi Vid

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Rick Turner
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Post by Rick Turner » Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:54 pm

There is a strong tendency among early years luthiers...and I'd put that at those up to 5 to 10 years experience...to want a magic formula which, once read, experienced, practiced, understood (?), and integrated, will assure masterpieces of every guitar (mandolin, uke, violin, whatever...). Some are assured that by becoming acolytes into that cult, mystic visions and intellectual property well transferred...that they will ascend to the heights of the angels of lutherie, and that every guitar (etc.) will then be the equal of the best of "Golden Era" Martins, Gibsons, and Larson creations...and that the price tags will hit five figures as have those of Simogyi, Traugott, Monteleone, Smallman, etc.

Sorry, folks, it doesn't quite work like that. Ya gotta pay yer dues...

Maybe when you're ready to write "the book", you'll be ready for the big bucks. Hey, I'm still hoping...and I "ain't there yet."
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Post by Tigermyrtle » Sun Oct 04, 2009 1:15 pm

Well Rick from what I seen of your work. You should be there.
In the land of big bucks.
Regards Bob


Sorry, folks, it doesn't quite work like that. Ya gotta pay yer dues...

Maybe when you're ready to write "the book", you'll be ready for the big bucks. Hey, I'm still hoping...and I "ain't there yet."[/quote]

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Post by Ricardo » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:45 pm

Some very interesting reading guys, I thought I would leave this post with one more opinion.
I would like to reinforce the fact that guitars are for musicians (mostly guitarists) and yes they come in all shapes and sizes, some never leave the lounge room, some record, and some perform, oh yes and some collect.
Personally I do all of the above. As a musician first and foremost it is quality of build, and quality of sound that I look for then followed by aesthetic appeal. Having heard recordings of Ervin’s guitars is what prompted me to buy the books. (the quality of sound CAN be established even on poor recordings on the net if you know what you are looking for)
Building guitars for me is something new, that being said I have a very very good appreciation of what I am looking for in a guitar. I hope to build that special guitar, keep one for myself and then share with others (if they like them) by selling them. The knowledge in Ervin’s books and on video threads, i hope will take me that step closer. The forums such as this will hopefully also help me achieve this end.
The one thing I do not seem to get out of the forums, is what people are doing to enhance the sound in any specific direction, I see this as “keeping secretsâ€

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Post by joel » Sun Oct 04, 2009 5:57 pm

G'day guys!

I've been reading this thread for a while and it's been really interesting. Especially the bits about soup (Hesh) and poo (pretty much everyone else!). 8)

I'm with Kim on most points. Then again I also agree with Hesh and Rick. I'm pretty open minded that way.

My take on Mr Somogyi's work is;

- It's beautiful to look at. I've never seen nor played any of his instruments so I can't comment from a practical point of view. But, from what everyone says, the guy is a master craftsman and the guitars sound great.

- I'm not a fan of his way of doing business. I have the same complaint as Kim in this regard. So, I decided quite a while ago that I wasn't going to encourage him. He's not getting any of my money. Simple hey?


As for the "Air Pump" theory...

As I've not read his books and likely never will, I can't really comment here either. But I'm going to anyway :twisted: .

A guitar is just as much an air pump as a loudspeaker cone is. That is to say kinda-like-but-not-quite or sorta-maybe-kinda (gotta love technical terms don't you?).

In fact I believe that the guitar top is directly anagolous to the loudspeaker cone. It is the cone that causes the compression waves in the air that our ears detect as sound. Loudness of sound is measured in SPL = Sound Pressure Level. Keyword = pressure. Not movement, as in air pump.

Continuing the loudspeaker analogy, the sound hole the becomes the bass reflex port. It has been reported many times that a small sound hole negatively effects bass response, and too large a sound hole caused the whole thing to sound thin and not to good at all. Exactly like a port in a speaker enclosure.

The back of the guitar then can be thought of in one of two ways. Either it is kept rigid and it is simply part of the speaker enclosure and must be as stiff as possible, OR, it becomes like a passive radiator. A passive radiator is made the same way as a speaker, but without the coil. It's just the suspended cone. These are rarely used in loudspeakers, but they operate kind of like a bass reflex port and kind of like a speaker. They do radiate sound, but only after they are effected by the pressure waves inside the speaker enclosure.

In a perfectly designed passive radiator design you don't need a sound hole at all. All of the energy from the strings will drive the top to generate the sound pressure waves. Those moving outwards are heard, those radiatied into the air cavity of the sealed guitar will drive the passive radiator back, which will in turn generate sound pressure waves out the back. Of course, as soon as you clamp the back to your body, you throw the whole system out of whack.

The only advantage to turning the guitar back into a passive radiator that I can see is it will give the player a kind of physical feedback in addition to the aural feedback generated by the top (which produces the air compression waves we hear). This is probably perfect for players like me. I like to play in my lounge room, generally quietly.

So, there's my take on how-the-guitar-works theory. It's not a complete, nor an airtight theory, but I think it's pretty good.

By the way, I'll be taking this post down in a week's time siting copyright. Posting to a public forum counts doesn't it? Then I'll release the book based on this information. VTIC
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Post by pat foster » Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:21 am

Very interesting thread. One thing that's been left out is that Ervin did include a bibliography, FWIW.
Rick Turner wrote:There is a strong tendency among early years luthiers...and I'd put that at those up to 5 to 10 years experience...to want a magic formula .......
Used to see that in photography, people looking for a mystical magic bullet to guarantee them a fantastic photo every time just like Adam's or Weston's. Some photos by these foilks looked like they'd used the holes left by a master's tripod decades before.

The books themselves notwithstanding, I think Ervin is doing his readers a great service by not including anything too specific, forcing builders to think for themselves and find their own paths. The internet and instant gratification that permeates modern culture put too much stock into information and not enough into personal journeys, critical thinking and hard work, in my not so humble opinion. But that's another discussion.

Pat

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Post by Rick Turner » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:50 am

With regard to the whole "guitar box as loudspeaker" thing...well, that's partially true, but you have to separate the various components of the box. In a Smallman style instrument with a very stiff back, rigid sides, and virtually immobilized upper bout and soundhole area, the loudspeaker model would be closest to the bass reflex style. With the Simogyi method of making the sides stiff but the back flexible, you have an interesting blend of coupled oscillators...the top being one, the air mass inside the body being another, and the back being the third main contributor to the system. There is a certain parallel with the passive radiator model, but then you do not have the internal damping that is always found inside speaker cabinets.

I have a 1933 Lloyd Loar Vivitone guitar that has 3/8" thick laminated sides, a carved spruce arched top...and a carved spruce arched back with f holes... It also has a magnetic pickup coupled to the bridge, and the guitar can be converted from acoustic to electric, and from "Spanish" to "Hawaiian"... Just tossing this into the mix here for your amusement.
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Post by Rick Turner » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:57 am

One other observation that may incite some controversy:

I believe that the sound of a good under-saddle pickup, properly installed is actually a more accurate representation of string vibration than is the acoustic sound of the instrument. What we have come to love about the tone of acoustic guitars is a highly modified version of what the strings themselves are doing. The string signal is mechanically filtered and altered both in it's frequency response content as well as the phase response as not all parts of the guitar radiate the string signal in exact accordance to the phase of the strings.

As we know, there is considerable in and out of phase movement of guitar tops, particularly in the midrange frequencies. That may just account for why we tend to like a "smiley curve" EQ setting for piezo UST pickups where lows and highs are bumped up a bit or the midrange is pulled down. That more closely mimics what the wood and air of the guitar is doing to the string signal.

Slightly off topic, so forgive me for that...
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Post by Kim » Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:24 am

Hmmm :shock: Well John, thanks for posting that.

It was good to read some points of clarification from Ervin, he seems to be a much more approachable and sharing individual than my earlier suggestions of some kind of "nefarious machinations" being at play would have folks believe, and for this i now make a sincere public apology to Ervin Somogyi should he still be lurking with us.

Hopefully he is because I would very much prefer to make my apology directly to the man himself rather than through a mediator. If you do happen to see this Ervin, please accept my apology for those ungracious remarks made much earlier in this thread, but please know, there has been much frustration for a good number of years within the online guitar building community relating to accurate information about you and your methods.

I really do not want to make excuses for the false impression of you my comments may have given to others, but I would ask that you do try to understand what may have led me to suggest what i did before you think too harshly of me. If you will bare with me i shall endeavor to explain myself as best i can.

Quite frankly being a guitar builder in Australia can be an exercise in frustration and bankruptcy. The USA is the heart and hub of the steel string guitar, and Australia could be not be more physically removed from that hub unless the planet were to be split in two by some catastrophe and the halves sent spinning off into outer space in opposite directions.

As builders, aussies and kiwis must face extortion and frustration from every angle. First up we have an exchange rate that can be as brutal as not much more than 50c in the USD, tis better at the moment, but it can and does get that long at times. Then there is freight cost which can easily equal, or even exceed the initial purchase price. What this means is that a single 4A spruce top has the potential to end up costing more for an aussie/kiwi builder by the time it is in his shop, than an entire build kit would cost in the USA.

The point here is that not only does the initial purchase cost more, a mistake can be quite devastating because we are not in a position where we can't simply drop down the road to Colonial Tonewoods or RC's, shell out a few bucks, and get a replacement to carry on with. Replacements can take weeks and be the financially ruination of a job. I could go on about how some vendors don't seem to mind taking advantage of distance to off load their rubbish upon us knowing full well there is very little we can do about it and sometimes the wrong tool, part etc, etc is supplied and one needs to wait in frustration for that item to be replaced but i think i have made my point.

As frustrating as all this can be, it does have the advantage of providing motivation to make one more careful and methodical in their work. It also gives greater incentive for one to make do with what they have at hand, but this isolation also dictates that we remain starved of those valuable learning resources provided by master craftsman such as yourself. I think these things combine to leave many of us in AU marching to the beat of our own drum, and that is fine, but no doubt at the same time many of us also feel that we are at somewhat of a disadvantage when seeking to progress as quickly in the craft as our mates on the other side of the globe.

When faced with this level of deprivation and frustration, it becomes quite easy to develop a rat mentality. Aside form just working on our own solutions, many of us forage the internet for what ever info we can find picking up anything that shines. We eat the meat and spit out the bones so to speak sharing what works with the tribe and waiting for the next morsel to reveal itself.

Well Ervin, here is where you unwittingly strayed into this picture. A few years back, you dumped a virtual feast upon our rodents table when the five videos i believe had been recorded at the ASIA symposium were made available to us at the OLF. Many of us were staggered at this stroke of luck and could not believe that you, the great Ervin Somogyi had agreed to run a free 5 week online course for members of that forum. This was truely matter from heaven and for for many of us, the only real chance we may ever have to interact with a true master of the craft.

Well, i don't know exactly what happened, but a few days later those videos were removed and the much anticipated course was canned with no proper explanation being given. It was later suggested that there had been a threat by you to take legal action for breech of copyright over a financial issue but there was never anything concrete. One thing I will say is that since my ungracious suggestions about you were posted, it has been suggested to me by PM that you were not to blame for that mess, but i cannot begin to express to you how bitterly disappointed many of us were that your course would now not go ahead.

We were then left to watch from afar as yet more of your in-house courses where offered, quickly booked out and produced yet another crop of students who would rave about what they had leaned yet share nothing and in a way, this did bread some resentment. Not directed toward you or them, but resentment bread of circumstance directed at circumstance.

We go forward a few years and behold yet two more Ervin Somogyi videos are posted on youtube just after the release of his books. Spirit lifts and then the videos are removed sighting copyright, much controversy, heart sinks and Ervin's name is mud. I do hope you can understand how frustration had caused me to behave badly.

Anyhow, if you are still with me I would also like you to know that the words of Dennis Leahy have made the notion of one charging for information, even that which they have acquired from others, much more palatable to me.
Dennis Leahy wrote:
Now, on the bigger picture of intellectual rights, and selling knowledge, and where the knowledge actually came from: other than a researcher that is performing research experiments on something that truly has never been studied before (which has to be very rare), everyone who possesses knowledge has it because of those who have come before. Almost all "new" information is derivative or based on the initial set of knowledge, acknowledged as acquired from the "shoulders of giants" (who were for the most part standing on some other giant's shoulders.)

Dennis
So Ervin, if you will accept, I would also like to publicly apologize to you for my comments on that point as well, they were indeed unfair and i acknowledge i was wrong.

I would however like to again point out to you and everyone else who reads to this point that I fail to see where anyone on this forum has canned your books but for some reason that does appear to be a common perception, perhaps i have missed something.

I would also like to reply to the comment in your email"
Ervin wrote:"Which brings me to one final point about discussion forums. They serve multiple functions, the most worthwhile ones being the creation of a community and the exchange of information. Along with that comes a certain amount of posturing and acting out: the anonymity of the web encourages that. One thread of this that I'm really not fond of is how the owning of a computer and logging onto a website encourages some people to feel entitled to certain information simply because they want it, or to disburse opinions simply because they can do so. To my thinking, being on the computer does not correlate nearly as well with real accomplishment as turning the computer off and actually doing something.


All I can say to that Ervin is you are spot on however it is one of those situations where you need to take the good with the bad for if everyone turned their computer off and only made guitars, most of us here would never have heard of you or bought your books and we would all be poorer for that in one way or another.

Also, with all due respect 'I' would quibble with the proposition that a soundbox that excites more air is likely to be more successful than one that moves less air. :lol:

To qualify my quibble i will attempt to do as you suggest and articulate the matter with more light and less heat by going back to the rigid back v responsive back argument. I feel it would depend entirely upon what you are after, but agree that interpretation of language can indeed get in the way of a description. The way i see it, if you seek more timbre from the back wood then yes indeed, building the back very thin will no doubt assist and as it is thinner and moves more freely, it is likely to work with the top to excite more air and produce a more 'physically' responsive instrument. However if you want projection, then I feel that Greg Smallman's idea of having a thin top fixed to a rigid back moving what is most likely to be 'less' air but in a more focused manner will be more successful in producing a more sonically responsive instrument.

Having said that, the fact of the matter remains that i have an awful lot of catching up to do before i have anywhere near your level of experience and understanding, and i doubt very much i could live so long. But that should never stop me from questioning your beat should i hear a different rhythm in my mind.

Those matters now hopefully behind I would like to put one more thing to you Ervin. It would seem with the launch of your books you have many questions to answer. I have spoken with fellow moderators and we would be honored to work with you in this by offering you your own forum on the ANZLF where this could take place on mass, an FAQ area if you like. This area could also be used to assist you in working though the logistics of your proposed visit to Australia.

I hope you will seriously consider this offer as an extension of our hand in friendship. The ANZLF has no commercial affiliations where money or goods changes hands and we would like to keep it that way, the offer is extended to you out of respect for your commitment to the craft and the learning potential your participation at any level would bring to our membership.

Cheers and kind regards.

Kim

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Post by Allen » Mon Oct 05, 2009 6:26 am

Well put Kim. I'm proud to call you a mate.
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Post by joel » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:34 am

All we need now is a big group hug, a BBQ and beers at Kim's place!
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Post by joel » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:44 am

Rick Turner wrote:There is a certain parallel with the passive radiator model, but then you do not have the internal damping that is always found inside speaker cabinets.
True. But we want the internal reflections inside a guitar.

Rick Turner wrote:I believe that the sound of a good under-saddle pickup, properly installed is actually a more accurate representation of string vibration than is the acoustic sound of the instrument.
Ha! Now you're just stirring the pot! C'mon, you love these discussions don't you? Just as its starting to wind down, you'll step in to give it a little poke. I must admit to doing something similar at work sometimes. I call it "facilitating communication" :D The best bit is, a lot of the time we all actually learn something out of the exchange.
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Post by Nick » Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:10 am

joel wrote:The best bit is, a lot of the time we all actually learn something out of the exchange.
Well after posting a harmless video link this post kinda got a momentum all of it's own, but I hope that this topic has or is now serving the purpose that you've mentioned Joel. One thing it has proven(and enhanced with me) is that there are as many different theories on how to build a good guitar as there are ways of doing it. Which can only benefit this craft I believe, if everybody built exactly the same way (cloned) then the world would be the poorer for it. We wouldn't have Parkers, Steinberger's or Ovations e.t.c if different people didn't have different theories, whether they are good or not is very much a matter of opinion but they have brought something different to the table.

I would also like to back up Kim's point about information isolation out here in "the colonies". There aren't more than 3 or 4 professional builders throughout the whole of NZ (because the market cannot support more here), the ability to hop in a car, travel no more than say, an hour to visit a luthier and pick his/her brains would be absolute heaven (there is one locally but getting information out of him is like pulling teeth!Maybe he's protecting his "patch"?).
When I started building electrics in pre-internet days, here in NZ, it was very much a seat of the pants type of operation, I built my first one by pulling apart my own electric and armed with the only one piece of 'technical' information...the magic number of 17.835! set about making it. As for sourcing parts, you could forget it unless you wanted to pay as much for one pickup as you could buy an entire guitar for & delivery times we are talking months, they only ordered from overseas when they had enough orders to fill a shipping container! Thank the omnipotent entity for the internet! information could be searched easily, somebody had an answer somewhere and parts could be bought from overseas. My guitars improved simply because I was 'armed' with more indepth information.
Thanks also to the likes of Bob Benedetto's Archtop book and subsequent Dvd's, it allowed me access to information I couldn't have got elsewhere in this country! There are so few archtops around let alone one in pieces that I could look at. I never would have been able to carry out my ambition if it had not been for his willingness to share. He is quite specific with his information, giving sizes,dimensions e.t.c but do the ones I've built sound exactly the same as his? (should do, it was built the same as he told me to).......hell no! There are a few essential ingredients missing.His talent as a craftsman, his experience in the business and his intuitive feel for building all go to making his one of those 'special' guitars that people will pay big bickies for.
I hope Mr Somogyi that once I've read your books my guitars, whilst not reaching your level of skill & craftsmanship, will improve. If they do then you have acheived your goal as far as this person is concerned.
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Somogyi books stuff

Post by esomogyi » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:51 pm

Hello, Kim (and the other members of the ANZLF):

Thank you for your thougthful and informative response to my loooooong previous email. I'm not used to spending time on discussion sites and I'd written a reply to member John Hale in which I asked him to post whichever of my thoughts and comments seemed seemed appropriate. But I think it makes more sense for me to simply speak to people directly, than through a third party.

I can agree with the things you said about whether and what kind of air pump the guitar is. And I think you're quite accurate in your analysis of the stiff-back vs. loose-back phenomenon. But mostly, I don't actually think it important to agree on whether the guitar should be called an air pump or something else. What I call appropriate brace profiling can in good conscience be called impedance damping by a physicist, and they're pretty much the same thing when the pudding is sifted through for the proof. The goal for all of us is to make better guitars regardless of the jargon that we use. I mean, isn't this the same argument folks have about whether Jehovah should be called God, Krishna, Jesus, Higher Power, or Allah?

I'm going to try to respond to some of your very well articulated points, starting with my acknowledgment of the burdens and limitations that luthiers in your quadrant of the globe work under: distance, high costs of materials and shipping, bad exchange rates, lack of access to information and, finally, difficulty of connecting with American and European lutherie shows, events, conventions, forums, exhibitions, and symposia. We in the United States have lots of advantages -- although I might point out that this was not the case when I began to make guitars. The cultural and informational desert that existed about our work compares favorably with pictures I've seen of the Australian outback.

There were only two books available then: A.P. Sharpe's (pretty horrible), and Irving Sloane's (much better: most American luthiers of my generation got their start with it). Now, I have fully two dozen books on guitar making in my library, and about sixty others touching both on the Spanish and steel string guitar in repair, history, technology, design, electronics, art, wood science, noteworthy collections, European and American luthiers (mostly dead ones, but some alive), cross-cultural guitar iconography, music, the guitar in popular culture, the guitar in black culture, guitar science (physics, engineering, and acoustics), commercial guitar retrospectives (fifty years of this and forty years of that . . . ), at least five books on Martin guitars . . . and that's just about the flat-top guitars. There are separate books on electric guitars, archtop guitars, resonator guitars, flamenco guitars, and of course their little brother the ukulele.

And, despite that, you are still right in that you cannot hop in your car and drive to L.M.I. or some exotic lumberyard and get woods and materials at the drop of a hat.

I know next to nothing about the Australian and New Zealand guitar making world. I know that in the U. S. I've seen lutherie be transformed from a modest and anachronistic pastime to big business: all the young hotshots KNOW that if and when they get their table saws and routers, CNCs, jigs and molds and forms and templates and vacuum clamps and dust collectors, and a blueprint for the perfect guitar, they're off and running with a romantic career ahead of them. Well, that's not exactly lutherie as I understand it.

As I tried to say before, my books are about relatively simple and low-tech guitar making, supplemented by having an intelligent approach. Period. I don't claim to have the best methods, or the best anythings. I describe what has worked rather well for me, based in a great deal of experience and thought that I will stand behind in any discussion or workbench project. And I treat most of my peer group's ideas with respect: if I am partial to brunettes, who am I to say that they should be too? But my books are chock-full of wisdom, take my word for it.

Thank you for your invitation to participate in the ANZLF. I don't quite comprehend what you mean by "my own forum". If it means taking on the responsibility for managing a whole department of the forum (so to speak) it sounds like it would take much more time than I have available. I think and write slowly, and a letter such as this one can easily take me an hour or more to formulate. (I'm not such a hot typist, either.) But let me know what you have in mind. On the other hand, I'm happy to be an occasional participant.

You asked about the A.S.I.A. Symposium's series of films about my voicing seminar. Boy, that was a fiasco. My side of the story: A.S.I.A. had asked me to give a four-hour long workshop/lecture. I made an agreement with A.S.I.A.'s then-publisher, that they could film it and that it would be made into a DVD that both A.S.I.A. and I would sell commercially. The editing was thought to take maybe a month or two after the symposium, and we would each get a master copy of the edited video to sell. A.S.I.A. was in horrible financial straits at the time and I felt that I could help them make a few dollars, and I am . . . how should I put this diplomatically? . . . getting by on a luthier's income, regardless of how widely my name is known. Hard to believe, yet true.

A year and a half passed, with many promises of delivery of an edited film, but no action. A.S.I.A. nearly fell apart in that time and was on the edge of both bankruptcy and member revolt. There was a huge turnover of personell, compounded by a virtually total communication blackout between any and all of the participants. My film project (OUR film project?) went walkabout, or died. I wasn't sure which.

So, out of the blue, without any notice and certainly without anyone having sent me my own copy of the DVD, I began getting emails from people telling me that they'd seen the film of my presentation on the internet. Furthermore, it was being made available to be downloaded for free by anyone who wanted it. I had never agreed to that, and no one had mentioned doing such a thing before.

S***!~&$!@#!!

Although there had been no contract around this project (we'd shaken hands on it and I had trusted that we'd all do what we'd verbally promised), I felt both offended in about six or eight different ways and, legally, that breach of contract was written all over this. How ironic, eh? in a situation where nothing else was written down (sorry, I couldn't resist that one). So I asked these good people to yank the film off the air, and they did so in the sudden manner that was previously so well described.

I've never understood what that was all about. After doing the editing, they could have sold the film segments for, say, $5.00 each and made at least something out of it. And I could have too.

There's a line in an Evan Connell story (you would enjoy reading him, if you haven't already), in which he describes an incredible series of really dumb blunders and miscalculations by otherwise smart and experienced people whom you'd never expect to shoot themselves in the foot so spectacularly. Commenting on the totality of the situational wreckage that he describes, Connell blandly and wisely concludes with the observation that . . . 'well, these things happen sometimes'.

I have to go have dinner now. I'll write more later.

Cheers, Ervin Somogyi
Mon-Wed-Fri: If you don't succeed at first, well, then maybe skydiving isn't for you.
Tu-Thu-Sat: Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.
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Post by Nick » Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:16 pm

Ervin, As maybe the instigator of this lively post :oops: , let me be the first to welcome to our little corner of the planet & hope that you will be able to find time to drop by occasionally and maybe make the odd comment or observation. Also maybe a chance for you to see some of the work being completed in Australia & NZ.
Thank you for your input and willingness to add "your side of the story" to the discussion.
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Post by jeffhigh » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:39 pm

I am still going to disagree with the concept of the Guitar as an "Air Pump"
The explanation that it moves air molecules.........well I move air molecules whenever I walk around, but that does not make me a pump.
I am a little surprised that having made such a big thing about calling the guitar an air pump, Ervin Somogyi is now saying that it does not matter what we call it.
Words, especially in the technical and scientific fields do matter and it is important that they be used with precision.

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Post by Allen » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:47 pm

Welcome to the forum Ervin. It's indeed a great pleasure to have you join us, and I do hope that you'll find the Australian directness and sense of humour somewhat refreshing. I look forward to any participation that you're time will allow.

As you're probably aware, we have Rick Turner with us regularly, as well as David Hurd whom I had the great pleasure to spend 5 days with earlier in the year when we were both in Albany. That's a lot of expertise and experience that is pretty hard to come by without access to this medium.

Cheers.
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Post by Hesh1956 » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:42 pm

Hi Ervin and a big welcome to the ANZLF from me too. I'm the one who spoke with you at HGF in 2007 out front and then you let me take some photos of you - one showing your remarkable ability to point your feet nearly backwards! :D Thank you too for signing my set of your books - they are now one of the most treasured things that I have ever read.

Even though I am in Michigan I love this forum. These guys are special here and in my view fantastic ambassadors of their beautiful and civilized nations.

Welcome aboard!

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Post by Arnt » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:28 pm

Hi Ervin, I had the pleasure of attending your "soundboard voicing" lectures at the 2005 AISA. Thankfully I took a lot of notes and pictures, so even without the video I remember it vividly. Other highlights of that symposium were lectures by the late Tom Humphrey, Dan Erlewine, a mandolin panel with Rolfe Gerhardt, Tom Ellis and Don McRostie, a baritone lecture by Lind Manzer and David Berkowitz, repair workshops with Frank Ford, the list goes on. I found the joint lecture with yourself and Al Carruth especially memorable, and it was enlightening how your approach to some of the issues was quite different.

Anyways, it was some of the best money I spent, even with the plane fare all the way from Norway. These days I’m so broke I can’t even afford the books, but if I had the money I’d go and take one of your classes in a heartbeat.
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Post by kiwigeo » Tue Oct 06, 2009 3:05 am

Welcome to the ANZLF Ervin, a pleasure to have you on board.

Cheers Martin

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Post by Rick Turner » Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:28 am

Acoustic guitars are really mechanical resonant transformers that match the impedance of the string's motion to the medium of air to set up alternatively negative and positive air pressure zones...sound waves...which the strings themselves are very poor at doing. The transformation from string energy into vibrating air molecules is fairly non-linear...see my comments on pickups and phase response.

The problem with the "pump" analogy is that it infers an actual transmission of volume of air through a distance much like you get when you trigger your air nozzle to blow dust off your bench or a guitar. With acoustic waves propagated from a guitar or loudspeaker, there is a negative "motion" of air for every positive one, hence no mass movement, just a vibration of air molecules at various frequencies.

I do understand the convenience of the pump analogy, it's just not terribly accurate as a model. If it helps people build better guitars, then that's fine, but if we ever are to get any science truly applied and understood with regard to lutherie, we should agree upon a common and accurate language.

I find myself with a foot in two camps...the intuitive and the scientific. I don't buy that the intuitive is the enemy of science; I think it's just as real if a guitar maker can produce consistent results. But I do know some really good guitar makers who are so anti-intellectual understanding that they may just not really know why their guitars are so good. They've hit a formula which could probably be articulated, but they point to coincidental features that may or may not be relevant.

There's nobody as easy to fool as ourselves...
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Post by Rick Turner » Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:13 am

Kim, note my comments on the directionality of guitars with reflective backs vs. resonant backs. Both can be extremely responsive, but the dispersion pattern of the sound will be quite different. To use a microphone analogy, it's cardiod vs. omni with guitars going as far as Greg Smallman's being perhaps "hyper-cardiod".

The choice is not good vs. bad; it's a matter of the purpose to which the guitar will be put and the desires of the player.

I have found that by putting in a side port, at least some of the negative for the player of having a rigid back can be mitigated. I think it's a best of both worlds solution. I'm not inclined to build acoustic guitars without side ports now unless I'm going to do some historical explorations as with making a Howe Orme copy.
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Post by Hesh1956 » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:08 am

Rick Turner wrote:Acoustic guitars are really mechanical resonant transformers that match the impedance of the string's motion to the medium of air to set up alternatively negative and positive air pressure zones...sound waves...which the strings themselves are very poor at doing. The transformation from string energy into vibrating air molecules is fairly non-linear...see my comments on pickups and phase response.

The problem with the "pump" analogy is that it infers an actual transmission of volume of air through a distance much like you get when you trigger your air nozzle to blow dust off your bench or a guitar. With acoustic waves propagated from a guitar or loudspeaker, there is a negative "motion" of air for every positive one, hence no mass movement, just a vibration of air molecules at various frequencies.

I do understand the convenience of the pump analogy, it's just not terribly accurate as a model. If it helps people build better guitars, then that's fine, but if we ever are to get any science truly applied and understood with regard to lutherie, we should agree upon a common and accurate language.

I find myself with a foot in two camps...the intuitive and the scientific. I don't buy that the intuitive is the enemy of science; I think it's just as real if a guitar maker can produce consistent results. But I do know some really good guitar makers who are so anti-intellectual understanding that they may just not really know why their guitars are so good. They've hit a formula which could probably be articulated, but they point to coincidental features that may or may not be relevant.

There's nobody as easy to fool as ourselves...
This is a great post as are some of the others here Rick - many thanks!

I find myself in agreement with you and some of my local pack of Luthiers are as well. In the past when I used the air pump analogy I was corrected with comments much like yours only not so well put or understandable.

Where the air pump analogy has helped me is in understanding that tops need to be able to move to excite the air molecules. For my style of guitars this includes backs too.

These days I am more of a player than I was in the past or when I started building. As such I have my own preferences as a player for what kind of guitar that I enjoy playing the most. I have examples of super stiff, reflective backed guitars that I have built and the flexible backed guitars that I am currently building. Again as a player I greatly prefer feeling the back vibrate on my belly :D which makes me wonder if my backs are getting more responsive or my gut is getting bigger...

Nonetheless most of my playing is a solitary pastime and the presence of a vibrating back just makes the music that much more enveloping to me. If I need to be heard in the back of a crowded bar it's pick-up time or time to mic the guitar.

I can see where the Smallman model works very well for classical guitars too. Interestingly my understanding of the early days of the guitar is that it was not taken seriously as a viable band instrument because of the lack of volume. Mind you this was pre pick-up/mic days. And back then depending on the type of music some of the other band instruments included horns and drums.

Now 100 years later we are still trying to find ways to get guitars to project more powerfully. It may be that the current state of the art for conventional guitar construction and materials is simply maxed out. But then if we really all believed that we wouldn't be building and trying new or perhaps more correctly new to us things.

It's all good!

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Post by Hesh1956 » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:14 am

I forgot to mention that in my mention of "new to us" my meaning was that some of the things that folks are trying to do today with their own building has often been done before....

I know that you have several Howe Orme guitars and I also remember some of your comments regarding the tops on these very cool instruments. If you ever feel like starting a thread about the Howe Ormes I would be very interested in reading it.

Thanks

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Post by Nick » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:33 am

Thanks for your comments Rick, I'm finding this all very interesting especially your comments about the side port as I have just included my first one on my latest build. Unfortunately I've added a few 'differences' to it (due to the restrictive cost of making an instrument per different idea) so will be unable to quantify any improvements down to any one particular source
Having built electrics for a number of years (15), Archtops were my first foray into acoustic building so my thinking towards acoustics now comes very much from the "resonating back" side of the desk. I was amazed by just how much the voice of an archtop dropped off as the back was restricted from movement & even during carving the re-curve just how it affected the tap resonance as more recurve was carved in. I haven't done any "official" testing with flatops but have heard the tonal difference even pushing the back into my voluminous stomach, whilst playing, makes. It sounds like quite a few of the lows are dropped (obviously as the back would be driven to a greater amount by the longer bass frequencies so would suffer first from any damping) out of the spectrum and maybe some of the lower mids?
The idea of a reflective back interests me also and what difference it would have on the sound. I have yet to hear one of Mr Smallman's classicals (untouched by mixing desk) but from what a few on the forum here say, it certainly doesn't lack volume! I just wonder if there are any frequencies that aren't as strong in the tonal spectrum or does the super responsive top make up for these 'drop-outs' by vibrating more at bass frequencies than 'conventionally braced' tops? Perhaps somebody who knows, would care to comment on this?
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Post by Rick Turner » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:42 am

Hesh, you've no doubt noticed that I suggest that the Symogyi style of building may truly be best for a living room/house concert (no amplification) type player whereas the Smallman/Macaferri/stiff backed style instrument will be better at punching through in a more live situation.

Here's an example from my own experience. When I was doing the recordings of guitars that turned into digital models for the D-TAR Mama Bear, I had the chance to record a 1934 Martin D-28 (first year of issue herringbone, bar frets, and a $60,000.00 price tag) and immediately after that, record Ms. Antarctica, the guitar I made for Henry Kaiser to take to the southern continent. The guitars were mounted in a rack that allowed free movement of the backs and precise alignment and distance from the mic we were using. The engineer had to turn the mic preamp down by 3 dB for my guitar...it was literally (in the scientific sense) twice as loud out front in the mic listening position. Yet, the D-28 seemed louder when I played the two guitars on my lap. Why? Well, it confirmed my suspicions that building very stiff and reflective put the energy out front whereas building more traditionally with a fairly resonant back gave more of the total energy to the player.

I'll tell you, I learned more about how acoustic guitars work during that project of making digital models of them than I'd learned in any decade or more of lutherie. I could not have understood my observations without years of playing, repairing, and building, but those 2 years of R&D paid off big time in terms of my own education. Much of what I've been posting here is gleaned from that R&D effort, and much agrees with what guys like David Hurd and Al Carruth write about, as different a path as I've taken to similar conclusions.
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