Maths boffin angle and curves stuff.

[Trevor Gore]

Quick question Trevor. Have you done any emperical studies to determine whether the "average" player can tell the difference between your work and a decent guitar from, say Martin or Cole Clark? I'm not challenging the legitimacy of your work, which I acknowledge, but wonder HOW MUCh of a difference it would make to Joe Blow....

I'm rather in agreement with some of the other contributors - the "brand name" makers set the bar pretty low. So, for steel string guitars I aim for around twice as loud as a "good" guitar you'd pick up in a main street store, an alluring tone, whilst playing in tune and no dud notes, and doing that consistently. The apparent loudness relates quite well to monopole mobility and there's a few monopole mobility charts in the book covering a range of makers and models. I have a couple of Matons and a Gibson I use as references and anyone who visits, I ask them to bring their "best" guitar with them so that they have a comparison that they're used to. So, though I don't keep records on this, the difference is, shall we say, apparent.

Classicals are another matter, because the best classicals have always been from small shops/custom builders, so the bar is a LOT higher and here you're at the mercy of the client's preferences. A Smallman and a Hauser are very different instruments with characteristic sounds and, really, at this level of guitar, there is no such thing as "better"; just preference. So it's important to understand what the sound differences are and to be able to relate that to the woodwork, which is really what the books are about. So ears are still very important, because a nice frequency response curve with the peaks in the "right" places means nothing if the guitar sounds like... well, you know.

So all the engineering stuff is just a means to an end, and comes from asking a very simple question: "Why do guitars sound like they do?".

[kiwigeo]

So ears are still very important, because a nice frequency response curve with the peaks in the "right" places means nothing if the guitar sounds like... well, you know.

Yeah..the word is "shit" (youre allowed to say that on this forum)

[Taffy Evans]

Thanks Trevtheshed, I understand what you are saying. I remember back in the day using all the available testing and measuring techniques, and trying to following the work and research of Carleen Hutchins. I had test equipment ranging from the simple speaker and brass filings to large frequency generators/recorders [the size of three computer towers side by side], duel trace oscillators, etc. but could not grasp or really understand what I was doing. I still have that data on each guitar from those years when I was using this gear. I was told that the guitars were loud, a feature that most people could identify, player or not, and I knew that I was getting good balance of bass and treble response, so I was happy.

After a while I stopped using all the equipment and concentrated on just building guitars using my past knowledge, ears and feel, and still managed to make guitars that received the same positive comments from listeners and players alike. At that time I was using top quality Indian Rosewood and Honduras Mahogany.

Some years on and quite a few years ago, I started using New Guinea Rosewood but as I had not heard of any body using it I kept quiet about it, I just called it Rosewood.
The sound and qualities, as you might expect, were not what I was used to getting being a very cheap timber after all. The NGR had a quality, workability and had a visual appeal I liked, so I told myself that it could be my building technique that was the missing factor and not this low cost “tone wood”.
I have persevered and built many guitars now using NGR and have in recent years gone back using more modern up to date and computerised methods coupled with ears and feel, to track and record progress. I still do not grasp all of the tech stuff that I play with, but if I did, it would possible been a shorter path to the story in this last paragraph.

One of my customers goes into his local music store [possibly due to the fact I am building him a new guitar] and plays all their top shelf guitars: Martin, Taylor, Maton etc. salesman asks waddaya think? Customer says there’re all crap, startled salesman says what have you been playing? Customer says an Evans guitar.

I learned two things from this:
The guitar played by my customer is a NGR small bodied acoustic so I'm happy that the hours spent in the tuning process amounted to something.
And, every time I take a guitar I build I into that store to get some feedback, I don’t get any. Hmmmm?

The shop salesman and the customer both rang me to relay this story, however the salesman left out the “crap” part.

[Trevor Gore]

One of my customers goes into his local music store [possibly due to the fact I am building him a new guitar] and plays all their top shelf guitars: Martin, Taylor, Maton etc. salesman asks waddaya think? Customer says there’re all crap...

This is what I call the "conspiracy against guitarists". The big boys, <insert brand name here> spend a huge amount of advertising dollars telling you how good their instruments are. In reality, they're only about half as good as they could be. So anyone aiming to build a guitar as good as a <insert brand name here> is really selling themselves short.

What's this got to do with back domes...