Quote:
Originally Posted by KolayaGuitars
I see someone has been reading up about their "Responsive Guitar" by the book set on the floor next to his foot.  |
Very well spotted and bang on the money! The set actually belong to Michael - I asked to borrow them last November and this was an opportunity for michael to get them back.
I'm clearly not a builder but I have fantasized about doing so one day. In any event, I think it's important to understand how these things work etc - I've been doing minor setups on my guitars for years (rod/action adjustment, new nuts, saddles etc that sort of level) and thought it would be useful to hear what Ervin had to say about things (I'd already read the Ciampino book and a few others).
I guess I took two broad things away from reading The Responsive Guitar:
1. Acoustic guitars are not simple. The thing is complex +++ and you're unlikely to get far unless you devote time and energy to thinking about how the things works and why.
2. Pretty much anything you alter on a guitar will have an effect on some other aspect of the guitar. For example, before reading the books, I thought a soundport was a simple matter of cutting a chunk out of the upper bout. I guess it still is but I hadn't appreciated the other effects this might have on the guitar's sound etc. Same goes for just about everything else.
I know there has been a lot of discussion about these books and I don't want to stoke that up here, but I found them very thought-provoking indeed.
It's clear from poking around inside my MD that Jason has taken a lot of Ervin's ideas on board. The bracing is...unusual. When Jason was here I kept threatening to stick an endoscope into the sounhole and have pics of the bracing on the internet by midnight. After all, that's exactly what David Schramm did with his Smallmam (Schramm makes truly excellent Smallman style guitars). This is what a 25k classical looks like from the inside:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENImGsolpIw
Cheers,
Steve