Kostal Guitars Project and build Thread

[lizzard]

Jason,

This should be great fun. I don't know what anyone will know when you are done but "At least I'm enjoying the ride."

Chris

[TuckerRE]

Originally Posted by justonwo

I assume your customer will be paying with cash filling 4 briefcases of different styles but identical materials?

Post photos!

Excellent! ... Best comment ever!!

Ryan, you guys have four sets of padauk around ... How 'bout a little competition!

[jkostal]

Originally Posted by Marcus Wong

I've always wanted to be *THAT* customer, but I'm not sure I'll ever have the funds to justify such an experiment. Will be following this thread closely it's great that they'll be started and completed simultaneously.

Marcus,

I completely understand how you feel. I feel very fortunate to have the clients that I do, and feel even more honored that they value my work, and trust me enough, to allow me to build the guitars that I build. I would assume that things like this have been going on for decades at different levels, but this is a first for me, and I am excited to make the most out of it. I wouldn't be doing what I am doing as a career without the support of so many incredible people. In the end, it is the fact that I call many of these clients friends that makes this such an amazing journey.

[jkostal]

Originally Posted by jonnymosco

Hi Jason - could this not be a project with a Physics department at a university?

I think it is a great opportunity and very important to measure the frequencies in a controlled environment... there may even a PhD student researching acoustics desperate make this type of test.

Looking forward to the builds.

Cheers

Jonny

Hello my friend,

You bring up a valid point that I have thought about and haven't really made any real determination about yet. It's possible that this may be a route that I go with this, but my inclination right now is to forgo this direction for 3 main reasons.

The first is that I am not really a "science guy". I value it and believe in it, and there are some people making incredible guitars through "science-based building", but that just isn't my approach. I just don't fully understand it as well as some others do, so I use a more tactile approach that may, at times, not always be quantifiable in a scientific way, but still has value and meaning to me. I build using my senses...how wood feels, reacts to certain things, and adjust accordingly. In all my life, the only class I almost failed was physics. When I was in college, I came pretty close to failing my physics class, and would have been kicked out of school as a result. At the time, I was the captain of the Army Martial Arts team, and sadly was unable to compete while my grade in this class was where it was at. My coach and instructor at the time decided to start attending classes with me, and in the evening he would "explain" things like angular momentum, rotational torque, and breaking a plane by using my body as the demonstrating tool. I passed the class, but to this day, the word "physics" is often associated with "hospital" for me, as well as some need for counseling at some time in the future!

The second reason that I don't always go the science route is that I have found that some times the scientific results differ from what we actually hear. Since I am not a science guy, I don't claim to know why that is, but I do believe that we each hear differently and process different bits of information based on what we value. We hear it with guitars all the time when one person says it is the greatest sounding guitar they have ever heard and another says they don't like it. That may be based more in experience and interests than science, but we have all seen it happen. One experience I had where my ears differed from science was when I was in the military. One of the units that I commanded relied very heavily on the use of suppressors (silencers for the uninitiated) for our weapons. We brought many of the manufacturers out along with a group of scientists and did controlled experiments with microphones, etc, to determine which suppressor reduced the db level the most. Because hearing is a result of converting sound waves into pressure against our ear drums, I learned that our ears "hear" a little differently than microphones do. In this experience, almost without fail, the suppressor that was "quietest" from a recorded standpoint, was not the one that I deemed the quietest with my ears. My ears were taking in so much more data than the microphone was...how it felt, sounded, what the initial report and decay sounded like, and how long it took to recede all factored into the equation in a way that the microphones were not registering. What I taught myself that day was that science allows us to confirm or deny an idea and then gives us direction to focus our efforts in the future. Granted some of us hear really well, and some don't, so computers and microphones can be more accurate, but it is my ears, not a computer, that help me choose a guitar, so I choose to focus on them. I guess my default is to focus on the environment and conditions that most people play these guitars, which is in a small room, acoustically, using their own ears as a reference. If it sounds good to them in that environment, than the physics behind it are immaterial to me. Where science related data may work for me is in maintaining consistency between different materials, but I feel like I do ok with that given my current methods.

The final reason I haven't really taken the plunge with that kind of testing is time related. The client that ordered these guitars has already waited a few years for them to be built, and the clients that come after him are waiting for their guitars as well for years to come. I want to build these guitars to the best of my ability while documenting things where and however I can, but I don't want to turn this into the only project of the year. I have many other wonderful guitars to build and everyone associated with those would love for me to just build them! Spending weeks at a lab somewhere does little for my backlog and adds a whole new time dimension to this equation that I don't know if I am prepared to take on.

With all of that being said, I think your idea has a lot of merit, and I will definitely think about it and see if I can incorporate it without too much of a deviation from the current timeline. If any of you know someone that would be willing to help out in this regard, let me know, and I will reach out to them. I live in Arizona, so location plays some part in all of that.

This is going to be a fun project. As Chris (Lizzard) pointed out, I have no idea what we will learn. It could be that the biggest learning point in all of this is that I am an idiot, but hopefully some good will come out of it! This is a different approach to building for me in that I usually just build, analyze, adjust, and build some more. I don't usually stop to share my thoughts with people, so now I have to not only figure out what those thoughts are, but articulate them as well. Hopefully Sprucedup will share his popcorn with everyone, and we will just enjoy the adventure!

[Trevor M]

Hi Jason,

That all makes sense to me. I think that in the case of music appreciation and playing and craftsmanship feel and personal perceptions are what counts.

I've had several very high end guitars in recently that have left some cold and been 'the best guitar ever' to others. I don't see how a scientific evaluation would help.

[jkostal]

Originally Posted by The Acoustic Music Co (TAMCO) UK

Hi Jason,

That all makes sense to me. I think that in the case of music appreciation and playing and craftsmanship feel and personal perceptions are what counts.

I've had several very high end guitars in recently that have left some cold and been 'the best guitar ever' to others. I don't see how a scientific evaluation would help.

Trevor,

While I completely agree with you, Jonny's comments do have a lot of merit as well. One of the things that I have thought of since my reply is that we don't really know what information would come out of a scientific test until we try it. We could get absolutely nothing of value, it could confirm ideas and beliefs that we already have, or we could find out something new about lutherie in general. I have no idea.

My commitment to Jonny is that I will definitely think about it, and if I can find someone locally, with credentials and experience to make it worthwhile, I am happy to do it and see what comes of it. After all, that is part of what makes these adventures so interesting. I just don't want to detract too much from the original intent, which was to make four guitars. So, since I have some time before these are complete and ready to go, I will definitely put some thought into the idea of having them evaluated on a more scientific scale and see where things go from there. Since this is foreign territory for me, I would need some feedback from the members of the forum to determine what I want to test for, determine, etc. This could be incredibly useful or an epic wast of time. I do believe that what our ears hear, in this case, is what matters the most, but if we can derive some kind of correlation or understanding that we didn't have before, then I am all for it.

[JoeCharter]

Sounds like a wonderful project (and a very tasteful client).

Congrats, Jason!

Looking forward to seeing updates to this thread.

[gfc]

First, amazingly interesting project. Looking forward to hearing the end results and watching the journey. Jonny and Trevor's views on science are both valid. I tend, for what it is worth, I tend to think that scientific analysis of music and musical instruments can only go part way in analysing why a particular piece of music or a particular instrument moves the listener/player. Notwithstanding that, this rare opportunity of having 4 guitars constructed in this similar way by the same luthier is one that could be grasped to do some valid science work. This, I think has been on the forum before http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/hearing...ar-experiment/

[rogthefrog]

Originally Posted by jkostal

Marcus,

I completely understand how you feel. I feel very fortunate to have the clients that I do, and feel even more honored that they value my work, and trust me enough, to allow me to build the guitars that I build. I would assume that things like this have been going on for decades at different levels, but this is a first for me, and I am excited to make the most out of it. I wouldn't be doing what I am doing as a career without the support of so many incredible people. In the end, it is the fact that I call many of these clients friends that makes this such an amazing journey.

I was at Ervin's shop a little while ago and saw a set of 3-4 Somogyis, identical save for the top wood, all going to the same customer. Not me.

We're all fortunate to have such modern "patrons of the arts" enabling these kinds of experiments. It's a shame Scott Chinery is no longer with us, as he did a lot in that department.

[jimmybcool]

This is an awesome project. And a note that you have a very cool customer giving you such free rein. wonderful thread.

I'd love to sit in and listen to the finished project. I'm not that far away in Scottsdale and would love to be there.

Looking forward to watching this thread evolve. I hope you have time to post a few photos as you progress.

Thanks Jason.

[Cocobolo Kid]

I will be watching this thread and project with great anticipation.

What a great contribution to AGF. Thanks for taking the time to post this Jason.

[tysam]

Thanks for posting this, Jason. Very interesting premise ( and opportunity for you )....I look forward to following this one closely.

[Trevor M]

"I was at Ervin's shop a little while ago and saw a set of 3-4 Somogyis, identical save for the top wood, all going to the same customer."

Ervin has written his usual wise and thoughtful thoughts on this "A SYSTEMATIC COMPARISON OF TONEWOODS: An attempt to firm up the line between folklore and fact." Unfortunately not for wider distribution until his next book is published.

[taxman]

I´m just a hobbybuilder, but i´m very happy about and interested in this projekt too. I followed all Kostal builds in this forum and i´m very impressed about the quality of the Instruments (what i can see).
Hope to see and read about as much details as you will give us, Jason.

By the way, did you heard about the "Holy Grail Guitarshow" in Berlin? As a german guy, this is the only opportunity to see and get in touch with all the american (and other) great guitars and the luthier behind. Are there any thougts on visit this show in the future?

Originally Posted by The Acoustic Music Co (TAMCO) UK

"I was at Ervin's shop a little while ago and saw a set of 3-4 Somogyis, identical save for the top wood, all going to the same customer."

Ervin has written his usual wise and thoughtful thoughts on this "A SYSTEMATIC COMPARISON OF TONEWOODS: An attempt to firm up the line between folklore and fact." Unfortunately not for wider distribution until his next book is published.

Oh yes, i hope his new book (or books) will be released soon, i´m very exited!



(sorry for my bad english)

[steveh]

Originally Posted by jkostal

I have no idea what we will learn.

I'll make a prediction; for many potential customers, it will complicate their choice rather than simplify it.

I'm in the hugely fortunate position of having a Kostal OM and MD: A while back I decided to sell all of my guitars, commission two from a (then pretty unknown) builder - Jason Kostal - and subsequently concentrate on playing these two rather than GAS. It pretty much worked, to one degree or another.

However, one surprise for me has been choosing between these two guitars on a day to day basis.

Before the builds I was clearly an OM guy. To me, that body size provided the best of all worlds. I ordered an MD because, to my ears, it did a couple of things really well, but far from everything. Now, a few years after having both guitars, I really cannot decide which one I prefer. Why is this? Well, it's probably because both are fabulous instruments from a fabulous builder. We're not comparing a factory-built 500 dollar guitar against a Kostal here, where the preference would be easy. And, these have different top woods and back and sides. I'd guess the preference would be even closer with identical woods for both. I've played Jason's 00 - that's a great guitar as well, and clearly in the same class.

I guess all that I'm saying is that, for some people, having such information available could complicate matters rather than simplify them. In advance of a project like this, it would be very reasonable to assume that I'll listen to the 4 guitars and my choice will be simple; just choose the one I like best. That's not how it may turn out, for some guys at least. Without the benefit of being able to compare 4 guitars as close in build as possible, we can rely on our preexisting biases and prejudices...that's a great way to simplify choice!

That's not at all to say it isn't a good thing: No, not at all. Rather, it will be fantastically informative to have this information out there and I, for one, can't wait.

Are you down to two hours sleep a night yet Jason?

Cheers,
Steve