Hybrid Top on new Jon Gomm signature Lowden

[rogthefrog]

I have two of those tuners on my harp guitar and can confirm they work very well.

[riverrummed]

Jon, if you're still following this: I was wondering if Wilma has just a straight Fishman Rare Earth soundhole pickup and when your new signature model got made that you went with the Fishman Rare Earth Blend pickup (I'm not informed as to the timeline of production of the two pickups). I don't plug in very often so a straight Fishman Rare Earth pickup works fine for me when I do, but of all the things about this posting my discovery of the Blend version was most revelatory. I'd never heard your music before but took some time to listen to it and I find it to be an interesting mix of a straight acoustic sound combined with a more electrically processed sound...simultaneously! Now that we've heard you weigh in on the guitar aspect of your tone I'd be curious to hear about your journey using different pickups in your acoustic guitar to get the sound you seek and that is also compatible with an acoustic instrument? If you don't mind.

[performingchimp]

Hi all, thanks for the responses! And welcomes, although I've actually been a forum member for 10 years!

I've always used the Fishman Rare Earth Blend. I've experimented endlessly and always try new stuff, but nothing has made me want to switch yet.

The magnetic element is the one I apply most of the effects to. The mic element adds some air and realism, and is obviously excellent for percussion, the best mic I've found for that. I guess it's just well voiced, plus it's a condenser so it's super sensitive.

I've always combined it with something else too, as a third source, and that has changed several times over the years. Currently I'm favouring a "bug" style transducer: either a Fishman BP-100 (a very old passive double bass pickup which I connect to an active end pin preamp), which is a nice useful pickup but needs heavy EQing to bring out my bass drum sound. Or a Carlos CS Sensor, which is an extraordinary pickup, truly amazing sound and highly recommended for people seeking a natural acoustic sound. But for my playing style, I have to compress it heavily or my bass drum is insanely loud. Speaker breakingly loud.

Hope this helps!

Happy to answer any other questions

jg x

[oscarcorpasj]

Carlos sensors are more common in flamenco because of the golpe in the soundboard and the rasgueos are more percussive, but as you say the sound is not as good. When I play in gigs I try to get a mic in front of the guitar. The best gigs I've ever played where quiet rooms with a small crowd like flamenco were back in the 80s


Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

[CoolerKing]

Originally Posted by performingchimp

Hi all, thanks for the responses! And welcomes, although I've actually been a forum member for 10 years!

I've always used the Fishman Rare Earth Blend. I've experimented endlessly and always try new stuff, but nothing has made me want to switch yet.

The magnetic element is the one I apply most of the effects to. The mic element adds some air and realism, and is obviously excellent for percussion, the best mic I've found for that. I guess it's just well voiced, plus it's a condenser so it's super sensitive.

I've always combined it with something else too, as a third source, and that has changed several times over the years. Currently I'm favouring a "bug" style transducer: either a Fishman BP-100 (a very old passive double bass pickup which I connect to an active end pin preamp), which is a nice useful pickup but needs heavy EQing to bring out my bass drum sound. Or a Carlos CS Sensor, which is an extraordinary pickup, truly amazing sound and highly recommended for people seeking a natural acoustic sound. But for my playing style, I have to compress it heavily or my bass drum is insanely loud. Speaker breakingly loud.

Hope this helps!

Happy to answer any other questions

jg x

I'm sure I might speak for all our members and moderators by saying thanks for weighing in with your expertise. Thanks!

[nobo]

Hi Jon,

Just wondered if you could talk us through any other tweaks there might be. E.g. did I read in an interview with you that it's got a 46mm nut?

I had a frustrating experience a few months back - I was in Ivor Mairantz to see Kenji, and they had your signature model in. Despite my curiosity and enthusiasm, I wasn't able to play it: not the first (and surely not the last) time that having a sleeping baby strapped to me has come between me and guitars! Might be a conundrum you're facing too at the moment!

I did at least manage a terrible quality snap on my phone to prove it. Didn't manage to get Sophie in shot though:



About as unscarred as you're likely to see a Jon Gomm guitar!

Hope you're getting on well with Rocky ... and the little one!

db

[performingchimp]

Great photo! I am pretty happy to hand my baby to a confused and reulctant adolescent guitar shop worker. But I admire you putting responsible parenting above your need to try the guitar. You weirdo.

The nut width is... erm... standard! I'm not sure, it's just Lowden standard. I didn't want it wider, I think that's a really dangerous thing to mess with (same with string spacing at the saddle). People are always searching for the perfect playability so they tweak certain things which were always compromises anyway. If you've got big sausage fingers, sure get a custom wider neck. Excepting that, I believe you want the strings a finger-width apart, otherwise, sure that tricky fingerstyle arpeggio might be more comfortable, but you'll be 20% more exhausted after strumming your way through a Proclaimers song, which you obviously have to do at least once a week or your soul will die.

There were a few other things I was offered but turned down, like the standard shellfish embroidery, mother-of-pearl, abalone (which we guitarists as a species need to grow out of! Why are we still killing animals so our guitars can look like Liberace's coffin? I have no idea. Mother of pearl went out of style in every other area of design and carpentry 100 years ago. Do steel string guitarists have mother of pearl dressing tables in their bedrooms, like Marie Antoinette?)

And THE BEVEL. Why? Well I know that forearm chafing is a major health issue for guitarists that has ended many careers. Sometimes by the end of a gig, my forearm is bleeding from rubbing against the corner of the wood. It's like Saving Private Ryan. But I believe pain separates the men from the boys, and my guitar is for men, not boys.

THAT WAS SARCASM. I often advise people on playing injury and discomfort, as a tendinitis survivor. But seriously: Your forearm skin hurts? What? In all my years in the guitar world, nobody has ever, ever said that to me. Absolutely bizarre. I'm convinced the bevel is just an aesthetic thing.

Anyway. I love ranting about guitar stuff. Lovely.

[performingchimp]

Regarding your other questions just wanting to know more info/features of the guitar, I made this webpage: http://jongomm.com/guitar

It details the top, woods, neck, frets (the frets are interesting), and the optional pickup system and banjo tuners.

And Guitar Interactive magazine just published a video interview and 5 performance videos, including an unplugged, straight-into-the-mic version of an instrumental called Topeka.

Here's the magazine: https://www.guitarinteractivemagazin...sues/issue-46/

And here's the Topeka video:

https://www.guitarinteractivemagazin...ka_performance

At least I think it's unplugged, I'm listening on my laptop! It was supposed to be. It's only one mic, and not a high-end one, and there was no preamp being used: Basically it's very much not a studio-quality recording. But you get the idea.

Now realise the 6th string is tuned down to G# for that tune. It's very slack and the notes are ridiculously low. The guitar is still totally balanced, and the bass notes on that string sound taught and the pitch is smooth. It's just such a resonant instrument, it'll amplify whatever the strings are doing. I guess the question then is: How does the Hybrid Top affect what the strings are doing in the first place?

People think of it as a one-way process: The strings vibrate, therefore the wood vibrates, therefore the air vibrates, and you get music.

But it's really more interactive. Each step in that process affects the previous step, like a quantum experiment.

Anyway, I hope you all like the videos, let me know what you think.

[TomB'sox]

Thanks for the video, I liked it a lot.

Suggestion, it looks like that would have been a lot easier to play if that darn capo wasn't in your way and your guitar would have stayed in tune, just sayin...

[El Conquistador]

Originally Posted by performingchimp

Great photo! I am pretty happy to hand my baby to a confused and reulctant adolescent guitar shop worker. But I admire you putting responsible parenting above your need to try the guitar. You weirdo.

The nut width is... erm... standard! I'm not sure, it's just Lowden standard. I didn't want it wider, I think that's a really dangerous thing to mess with (same with string spacing at the saddle). People are always searching for the perfect playability so they tweak certain things which were always compromises anyway. If you've got big sausage fingers, sure get a custom wider neck. Excepting that, I believe you want the strings a finger-width apart, otherwise, sure that tricky fingerstyle arpeggio might be more comfortable, but you'll be 20% more exhausted after strumming your way through a Proclaimers song, which you obviously have to do at least once a week or your soul will die.

There were a few other things I was offered but turned down, like the standard shellfish embroidery, mother-of-pearl, abalone (which we guitarists as a species need to grow out of! Why are we still killing animals so our guitars can look like Liberace's coffin? I have no idea. Mother of pearl went out of style in every other area of design and carpentry 100 years ago. Do steel string guitarists have mother of pearl dressing tables in their bedrooms, like Marie Antoinette?)

And THE BEVEL. Why? Well I know that forearm chafing is a major health issue for guitarists that has ended many careers. Sometimes by the end of a gig, my forearm is bleeding from rubbing against the corner of the wood. It's like Saving Private Ryan. But I believe pain separates the men from the boys, and my guitar is for men, not boys.

THAT WAS SARCASM. I often advise people on playing injury and discomfort, as a tendinitis survivor. But seriously: Your forearm skin hurts? What? In all my years in the guitar world, nobody has ever, ever said that to me. Absolutely bizarre. I'm convinced the bevel is just an aesthetic thing.

Anyway. I love ranting about guitar stuff. Lovely.

I would just like to say that this is one of the most entertaining posts I have seen on AGF and I would entreat you to post more often.

Steve

[dantin]

Here is a review on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEEqEC_6bdU