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  #61  
Old 04-21-2019, 07:03 AM
Ernesto Ernesto is offline
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Yes, I'm also curious. How did it turn out? Anybody played them all at the show? What's your opinion, Tyler? My inexpert guess: the Brazilian is the most shimmery and overtone-rich with the deepest low end, the Madi is slightly dryer with slightly less low end, the Ebony is dryer still and the loudest of them all. Could be completely wrong
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  #62  
Old 04-21-2019, 02:17 PM
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My guess is there is no way to predict given the similarities in those woods.
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  #63  
Old 04-21-2019, 07:13 PM
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I got to play the three guitars that Tyler built. I played them finger style and with a flatpick. For the most part I played the same songs on each guitar just to try and make a valid comparison.
I would say the guitars are 90% the same. To me it demonstrates that in the hand of a capable luthier they can get their signature sound out of whatever materials they are working with.
The guitar with the flower inlays was an exceptional piece of functional art.
Tyler is a young luthier but his work compares with the best of the best.
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  #64  
Old 04-22-2019, 02:30 PM
eshrager eshrager is offline
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I got to listen to Hiroya Tsukamoto play them in concert Saturday morning and then got to play them myself.

The Brazilian guitar had great note separation and shimmer. The notes stood out from one another and were very clear and well defined. The ebony notes seemed to blend with one another - they were not as clearly separated as the Brazilian - especially the lower notes. Just not as much clarity and no shimmer. The Madagascar fell in between. I agree with the previous poster that the three were very similar in tone - but I would lower the percentage a bit from 90% to more like 70%.

I felt that the differences between the three where more pronounced when Hiroya played them then when I did. And in watching Hiroya swap guitars back and forth, he seemed to gravitate to the Brazilian guitar.
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  #65  
Old 04-23-2019, 02:33 PM
RobbinsT RobbinsT is offline
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Okay lets get the rest of the build photos up. I will try to do the key points so that I don't clutter the thread but if I miss a step that you are interested in, let me know and Ill see if I have the necessary photos.

We stopped on the neck of the MRW so lets get the others caught up.





We did a pretty clean design for the ebony fret board and a bit more complex on the Brazilian. Both Ebony boards feature burl inlays wrapped in pure silver for fret markers!











Next we hit the binding and purfling stage. I was able to wrap the green burl around the top of the Ebony guitar. It was very brittle to work with at such small dimensions but I'm happy with how the extra effort paid off. Koa was used for the Brazilian boarder and purple resin for the MRW. All three received ebony binding and bevels!














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  #66  
Old 04-23-2019, 02:39 PM
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  #67  
Old 04-23-2019, 02:57 PM
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Such beautiful work Tyler ... kudos!
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  #68  
Old 04-23-2019, 03:04 PM
RobbinsT RobbinsT is offline
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All three bridges were the same weight (within a fraction of a gram). The Brazilian got a Brazilian bridge, The MRW got a black ebony bridge, and I was able to find a bridge blank that looked like it was part of the same macassar tree so we went with that.



The Ebony was the only one to receive a bout decoration.





All five guitars I was working on hit the spray booth at once. This led to an intense few weeks of non stop spraying, scuffing, wet sanding, and buffing. At this point its kind of a blur.



This was shortly after final voicing and set up. Final wet sanding and buffing was still needed





And finally after months of work we made it to the show with a few hours to spare!



I did manage to do a photo shoot for each guitar, finishing at about 2am the night before we had to leave for the show. I am still editing those photos but I hope to have them up by the end of the week. I'm going to take a break for now but I will come back later tonight to share my thoughts on the project's outcome as well as answer the questions posted in my absence.

Once again, thank you for following along guys!

-Tyler
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  #69  
Old 04-23-2019, 10:09 PM
Bone0305 Bone0305 is offline
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Like wow! Those are stunning!
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  #70  
Old 04-24-2019, 09:22 AM
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Beautiful R1s! Thank you for sharing~ looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this project!
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  #71  
Old 04-24-2019, 09:38 AM
Nemoman Nemoman is offline
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That Macassar guitar with all its appointments really rings my bell!

Awesome work on all three!!!
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  #72  
Old 04-24-2019, 12:14 PM
RobbinsT RobbinsT is offline
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I was very happy with how close the guitars were. The room at Artisan was very loud and cut out certain aspects of each ones sound unfortunately. While all three were chosen almost equally as the favorite I think the ebony had the slight advantage in that particular room. It was chosen the most not only by potential buyers but other builders, and artists as well.

If they were on a spectrum of Sparkly/ Dry to warm/ round the Madagascar had the most sparkle and clarity, the Brazilian was in the middle with a really nice balance, and the ebony had the roundest sound. This is based on Sam Guidry and my own ear in the shop before we left for the show.

The ebony was described as more authoritative but I wonder if the thicker sound was just able to cut through the back ground noise more efficiently.

Kinloch Nelson took each guitar out into a quiet stairwell and spent 15-20 minutes with each. To his ear, the Brazilian was the winner.

I couldn't get Hiroya to choose a favorite between them. His gravitation towards the Brazilian guitar on stage was based on his style of playing using Looping effects and that was the only one with a Pickup installed (K&K).

It was nice to have all three guitars next to each other to A,B,C them because if you tried them at separate times, I feel it would be hard to tell the difference. I did try and do a blind test with one of the performers to see what he would choose with out seeing them but we didn't have a very good system and he kept peeking, lol. It was a lot of fun to listen to him dissect the different tones and the fact that it provided a bit of a challenge to him made me feel like I had done a good job. In the end he chose the Ebony.

There were a couple things that ended up different on the guitars. The ebony was significantly heavier which I feel rounded out the tone a bit. The other thing was the air resonance on the Brazilian was about 2hz lower then the other two even though each plate was tuned to the same frequency and flexed within .0001" of one another. In theory the Ebony should have been the lower set because it flexed slightly more. This is one thing I do not have an explanation for but I find it interesting none the less.

If I was to choose a guitar for myself of the three. I would chose the Madagascar for its clarity/ dryness/sparkle and... just because I like the way it looks, haha.

Adam was unfortunately unable to make it to Artisan. All along he has had the biggest influence on the Brazilian guitar's styling and it was the one he wanted to chose. I offered to ship all three to him for evaluation but we came to the conclusion that they were close enough that neither of the other two would make him choose them over the Brazilian. I shipped the guitar to him on Monday and it should be arriving any minute now. I'm pretty excited to hear his thoughts and I hope he will come on and share them with you not too long after.

As for the other two... The Ebony was sold the day after the show to a gentleman in NJ. He received it last week and had some very nice things to say about it so that felt really good. The Madagascar will be arriving at Dream guitars today and should be posted for sale in a few weeks. Paul was at the show and has supported me from the start so I was really glad to be able to send this guitar to his shop!

-Tyler
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  #73  
Old 04-24-2019, 12:22 PM
jaymarsch jaymarsch is offline
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Congrats on these three stunning guitars. Lovely aesthetics and so happy to hear that they are all on their way to finding happy owners. Really amazing work here.

Best,
Jayne
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  #74  
Old 04-25-2019, 02:04 PM
Tom Sands Tom Sands is offline
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Utterly stunning work from one of the most exciting builders around!
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  #75  
Old 04-28-2019, 03:51 PM
RobbinsT RobbinsT is offline
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I am going through and editing photos little by little and I will post each set individually as I get them done. I was able to do the Ebony photos this morning so lets start with those!

























-Tyler
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