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  #211  
Old 07-27-2012, 05:44 PM
Bords Bords is offline
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chucks = Converse Chuck Taylors! I had the American flag chucks when I was younger, I would still rock em but the soles fell off despite several rubber cement repairs.
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  #212  
Old 07-27-2012, 06:04 PM
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Originally Posted by steveh View Post
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 miner 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
Steve, just to add to what you are saying, one of things I really like about Ervin's books is that, although he does leave you with the general impression that there are many variables that affect a guitar's sound, I think he does a reasonable job of conveying the relative importance of those variables. I think the framework he constructs for thinking about all of these effects is quite useful, as well. Rather than falling back on "I have years of experience and I just know that this works," he attempts to provide an understanding for why various changes have the effect they do. I think this deeper understanding of the "why" and not just the "how" certainly helps engineers to take their designs much further, and I can imagine guitar builders would benefit similarly.

Although the books could still use another pass by an editor, both are very informative and entertaining reads for anyone that enjoys watching/reading about guitar builds. Perhaps one of these days if time and garage space permit, I would love to undertake building a guitar.
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  #213  
Old 07-28-2012, 11:18 AM
steveh steveh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diamondave View Post
I have to say, that's the COOLEST end graph and back strip I've EVER seen... Way to put sapwood to use... For real, a work of art... Congrats!
I seriously appreciate that comment - there are some wild end grafts on this forum.

What I dig most about it is the way it ties in with the split in the backstrip. Unfortunately, the pro shots didn't get one like this from earlier in the thread, but I'm real glad Jason did:



That really does it for me.

Cheers,
Steve
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  #214  
Old 07-28-2012, 06:39 PM
KolayaGuitars KolayaGuitars is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steveh View Post
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 miner 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
Steve,

Thanks for sharing that video, very interesting! As a builder who looked at and copied a lot of luthiers' bracing patterns for the first few years of my build without building a guitar that measured up, i will say that the placement of the braces is only the tip of the iceberg. But, we have to start somewhere and if we're really devoted and willing to make a few (dozen) bad sounding guitars, we figure it out...hopefully.

I have to say that I'm impressed with your thirst for knowledge as well as an obvious deep appreciation for the guitar and if you ever do take a crack at building, make sure you show us your progress! Have fun with that new guitar of yours and thanks for taking us along on the journey!

Brad
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  #215  
Old 07-29-2012, 05:49 PM
Beau Hannam Beau Hannam is offline
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Default Steve- Kostal bracing

Steve,

Any pics of the Kostal bracing. Would be interesting to see the 'unusual'ness

beau
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  #216  
Old 07-30-2012, 09:26 AM
steveh steveh is offline
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Originally Posted by Beau Hannam View Post
Any pics of the Kostal bracing. Would be interesting to see the 'unusual'ness
If Jason wants pictures of his current bracing pattern for his MD "out there", I am sure he will post them on his website. Out of respect for Jason, I'm certainly not to go posting pics of the top bracing here. In any event, I imagine it would be difficult to tell how the top was voiced simply by looking at it.

In his books, Ervin Somogyi makes great play of the differences in stiffness that are achievable by changing the footprint and/or height of the braces, and their position. I am not a luthier, but I have some understanding of what a traditionally braced top looks like (think Martin OM etc). The top on my guitar has braces in positions I would not have expected and are of dimensions I would not have expected either. That's why I described it as "unusual".

Cheers,
Steve
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  #217  
Old 08-21-2012, 02:00 AM
steveh steveh is offline
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Waking this thread up - I've had the guitar for 3 weeks or so and have been playing daily; it came on vacation with me for a couple of those and I managed to get plenty of playing done even with the distractions of the Olympics!

Anyway, several of you have been emailing asking what it's like so here is a YouTube vid of the guitar doing several different things - standard, dropped, capo and slide. This is pretty off-the-cuff; unpolished performances of pieces I have been playing a while or am in the process of learning. I'm not up-to-speed with video editing and it took me FAR longer to work out how to export the clips in HD etc than it did to record the tunes. Not helped by the fact it is HOT over here at the moment. Phew!

Anyway, I like it best when build threads end with the guitar getting played. Hearing them is what it's all about. As ever, it's YouTube, so the usual caveats about compressed sound apply but at least you can get some idea of how it sounds and how it is balanced etc. There's no reverb or effects on this - it's dry as a bone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIhT3...ature=youtu.be

Jason said the guitar would take at least 2 months to settle-in so I'll post a review end of September or so, but I am very much enjoying playing this MD. It's a new sound for me. Two aspects are immediately obvious - it has thunderous bass and sustains for ever - the first piece (York's "Waiting for Dawn") has most "space" to show this. It's a very pure, clear, "hi-fi", crystalline type tone - listen to the harmonics at the end of that first piece. I asked Jason to voce it to sound best to the player - I play at home for my own enjoyment only. I think he got it right?

Cheers,
Steve
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  #218  
Old 08-21-2012, 04:04 AM
vicov vicov is offline
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Perfect! You were made for each other.

Cheers
Vic
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  #219  
Old 08-21-2012, 04:30 AM
ocarolan ocarolan is offline
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Good stuff Steve! More when you have the time please!!
Keith
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  #220  
Old 08-21-2012, 04:31 AM
ericcsong ericcsong is offline
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Steve, sounds like he definitely got it right! congrats again and thanks for the video!
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  #221  
Old 08-21-2012, 07:13 AM
JoeCharter JoeCharter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steveh View Post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIhT3...ature=youtu.be

Jason said the guitar would take at least 2 months to settle-in so I'll post a review end of September or so, but I am very much enjoying playing this MD. It's a new sound for me. Two aspects are immediately obvious - it has thunderous bass and sustains for ever - the first piece (York's "Waiting for Dawn") has most "space" to show this. It's a very pure, clear, "hi-fi", crystalline type tone - listen to the harmonics at the end of that first piece. I asked Jason to voce it to sound best to the player - I play at home for my own enjoyment only. I think he got it right?

Cheers,
Steve
That's a very refined sound indeed. I don't think we can fully appreciate the bass on YouTube but the wonderful sustain definitely comes through.

You're also quite courageous to record on such a warm day. When it's 30 degrees out here (that's 86 degrees Fahrenheit for our American friends), I can't even play...

Congrats again on this build. Looking forward to a full review next month (and more clips as well).
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  #222  
Old 08-21-2012, 10:08 AM
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mikealpine mikealpine is offline
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What a gorgeous sound! I can't imagine what this will sound like when it is settled in!!
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  #223  
Old 08-21-2012, 11:13 AM
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justonwo justonwo is offline
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The playing sounds great to me. Beautiful guitar. What do you use to record the video and audio? And how do you sync them?
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  #224  
Old 08-21-2012, 02:01 PM
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Great vid Steve, lovely selection of tunes played very well, and the guitar sounds excellent!
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  #225  
Old 08-21-2012, 04:12 PM
peteom peteom is offline
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Hello Steve, can you tell us the string gauges?
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