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I'm pretty much in line with Arnt. Seat of the pants builder, using traditional methods, that, oh yeah, I learned from books. I have read some 15 to 20 books on guitar construction, including some scientific tomes. I have the Somogyi books, which I got a lot out of, even though I don't build steel string guitars. Loved reading them - he's a good writer. I do not have T/G yet, but I'm sure I will eventually. Should be a good addition to my library. I have great respect for those who choose the scientific approach, and enjoy reading their efforts. Just don't tell me I can't............!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I think the quote is accurate in the sense that ANY cutting edge methods or research must be considered for anyone to be 'fully informed', but again that is true of anything in lutherie that came before or will come in the future.

So I must agree with the statement about all the hyperbole. I wish the author and his 'supporters' would just let the books speak for themselves and stop trying to promote or boost them. Ultimately they will get the credit they deserve, whatever that may be, and in the meantime the hyperbole is doing no one any favors.

Yes, it is a quote from the back cover of the book. It's probably the publisher's blurb, and not something that Trevor or Gerard wrote. Publishers are widely known for getting carried away; after all, they're trying to sell books.

I do have a few minor quibbles regarding these books, but that's all they are. Trevor and I have exchanged a few e-mails about a couple of them, and we're not really far apart. I might have liked to see a bit more discussion about sources of error in using tap tones to find material properties, for example, but that's the sort of thing that can get hashed out over time if it proves to be important. I'm not sure I agree with them in using top monopole mobility as 'the' indicator of quitar quality: 'an' indicator, certainly, and a major one, but I think you need to balance a number of things, and realize that different people use different weightings when they do. Again, a minor quibble in the context.

theguitarwhisperer wrote:
"Ovation guitars were produced through science as well, and those (IMHO) are some of the crappiest sounding guitars I think I've ever heard."

From what I understand, the Ovation design was originally more or less a seat of the pants thing, with Kaman trying to use their aerospace expertise to make guitars, in part because the boss was a player, and in part to keep the plant going when they lost a major helicopter contract. Since then they've used 'science' to try to make improvements, and as advertising fodder, of course. From working on them over the years, I've seen a lot more influence from production engineers than anytrhing else: trying to make them as cheaply as possible, with very little understanding of what makes a good guitar. Would _any_ serious maker trying to get a good sound spray a full millimeter thickness of epoxy onto the top as a 'finish'? Ovation does.

There have been several attempts to design the 'perfect' guitar from scratch starting from first principles, particularly in the 60s and 70s. This is a case of 'scientists' getting ahead of themselves; trying to apply mathematics to systems that they don't fully understand. So far as I've seen, that type of 'scientific' guitar design doesn't work out very well (to put it mildly). Sadly, those folks all seem to be really good publicity hounds, and leave the impression that what they're doing is not only good science (it's not), but the _only_ good science being done with regards to lutherie. There is a lot of good science being done, and Gore and Gilet talk about some of it in their books. It's not easy to do, though, particularly when you start to talk about 'tone'.

I had a good Australia day, so I’m a bit late back onto this one!

Here’s another quote from the book (Intro to Design):

“If we have encouraged people to expect instruments well beyond the capability of those usually found in main street shops and if we have encouraged people to experiment with guitar design and construction, we will feel that we have succeeded with this text. Whilst we expect to provide answers to many questions which have previously been unanswered or unasked, we also anticipate the generation of more questions, discussion and probably some controversy. If this is the case we will be happy in the knowledge that the future of the acoustic guitar is in good hands and we hope you enjoy what we have to offer”.

So thanks to everyone who’s questioning and discussing; and, indeed, I think we succeeded in causing some controversy. All we’re trying to do is to raise the bar, so thanks also to those who have let us know that they think we have. That one’s not for us to judge.

To the OP’s point about reviews, there’s a comprehensive one been done by GAL which should be published in American Lutherie soon, but I’m not sure exactly which issue. Just make sure you renew your memberships! Meanwhile, there are the ones here in this thread and those on my website.

A few posters have commented on science and its application to lutherie. Sure, it’s not an approach that floats everyone’s boat, but there are a lot of left-brainers around who like to work that way, as well as right-brainers who have appreciated more light being cast on the “dark side”. The fact remains, however, that the popular lutherie literature is very short on real science and guitar acoustics. The well known lutherie books, which on their covers mention “technology”, or “science behind making acoustic stringed instruments” or “design” or “physics, dynamics, acoustics and construction of guitars” contain little or poor science, which has tended to bring the whole approach into disrepute, which is hardly surprising as most of the authors have had little or no formal training in those disciplines. Some of these publications contain really good material, but also stuff that is just plain wrong. However, for someone not trained in the disciplines, how would you tell the good stuff from the bad? All it takes is for one these so called “scientific” ideas not to “work” and the disparagers have a field day, leaving more hard yards for the likes of Al Carruth and others to make up.

A few posters have written about the workshops I run. I’ve run a couple in California with Brian Burns’ assistance and I’ve also spoken in Stanford and Seattle in a different format. Doing proper demos requires a fair amount of kit which doesn’t fly cheaply (and even bringing instruments into the USA is now practically illegal!). I’m happy to do them, but the kit I need has to be available at the location and the show has to cover its costs. It’s the hands-on stuff that most attendees seem to have found most valuable. Some of the stuff sounds a bit far fetched until you see it with you own eyes, hear it with your own ears and do it yourself.

There’s always a lot of debate about what tooling to use and there is no single right answer for everyone. If you’re fresh to woodworking and haven’t already got a well equipped workshop, making a guitar could be expensive. All I can say is that “toy” tools frequently get replaced early and “real” ones often aren’t that much more expensive initially. Effective dust extraction can be quite a step up in infrastructure cost, but it is possible to stay behind that line and still work quite efficiently. In comparative terms, the cost of “the book” doesn’t even figure.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Hey settle down people. I was being slightly provocative but I didn't mean to get Trevor in trouble. I think all the people freaking about my comments should give me a chance to explain. My point was about how we talk about guitars. But my brief email has been extrapolated into a vast list of personal shortcomings including my belief that the spanish master lacked skill. I never said anything about making better guitars. Nor that the masters couldn't make them. In fact, Trevor mentions how the master builder had an uncanny knack of placing the main resonances in the right place as discussed in the book to maximise performance. They were following these guidelines without knowing exactly but skill led them to it.

People are obsessed with the thickness graduation of classic old guitar tops and backs. What's wrong with measuring the frequencies of the various modes and using them as you target rather than thickness?

I think people have missed the point of the books if they say its about scientific guitar building. It not, you build the guitar as anyone would. What the scientific approach discussed in the books are about is gathering data of any guitar and giving us a common language to talk about guitars, one that is based on science rather than guess work or subjective debate or belief.
Build by feel by all means but that does stop you from measuring the finished guitar to work out why it sounds better, worse, more open, whatever than the last one. The numbers don't lie
And this is the first time a working model of a guitar has been presented in a book we can all understand, one that gives us a scientific and theoretically sound way to recognise what is happening in the guitar when various parameters are changed. You get these questions everyday on the forum. And putting numbers on these parameters gives you a guide to how much you should change X, to get Y where you want it. You still have to make the adjustments by hand.
There is so much BS pretending to be fact out there on guitars. A unified rigours approach to discussing it amongst ourselves, one that favours measurement and proven facts using a common understanding of the measures used rather than voodoo lutherie based on hunches and hollow belief will benefit us all and ultimately the buying public.

Cheers
Dominic

Alan, I imagine you would be one who would be thankful if more people learned the lingo on modes, and frequency responses etc. You would spend more time pushing the envolope rather than explaining yourself. After all, we are just talking about everyone using the same framework to discuss guitar performance so we all know what each other means. Not that we will all agree, that would be boring.

Cheers
Dom

Sometimes I think it would be nice if more poeple understood the 'tech' end of things, but I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I think that the technical approach is far enough along to help us avoid doing dumb things, and to raise the 'standard of mediocrity' by a certain amount. These are useful things, as far as they go, but don't rise to the level everybody wants; that of telling us how to make a'great' guitar every time. Frankly, I don't think the 'tech' approach by itself will ever do that. We already know the 'art' appraoch won't, since nobody yet has made all 'great' guitars (if they're honest with themselves).

'Great' is a subjective thing: what's great to you might not be great to me, and great for Flamenco might not work too well for Bluegrass. Figuring out what 'great' is will probably always involve some 'art', so it will, to that extent, always be out of reach of 'science'. There's nothing wrong with this. 'Art' can't tell you much about the strength of materials, so it's limited too.

That's why I think the best approach involves using as much as you need of both 'art' and 'science'. Somehow we've gotten away from this in this age of specialization, but in the past it was not at all unusual for a person to integrate the two. Once we get away from 'art vs science', and start thinking in terms of 'art _&_ science', we'll be able to make better progress.

Big +1 to that!

Here's a guitar that Stuart Newman built with a lot of inspiration from "the book", so he tells me!

Try the big G for Stuart Newman guitars for more pics.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

dang that thing is crazy looking! I wonder how it sounds? by the way is he wearing a cape?

I have a hunch that _may_ not have been what Alan was referring to by 'art'.

Of course he is, he's an Australian and we always don a cape when dressing for formal occasions.

Cheers

Kim

No, Stuie's not a caped crusader...he just comes from Byron Bay and it was a bit chilly for him at the latitude where the course was held. He certainly has some imaginative ideas that he applies to lutherie though...viva la difference!

Yeah I agree Alan. Lets assume we are using the appropriate guitar for the songs we play, a great classical or a great OM for fingerstyle, a dred for flatpicking. I also assume that a room for of us could pick a great guitar, some of us may not agree but in general we could agree which were outstanding guitars (assuming there were some).
Great examples of each tend to have a basic set of common measurable parameters that distinguish great guitars from good ones. They are necessary but not sufficient conditions to make a great guitar. Then there is the art component which adds the very person part of the colour to the tone.

Now you and those who use chladni patterns are just doing the same thing as Trevor. Isolate some characteristics from good sounding guitars, in your case the modes and their frequency, and by carving braces etc to achieve those parameters. It advocates using all the available tools and techniques to improve the chances of making a better guitar. Some of those tools are a very sharp well set up number 5 plane, and some are spreadsheets where measurements are entered and useful guides to plate thickness etc pop out. Its not advocating blind faith in numbers, intuition and feel still play a role, you don’t stop using your ears when tapping but in fact all these senses can be better calibrated because you can check the numbers.

The sooner we let a bit a scientific rigour into the forums the better. A lots of time gets spent arguing over things that can be tested to verify. I don’t see as much talk about design and perhaps because it turns into a bit of a controversial subject, or, in my view, its because we don’t have a common language to discuss what we are doing. Comments like “I made this one a bit thinner around the lower bout and it sounds better. This could be quantified by saying “I made this one thinner around the lower bout which dropped the main coupled top frequency off the scale tone and it has improved the sound of the guitar. While both are true, the first one is of little use to us while the second gives a parameter we can note for next time. Sharing data for different models, identifying trade-offs etc. We could advance the craft far faster. So don’t be a bunch of Luddites and embrace the technical approaches, or at least let those who do coexist and we can all live in peace.

And if an Aussie provokes you with a bit of humour on Australia day just have a chuckle and step away from the keyboard and put your indignation back in the drawer. Its an Aussie tradition to take the piss so try not to take things so seriously.

Cheers
Dom

The other side of that coin, Dom, is humility. A little bit goes a long way. Give it a try and I suspect you won't step in so many.

Allen Carruth wrote--"That's why I think the best approach involves using as much as you need of both 'art' and 'science'. Somehow we've gotten away from this in this age of specialization, but in the past it was not at all unusual for a person to integrate the two. Once we get away from 'art vs science', and start thinking in terms of 'art _&_ science', we'll be able to make better progress."
Allen, I've always enjoyed reading your balanced and measured responses to all sorts of questions and topics,in this forum. Leonardo DaVince, among other voices from the past,would endorse your approach!

Well that would defeat the purpose of being provocative. But all I did was give my view of the books which I am obviously very enthusiastic about. This thread was about people’s view of the books after all. And I held out the hope that they can encourage a bit more discussion of guitar design that is based on sound science and rigorous analysis.
But my observations are true, the vast majority of discussion on this and most luthier sites is about the carpentry, very little about design. Lots of pictures of pretty rosettes but very little about design. But every one is thinking about it and trying to make better sounding guitars. So there is some problem. I believe those who read the books and learn the nomenclature will benefit greatly and will improve the general level of discussion. And so the quote rings true for me.
Cheers
Dom

Thanks for weighing in dom.Truthfully,I am dismayed and disappointed by the rancor and tone of some of the responses.I was looking for more info, abt the book, e.g. what did you like ,or find useful, and how does it apply to the way you approach guitarbuilding today,not personal diatribes, etc etc. Trevor if your reading this thread the book took 3 days to get here from OZ, I have been slowly thumbing my way through both of the books.There is a mountain of impressive information,facts and figures to substantiate the gore/gillet research.I know I should have paid attention to my high school math teachers, as I will be doing a lot of head scratching to understand all the technical math, and going to the library or computer to unravel the numbers.The other part of the book has a wealth of information on their style of construction.Have always used conventional construction methods, but now is a good time to learn some new ones .Thank you so much messrs gore and gillet, for an outstanding book.

Yep.. Rings true for me too...
The DESIGN... One of my early observations was that Cheap instruments were designed to sound and play the way they did.... and they generally succeeded at doing this.... More expensive instruments were similarly designed to sound and play a certain different way.... They too succeeded at achieving the sound they intended... In general - the incoming raw materials were nearly identical, the workmanship was generally very good, and so was the consistency within their specific design.....

Likewise - I have seen some pretty horrible looking wood, rough finishes, and sloppy workmanship on some old instruments that sound and play amazing - so there must be something else going on there too... Perhaps their inherent design is fundamentally different than the others?

But.. In general - what do these "Better" designs seem to go after?

Another one is trying to adjust your instrument so it hits some target - avoiding wolfs, playing in tune, and overall behaving nicely.... Not much about doing that - I am sure it's one of those things you would learn in a formal apprenticeship in a Master's workshop - at least in circles where that sort of thing was expected.. Not much of this seems to be done in a Factory setting, though.. We certainly don't talk about it much.... Several masters espouse to not doing any sort of post-build adjustment where others do....

Anyway - there's a whole lot of good stuff in the book.

Thanks

Good to know the shipping works well. Thanks, Ernie. 3 days from here to you is pretty good! I've spent far to much of this week chasing down a shipment with a different carrier that only had to come across town. Should have been here on the 25th Jan. Still haven't got it!

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Trev your spot on.I/m still waiting for a small packet that left newyork city on sat. should have been here yesterday.Sometimes I wonder if air mail means donkey express .Once again thanks for a great book.

Hey Trevor - ordered last Friday, got here yesterday to small-town Alberta - 3 business days?
Very impressive!!!