I like Jason's design and don't believe that its width affects tone in an negative way. It has avery cool combination of the Ryan approach as it smoothly morphs into the bevel out of the binding at the waist area, but has that graceful recurve as it returns to the binding with a gentle line and the elegant miters in the purfling at the bottom end of it. Jason's building ome beautiful guitars and has obviously been influenced by Kevin Ryan for this design, but has taken it in an interesting direction that makes it unique to his beautiful guitars.
Concerning bevels and their variations, Grit Laskin and Linda Manzer were among the first to employ them on guitars,
but there have been many variations on those early designs that I would consider much more pleasing from a visual standpoint.
The most recent, of coarse, being that of Kevin Ryan with his "Ryan style" bevel that doesn't include the recurve that drops
the bevel surface back into the binding and purfling in an abrupt end. Kevin was the first builder to create that bevel with its smooth transition into the binding at both ends.
The copyright protection of simple descriptive terms for a design innovation is a precarious endeavor and is a tough thing to
enforce and their use is a tough thing to restrict and regulate. We've all watched as the bevel and other innovations have been picked up and duplicated by builder after builder and, most times without even a call out of simple courtesy to their originators
to get even a casual nod of permission from them or any effort to give credit to them by the imitating builders.
I've watched as one builder after another has implemented exact reproductions of bevels without ever making a mention of where they got the idea or were graciously offered input by the originator in an effort to help the imitator to achieve great results as they used their ideas, designs and even their methods.
I waited a long time to even begin prototype efforts to introduce a bevel design on my guitars partly because I was never a fan of them in their original design format and partly because I had a deep backlog of standing orders that didn't include them that I've needed to direct all of my time and energy to. It wasn't until Kevin Ryan's beautiful bevel design was unveiled in 2002 that I had any interest in using something similar on my guitars.
I new have six prototypes with bevels in different stages of construction in my shop, but I never even considered breaking ground on one of them until I'd gotten personal and specific permission from Kevin Ryan himself to use his bevel design. I can
only imagine that it has affected Kevin at times to see his design showing up on guitars being built by other builders without ever hearing from them and with no credit being given to him for such a beautiful and functional innovation.
Once I am offering the bevel in his style on my guitars, it will be listed in my options list as the "Ryan Style Bevel." I will likely also offer a variation on Kevin's gorgeous bevel flutes.....which are a protected design innovation and won't be showing up on just anyone's guitars for that reason. The placement of the flutes in the bevel offer a more practical focus of the sound provided by them for the player.
Kevin very generously and graciously offered me permission to imitate his designs in these areas and I am using them as the sound foundation and inspiration that they are to create my own variations on them, but they will always be offered with complete design credit being given to their inventor, Kevin Ryan. I've enjoyed trying different approaches to achieving the bevels and using different materials and dimensions to document the tonal effects of them as I do, but the inspiration and model was still born in the mind of one of the finest builders to ever lean over a bench to pour his heart into a guitar as he built it.
It never hurts us to give credit where it is due and, if anyone knows Kevin, they know that he deserves every accolade we can give to him as peers in this industry. His ideas are among the most innovative and progressive that have ever been implemented in guitar building and will have long lasting effects on the quality of the guitars being offered to and created for players all over the world.
Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars
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