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Strange question for you:
I've got books and have studied acoustic building for several years now.
I've made 20 electrics, and my technical and woodworking skills are fairly good.
I can hear an electric, but my daughter tells me "too much treble".
I had a hearing test last month. I have 75% loss and my upper limit is 5kHz.
I'm sure what I hear is different than what most folks hear.
I build and give away my guitars, and I'd like to gift some acoustics.
I reckon I could build to plans, make the plates the suggested thickness, etc.
I think I can hear the lower frequencies well enough to tune the box and get a feeling for tap tones.
Could it be worthwhile for me to give it a go?
Looking for some encouragement I guess.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Dan

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By all means... You've certainly got the biulding skills. Why don't you give it a go.

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Do it. I can't play for $#*t, give all my builds away, and everyone is more than happy with the sound.
I am not sure I can tell the difference between good and bad sound.
What's the worst that can happen? You know you are gonna do it at some point, jump in.

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

I agree, go for it. Middle C (first fret, B-string on the guitar ) is only 262 Hz. The highest key on a piano is 4186 Hz which is about 2 octaves higher than the highest note on a guitar. I don't think 5000 Hz would be that serious of a limitation.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Are you kidding, Dan? I've been wondering when you were going to start building acoustics. I think you'll make them every bit as good as your electrics, and sound great as well. The reason I want to make an electric some day is from following your builds!
Go to it!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

None of the 53 guitars I have ever built have been built to 'tap tones.' Granted I do bang on the finished box and pretend to know what I am hearing and might even make adjustments based on that but it's VooDoo at best... IMHO of course.

I do however build to stiffness and feel of materials. Again, I cannot claim to have any control over that but it seems to have a bit more meaning to me. If you take very careful notes and then when you are finished have players tell you how you did then you will start to accumulate data, your own data.

BTW slightly off topic but there was a guy in my area who was legally blind and has a reputation of being one of the finest repair man set up guys around.

So I say go for it!

Thanks for the boost!
I'll try a steel string, probably all Mahogany with Sitka top.
Nothing fancy.
I have a few sets of Sitka.
I'll start looking at plans and choose something that I think would be a good starter.
Dan

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Thanks! Points well taken!

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Hearing Aids, I have them and they help immensely. My hearing loss is fairly recent caused by a bacterial meningitis infection (the heavy duty antibiotics)administered. My loss has become so severe that I could not build without them.
I'm sure that I don't hear the same thing that others may hear either, but it's still better than not hearing. Besides, try to find two people that agree on what they think they hear....
Cal

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Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!

I may try aids. Maybe I can tune out my tinitus and tune out my boss's snoring.
Thanks Cal!

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wah
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Brilliant Cal!

For some different perspective, this fellow here used to have a shop around the corner from us when I worked with Elderly Instruments. Quite a shock to walk in to a shop and hear a table saw running, with all the lights off and the room pitch black.



George did some incredible professional cabinetry work though. Of course with any limitations, there are always accommodations that can be made - the tricky part is inventing them if they don't already exist.

If hearing loss were severe enough, I could envision a number of graphic representations from some simple FFT programs, many no doubt already available, which with practice may be able to reveal nuances through visual senses every bit as useful as conventional listening.

In any case, if George can build the incredible things he does with no sight at all, I'm sure one with limited audio range can find ways to accomplish your goals in acoustic instruments just as well.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

For much of the fine tuning work I use my fingertips. I play different frequencies and feel how the top reacts in various places and sand the top accordingly to get the response I'm looking for. I can't say I have it all figured out, but it does seem to help.

I have a pretty significant high frequency loss that is worse than when I started building. I still seem to be able to hear well enough that with a combination of tapping, deflection measurements, and correlating that with the response of good musicians that can hear things are still good.

One thing, don't cut any corners on ear protection. I use ear plugs plus shooting muffs.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

by all means, do it. after 20 years old we all start to loose high frequency sensibility anyway!
5 K is more or less the start of the sibilance interval, so you get an idea. in that interval audio info is constituted only of harmonics, you´ll be lacking in the presence and brilliance intervals, which are important to articulation, detail, stereo, distance positioning and so on but (IMO) not much important during the building stages of an acoustic instrument.
5 to 20 KHz seems like a lot, but it´s a logarithmic scale. most of the info you need is well below the 5 Hz.

go ahead and share the results!

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I'm partially in your camp as I have quite a bit of loss and tinitus in my left ear (20 years of jet engine noise) but my right ear is not too bad. I tune my braced tops by feel and do the initial top thicknessing with deflection testing. I don't see your hearing loss as a show stopper at all.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Bri hit the nail on the head. You're going to do it anyway; all you are doing is soliciting the kick in the pants that will feed your intentions. You'll make some great guitars so get to it!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Take a look at this information from Kamaka concerning the value of its hearing-impaired workers:

http://www.kamakahawaii.com/about.html

He was deaf when he wrote the 9th, IMO some of the finest music ever written.

Al Carruth has mentioned his hearing isn't that good, he builds pretty good guitars.
Less than perfect hearing is no excuse, build an acoustic. They're more fun than electrics, more woodworking.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I have enough of a hearing loss that I'm pulling down a partial disability check from the VA. They also give me hearing aids, which are a real help with speech. Unfortunately, the settings that make it possible to hear my wife talking also make every guitar sound like it's buzzing. We're still trying to come up with a 'music' setting that will work.

There are things you can do to help get the sound right without actually needing to hear very well. The trick is that you'll have to rely on other folks to tell you what 'right' is, and then try to match up measurements from that on future builds. These measurements can include everything from tapping, and flexing by hand, to measurements of deflections at different stages of building, to measurements of resonant frequencies and patterns. It's a bit roundabout, but once you figure out a system that works for you it's pretty consistent, and you can use it to make improvements using feedback from players.

I know I don't hear what other people do when I listen to my guitars, but I still enjoy it a lot. You learn to hear differently, and may find that you can pick out things that other folks miss in the sound. It often makes me think of lines from Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' that Beethoven set in his 9th Symphony:

" Kusse gab sie uns und Reben, einen Freund, gepruft im Tod
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben und der Cherub steht vor Gott"

"Kisses she (Joy) has given us and wine, a friend, true unto death
Even the worm knows well-being, and the Cherub stands before God"

Do it: you'll like it.

A not-so-amazing coincidence: I wrote my post just as Roger was putting his up.

I for one think tap tuning is way over rated.

Build to a good plan, judge the stiffness of the top, back and braces by hand, and follow your instincts. Your builds will come out fine.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

[quote="Alan Carruth Unfortunately, the settings that make it possible to hear my wife talking .[/quote]

That could be handy tool to keep in the arsenal, just sayin'....

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Joe:
I use 'Chladni' patterns on the 'free' plates to fine tune my tops and backs. It's a 'tech' version of tap tuning which has several advantages as far as I'm concerned. One is that it's fairly easy to teach. Secondly, it's done before the box is assembled, so things are easy to get at. Another, which is particularly apropos here, is that you don't need to have great hearing to do it. Several years ago I sent one of my guitars to a fellow who uses deflection testing on the assembled guitar as his fine tuning method; working on the braces by reaching in through the sound hole. He found that I was basically getting the same results he tries for.

IMO, the designs we have are very nearly optimized. This means that, as you say, if you stick with a standard design, and built it carefully from good wood, you'll end up with a pretty good guitar. If you can figure out some way to take the variation in wood properties into account you can work more consistently and at a slightly higher level. There are a number of ways to do this, such as deflection testing, either by objective measurements or simply by feeling, tap tones, Chladni testing, and so on. To the extent that we're all trying to do more or less the same thing, any method that works will give a similar result. All of these techniques work for somebody, so it's just a matter of what works for you.

It's also true that some people are better at what they do than others. Just because somebody uses tap tones, or deflection testing, or Chladni patterns, it doesn't meant that they understand the method as well as they should. The old motto 'Sine scientiam ars nihil est' can, I believe, be translated as 'without understanding skill is useless'.

I'm not sure how hearing and building is related, except for tap tone. And I bet one can develop a "feel" for that. Build. Then let someone else do setup. No?

Alan,
When I started building around 20 years ago I always thought that someday I'd start with a more scientific approach. It never happened. Except now I weigh the tops and recording the notes the top produces while shaping the braces when it is tapped at various spots before assembly. (My attempt at tuning)

I do understand why you do what you do and I know you can use these techniques to produce the sound variations you are after. Me? I just shoot for my standard sound.

My variations mostly come from wood choice and what model I'm building.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust