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Post by dobro on Jul 9, 2020 15:51:18 GMT
I will share a little guitar story with you. Two years ago, I received a Fylde Orsino from Roger B. Initially I played it some, but due to nut width, I didn't get along with it, and was soon back to my Martin D35 and old Gibson J45. The Orsino also felt a bit stiff, with a tone a little bit too "in your face". (Describing sound is a hopeless exercise, I know). Then, this spring, I put it up for sale in the classified on this forum, and, as I got some people interested, there were no serious buyers, and I wondered if I should lower my initial price of £ 1900, but decided to pull it off the classifieds..
Then I made a decision: I'm going to play the guitar extensively for a period, and see what happen. And I must say, I'm so glad I did. I'm both a finger picker and a strummer, and I really started to bang on the guitar, for weeks on end. And, lo and behold, after about six weeks, the guitar made an almost incredible transformation, developing into a loud, deep, mellow sound. At the same time, I really started to appreciate the nut and the neck. Now, the Orsino has become my main player, and the Martin and Gibson are collecting dust on the wall. I know some people who doubt the "opening up" thing, especially as regard cedar tops, and that it's just the player adapting to the sound. Well, not in this case. I've been playing and gigging for forty five years, and I have never experienced a guitar transforming like this one. It's smooth, mellow, loud and easy to play. It suits all styles, even hard strumming.(no overdriving this one!)
The moral? I don't want to generalize, but don't write off a guitar before you really have played it (hard) for at least six to eight weeks.
Conclusion: I'm glad nobody made me an offer on the Orsino. It's not for sale, and will never be!
Have a nice summer, and stay safe in these special times!
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Post by skyetripper on Jul 10, 2020 8:43:02 GMT
One of my local guitar shop owners summed this up for me a while back when I was struggling to get on with the neck shape / action on my Larrivee. In basic terms his words were 'Man up and learn how to play it - it's a great guitar'. He wasn't wrong...
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Post by scorpiodog on Jul 10, 2020 11:11:12 GMT
This is a really interesting story, dobro. I think we've all had guitars we just don't relate to. Chris Wood tells a story about a guitar he had made by David Oddy that he just didn't gel with and wouldn't use it on gigs. He went on holiday to France and only took that guitar with him, and by the time he came back it had changed such that it became his favourite instrument and he used it all the time. Also, one of Dave White's road trip guitars (I think it was the yew Butterfly) seemed a bit lacklustre (well, to the extent that any of Dave's instruments is - it was still a grand guitar), but Dave says it needs to be woken up before it becomes sweet. Weird little beasties, acoustic guitars. I guess that's why we love them so.
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Post by martinrowe on Jul 10, 2020 11:53:09 GMT
How do you make an acoustic instrument, judge its sound, and know (or do you) that it will sound different/very good/excellent after it has been played? i.e. what are the criteria that a builder uses to judge an instrument in its raw state that enables him/her to know that its sound will be different by the time it has opened up?
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,320
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Post by colins on Jul 10, 2020 13:35:50 GMT
All guitars will take some time to open up and achieve their potential. I know that the first guitar I made some 25 years ago, has continued to change to this day. It is now, I believe, sweeter sounding than it was even five years after it was made and played hard (it was my DADGad guitar). Now owned by brianr2 this guitar has an Italian spruce top which like some of the other close grained European spruces takes it's time, which is why the great 19th century Spanish builders (you all know who I mean) kept their store of 'pine' under tin shelters on the roof of their houses for years to expand and contract under the day/night temperature variation, a bit like the modern day torrefication system. Cedar and Redwood do tend to open up quicker, but a lot is dependent on how the builder braces it, tall narrow braced tops tend to open up faster than the wider shallower tops, and 'parabolic' quicker than scalloped, or so it seems. And don't get me started on rim stiffness. A loosely braced top can open up faster, but will never quite be as good as a slightly stiffer braced one and may end up a lot muddier and easy to over-drive and could deteriorate with time. I personally could never get a Sitka top to sound how I wanted, though some builders love it, I never did, but throw a bit of White Spruce into the parentage and you end up with Lutz spruce, my favourite N. American spruce. There is an electical system available that you sit on the bridge and switch on and it is supposed to vibrate the top and condition it earlier, some people use a fish tank pump sat on the top to try and achieve the same effect. Rambling finished. Colin
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Post by martinrowe on Jul 10, 2020 15:34:27 GMT
Bear with me, perhaps my brain cells are not what they used to be. Do you simply follow a systemic build procedure unaware of whether or not the guitar will 'blossom'. i.e. how do you know when you're finished building if the sound you hear at that time is not what the guitar will sound like when it later opens up. Is that later sound an unknown to the builder when he/she has finished the construction stage? How hit and miss is the whole process?
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Post by dobro on Jul 10, 2020 16:58:54 GMT
" I like to build guitars that will last, sound great to start with, pure and balanced, but that can be worked hard, and will then open up and sing, not shout." (Roger Bucknall)
My Orsino has indeed "opened up", but it took some work...
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,320
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Post by colins on Jul 10, 2020 20:35:01 GMT
Bear with me, perhaps my brain cells are not what they used to be. Do you simply follow a systemic build procedure unaware of whether or not the guitar will 'blossom'. i.e. how do you know when you're finished building if the sound you hear at that time is not what the guitar will sound like when it later opens up. Is that later sound an unknown to the builder when he/she has finished the construction stage? How hit and miss is the whole process? With a hand made guitar, part of the building process is in tuning the plates. This first involves first selecting a plate that taps with a live tone. The bracing pattern and initial brace profile are individual to the builder and model and after gluing and initial profiling the braces are refined until the tap-tone that the plate produces is the tone that the builder wants. Some builders work to a specific note, while many including myself want a clear 'musical' tap. Each plate will need a slight variation in brace shaping to achieve this tap-tone. Experience tells me that with my construction system and design this will produce a guitar that has my sound, and yes I know that with use it will gradually grow in complexity and tone. So no it is not a hit and miss process. Factory built guitars are of course made using standardised components, so will tend to be more variable in outcome.
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,320
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Post by colins on Jul 10, 2020 20:44:50 GMT
" I like to build guitars that will last, sound great to start with, pure and balanced, but that can be worked hard, and will then open up and sing, not shout." (Roger Bucknall) My Orsino has indeed "opened up", but it took some work... I couldn't have put it better than Roger.
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