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Listen to my Before and After Re-voicing audio clip.
Overview and Steel String Guitars: I first started re-voicing acoustic guitars in 1983, and have combined knowledge of college physics, basic engineering mechanics at Stanford, brace shaving by legendary Jon Lundberg of Berkeley, CA, as well as a major 'light bulb' moment in 1989, to develop a unique and revolutionary theory of how and where each string makes its sound in a guitar. With it, I am able to achieve an unprecedented level of volume balance across all six strings and all the way up the neck. For a more thorough discussion of my brace theory and work in general, go to my Bio-BraceTalk page, where you will find mention of two articles I wrote for "American Lutherie", the journal of the Guild of American Luthiers, in Tacoma WA.
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Reshaped Bridge on Luke C's Guild D-35 (see "BackTalk" page) |
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DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!! The photos of the bridge on this page may tempt you to try streamlining your own bridge, and I'm sure there are many talented hands out there who can come close, with some improvement. However, dead spots are easily created where none existed before, and unless you are willing to take the years I have put in to achieve the precise level of refinement my knowledge has reached, you can easily come to a dead end. If you then send the guitar to me, the fee will be the same as if it were original to begin with, unless the bridge (or internal braces) have been compromised beyond use. If the bridge needs to be replaced, it can be done in advance of shipping to me, or here, for additional cost.
If anyone tells you they will scallop your braces for a fraction of my fee, grab your guitar, go home and decide if you want to risk a ruined guitar. I have seen at least a dozen such instruments over the years, including two by the builders, looking for more sound. Scalloping can produce some improvement, but does so by weakening the main structural top element, the X brace, precisely where it needs to be strongest, under the bridge. A delicate dance with disaster. If the bridge does start to rotate in the top, there are two options. One is to have a bridge doctor installed to balance the forces the weakened X can no longer support, but the bridge doctor adds a lot of mass to the bridge system, greatly adding to the inertia to overcome with each pick, requiring more work and reducing the headroom noticeably (I will not work on such an instrument). Another is to have me remove the back and replace the braces needed. I did this on a Mossman that had been previously butchered, and the owner was thrilled with everything but the added cost.
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All work is done through the soundhole in a very careful manner, and the braces would not appear to have been altered if you had not seen them to begin with. The top is carefully protected during bridge shaping, as shown in the photo. This is not some quick fix, and I now spend around 40 hours on a guitar. Turn around time is two weeks plus shipping times, unless other work is needed. I set the string height and action as part of the work if desired, and can re-fret or custom mill frets to reduce buzzing for additional, previously agreed upon fees.
I can only work with what's there. Certain factors, especially a thick top, can limit the amount of potential for the guitar. It is death for a crisp treble, especially, and may necessitate the use of medium gauge strings to get it moving. My preference is for light gauge strings, and you will not believe how much volume they produce when I'm done. Many guitars can be re-voiced to work with mediums, but one size doesn't always fit all, and if you later want to use lights, they may not work as well as if I worked with lights to begin with. On the label I install, I check for light or medium strings. I also work my magic on any factory scalloped guitar, as well, but feel they should have lights even stock, and will only be re-voiced for lights.
I've talked with many owners who say they've always felt their guitar could produce more sound. They're right. An equal number worry that modifications could void factory warrantees (and probably do--but I never work near the neck joint, so problems with that are ethically on them) and reduce collectability value. That would depend on the collector, because I have no doubt that someday, the guitars I've modified will increase in value astronomically. If you are a player, that will happen upon arrival of your newly reborn guitar.
The fee is now $1200, US, for parabolic re-voicing. The increase reflects what I have learned in just the last few years, and the amount of additional time I now spend on each instrument. Professional musicians and dealers are encouraged to talk with me about the possibility of a discount. It is a lot of money to spend, but there is no one else, anywhere, who can perform the miracles I do. If you want to start from scratch, my recommendation is to buy a Larrivee you like. They are good starting materials (as are most factory guitars) because they are well built and are not scalloped. Characteristically, the low E and D strings are louder than the rest on Larrivees, but I can balance that, as with balance differences on any guitar. Add my fee to the cost, and you will have an instrument unlikely to be touched by anything out there, no matter what the cost. For sentimental reasons, I've been even sent plywood guitars, which also respond remarkably well, but of course remain stiffer to play.
Classical Guitars:Until recently, I had ruled out working on classical guitars due to the small sound hole, and the physical limits of what I could reach inside. However, over the past year, a neighbor, and classical collector and player, has had me do some minor repairs on his instruments, giving me the opportunity to explore what I might be able to accomplish inside. I also did a lot of thumping and feeling the top to map out the circles, and how they apply to an instrument with completely different bracing, on four expensive instruments. This only added on to my observations at the 2001 GAL convention, where I met and talked with several classical luthiers. I was impressed with a bridge design by a Canadian luthier, de Jonge, that was parabolically shaped in the long dimension, with a channel routed down the middle, separating the bridge into an upper curve, in which the saddle mounted, and a lower curve for the tie block. In a subsequent discussion with R. E. Brune, I learned the reality was that the bridge was too stiff to work well. That made sense to me, since the curves lengthwise were too high in the middle (to accommodate the tie block) to flow with the vibrations. I long ago learned that an internal top or back brace could be reshaped parabolically and still deaden sound. There is a critical height to length ratio that must be reached for the brace to flow with vibrations, and this is also determined by the force on that brace. Lots of force can overcome even major ''flaws'' in the shaping, as we shall soon find out.
Basic observations on classicals told me that the back operated just as it did on steel strings, reinforcing the mid and bass ranges, but that the top operated completely differently. The large transverse brace (side to side) below the soundhole forces the lower bout to work as a separate system of circles. This puts the center of the circles in the center of the lower bout, smack dab in the middle of the bridge, instead of where the X brace crosses in a steel string, about 3'' above the bridge (the X brace allows the entire top to vibrate as a unit).
John Park, a luthier from B. C., told me that most classical guitars have a quiet and/or wierd sounding G string, and that if I could solve that problem, it would be welcome. The answer seemed all too easy, for I could feel the circle the G string vibrates passes through both ends of the bridge, where the corner/ridge between the curve of the wings across the narrow dimension meets the end bevel. Once again, corners absorb energy in a physical way.
What I also noticed on many classicals is that the high E string was quieter, as well. That circle was smaller than the G ring, and passed through the ends of the tie block. Often, I could not feel any vibration over the tie block ends, and below them on the top itself for maybe 1/2 inch. These were in line with observations I made eight years ago on steel string bridges, leading me to add that to basic brace work (after all, the bridge is a brace, too).
I scratched my head over the years since, wondering how I could design a bridge without a tie block, so that the parabola could be low enough for the bridge to be flexible, and concluded I could not. It didn't seem the classical world was ready for bridge pins, either, and I put the idea on hold. I even turned down a potential brace job through fineguitarconsultants.com, telling Richard I could not help the high E string.
Last year, my neighbor sought my help for buzzing problems after a Tucson repairperson had close to ruined the frets on a new favorite, a 1985 Batiste Bofi, Valencia Spain. Once that was resolved, he asked what might be done to improve the balance, especially, quiet E strings and a very dead D string. Circle analysis showed that the D string ring went through the ends of the bridge, rather than the G, as in most cases. A longer bridge and/or a thicker top (which means smaller rings) are variables. The ring of the G string ran just inside the ends, and vibrated up to and over the rounded wings, as did the B string, closer to the tie block. They were loud and clear.
I told him I could fix the D string by reshaping the wings, but I could not help the high E, whose ring ran through the tie block ends. I also said I could bring up the low E working on some internal braces.
Since the low E and D were his main concerns, he said to proceed. After several trial stages, I got the bottom end very close to balanced, with the A still wolfish, due to a variation of the top bracing. I put in a small dampening brace on the top which corrected the wolf note A, but dampened the A octave harmonic, too, and had to be modified to reach a compromise.
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Solving the ''Mystic G String'' Problem. |
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I worked on the bridge shaping of the wings over three sittings, and must have spend close to two hours' total on each side, getting them to thump just right. Not only did the D string come up in volume when I could feel its ring vibrate over and up to the ends of the bridge, but the high E string came up to full volume, too, matching that of the B and G! And, I could feel the E buzzing up to and over the ends of the tie block now. It is likely that once the ends of the bridge could release the D energy, the whole bridge was free to move, and the string tension could overcome the physical limitations of the tie block ends. The wings are more flexible, of course, but I did not alter their size near the tie block. It's not often that one gets more than is expected.
And so, parabolic brace works is now working on classical guitars for all the right reasons. I will add more information to this site, including a new diagram showing circles on a classical guitar top (see Bio-BraceTalk for steel string diagram) and setting fees. I think the actual time spent on internal braces will be less than on steel strings, as well as time shaping the bridge, which will result in lower cost. However, since a classical bridge has finish, whereas a steel string bridge is happy with just being oiled, this will need to be worked out individually. My neighbor wanted the rosewood bridge sprayed gloss black, to more closely resemble the ebony fingerboard.
To schedule work, or to discuss your questions:
call 505-538-8644, or e-mail me: scott@vanlingeguitars.com.
