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(eeep, 2 years on – couldn’t post here for a while, and stupid busy too often)
The ’34 OM is such a different guitar today, as you said. She’s smoother across the board, the wolf note just below G2 has eased, and she’s still the most joyful experience to play.
Meantime:
A lot of my too busy to post here was embarking on my acoustic build #1. I refer to her as an experimental platform. Initially sitka spruce over flame maple b&s. The guitar was good at that point, and also not spectacular – I’d used the least inspiring top set for the build, and managed to get good tone.
Phase 2: after 4 months of playing, I pulled that top off, replacing with WRC.
I’ll make a thread for this, but here are the amazing mitzvahs from SCGC that went into this build .. the couple hours Richard gave me on my shop visit, he allowed me to pick his brains on SCGC build process .. I noted in my visit the remarkable SCGC truss rod. My #1 build sports one, and it’s just a sweet design
Best wishes to all here, glad to be back.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021Two months of LOTS of playing, the guitar has opened up amazingly – where new, the #6 string was originally feeling short of harmonic response, it’s now bright, and much richer.
And not a huge surprise, but definitely pleasing, the strings have only just begun to dull.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021Happy NYE y’all!
I’m looking back at this a couple of months later, I’m of course inspired by the great podcast, and more recently from seeing Neil Young’s film and another podcast with Neil and Rick Rubin talking about both modern and ’70s production https://youtu.be/PZ-AVFpB3KI. I have some questions!
First, Neil and Rick talk about recording a studio session directly to tape, and then taking it to digital with a play back head directly behind the record head. They offer context for this in relating that tape is changing in mere hours after recording is completed, and describing how after a session, making a rough mix was immediate requirement. Now that was pretty cool to hear, and I’m imagining that the mechanism may be print-through from one layer of mag tape to the next, or perhaps just the nature of the medium.
They conclude that so much more is possible in digital production than analog – where every step loses some fidelity. I thought it was a remarkable approach to getting the best from both the analog recording and digital for for production.
Questions for Will (et al):
Going back to the ’80s when LSI op amps became available, it was my understanding that the class A amplifier specification baked in assumptions based in tub amp design that are just not appropriate for solid state design, in particular an “A” amp must not change its mains current draw more than some given small percent mo matter the wattage output being drawn at the output. — Granting that this is an easy objective to achieve in pre-amp circuits, I still wonder of class A designation is important in an analog signal chain?
Following from that, before LSI and VLSI made it possible to build an op amp on chip circuit. The design of the operational amplifier requires matched transistors – easy when all the components are on a single silicon die. To do this working from discrete components in the way I guess Burl must do requires that paired transistors be matched pairs, so transistors taken from one die must be kept in a batch. Question is: not all op amps are $0.30 cent value, there are (expensive) LSI op amps designed for high audio fidelity. How much advantage does the Burl method carry over the use of better components?
I can surely hear the difference between my SM-57, SM-81, and TF-11 when recording directly to my TASCAM, Now to best hear that difference, I need to listen with my better headphones – Grado 1x reference; my ATmx-40 HPs just don’t cut it. Same goes for passing through what I thought was a fairly decent mixing panel – an A&H 10 channel. So I have to wonder, how much more is there to gain from say Burl electronics? I should say, due to our very small living space, studio speakers aren’t an option.
To be sure, I’m happy with my audio rig. I can obtain recordings I’m happy with from my two condenser mics, and I’ve found that placing the sm-81 trained on the lower bout, with the large diaphragm TF-11 on the fretboard gets great tone sans post EQ processing. Before I added the TF-11, I would catch the room with the sm-57, and the instrument directly with the sm-81, again, a good compromise.
Thanks again for the great discussion!
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021Thanks y’all for making & maintaining this space!
And best holiday wishes back to you and all, excited to hear about the new plans!
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021@tadol, @haasome, thanks! I fully expect many years of enjoying this guitar.
Some details of the construction have just impressed me – things I wouldn’t take the time to pore over / ogle while sitting in the LGS. The top finish is SO much better than my Martin. on the OM-28 I can feel most of the seams – backstrip, tail wedge, the rings of the rosette are all easy to feel in relief to the tonewoods. This guitar has none of that. Also, there’s a LOT less hump behind the bridge of the ’34 than I remember on the Martin when it was new.
It’s not that I care much about these things, they’re good to feel and experience, I’d not have liked the guitar less without them, however I also hadn’t really considered that fit and finish could be improved that much over what Martin delivers.
Anyway, all that sits distantly behind the tone of this guitar. I wrote to the Adam at TME, about the experience of doing a much longer A/B of this alongside my OM-28 “It’s like I’ve been shooting with Ektachrome all my life, and then shooting a roll of Kodachrome (more accurately like when I got my hands on Kodak’s Technical Pan negative film).
Remarkable
Thanks for the + comments :-).
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021I took photos today, she sounds spectacular – such clear note definition, really a great instrument for fingerstyle. The bass response is a bit closed down, not a surprise in a new Adi top, I’m sure it will blossom with a couple of years of playing.
I’m over the moon – the tone of this guitar is everything I’d heard in other SCGC instruments that lead me to decide on this one. I can’t imagine being happier.
Here are some snaps of the guitar:
The custom inlay is everything I’d hoped for, just gorgeous
Amazing tight growth rings in this top:
I love this back, the image is punched up a bit, so it’s visible, she’s darker than this under normal lighting
Detail:
The shop surely found some beautifully figured walnut for the binding and tail wedge, and the sides of this guitar are just as beautiful as the back .. just OMG.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021I was just editing it as this came through – approve the post and it will be live 🙂
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021Those both sound like amazing guitars! Sad you had to let go of the mahogany OM.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021Got word from TME, she’s arrived!
I won’t be able to get over there until Monday, possibly Sunday. So no photos ’til next week. I’m super excited to play this instrument :-).
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021I had a go at this last night, and found when I put 2 into the order, the code gave me the price of a set in discount, I went back and corrected the cart to 3, and it went through as buy 2, 1 free.
Im sure na call to the shop will straighten it out to how you want it
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021<p style=”text-align: left;”>I look forward to hearing what SCGC says, I’ll venture a thought ahead of that.</p>
Wood exhibits what engineers call creep deformation, close to visco-plastic, but not exactly. What this means is when a load, perhaps greater than some threshold is applied, the material changes shape very slowly.Back in the ’70s for example, a professor I worked for later had come up with a brilliant means of eliminating creep in jet engine turbines. What he figured out was a method to cast a turbine blade as a single crystal. In metals creep occurs when individual crystals slip alongside one another, eliminating that made for huge improvement in fuel efficiency and thrust to weight ratio.
This is probably a perfect example of the variability in wood, and why it’s not possible to build the very best guitars the way we manufacture cars.
Every piece of wood is different, and by the sound of it, the neck of @squarewave’s OM has an unusually low creep threshold.
This is at the nut of why most guitars will eventually need a neck reset, and some will quite early. If every guitar was built heavily enough that this guitar’s neck wouldn’t move, they’d all be maybe 30% heavier and .. well, imagine the sound.
So instead the best approach for the luthier (factory) is to ensure most guitars are safe against creep, and you repair the ones that aren’t.
Also, if I’m not mistaken, this guitar is more likely to get a new neck than a reset.
Chip fab comes down to a similar thing. Design at the absolute limit, and manufacturing yield will approach zero. For those willing to pay for the extra 20% performance of the very fastest CPU, the reason it’s so expensive is that yields are quite low.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021I am also awaiting the return of the SCGC wax .. meantime, I just had a go with the virtuoso cleaner and polish, I hate to admit it (not usually a fan of products that hide things as “proprietary” on their SDSs) .. yeah I’m a convert. Once again, thanks Richard!
E side of the lower bout on my OM-28 was just not cleaning up with a damp rag a couple weeks ago (it’s been a long, hot summer here) .. she cleaned up beautifully in 1/2 hour of cleaning & buffing.
I don’t think body of this axe looked this good new .. dayum 🙂
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021There are 2 H-12s by Froggy Bottom at TME right now, I can’t say that they’re a direct comparison to SCGC, and maybe comparing similar when you can’t play both isn’t helpful.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021We were able to schedule holiday on the left coast and started in Santa Cruz, Will was great with helping setup some time with Richard.
I hadn’t expected whether work on my guitar would have started and so I was super excited to find that the body has been assembled, as has the neck – which is awaiting a fretboard the labrys inlay is done Beautiful to me, I hope others like it as well (or even half as well :-)).
I was more than a little excited to learn what I could about how SCGC voices their instruments and Richard afforded me a pretty deep dive, as well as plenty of discussion of where the art and science are headed. His/their work toward quantifying what goes into tuning the pieces to come together into a whole is so ground-breaking. I’ll flatter myself that I did an OK job describing my own work, not more or less complex, just different areas of science and art.
Their process is more steps than I’d realized, also more components have been thought-through for their contribution to tone — we know about RH’s tuning of the neck to the rest of the guitar (and here also, I learned there’s more than one way to do it, depending on the objective). Additionally, Richard introduced me to how they use kerfing and binding to transfer energy into the guitar sides .. amazing.
I’ve decided since our conversation that I’ll build a practice guitar .. maybe oak body and either pine or cedar soundboard .. woods I can probably obtain as scrap .. build the best guitar I can from those applying what I learned from Richard .. then do the keeper guitar, probably bearclaw spruce > maple B&S, however I’m also continuing to explore mahogany, we also talked about that, and I don’t see my love affair with rosewood & maple ending. Later that day I was able to play a mahogany SCGC at Sylvan **excellent instrument**, and for now, I’m still a rosewood girl. I need to try on some older mahogany body guitars too.
Anyway, enough words, here are the expected pictures of my OM in progress 🙂 First the stellar back.
Here’s the labrys inlay
And the core of the guitar, the soundboard. I can’t believe the tight grain on this – I think that’s not much correlated with an instrument’s sound, nonetheless it’s shockingly beautiful 🙂
So, I’ll be patiently awaiting the word from Will when she’s done, meantime we’re enjoying San Francisco, about to make up breakfast and then it’s across the bridge to take in some beaches and more forest (We drove up here via CA 9 through the SC mountains, and the day before, went down to Big Sur. Also, I’ve had my obligatory dip in the Pacific, this time was playing in heavier surf than I’d try to get serious in.
Thanks again to everyone at SCGC who make this work happen and thanks for everyone’s time.
SCGC 1934 OM Adi > BRW
#1 build WRC > flame maple
Solist 🌈 burst on quilt maple
Martin OM-28
Strat rosewood > mahogany 2021
