Official Luthiers Forum!

Todd, yes you are right- he never said "best" or "worse"...he used different terms. And to be fair, hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy for me to say what may have been wrong with it now, after the fact...I am not sure that I could have done any better!
Part of the problem was the large amount of people who were there in that workshop. Ervin was surprised, and said something like he expected 10 or 15 guitars...not 40-some. Again, looking back at it allows you to see how things may have been done better. I'm not trying to complain here! I had a great time, and I'll go next time too. But, I think the classes/workshops could certainly have been arranged better, so that we could have seen more! Wednesday afternoon had many things going on at once, and there were other times when there were only one or two choices to attend- and then they seemed surprised when those classes were so full, there was nowhere to sit and people couldn't get in. Mike Doolin's Intonation "Lecturette" was the same way, jammed up. Mark Swanson38895.9244444444

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

[QUOTE=Scott Thompson]
Here is a shot of Ervin drilling a small hole through Steve's top in search of the answer to it's great tone.
[/QUOTE]

I wondered where that hole came from!
Well, it's hard to be upset when it's from Ervin.

I didn't hang around for the 2nd part of the listening class. My favorite listening session was back in '98.
That session was held in the large concert hall, with every guitar played / heard. One or two men were behind the scenes tuning the guitars, and handing them to a performer. This performer played a few snippits on each instrument...same tunes, same snippits. That way, there was a basis of comparison from instrument to instrument. And, each guitar actually had music played on it.
Then, the maker was asked to stand and give his or her intentions when building the guitar. The audience was invited to give brief comments, and even the player commented from time to time.
No grades were given, no awards were handed out. But it was a tremendous learing experience.
I hope to see this done again.

Thanks again Todd for your kind words. You made my day, and are doing it again.

SteveSteve Kinnaird38895.9562037037

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I didn't see that one, Steve but I would have liked to.

One more thing that was a really nice thing, a fun thing for me to do...I was asked by Tim to host the acoustic open mike on thursday night! I had grumbled to Tim at the last Convention about the lack of anything like that, even though they had an Electric open mike...and many folks played acoustically, and there was no open mike...seemed strange to me, so I asked him if we could have one this time.
Well, they decided this year that they would have one, and Tim said since I asked for it- that I could host it!
And it was a great time, I was really happy that some folks came by. Steve was one of the guests, and he even played my guitar for his songs! It was great, Steve!

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Wow. I'm glad I was able to sign on. I definately had a great time, meeting everyone. I have had more fun than I can imagine, and even after the convention, I had the privilage of going over to Eugene Clark's house, seeing a few guitars he was finishing, as well as spending two days at Robert Ruck's house.

Wow...talk about a humbling experience seeing both. At Eugene's house, there was nothing more than a workshop and a kitchenette. Talk about living the life.

Then, at Bob's, I actually spent almost two full days playing in his shop!

Oh, BTW, for those of you whom I didn't see, I was able to finish the guitar by the end of the exhibition on the "third" day after my initial speech.

Thanks to all for stopping by, and hope to see you again at either ASIA, or the next GAL, or sometime between!

[QUOTE=Scott Thompson] Howard,

The really interesting thing about this was that one of the guitars voted into the bottom three was one that Ervin had brought as an example of a great sound. It was a Martin from the 1920s!! He was at a loss as to why people had disliked it.

This was supposed to be a morning session, but Ervin invited everyone back after lunch for a very fascinating discussion on some of his theories on voicing. I am really dying to take his voicing class more than ever.



Steve Kinnaird's ambrosia maple was in the top 5. Mike Doolin, who was the player for the test, actually broke his neutrality for a moment to give a "Wow" when he saw it.

Here is a shot of Ervin drilling a small hole through Steve's top in search of the answer to it's great tone.


Actually, he was using a jewelry box type musical crank to drive the top of the guitar.[/QUOTE]


I was actually talking to him today and he said the room that the excercise was in was so alive that it made every guitar sound good. So I guess that is not terrible then....

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

If the player and the listeners are not blindfolded, the experiment is flawed. Not worthless, but flawed.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

When we did that experiment in his class we couldn't see the guitars. I agree that makes a difference.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

We (the listeners) weren't blindfolded, but we were asked to turn our backs or close our eyes. I think many people chose not to do this, however, and I think that was unfortunate. I didn't look the whole time, and I'm sure this made it a much more educational experience for me.

Personally, I found the time spent listening intently to the various instruments and comparing their sounds to be extremely valuable and educational. (Each guitar - e.g. "guitar number 5" - was played many times in different juxtapositions with others; two different voicings of the same major chord were played - strummed and arpeggiated - each time. That was all. No discussion until later, just listening and making notes on what we liked and what we found "problematic".) It was excellent ear training as well as a rare opportunity to focus intently on the similarities and differences between different instruments in a very controlled way.

As far as I'm concerned, if the entire convention had been spent listening like that to each and every instrument that had been brought to the convention, then finally seeing the instruments and discussion their construction, I think it would have been a tremendous education. The way Ervin did this session may not have been perfect, but, frankly, I think those who were willing to approach it with an open mind and go along with his lead gained tremendously from it.

The way Steve says it was done in '98 sounds good, too. I missed that one.      

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Hey that's my guitar Ervin is holding!!!
Even though my guitar was voted one of the top 5, I must admit I was disappointed in the “steel string listen” turned “Somogy's top voicing infomercial” I’m sorry but I don’t believe that you can judge a guitars true voice by only strumming an open E cord, I think that only tells you what a guitars voice is when strumming an open E cord. I think we all believe there is a lot more to a guitars voice when it is played up and down the fingerboard, and what about it’s dynamic range? Does a loose boomy top have much head room? Or will it be easily over driven? We can’t tell any of this by just strumming an open E cord. IMHO

Welcome to the OLF Brent!

Brent,

I agree, an open E chord is not much information to base a guitar on. Sounds like there was just too many people and too many guitars, and not enough time.

Welcome to the OLF. I think you will find many admirers of you work here. I know I have checked out your website for inspiration. And, anyone with a cat on their opening page is alright in my book! Hope to see you around here more.

Jeff

Hey Brent, welcome aboard!
Do you remember what # your guitar was assigned?
Any chance it was #10?

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Thanks guys for the warm welcome!

Steve, yes my guitar was #10

Here it is with the headstock revealed!


Comparing guitars was somewhat interesting but I really missed listening to all the guitars like in the past conventions.

Brent

Nice guitar, Brent!
One person, don't remember who...remarked when we were all wishing our guitars had been chosen said that it might not have been a good thing to have your guitar selected as one of the ten, because each group was selecting one good one and one "problematic" one! And we had no way of knowing where our guitars stood in that group.

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

The three guitars that most impressed me with their sound were numbers 6, 10, and 12, with number 12 being my favorite. Each of these had a very big, expansive sound. They also each spoke with a unified voice*, rather than sounding somewhat disjointed like some of the others. This quality gave each of these a distinct sweetness, and a kind of authority in their tone that set them apart from the others. These instruments turned out to be made by Steve Kinnaird, Brent McElroy, and Ervin Somogyi. (BTW, I truly liked the sound of all the guitars, and might choose any one of them for a given purpose, but these three, to my ear, clearly stood out from the pack.)

I found that my perception of what I was hearing in that simple E chord (played in two voicings - regular old open string E and an up-the-neck voicing) deepened more and more with each repeated listening and juxtaposition, and gave me a huge amount of imformation about each guitar's sound - not EVERYTHING, but a lot. For me, this was an extremely valuable listening exercise and an opportunity to sort out a lot of what distinguishes one guitar's voice from another. By limiting the sample of sound from each guitar (and by limiting the sample of guitars, for that matter), Ervin gave us a chance to learn a lot that would have gotten lost if every guitar had been played, just once each, and a more complex bit of music played on each.

IMO, the "listening sessions" I've been to at the last two conventions have been little more than show-and-tell. Kinda fun, but not very educational.

*A good analogy for what I mean by "unified voice", for those who have heard the new violin octet, is the quality of sound made by those instruments as an ensemble, by comparison to the sound of a mixed-instrument ensemble, or even a conventional string ensemble.    

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Brent--
No. 10, eh?
Then your guitar was my favorite.
I liked mine--ahem--but I liked yours even more.
To my ear, they sounded amazingly alike, but yours had a little bit more *something*. I wondered if I was hearing the rosewood, better building technique or what?
It's a fascinating experience, listening to guitars played back-to-back, isn't it?

So--wanna trade #12 for #10???

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Hi Brent -- its been awhile -- are you fully recovered from your accident?

I had the pleasure of playing a McElroy at ASIA last summer -- sweet guitar!

Nice to see you here on the OLF -- hope you stick around and post often!

Cheers,

Anthony Zlahtic

My Guitar was number 4. It was one of the ones in the "bad" pile. I thought it sounded okay but maybe a little tight compared to the others. It had only been strung up for 3 days, but that might be the case with the others as well. In the second part of the listening I was the only "bad" guitar to hang around and try to get a little feedback. Everyone else left who was in my pile. Just me and the 33 Martin.
Anyway, I thought it was fun. Ervin seemed to be a neat guy. This was my first conference with my first guitar and I enjoyed it tons.

Thank you all for all the unexpected complements.
Steve – I thought your guit was awesome, both tonally and visually!
Anthony – I am not 100% there yet – but I’m getting stuff done. Getting ready for Newport! Whew!
Homeboy – There were some pretty great guitars in that “bad” pile! Just wait till yours opens up, it’ll be fabulous!
Brent

Homeboy, I liked the sound of your guitar (like I said, I liked them all). Some of my notes on guitar #4: "Very clear, defined bass. Focused, punchy. A lot of character. Cool. A bit brash, harsh."

No doubt its sound will mature, but even as it was on that day, it would be THE guitar I'd pick up when my mood or my need for a given performance called for THAT sound.

IMO, anyone who thought the ranking of the guitars was the point of the exercise missed the point. Also, if everyone had had their eyes closed or back turned as had been requested of them to get the most out of the exercise, they wouldn't have even known which guitar was their own (maybe a couple people might have recognized the sound of their own, but I bet most would not have known) until the very end. Ah, well...

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

[QUOTE=Homeboy] My Guitar...was one of the ones in the "bad" pile. It had only been strung up for 3 days...[/QUOTE]
Yeah, probably too soon for a listening test. Let us know how it sounds in a month or two. Welcome to the OLF, BTW!

In the '95 ASIA Symposium Abe Wechter ran a blind listening test for acoustic pickups, and I think his method would be a good approach for listening tests generally. The same player played the same music on each instrument, from behind a screen. The audience had no visual clues as to what system was being used. A high quality microphone was used to first demonstrate the guitar's acoustic sound (each guitar was as identical as is humanly possible--same builder, same style, same woods) and then the amplified sound was run directly through the same sound system as was the mic.

The difficulty with each guitar being different would be keeping them out of the view of the audience, but it seems like that would not be extremely problematic.

Brent, you said your guitar was #10. Was that the Cocobolo one? I was only there for a bit towards end and liked it the best

Davebertoncini38900.9408449074

Dave,
It's a Brazilian/Adirondack 000
Here is the back

Does this look familiar?

Brent

Gorgeous !