And now for something completely different

paulmcevoy75 · April 18

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120934#Comment_120934

Tonight. Getting better at it.

billyshakes · April 18

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120939#Comment_120939

Somewhere, Ron Popeil is rolling in his grave cursing the fact that he didn't come up with this idea to sell in a late night infomercial to musicians who thought, "hey, I too could build a guitar." All they needed was the Ronco Vacuum Former.

paulmcevoy75 · April 19

I remember when I got my CNC I thought it was eventually going to build guitars for me. Instead it took about a year before I could consistently machine something without destroying 3 nice pieces of wood in the process.

Actually sometimes it's still like that.

The vacuum is amazing for clamping things to the CNC though. For that alone it's been worth it.

Buco · April 19

These latest structured sides, is that something that was featured in the last year's batch that you brought to DiJ? And are you coming there this year with a new batch of guitars?

paulmcevoy75 · April 19

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120951#Comment_120951

Every Django guitar I've made has structured sides except for the first one I made that Travis Bleen has.

And yeah I should be there. I have two guitars from the last batch which are kinda prototypes. I have three in this batch. Not sure how many I will finish, I feel hopeful that they will be killers though. Markedly better that my last batch. I hope so anyway.

Buco · April 19

You're definitely onto something with those structured sides. The sound is wonderfully open and to me it sounds like that side and back stiffness is a big reason. Can you purposely aim for a warmer, darker sound though?

paulmcevoy75 · April 19

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120953#Comment_120953

Thanks. I'm pretty excited by them.

TBH, I'm dubious about people who claim they can tailor the sound of their instruments towards one or the other direction. It's really, really hard to get a consistent sound on instruments, so the idea that you're going to be able to control it towards some somewhat abstract tone consideration...I personally don't buy it. Someone like Michael Greenfield who has a few people working for him, has everything crazy dialed in and has made many 100s of guitars, maybe. I think maybe even he is shooting more for consistency than anything.

For me I have a sound that I'm shooting for and trying to hit it, over and over. It's kind of wonky trying to describe a tone, but I'm trying to make a guitar that is very dynamic, can be very loud but very pretty soft, slightly towards brilliance in the warmth/brilliance spectrum, very responsive and easy to play and has a sort of 3d room filling quality. I also would like it to do as much of the Selmer kinda stuff as well as possible given all that, so the potential to do barky/compressed rhythm guitar is important too.

I feel like most of the recent guitars I've done come somewhere near that. The guitar I took to Paris and the Blue guitar I've made are pretty close to ideal of what I'd like to do. If I can keep hitting near that mark I'll be happy.

I'm probably only going to make like 4-8 Selmers a year, if that, so if someone doesn't like that sound and wants a different instrument, it's not really skin off my back if I find four people who do.

Buco · April 19

You described perfectly the sound of your guitars.

paulmcevoy75 · April 19

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120961#Comment_120961

thanks, I'm glad it comes across. Oddly, I made a guitar that sounded that way mostly by accident and now I'm trying to refine it. First ugly big mouth guitar I made kinda had a lot of that. But was ugly and probably structurally unsound, even though it still exists as of today.