Official Luthiers Forum!

The Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers has a luthier's interest group. On Saturday, they had Ed Gerhard come in for a listening test. He tried out 12 guitars. One was a nice O model by Steve Spodaryk, another was a baritone by Al Carruth, and one was my M-style. Ed was very kind to all of us but said useful things about each guitar.

Very Cool Mike

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Yep very cool and he is smiling too which is a great sign!!!

Darn...I missed it. Nice job, Mike! I bet it was awesome to have someone of Ed's caliber playing one of your instruments.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Mike,

That's so cool. Feedback from someone like that is priceless.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

That is so cool.

Without pointing at particualr guitars (and their builder), was there a theme to his comments that you could share?

Tone likes and dislikes, action/playability, etc.

Thanks,
Joe

I didn't seem to like fret ends that stick out. A couple of guitars had humidity problems that way and he pointed it out. He also likes wide rather than narrow necks.

As for sound, on each guitar he would play the somewhat dissonant chord up the neck and then listen to the sustain of each note of that chord. He was looking for a sustain that was basically the same for each note. That seemed to be important to him. He also talked about what characteristic of guitars such as bright, mellow, meant to him.

That sounds like a great way to spend your Saturday Mike! I'll bet it was fun
for all the builders having their guitar critiqued by Ed Gerhard.He is such a good player.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

What? No video?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

You'll get no sympathy from me! You had your chance to come. But, Noooo, a lowly three hour drive each way and you decide it's too tough.

A lot of people took pictures though. I think Wade was one of them. Maybe he'll print them out and make a flip book for you.

Ed's a great guy and tremendous player.
I was fortunate enough to sit him down with one of mine at Healdsburg.
-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©