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[QUOTE=Dave White]
I think you are doing Scott a bit of a disservice. My understanding is that his theory of sound rings comes from him "feeling" these rings on the tops of guitars with his fingers as he builds/modifies guitars, and he has an initial mental model in cones and the resonator guitar example he speaks of. This to me is the start of an "empirical" exploration. It is a theory, that has been neither proved NOR disproved.[/quote]

I was being somewhat reactionary, and the language was perhaps slightly strong, but the statement stands; what you're describing, and Scott's describing, is empirical, qualitative data collection. That there are ring modes in guitar vibrations is true, and has been shown (see glitter patterns on free plates), but there are plenty of non-ring modes as well, at different frequencies. The analogies with cymbals and similar also don't really hold up, considering the fact a guitar's a bound, not a free plate, and quite different from a resonator cone (and this is, yes, one of the amitted 'weaknesses' of free plate tuning itself). It's an interesting starting point, certainly.

Also, those are the beginnings of a hypothesis, not a theory. A theory requires a somewhat more stringent level of evidence. You'll note nobody's saying Scott's ideas are FALSE, simply that they have not been proven.

It's up to the person making the claims to provide evidence of the theory, so Scott telling Mario to go round off his sharp corners seems a touch disingenous (rising, no doubt, to Mario's somewhat curmudgeonly discourse), because Mario has no vested interest in proving or disproving Scott's statements, and doesn't buy into the hypothesis in the first place. You have a hypothesis? Collect data proving it. Then people will take note. The fact Scott's able to (apparently) get great sound out of the guitars he works one speaks measures of his skill, but tells me absolutely nothing about the vailidty of his mental model of how a guitar works.

[quote]
I think science and art have valid roles to play in helping people both understand and build musical instruments. I think you have as much chance of building mathematical/theoretical models that describe and predict a wooden guitar's behaviour as you have of building mathematical models that explain and predict the World Economy or people's behaviour (and I speak from over 30 years bitter experience here before getting a "proper job" making guitars). Any system that has so many organic variables - not forgetting the homo sapiens that interact to make them make noise - is going to be impossible to accurately model. As in modelling Economies you can get certain basic principles that help a lot, but then the "people" (or wood in the case of guitars) stubbornly refuse to obey the "assumptions". Maybe with instruments made of more predictable materials like graphite etc this is more possible, but although I welcome the predictability I certainly wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life building those.[/quote]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call a guitar as intrinsically complex as a science as 'fuzzy' as Economics or Sociology

The similarities between 'fuzzy' sciences and guitarbuilding lie in the fact that we make generalistic assumptions about things like wood (or groups of people) that leave little room for individuality. The difference is that with guitars, you can measure the properties of the pieces of wood you build with in a way that's far from conceptual. The problem lies in understanding and defining what these measurements mean, and in relating what we want from 'the guitar' (which is probably one of the most variable insturments out there, in terms of acceptable size, shape, sound, construction, etc.) to a complex of those numbers and figures.

The artisan can and does intuitively 'know' how to make individual pieces of wood work together, without understanding the science behind it; one of the most striking examples I read was Brian Burns (I believe), over on the Left Brain Lutherie list, relating how his various tests of topwoods (determining their 'Q') on a mathematical level yielded the same results as his experiential 'fuzzy', hands-on evaluation of the wood by flexing and feeling and listening.

There's certainly more than enough room for both approaches, and, honestly, despite my scientific background, I suspect I'll always use both kinds of sources for inspiration. I mean, there may be 'more ideal' ways of bracing and all that, for example, but will the instruments sound like the ones we want to build? And music itself, the performance, the use of the instruments we make, is an intrinsically UN-scientific endeavour. And that's fine.

I will, however, continue to call a tree a tree, a theory an theory, and an unsubstantiated hypothesis what it is when I see one. Because that's the way I'm wired. If certain aspects of it (whether aesthetic, or the results, whatever) tickle me enough, I'll go play around with it. I mean, I was going to go try out parabolic bracing anyway before I read any of Scott's stuff, and my bridges and bracing is somewhat devoid of sharp edges anyway (because I like the look), and if the sound's there, well, great!

What I do not like, on an intellectual level, is presenting flimsily supported hypotheses as solid theories. To call it a mental model, and explicitly address its weaknesses and implicit uncertainties is fine, and would be best served by attempting to gather actual evidence for it, in my view, but I realize that's the scientist in me talking.

[quote]
Also speaking of Science and Religion, the current academics amongst you please correct me if I'm wrong as its over 30 years since I studied Mathematics at Cambridge University, but nearly all sciences have at their core certain axioms on which everything else is based. These axioms by their nature can be neither proved or disproved, they are in effect "beliefs" and if they fail everything built on them crumbles. Sound familiar?
[/quote]

There are certain axioms in mathematics, yes, and therefore (one might argue) in all other sciences, but they're very well tested axioms. There's still a pretty fundamental difference between scientific knowledge and 'religious' knowledge, namely the acknowledgment of the margin for error, and the testability. The fact that scientific knowledge by its very nature is tested and put on trial by every new piece of evidence, and it only takes a little bit to bring it all curmbling down, to let a new, better, more complete theoretical construct take its place. The fact this rarely happens speaks volumes, Kuhnian paradigm shifts aside.

[quote]
imvho, the best thing to have is an open and questioning mind and the willingness to take things and experiment/develop them - and also a willingness to share and give back. I am a magpie in this respect and take things from people like Scott and lots of other great builders, inclunding thos on this great Forum, and adapt them for the guitars I want to build. I have said before, I don't really buy into the full "Sound is round" theory but some of Scott's ideas and practices have helped me make better guitars.[/quote]

And I completely agree with you. But I also feel questioning everything we hear and read quite thoroughly is what helps us decide what to use and understand. To avoid doing so because 'all theories are equally valid' is about as nonsensical as wanting to teach Intelligent Design in a science classroom.

Lutherie is a space where both Scientific and Artistic approaches can come together, and the result is wonderful. What science has to offer is the critical, nitpicking mindset, and that artistic side, well, that's there to fuel ideas, creativity, and provide the impulse for new developments, often as not. And as you say, that's all good.

Now, since everyone's fallen asleep, I'll bugger off...Mattia Valente38748.516412037

[QUOTE=Scott van Linge]
Mattia,

I described a before/after test that is underway at the moment, involving re-voicing an OM. It's posted somewhere above. I will let you all know when it's available for listening on my web site. [/QUOTE]

Yep, I saw. Very much looking forward to hearing the differences! I doubt it'll change my mind as to the veracity of the 'Sound is Round' hypothesis (given the fact that that's a whole lot harder to test, for starters), but that's neither here nor there

Brock

I think you suming up of the two camps and descriptions are correct, I try to be understanding of both, but I definately like to build intuatively, the problem I have with much of the science is it is only as good as the scientific method used, and much of what we see held up as being scientific is pretty flawed in my opinion.

It is probably because I am not smart enough to work out scientific test methods, that I tend to favour the method of trying it and see what happens, this for me is the ultimate scientific test, of course this is then prejudiced by my own ideas of what I consider an improvement to be.

That said of course I am not knocking some of the very valuable testing done, Colins data on wood density and gravity has been enourmously helpful, some of the stuff presented on gluing methods etc, is both useful and informative, as is Marios evidence on the durability of Hide Glue joints over very long time period, to name but a few.

Many of these have led me to question what I do and change, and this is the great thing about this forum.

Mario

Don't think I am trying to jump on you, because I take the opposite view, that is not the case at all, I have never had the oppurtunity to see one of your instruments in the flesh, but if your order book is closed they have got to be pretty dang good, many of the developments I have made to my own instrument recently have been as a result of your making some strong points to me.

Dave

As allways well put, and I know I have said it before, but the information you shared with me on top tuning has really helped me to question my own design, and improve.


I just think that it is quite clear that Scott is not just doing this work for the sake of carving guitars up, and for the purist maybe there isn't reams of data to back his theories, but I doubt CF Martin spent years testing the X Brace, they had a problem thought that would cure it and tried it, now of course it has the benefit of having a lot of year and a lot of applications behind it. What I do know is that people don't hand over their vintage instruments for this type of surgery without having a lot of faith in the person carrying out the work. I have read posts on other guitar forums about Scotts work, I will tell you the one post I haven't seen, someone who had a guitar tuned by him complaining about the result, most of the negatives seem to be from people complaining there is some code that says you are not allowed to improve old instruments.

I for one welcome some one of Scotts Experience, to the forum and hope he sticks arounds.

Well, I have read all of this, and the most glaring thing that I see is a real lack of communication, some of it obviously intentioal...on the receiving end.

I cannot understand why anyone would get bent out of shape by Mario's comments and questions. He did not beat on anybody.

Yes, Scott, what you do to a guitar may well be one of the many things that can accomplish your desired result, but I emphase ONE of MANY and not THE ONE. By the way you have the word "therory" confused with the word "hypothesis", there is a difference

The before and after thing does nothing to prove or disprove the "why". It only shows the "result", which may be perceived differently by different individuals.

So yes, this has all been interesting, but few questions have actually been answered, despite a lot of ranting by some. So, it appears that this whole thread can be boiled down to a lot of ?????

Grant

no postScott van Linge38749.6807060185

[QUOTE=Grant Goltz]
The before and after thing does nothing to prove or disprove the "why".
It only shows the "result", which may be perceived differently by different
individuals.[/QUOTE]

I think the after and before can be used to test the validity of Scott's
claims about bridge shapes for instance, and would be educating for
everybody including Scott. That Scott has results after working on an
instrument is not the point, although again recordings to support the
claim would be nice, but rather what kind of results and due to what
process.
As Mario pointed out it takes little time to remove the bridge on a guitar
and glue a "parabolic" one, then unglue it and glue a small footprint
bridge with sharp corners, same weight, cut from the same blank. Record
every experiment and see what the differences are. Takes a week at most.
That would be a somewhat scientific approach.
BTW I've seen and played octagonal-shaped cymbals and heard no
difference because of the shape. Zildjian and Paiste made those in the
'80.
The end of Jay Hanson quote is:
"Moreover, scientific doctrine is based upon "observation and experiment"
(and is subject to revision), but religious doctrine is based upon "revealed
truth" (and is immutable)."

_________________
Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Guys, I am the most intuitive and non-scientific builder here. Al and I have gotten into many head-butting sessions on this fact, remember? But I do like to see back-to back testing on a hypothesis, and if historical data and examples of thousands speak against a hypothesis, then something's wrong with it.


I never told any of you to sharpen the edges of your braces. I enever said it was the secret to my sound. I do it because I like how it looks <bg> And, dang it, it seems to work. I'm sure if i rounded them all off my guitars would still sound like my guitars, but thatw asn't the point. The point was that accroding to Scott's absolute statement, sharp edges are bad, and round is good.

I've never told anybody to butt their braces tight against each other. In fact, I don't myself. But Scott made a strong statement that doing so was bad, yet we have thousands of the world's greatest steel string guitars built that way, with sharp edges to boot.

Don't cha think the hypothesis needs a review at this point?

Alright, I'll joins the fray... another MIFL here (Mathematician In a Former
Life )

First off, well said Grant.

And B) I think we are dealing with two issues here - the science bit
(whether or not the data exists to support claims) and the science vs.
"religion" bit.

As for the science bit I think everyone would agree that the guitar as a
system is pretty close to my former area of focus, chaos theory, in that it
has an ungodly number of inseparable variables that affect the system as
a whole in not always obvious or predictable ways. There are those that
choose to study this 'system' by trying to limit the number of variables in
play (or more realistically keep those variables in somewhat stable states)
in order to study the effects of changing other variables in measured
ways. There are also those that choose to study the system more as a
whole - poking around at things and observing the changes to the
behavior of the system, one example of this 'system' at a time. These are
both valid approaches that can be carried out successfully within the
scientific method, but here is where the second issues comes to play.

When observations are made and conclusions are drawn and explanations
given, they still must be held to the scrutiny of peers. This is how
we find out "what's goin' on" as it were. When claims are made that don't
stand up to this scrutiny, we must revise our claims to fit with the
new data. If new data is ignored, because it conflicts with our original
claims, or we are not willing to collect data, but the claims anyway, then
we have religion.

I am not pointing fingers here, I am just saying that there is plenty of
room in science, good science, for "I don't know why, it just seems to
behave that way." but there is no room for "I know exactly why, so I won't
test it."

I think we all want to understand how this wonderful instrument works,
and there are a lot of very observant people very sensitive to the tapestry
of sound it can make, and that should not be discredited just because we
haven't found an accurate way of measuring it yet. But most importantly
we need to be rigorous with our studies and unafraid of what we might
find.

I'll step off my soapbox with a little something from Diderot I think is
appropriate:
"A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it ...
Skepticism is the first step toward truth."

Cheers,
-Dave

Man, you guys are FAST! Three new posts in the time it took me to type
mine! (Did I mention I studied math? i.e. "hunt and peck typist" )

[QUOTE=Bob Steidl]
[QUOTE=Dave White]
please correct me if I'm wrong as its over 30 years since I studied Mathematics at Cambridge University, but nearly all sciences have at their core certain axioms on which everything else is based. These axioms by their nature can be neither proved or disproved, they are in effect "beliefs" and if they fail everything built on them crumbles. Sound familiar?

[/QUOTE]

Indeed, that is wrong because it is a misrepresentation of the process. You imply that these axioms have little to no foundation, when in fact their foundation is so well understood and has proven so consistently reliable as to be almost irrefutable. All of these axioms have withstood powerful scrutiny for hundreds of years if not longer, so the likelihood of a discipline collapsing because they are completely wrong is zero. They are a million miles (kilometers?) from belief because beliefs, by definition, have no physical evidence as a foundation.

[/QUOTE]

Sorry Bob, I can't resist one last response (truly meant as rational debate and not an emotive response) - as I'm with Mattia that things have to be totally spot on using the right terms (I'll agree that "hypothesis" is better than "theory").

That is your "inference" of what I wrote as I did not imply that or mean that as my point. You have confirmed that what I wrote is a factual statement - I was not describing any process. You make reasonable statements to support the axioms but they can't be proved. "Everything crumbles" was probably too strong a statement but lots of things change fundimentally.

You should probably have said "is probably zero" not "is zero". "Certanties" sometimes have a habit of disappearing - remember Einstein, and now even that may not be totally correct.

_________________
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

new data. If new data is ignored, because it conflicts with our original claims, or we are not willing to collect data, but the claims anyway, then we have religion

Bingo.

Grant: Now why didn't I just put it that way? Well said!

Dave: sorry 'bout the rant, but I think this quote of yours summarizes it excellently:

[quote]I am not pointing fingers here, I am just saying that there is plenty of room in science, good science, for "I don't know why, it just seems to behave that way." but there is no room for "I know exactly why, so I won't
test it."

I think we all want to understand how this wonderful instrument works, and there are a lot of very observant people very sensitive to the tapestry of sound it can make, and that should not be discredited just because we haven't found an accurate way of measuring it yet. But most importantly we need to be rigorous with our studies and unafraid of what we might find.[/quote]

To me, this epitomizes as scientific a manner of thinking as is practicable when it comes to building instruments.

Dave, thanks for not being offended by my disagreement. I'm all for constructive debate.

[QUOTE=Dave White]
You make reasonable statements to support the axioms but they can't be proved.
[/QUOTE]

That's another red herring (I am talking about fish?). Proof is a matter of degree, and something of an artifact of the scale at which we are examining a phenomenon. I can prove that gravity exists by any number of examples, but the mechanism by which gravity works is still not well understood. So by your arguement, gravity may not really exist as a force because we have no mechanism. That "no proof" thing does not hold here.

[QUOTE=Dave White]
You should probably have said "is probably zero" not "is zero". "Certanties" sometimes have a habit of disappearing - remember Einstein, and now even that may not be totally correct.[/QUOTE]

Believe it or not (oh no, not belief!) I had "probably" in there but took it out, because there are some phenomena that are so well understood that they might as well be considered fact. Those are what scientists refer to as theories in unfortunate contrast to how the word is used in colloquially. Few if any of those will ever be abandonded.

Certainly, I leave lots of room for refinement and adjustment, but VERY little room for complete abandonment. Realize that science is my vocation, so I have come to a pretty high appreciation for things that distinguish truth from bullsh*t.

Your Einstein example may be a case in point. The idea that is relativity has most certainly NOT been abandonded. It has and will continue to be developed and refined. The principal idea is still as applicable and as profound as ever. It is a theory.

So mostly I see you as using extremely small possibilities as a way to imply that scientists abandon strong, well-founded frameworks routinely. That's just not so, and we'll may habve to agree to disagree.

I'm just fine with that.

no postScott van Linge38749.6731134259

Physics, (The science of guitar acoustics is part of physics), can be defined by the following sentence:

Find a mathematical equation that gives that same values as those observed in the physical world.

The scientific process consists of doing the above and then, using the new equation, express some previously unobserved phenomonon. Construct an experiment that allows you to measure the physical system and see if the real world behaves like the equation. Depending on how off-the-wall the new hypothesis is, you may have to do this process many times to create a convencing theory. If at any time the measured values do not match the equation, you have to either find a flaw in the measurement or modify the equation. Sometimes, you throw it out and start over.

I agree that guitar acoustics are chaotic. However, chaotic systems are not completely beyond analysis. Consider a waterfall in a river. Down stream from the waterfall the river forks into two branches. You can drop two corks into the river above the waterfall and it is almost impossible to predict which branch each cork will take down stream. However, the corks will always go down stream and never work their way back up the waterfall. Just because the system is chaotic, doesn't mean we know nothing about it.

Getting back to guitar acoustice we have the example of the "bonk test". Record the sound generate by hitting the saddle of a guitar with a hard object. Do an FFT analysis on this recorded sound and you will get the sound resonance of the guitar across the whole spectrum. That is upto the amount of time the object is in contact with the saddle. In guitars, it has been observed that there a several areas that have peaks in the response and that changing the shape of these beaks has noticable effects on the sound of the guitar. However, above about 1K hertz, the FFT shows us a very complex patter on overlapping resonances. What, if anything, you can do to the guitar to alter these resonances is unknown and may be chaotic and practically unknowable. If this is the area that is the most important for the sound of the quitar, we're screwed and this techniques will not give us any predictive power. On the other hand, the range below 1K hertz does seem to respond to things like brace patter, shape, weight, etc (all the things luthiers do to effect the sound). It would be pretty kool if we could draw correlations between particular shapes of the spectrum and characteristic of the sound of the guitar. We could then say something like "If you make the pattern look like this, it will sound like that". We aren't there yet but there is some room for optimisum.

Science of the guitar is hard. Lab technique is crucial. Only a few luthiers are bothering to do this and that is OK because it takes a certain mind set to be able and interrested in taking this approach. The rest of us are busy building and applying the techniques that we have learned to make the best guitars we can with surprising consistancy. (Well, others are much more consistant than I am)

[QUOTE=Bob Steidl] Dave, thanks for not being offended by my
disagreement. I'm all for constructive debate.

Proof is a matter of degree, and something of an artifact of the scale at
which we are examining a phenomenon. I can prove that gravity exists by
any number of examples, but the mechanism by which gravity works is
still not well understood.
....

Your Einstein example may be a case in point. The idea that is relativity
has most certainly NOT been abandonded. It has and will continue to be
developed and refined. The principal idea is still as applicable and as
profound as ever. It is a theory.

[/QUOTE]

I'm in no way offended! I think we are fundamentally in agreement here. I
was going to bring up the proof discussion but decided not to. Since it's
now being discussed...

The only real proofs we have are mathematical because they are based on
our own mathematical constructs. In the scientific realm where things are
based on nature we only have ways of disproving things. All you have to
do is document that apples fall up and the theory of gravitation needs
some serious ammending. However, everything we do have has been
rigorously scrutinized so that after time, we can say that we're pretty
darned sure that apples will continue to fall down. Apples MAY fall up
tomorrow, but there is no basis for suggesting they will nor should we
seriously entertain the possibility without some new compelling data.

How does this apply to guitarmaking? I think chaos theory lends a hand in
how we can look at all this. If we embrace the idea that patterns and
behaviors can be described and predicted in some way even if we can't
make much headway with our more traditional "variable-elimination"
methods, then we can at least further our underdtanding of the guitar on
a system-level. Please note that I am not suggesting that this line of
study is somehow outside the realm of the scientific method!

Lard all around!!! This is fun guys!

Cheers,
-Dave

[QUOTE=Mike Mahar]

I agree that guitar acoustics are chaotic. However, chaotic systems are
not completely beyond analysis. Consider a waterfall in a river. Down
stream from the waterfall the river forks into two branches. You can drop
two corks into the river above the waterfall and it is almost impossible to
predict which branch each cork will take down stream. However, the
corks will always go down stream and never work their way back up the
waterfall. Just because the system is chaotic, doesn't mean we know
nothing about it.

It would be pretty kool if we could draw correlations between particular
shapes of the spectrum and characteristic of the sound of the guitar. We
could then say something like "If you make the pattern look like this, it
will sound like that". We aren't there yet but there is some room for
optimisum.

[/QUOTE]

As Mario would say... BINGO!

   This thread reminds me of a great quote by one of my favorites, Mr. George Bernard Shaw.

   The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

_________________
I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Scott:
The IR test would be interesting, and should be easy enough. The CCDs in digital cameras are much more sensitive at IR wavelengths than they are at visible, iirc. When they first came out there was some embarrassment about it: with some settings the early ones could effecively 'see through' clothes... The manufacturers had to make changes in the circuits to prevent that. For that matter, you could scan with an IR diode, available at the local RadShack, the last time I looked, or just monitor 'hot spots'.

I think a lot about something Feynman said in his essay: "Cargo Cult Science". It was given as a graduation address, and he pointed out that, with all their training, it was possible that the students had still not been told the most important thing: that you have to be careful not to fool people, and you are the easiest person to fool.

It's not generally possible in science to 'prove' that some idea is true, but you can sometimes prove that it's not. A good scientist is always looking for the experiment that will prove him wrong. If it doesn't, then he's more likely to be right, and if it does, then he can publish it before somebody else does and avoid the oprobrium. By working in this way, a scientist avoids fooling himself, and, in the process, avoids fooling others too.

It's especially easy to fool yourself when dealing with things like guitars. They are so darned complicated that it's pretty much impossible to say for sure sometimes what, exactly, happened when you made a change. In addition, there's no agreed on terminology: my 'bright' might be your 'harsh', and so on. Finally, for lots of good and easily understood reasons, it's just very hard to objectively measure differences that most of us can hear very easily. OTOH, there are things we can measure that you can't hear!

As Scott points out, he and I have 'agreed to disagree' to some extent. I can't see how some of the stuff he talks about is supposed to work, and he does not get much out of my approach. Them's the breaks, folks. I think we will eventually sort it all out, but it's going to take a while, and I would not be at all surprised if, by the time we do, nobody is playing guitars any more!

[QUOTE=Bob Steidl] Dave, thanks for not being offended by my
disagreement. I'm all for constructive debate.

[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=dgalas] I'm in no way offended! I think we are fundamentally in
agreement here.

[/QUOTE]

It just occured to me that I may not be that Dave...

Cheers,
-Dave G

no postScott van Linge38749.6719907407

Scott: hey, my digicam still has a shutter!

Also, if you've still got your film setup, or how sensitive IR film is (I know you can buy it), but there's that option to consider. Most, if not all modern digital cameras (and certainly DSLRs) have IR filters in front of the CCDs for precisely this reason. I've seen various websites showing how people modified their cameras (voiding the warranty) to take IR pictures, making them incapable of making non-IR photographs, and the results were pretty darn cool. Not cool enough to warrant taking apart a 900 dollar camera to turn it into a gimmicky one-trick pony, but still.

[QUOTE=Alan Carruth]

I think a lot about something Feynman said in his essay: "Cargo Cult Science". It was given as a graduation address, and he pointed out that, with all their training, it was possible that the students had still not been told the most important thing: that you have to be careful not to fool people, and you are the easiest person to fool.

It's not generally possible in science to 'prove' that some idea is true, but you can sometimes prove that it's not. A good scientist is always looking for the experiment that will prove him wrong. If it doesn't, then he's more likely to be right, and if it does, then he can publish it before somebody else does and avoid the oprobrium. By working in this way, a scientist avoids fooling himself, and, in the process, avoids fooling others too. [/QUOTE]

Exactly. This is how I was trained. Think up your hypothesis, then try to disprove it, don't personalise it. Would have been helpful if they'd included it in a lecture or graduation address that I attended before I hit the workforce .

Hi Scott

I hope you are not completly fed up with this post.

For my own interest I had a couple of questions, when retuning how do you handle a guitar that is already scalloped, do you simply have to work with what you have got, or do you have another method ?

On your own Guitars do all of the braces arch equally from the centre, and during fine tuning do you try to keep them this way ?

Many Thanks

Russell