Official Luthiers Forum!

Tony I don't dispute you there on that.

To slightly change this discussion what's the opinion on scalloping and tapering top braces? In a GAL article on John D'Aquisto it stated he never used scaloping or tapered his top bracing. He built amazing sounding guitars even so. So what are you opinions on the purpose of scaloping and tapering. There were a lot of old guitars that were built without this technique and they still sounded great. What does it add?

In practice, and I hope Allen jumps in on this. Scalloping is a way to thin brace in a specific area to allow the top to vibrat in that area a bit free'r Just as you would thin a tops thickness during voicing. My opinion is is helpfull in making a overly bright guitar warmer. and helps cut down on over all bracing weight with out giving up to much in terms of brace stength.

A large part of the popularity of scalloped braces comes from the 60's when Martin was compairing their current models to their Pre-war models. After many years of their market telling them that the guitars just did not sound as good as they use to, they started goning through the the variances in the models form then to what they were doing at the time. Martin attributed the biggest variance to be "Scalloped bracing". The pre-war models had it. therre curent models at the time didn't. Or so the story goes.MichaelP38889.5155324074

So would the article be on JAMES D'Aquisto, or JOHN D'Angelico ???? these guys built mainly (exclusively almost) archtops, way different animals than an X braced Martin flattop with either straight or scalloped braces.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

A lot of the tone of a particular guitar comes from the way the different resonant modes relate to each other. These frequency relationships are estabblished in part by the way the bracing is shaped, as well as things like the brace angles and top thickness profile. Whether they think about it in terms of frequencies and impedances or not, every successful guitar maker learns to work with these things to get the tone they want. Jim D'Aquisto didn't particularly like the tone of a rosewood Martin Dread: or at least that's what he said when I heard him in Boston at the GAL cxonvention in '79. He was coming from a different place, working for a diferent tone, and he seems to have got it from straight bracing.

[QUOTE=TonyKarol] So would the article be on JAMES D'Aquisto, or JOHN D'Angelico ???? these guys built mainly (exclusively almost) archtops, way different animals than an X braced Martin flattop with either straight or scalloped braces.[/QUOTE]
Tony yes the article was on james D'Aquisto it is in the GAL big red book 4 it is the first article in there. I understand that they are basicly two different animals. If x-bracing is so important for it's ability to affect tone. Why then wouldn't it be used on an arch top? Isnt tone important on a archtop? Couldn't they use this technique to fine tune an archtops sound. I know the tunning of an archtop top tone has a lot to do with the carving of the top but couldnt scaloping also have some benifit?

Agreed Michael .. you could use scalloped bracing, or tapered or straight, and see what the effect of each has on the sound of your guitars. And then on an archtop, you could use single or double parallel (or close to it) or X, or possibly even none depending on how you graduated the top - you couldnt say the same about a flattop I believe and get something that sounded very good. In my guitars the X is there to somewhat regulate tone (I taper, no scallop), but more so to prevent the top from collapsing.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

This get complicated, and it's late. Let's just say that a lot of what you do with the braces on a flat top gets taken care of with the arch on an archtop. Archtop builders spend as much time learning about arch shapes as flat top makers do learning about brace profiles. That is to say: it's endless....