Official Luthiers Forum!

Jaosn Kostal in and interview talked about manipulating the sound of a tonewood, to direct it somewhat, tempering certain qualities and augmenting or increase others.
Talking about Maple, he mentioned increasing "the bass response through various construction methods, warm the trebles and balance the mids"
I was wondering what one might change in construction methods to achieve this?
Build lighter? Increase/decrease stiffness of the back? Graduating the back?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

one of my favorite Maple guitars used a torrified red spruce top 5/16 forward shifted braces with a small bridge plate.
top was sanded to .115 and ending up about .105
I also had the tone bars about 3/8 off parallel to each other

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I have built several Maple OMs with Rosewood inner lams on the double sides. They have been very well received by some very good players, one of whom was a National fingerstyle winner a while back.

The comments have been that the Rosewood warms up the sound a bit. As I recall the tops were either Lutz or Sitka.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I have only ever made one maple guitar so no expert here but I like the adage that the tone comes from the top, mostly. Build with a active back and scalloped braced top and you will bring the bass out of anything.

I think maple brings a certain "dryness" and emphasis on the fundamental to the sound of the guitar. That's not a bad thing. Just less "reverb-y" or "overtone-y" than stuff like rosewood. Like it's appearance, it offers a different color to the sound. But I don't think that's the same as bass / middle / treble response.

When I think of "various construction methods" that will change the bass response, a few things come to mind. Scalloped braces, or a more aggressive tapering towards the edge of the guitar. Top and back plates thinned toward the edge of the guitar. Slightly deeper body. Slightly smaller sound hole. Forward shift of the braces. Bridge plate material and thickness is probably also a factor, though not as drastic as these others IMHO. I'm not experienced enough (and probably never will be) to consistently find the balance of all these things. But I'm sure a builder like Kostal has these things well within his control, and is playing with a number of these variables to get the most out of each guitar.