The Future of Electric Guitars? Sprig Prototype - Full Build
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- Опубліковано 2 тра 2024
- Documenting the design and production of the inaugural Sprig, my first original guitar model. I made Sprig from the ground up to be completely free of deforestation, only using invasive Tree of Heaven biomass and otherwise reclaimed wood. I also utilize as much aluminum as is possible, for its sustainable infinite-recyclability, durability, and bell-like sonic qualities. It's my best attempt yet to embody the environmentalist message of Tree for the Taking, and my new favorite instrument!
Feb-April 2024.
bgm: sampling.bandcamp.com/album/sapling
#guitar #luthier #environment #diy
All rights reserved - Sam Aronson 2024
Great ideas. Will check out ecopoxy. Love the body shape too🎉❤
Amazing guitar. I love folks making unique guitars-as opposed to very typical Fender and Gibson based designs. And you playing at the end was fantastic too.
Thanks so much, and I’m glad you appreciate the value of something different!
Tbh - it's always very pleasing to see people make things using hands, you know? Not speaking of machinery (When people just make a huge metal drill just go along the board and make the shape) but rather when a human takes the plank and makes it into what we know as a guitar. All the praises, man!
Hmm. That Seymour 54 Tele neck pickup is THE greatest pickup I've ever found - and you seem to know that, too. So clear and warm - even better than the real vintage ones!
And it wasn’t even expensive! I have it nice and far from the strings for the most clarity possible too, straight into the amp for the demo. Thanks for the comment, very glad to see it’s a well loved pickup!
Sounds vintage, jazzy and cool! Great work!
Thank you!
Very cool! You just popped up into my feed, so I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this!
Thanks! Glad to hear it!
Awesome build! Super glad I stumbled upon your channel. The music is great too, thanks for sharing and congratulations for this beautiful project ☺️
Thanks so much, grateful for the praise!
I'd like to hear more about what motivates these design choices.
Noted, thank you for the comment! Any specific questions? I will happily make a separate video about my thought process and logic, there was a lot of personal preference that materialized admittedly.
I think personal preference is paramount. I know a lot of creation develops through implementation, and discovery, but there's something beautiful about inspiration & technique weaving its way through the ages.
Like using a leaf as a stencil, there's something very human about that. Certainly even if it's not parallel thinking, it's still somewhat original to you, but that part of the narrative. That part of the story of this guitar, is that not part of its creation? Is that not one of the most valuable things you can add to a work, the precedence that will capture people's attention?
Why use the materials you use, what rituals do you do that have no material benefit to the piece?
Maybe I'm not asking anything of you, maybe I am just struggling with my own definition of work. I apologize if this is all too much.
I love the idea of using a fast growing invasive plant like tree of heaven to make a composite, really cool. Have you considered taking some inspiration from the old Danelectro guitars, and making a composite frame (maybe with a center block?) and sandwiching the aluminum sheets on front and back? It could lighten things up and maybe make the molding process for the composite a little easier. Seems like you have a lot of options to play around with, cool project!
Yes! Thanks for this lovely comment and kind words. I have thought of a skeletonized composite rim like you suggested but wanted to avoid the feeling of cold metal against one’s torso while playing if that makes any sense. However, if that doesn’t sound like it’d bother anyone besides me I’d love to try it out as it could probably yield a
Sweet!
Thanks!
Really creative stuff, I love your approach to material choice. The different challenges you experienced working with each makes me wonder how much trial and error there must have been for guitar companies such as Valco who experimented with unusual materials like fiberglass, odd plastic coverings and magnesium starting in the late 40s through the 60s.
Thanks so much! Yes, I stand on the shoulders of giants. Prototyping is bliss!
Love the music. Very cool guitar!
Thank you!
Ooh! I like that body design!
I’m very glad, thank you!
@@treeforthetakingThis video reminded me that I have some HDPE boards that I made from milk bottles, it was just an offshoot of a reclamation of 3D printing PLA waste to make some boards for bee hives, I had some milk bottles and so I decided to grind those up and make some of the boards from those.
I am thinking of making a body with veneers of ebony or buy in some flamed maple or flamed sycamore.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Love the design! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone sandwich a bolt-on neck the way you did. That’s super cool! And the fact that you’ve made your own sustainable composite material really completes the design ethos. If there’s any way I can be a part of your process I’d be honored. Would you be open to discussing the possibility of using Idle Pickups in the Sprig? I have many established models you could try or we could work together to design something bespoke
Thanks and nice to meet you! So grateful for the kind words and interest. I think your Idle Child pickup looks pretty perfect for what I have in mind for the next Sprig, and I’ve just placed an order. I’m glad you like the neck sandwich, it represents the intersection of me being an audiophile and loving sustainable industrial design. We should talk about a maximally sustainable toaster-top pickup!
@@treeforthetaking I’d love to! I’ll fill your order and we’ll be in touch!
Главное в любом деле:это творческая мысль. Интересно как будет звучать этот инструмент?
not sure if its the aluminum top or not.. but the fat strings sound very similar to bass strings.... something very noticeable anyhow... or might just be the combination of pickups and metal just the same... i mean at some point using different materials... the resonation will most certainly be affected.... all and all.. interesting to see someone craft their own guitar... a playable one at that.
Thanks for the comment, I bet some of that even comes from my right hand technique too. Glad you enjoyed witnessing the process and appreciating the tones, stay tuned to see if the next one sounds similar since it’ll be braced with aluminum instead of wood as well this time around.
Kudos for trying something different - and for the new YT channel! Epoxy resin is not my cup of tea (I don't consider mega-chemical plants to be eco-friendly....maybe some are better than others...) but to each their own. I realize this is a prototype build.. so as such I hope you're keeping careful track of all the places you had to do time-consuming handwork late in the process - paring down the internal blocking by hand... changing the neck pocket by hand... having to re-thickness your headstock late in the game. They're just workflow issues but will save you days and eventually weeks, and if you're trying to manufacture something for sale (vs. just building a one-off for your own enjoyment), every second saved shows up at your bottom line. Also realize aluminum works just like wood with carbide tools. No need to hack away with a jeweler's saw 🙂.
A little constructive critique about the video production...the volume of your music where it's at underneath your voice-over is about right for in-general, and half of that for your voice-over. Right now it's making the video unlistenable on both my laptop and iPhone - had to mute it and guess when you were speaking... and even then it's often competing with your voice. You want to check it carefully on the same kind of devices people are going to use to listen.. the mix will sound completely different on each. Good luck with your channel.
Looks pretty cool buddy! Pro tip, all your router bits will cut through aluminum about as easily as wood. I have a whole stockpile of plastic pickguards I keep as templates. I do the CA glue and masking tape trick with some scrap 1/8" pieces of wood for a spacer and I've cut about 20 ish pickguards out 16ga-3/16" aluminum.
Thanks so much for the advice, this is exactly the kind of comment I love to see! I’m about to need to do this for the square aluminum tube bracing I installed in the second Sprig since it’s a bit high, but I ordered an end mill thinking it would be more suited for this even though it lacks the template bearing. This just might sway me to try and do it with the router, because otherwise I was considering chucking that into my drill press! Very grateful for the reference experience my friend, much appreciated.
@@treeforthetaking any time. I have an unlimited supply of aluminum @ my work so I've made quite a few guitars using aluminum in just about every aspect of the building process.
You refer to the design as kyrily (sp) symmetric. I'm not familiar with that type of symmetry and can't find any definition for it. Can you please explain what it means, or did I mishear it?
Good catch! Chirality is mainly a chemistry concept and refers to non-superimposable mirroring, i.e. like handedness or the direction of a screw’s threads. The design was created through one edge profile flipped around a centerline, which is normal mirror image symmetry, but because the molds have a front and a back I thought they were more chiral than normally symmetrical.
@Tree for the Taking
¿Qué tipo de madera es el Árbol del cielo?, es la 1ra vez lo oígo. Aquí en España Palma de Mallorca creo no hay ningún tipo de árbol así.
23:27 "la tuerca se mueve" ¿quieres decir del clavijero?, ¿se desafinaba?.
23:37 cablearla. ¿para enchufar al amplificador?, ¿no tenia que ser acústica solamente?.
24:45 Tapa de elantis, ¿es un tipo de aluminio?, aquí en España no me suena haya.
24:49 Los *soportes donde irán encima los potenciómetros ¿son de acero?, ¿los has fabricado, o cogidos de otra guitarra?.
24:58 No lo sé adivinar, ¿qué le puede hacer al sonido una tapa hecha de material de campana?.
25:06 (En imagen parada) Es la 1ra vez que veo ese tipo de pastilla de sólo 4 micros, ¿qué tipos son?.
Al final del video, ¿la pruebas enchufada?.
Pienso... que las guitarras eléctricas del futuro deberian no necesitar ser enchufadas para hacerlas sonar. Me acuerdo hay un video de Yamaha con uno o varios modelos de guitarras acústicas (incluyendo las españolas clásicas y flamencas) con unos botones en el lado amplificaban el volumen.
Good video except for the portions shot in vertical (portrait) mode; I skipped those. We have widescreen monitors so video should be widescreen.
I just love the look of hardwood tops too much :(
If that doesn’t rule out appreciating knotty Cedar, check out the first two prototypes I made! They each have a page on treeforthetaking.com, thanks for watching!
Too fast ! I understand nothing ... Is it a joke ?
Hahaha yes! 🫶
DEFINITELY WOULDN'T RECOMMEND PLAYING ONE WITHOUT SAFETY GLASSES ! 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂
lol what??
@@treeforthetaking ALL THE EXCESS STRING LENGTH STICKING UP NEAR YOUR FACE & EYES. L.O.L.
🤓
@@treeforthetaking much better l.o.l.
This is very interesting work, but I will say... it's pretty ironic to make a guitar out of a supposedly sustainable material, but to use MDF and HDPE as internal forms that get destroyed in the process. Really a very unsustainable production method.
As I mentioned in the video, they should be reusable with the reapplication of tyvek tape. But that is part of why I’m looking to improve my mold making approach as these are still prototypes. Other options include a silicone enclosure for the form, either way it’s definitively a work in progress and only my third ever guitar. I’m looking forward to achieving infinite reuse as well as improvements in commercially available bio-resins, but one cannot learn without iteration. Thanks for the comment!