Ken is the savior of the Guitar industry. He began a company in a time when everyone was mass producing. His innovation and inspiration to create new thought process if it new thought process and push the boundaries of what is totally possible has inspired thousands.
I am very fortunate to have a beautiful family and I live by the sea in a nice house in Spain, and right now I am going to use the most beautiful and sophisticated object I own. my parker fly, I am moved every time I see it. by the way it is perfect among other sounds, to play jazz. Until now I was a jeweler artisan, and soon I will start making guitars for me and who knows... ken: Thank you for your art. You inspire me completely
Lovely bowl, great for whipping eggs for baking. Professional bakers prefer copper bowls for egg whites, saying that they get better “lift or volume “ by same. Something about the chemistry I believe is the claim. Whoda thunk it? Another great history lesson mixed with physics explanations. You are doing a fantastic service Mr. Parker, thanks for your generosity. Now for the show and tell about your super curved bottom plane construction!
Whipped cream too! Although there are at least two fiercely held opinions as regards this subject, (no surprise here) some think that there is a chemical contribution from the copper that means you don't need Cream of Tartar to get the best results. I like this copper bowl for whipping egg whites or cream, and I think that perhaps getting all the metals as cold as possible makes the best whipped cream, and quickly, too. Yum. We should consult Maestro Chef Michael Greenfield and get his take on this esoterica!
Thank you, Ken! Making top and back graduation, the dome, by hand is like getting along with the unknown and making a friend. Not always easy, not always without problems, but always rewarding. You make the best friend when you deal with her/him/it in real situations. Every spruce top, every back is different, full of surprises. When one graduates the dome using a pantograph copier, all surprises are left for a player. What a waste of an opportunity to make a statement! Regards!
Is the arched top purely to provide strength allowing for a thinner carve and less bracing? As you showed a flat sheet vibrates more easily so does the arch reduce sustain?.Would a classical nylon guitar be improved with an arched top? Thanks for your interesting videos and sharing your knowledge.
The domed shape does exactly what you suggest. The stronger shape gives us a another design path in the quest to build a guitar body that's lighter, more responsive and more efficient. Sustain does depend on good design, so its possible to build an archtop with poor sustain, or poor anything else, for that matter. About classical archtops, it's an open question, as not too many of us have tried. My friend Mirko Borghino has built quite a few, and they amplify very well. www.borghinoguitars.com/guitars-archtop-bb1.html In 1980 I built a 17" acoustic archtop designed for nylon strings, and although it was crazy light at 3 pounds, and super thin (the perimeter of the back at the recurve was .040" 0r 1 mm), I never liked the response, and finally ended up making a 6 string neck for light bronze strings. I suspect that there is room here for some fruitful discovery with a nylon Archtop. Maybe you'll build one?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks Ken. I watched some videos of Francesco Buzzurro playing his Borghino nylon archtop and it clearly demonstrates the value of the design to play crisp clear notes. I would love to progress my woodwork to that level, but still at the wobbly table stage unfortunately.
For your domed/arched tops carving, and referencing the violin you showed cross-sections of, do you follow a similar profile of thinner thicknesses toward the middle with a slightly thicker perimeter for the plates?
As I mentioned, most builders leave the center of the plate a bit thicker than the perimeter. You can think of the perimeter and recurve zones as serving the same function as the speaker's "surround", or flexable perimeter... www.headstockdistribution.com/technology/loudspeaker-parts-2 The object is to create a weakened edge zone to free the plate in order to support bass response. This is a very big deal, and doesn't seem to be widely understood in the archtop field. As an aside, even though this 250 year old viola we're looking at seems relatively whole and original, it may have been regraduated. For better or worse, it is very common for a repairperson to tinker with graduation (remove wood from the inside of the plates) while the instrument is apart for doing routine repairs such as re-edging, or replacing/regluing the bass bar. This kind of "Hotrodding" has been so prevalent that it's very difficult to be sure what condition the instrument was in when it was new, which is a Bummer. My general advice on this is to leave original work alone, and if you think you have a better idea, just build it yourself and see if you're right.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Guitars and the violin family surely diverge in this regard. On a violin or viola, the bridge is located towards the centre, and there’s also the sound-post, connecting the top with the back & ribs to create more of an acoustically *radiating* instrument. Stradivari and Guarneri soundboards are believed to have been thinner (2.0-2.9mm centre) than those of their contemporaries, but as you’ve said, most of these instruments were worked on subsequently, especially when players moved away from gut strings. Given the idea that the resonance of your back & sides is valuable, perimeter flexibility and recurve would certainly seem significant.
Hi Ken, I was curious is you had an opinion on the Pinned Bridge "Halfling" that Tom Ribbecke builds? It has an arched, carved top and a pinned bridge and bone saddle. I've had a chance to play one and thought it had a lovely tone. It was pretty heavily braced, however and could have used some additional carving to free up the top (at least that is how it appeared to me). Thank you.
I'm afraid I can't really speak to an instrument that's not in the room with me. This glued and pinned bridge is part of Orville Gibson's original archtop guitar design. He never used a tailpiece / movable bridge design on an archtop guitar as far as I know. The way I see it, heavy braces are heavy braces, and you can't change them by thinning the top. Tom's built a lot of good guitars!
Could a top be softened, and molded into the desired shape in a form, then be stabilized with braces? That would reduce wood waste, and might yield a better result more efficiently. After all, sides are bent, not carved.
Iffen you take a look at my bracing chapter available at Archtoppery.com You'll see that lots of folks have tried this, likely as far back as the early Renaissance. In this article, I include a photo of an early helpless pressed Stromberg top with oodles of braces and lollipop sticks glued all over the place to try to hold the top in the intended shape. On the other hand, I'm told that there are some very skillful violin makers who have built exceptional instruments with tortured spruce tops. Check out this brilliant builder describing her techniques... helenviolinmaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dartington-talk-transcript-with-pics.pdf Oops, I guess I need to say that tortured wood bending involves bending in two directions, unlike sides which are bent only in one plane. As you may imagine, wood is not especially happy to bend in two planes, which is why we call this extreme and problematic high wire act "torturing" . There is also a kind of composite method, with carved "wings", where most of the compound curves are located, joined to a central section which is bent. Of course, in the violin making world, there's a lot of controversy and spitting on the ground, but much remains to be explored. Have a taste of this discussion... maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/347667-working-with-wood-plasticisers-to-bend-top-and-back/page/3/ In my experience, I haven't come across a guitar with a top made in this way that got me interested, but none of us have seen it all. Good luck!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks for the detailed reply. I will definitely check out the links you provided. 👍😎 Edited: I found the article on HelenViolinMaker interesting, particularly where she wrote at the end: "20. How do bent fronts sound different? I’ve now made 25 violas and one violin with bent fronts. I’ve found that these instruments are more powerful, more responsive, and have a greater spectrum of tone colour than thoseI’ve made with carved fronts. According to an article by Joseph Curtin in the Strad,(reference 2) the acoustically best wood is that which has the greatest stiffness-density ratio. Bending rather than carving wood increases the stiffness of any piece you have." That is what I'd expect, but agreeing and doing are not at all the same thing. I was thinking along the lines that when you have a really nice piece of wood, the more tops you can get from it the better, and if it sounds and performs better if bent into shape, then that's a win. Thanks again.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Hey Ken, I’m glad someone else asked this as was wondering the same thing myself (though I also haven’t yet got to your bracing section video). My thoughts were concerned with the fact that we’re taking quarter sawn (i.e. vertical grained) wood for the back and sides, and what differences in strength there may be between steam bending say a top into shape, whereby the original grain orientation is to some degree still retained, whereas there will be parts of the top where carved that I was imagining you would be creating a shearing force where the compression or tension is imposed on what has become more ‘end grain’ oriented by the carving process. Obviously I’m completely wrong about this, but as you are so very thorough in your examination of each element of the subject I had wondered if you considered the effects on the strength of the wood in carving out a quarter sawn top versus a domed shape arrived at through bending 🤔 Anyway, will watch the section you suggest on bracing to see if this covers my thoughts on this aspect. Many thanks 👍
I personally like the term domed top for tops that are bent significantly by bracing and carved for what you would call archtops as they are carved from a thicker piece . Now modern flattops are also slightly domed and theres pliaged or cranked tops ( wich i build as well) that kind of muddy the water
It's true that most "flat top" builders now use a shallow domed form to brace and shape the tops and backs, but this is very different from the relatively large developed curves of a carved plate. Call them archtops if you like, but I see it diffferently. The transition to this kind of domed building results from and exposes the terrible design/abilities of a flat plate to behave properly over time and resist the kind of forces administered by the strings. Clearly, a little curvature is a big help geometrically! The big difference from these stressed domed tops and what I do is that the domed flat top guitars have no recurve, and therefore, in my. opinion, will nevr achieve the power and sensitivity of a carved, developed plate. One man's opinion. Why not go all the way and really give the plate a chance to move some air?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440interesting, havent built an archtop yet so didnt even consider the recurve part of it having an effect on the movement of the plate. Might have to do a deep dive on that tonight
Well, this is certainly an interesting question all right! I think you must be referencing the Guadanini instrument starting at 5:20 or so. i don't think I'm the one to ask, but maybe I could reach out to a comrade or two and find out what the experts think. For my work, I try to be super accurate and make the thickness transitions as even as I can.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge gained from years of experience. I'm very curious about the optimal shape for the shell. The catenary shape looks really interesting, since as an arch it is the shape that produces no bending moment (and so, used in large structures). For a guitar top, it could either be rotated to create a dome, or translated to create a cylinder-like shape. However, I calculated the differences in surface between a constant-radius dome or cylinder and the catenary equivalent for typical height of an archtop guitar (I tried 10 mm, radius 1.9 m), and I found only small fractions of a mm difference, so I'm not sure it would really matter much in practice. So I thinking of trying a cylindrical shape on an archtop. I will be interested to hear about the purpose of the re-curve in a future video, and why one wouldn't just continue the curve of the dome to the edge.
All good questions, where to start? I never thought about surface area, or of building a cylindrical top either, although there are lots of builders who have. I'll say that some answers will shake out in the next segment, but the recurve is crucial, and gives the guitar its voice and power. Stay Tuned.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Sorry, I was unclear about "surface". I didn't mean area, I meant difference in heights of the arch on the outer surface of the top, for each shape. In other words, at the radius that would be used in an archtop, a catenary dome and a spherical dome, with the same high point, have surfaces that are practically co-incidental. You can't tell the difference between the two shapes at such a large radius.
@@gregholmberg2 Cool, I agree, and I don't think that important differences emerge from tiny model shape changes, but I Do believe that tiny thickness adjustments have Huge effects. It's hard to overstate this. Howe - Orme and Sobell guitars are worth a close look if you're interested in cylindrical forms, just not my thing.
If an Archtop is the "Universal Guitar" a standard flattop classical guitar would then be conequently just an optimization for an instrument requiring less stablitiy due to lower string tension. I am struggling with the term universal. Archtops are mainly used in Jazz for a specific reason which is their distinct sound. What is your understanding of universal in this regard?
Let me suggest that you sample some of the recordings on my site. The variety of sounds and styles is very broad, if not universal. Universal was Jimmy's word, I usually say versatile, perhaps the most versatile kind of guitar if properly constructed. Archtops have been mainly used as electric guitars since 1935, that is to say, strung with electric guitar strings and fitted with electromagnetic pickups, but it's not their fault. A light, responsive archtop with bronze strings behaves like a chameleon by enabling many different styles of players to express themselves musically and sound great in many different ways. Have a listen!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks Ken. I should have done this in the first place but was too drawn into your UA-cam series. Now I can hear and understand what you mean. It is this "universe" of ringing overtones, tonal spectrum and clarity which sounds different with every player and every style of music. Your instruments become alive by the dedication, craftsmanship and innovative engineering skills which go into them. Listening to the audio samples is even more amazing than following the process of creation. Being an engineer I am always too tempted to analyze than just to listen.
@@MrBruneaux Fantastic! An engineer with ears! Thanks for your kind words. After all, the big picture is that the instrument is a tool for the guitarist, so that makes me a toolmaker / humble servant of musicians. I love my gig.
It's a little frustrating trying to understand Martin's foray into archtop manufacturing, as knowledgeable folks seem to have different takes on just how the Martin archtop story played out. I'll just sum it up from where I stand that Martin was late to the archtop party, and likely hoped it could help them survive the crushing Great Depression. They set out in a new direction, but made odd design choices, sticking closely to their expertise in building flat top designs (apart from the tops, bridges and tailpieces, they were really otherwise flat top gutiars), and seemingly skimped on their design/testing efforts, and so the guitars didn't attract the target players. They tried round holes, f holes, carved tops, pressed tops, rail braces, x braces, mahogany and Brazilian rosewood bodies, all to yawns from the marketplace. Of course they are nicely made, and the top F7 and F9 models were very, very expensive, but overall, archtops proved to be an expensive failure for Martin.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I speculated that this where the term "arch(ed)-top" originated ,with the Martin " R " Style to differentiate it from the carved-top "C" Style .
Love these talks Ken. I may be able to throw more light on why the edges of that viola are not thinner than the centre. I made many violins and read a lot of the older masters
Murray! Please do tell! Here's what I just wrote to another viewer on this subject... As I mentioned, most builders leave the center of the plate a bit thicker than the perimeter. You can think of the perimeter and recurve zones as serving the same function as the speaker's "surround", or flexable perimeter... www.headstockdistribution.com/technology/loudspeaker-parts-2 The object is to create a weakened edge zone to free the plate in order to support bass response. This is a very big deal, and doesn't seem to be widely understood in the archtop field. As an aside, even though this 250 year old viola we're looking at seems relatively whole and original, it may have been regraduated. For better or worse, it is very common for a repairperson to tinker with graduation (remove wood from the inside of the plates) while the instrument is apart for doing routine repairs such as re-edging, or replacing/regluing the bass bar. This kind of "Hotrodding" has been so prevalent that it's very difficult to be sure what condition the instrument was in when it was new, which is a Bummer. My general advice on this is to leave original work alone, and if you think you have a better idea, just build it yourself and see if you're right.
An interesting difference between Guitar and Violin is the way the string is excited. A Violin is bowed with horse hair. If you look at horse hair under a microscope, you'll see that it has a ridged texture which when you drag it across the Violin string it imparts an incredible amount of energy which produces a lot sound from the Violin. It's like thousands of tiny picks on the string producing a sawtooth wave. The sound has sustain because the bow is constantly moving. The Guitar on the other hand is excited just from a single pluck of the string (unless you're doing some sort of tremelo picking, think Van Halen). It's much harder in some ways to get volume and projection from a Guitar than a Violin although Guitars have larger soundboards.
Additionally, to get the best tone & projection from an acoustic guitar, the string needs to oscillate in the plane *perpendicular* to the soundboard as much as possible. Fingernail shape and stroke technique on classical guitar aim to achieve this, but steel strings tend to be played somewhat differently. A magnetic pickup effectively senses lateral vibrations (parallel to the soundboard).
Yeah, I agree, and this is a point I've made before as I've discussed the relationship between bowed and plucked arched instruments. The Bow is an essential partner to a bowed instrument, and it's capable of a whole different world of energy input! The hair does have grabby - looking features, as you cite, but their job is to hold onto the rosin, a sticky material which gives the bow its grip on the string. Unlike the zillions of little pick behaviors you suppose, what really happens is that the moving bow and rosin get a grip on the string, and simultaneously drag the string sideways and twist the string, winding it up kind of like a turnbuckle. When these two kinds of forces add up to overcome the friction/sticktion that the hair and rosin can apply, the string is released briefly and slips back towards it's resting place (straight) while it unwinds, causing the string to vibrate while its sliding along the surface of the hair. Next, the string is again rolled and displaced by the same movement and the frictional forces of the hair/rosin, and so we hear the string sing out, as it is cyclically drawn to one side, then slipping back towards the other, all the while being controlled and disciplined by the bow, which is in solid contact with the string, and thereby limiting the kinds of vibratory dances it can perform. Not a perfect description, perhaps, but this is the gist of it. Of course, in order to get a good tone, the bow must be pressed down onto the string in order to get the required purchase to drive it, so this all starts with the string being bent before it can sound! The plucked instrument is energized by a single displacement/release motion of a fingertip or plectrum, with the similarity that it is both pushed sideways (once!) and also wound up to some lesser extent. String behavior is a complex and very interesting thing to look into. Indeed, it is harder to get volume and projection from a plucked vs bowed instrument, which is why we need to learn how to design and build light, supple instruments that behave efficiently.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I've never heard an explanation like that of how the bow excites the string. Very interesting. I know that while a Violin amplifies the vibration of the string, a good Violin also filters many of the undesirable harmonics produced from being bowed. That's why great Violins, like archtop guitars, are hard to make.
Guadagnini and Stradivari, among other violin makers, also made guitars, but all with flat tops, as far as I’m aware. I’d imagine that the gut strings and manner of playing did not warrant a carved-top approach at the time, but they might have experimented!
I would submit that then, as now, the virtuoso players wanted to be heard, so Power is key to being taken seriously (11 ! It's one louder, innit?). The bow conspired with the genius design of the Violin to provide a huge dynamic range, an indispensable ally to the expressive player. The power applied by the bow to the string is analogous to the Renaissance Marshall Stack. Guitars were then mostly played by amateurs for friends and family, as they needed an intimate setting to be fully appreciated.
I recall Ken covering this matter in a 2019 talk: ua-cam.com/video/hHzmCw-bS0k/v-deo.html They never really made sense to me on guitars, to be honest! This may be interesting regarding their use in the violin family: www.openculture.com/2016/01/why-violins-have-f-holes-the-science-history-of-a-remarkable-renaissance-design.html Originally ’S-holes’, for Italian ‘suono’ / Latin ‘sonus’ = ‘sound’ !
Hi Jeff, have a look here, I think I did an OK job with your question, but there will be more to come. kenparkerarchtops.com/news/2019/9/30/kens-the-history-and-evolution-of-the-archtop-guitar-keynote-at-the-rocky-mountain-archtop-festival
I just mean that when searching strings, it’s case sensitive. You mentioned you were searching for certain key words and not finding them. Sometimes it’s the capitalization . Other than that , no worries! I love your videos and I tell my friends about your amazing encyclopedic mind regarding tools.
I don't think that even Orville Gibson understood how his carved tops were going to translate to acoustic guitars. IMO, he was just translating his skills set to a burgeoning market in guitars and created a cultural style icon. Musicians quickly jumped to amplified pickups in archtops making the 'acoustic' version very niche. Compare this to iconic developments in acoustic guitars such as Selmer-Macaferri, Torres etc guitars, that beg not to be amplified by pickups to preserve their acoustic qualities. I think that Ken Parker is 'ground zero' of the development of real acoustic archtop guitar instruments that stands for itself in producing quality acoustic music. Just my opinion.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Best professor I never had, thanks for the presentation!
Wow, thanks! I'm trying to make sense, glad it might be working!
Ken is the savior of the Guitar industry. He began a company in a time when everyone was mass producing. His innovation and inspiration to create new thought process if it new thought process and push the boundaries of what is totally possible has inspired thousands.
Thanks!
So clear and comprehensible like the sound of the instruments he creates. Thanks for all of it man
How nice, thanks very much.
A great deal is learned about sharpening your tools, I would imagine. Thanks for your wonderful videos.
You are very welcome!
I am very fortunate to have a beautiful family and I live by the sea in a nice house in Spain, and right now I am going to use the most beautiful and sophisticated object I own. my parker fly, I am moved every time I see it. by the way it is perfect among other sounds, to play jazz. Until now I was a jeweler artisan, and soon I will start making guitars for me and who knows...
ken: Thank you for your art. You inspire me completely
Awesome! Sounds like Heaven. Thanks for your kind words.
Thank you for your insight, Professor Parker!
My pleasure!
Lovely bowl, great for whipping eggs for baking. Professional bakers prefer copper bowls for egg whites, saying that they get better “lift or volume “ by same. Something about the chemistry I believe is the claim. Whoda thunk it? Another great history lesson mixed with physics explanations. You are doing a fantastic service Mr. Parker, thanks for your generosity. Now for the show and tell about your super curved bottom plane construction!
Whipped cream too! Although there are at least two fiercely held opinions as regards this subject, (no surprise here) some think that there is a chemical contribution from the copper that means you don't need Cream of Tartar to get the best results. I like this copper bowl for whipping egg whites or cream, and I think that perhaps getting all the metals as cold as possible makes the best whipped cream, and quickly, too. Yum.
We should consult Maestro Chef Michael Greenfield and get his take on this esoterica!
Thank you, Ken! Making top and back graduation, the dome, by hand is like getting along with the unknown and making a friend. Not always easy, not always without problems, but always rewarding. You make the best friend when you deal with her/him/it in real situations. Every spruce top, every back is different, full of surprises. When one graduates the dome using a pantograph copier, all surprises are left for a player. What a waste of an opportunity to make a statement!
Regards!
Thanks! Well said, Krzysztof!
This series is going to be very interesting :)
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us Ken !
Thanks for watching!
Beautifully explained Ken.
Thank you kindly, sir.
Extremely interesting video. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Ken I love your work and look forward to the videos! Thanks for making them!
thanks, Mate!
Excellent and informative video.
Glad it was helpful!
Very interesting stuff! Thanks for the deep dive.
My Pleasure.
Again, thank you so much for these videos.
Glad you like them!
This was super enjoyable and interesting. Thanks, Ken!
Your humble servant...
Terrific Sir.Making a few violins taut me hand tools and hide glue .More please !
Hand Tools and Hide Glue! That's the spirit!
Is the arched top purely to provide strength allowing for a thinner carve and less bracing? As you showed a flat sheet vibrates more easily so does the arch reduce sustain?.Would a classical nylon guitar be improved with an arched top? Thanks for your interesting videos and sharing your knowledge.
The domed shape does exactly what you suggest. The stronger shape gives us a another design path in the quest to build a guitar body that's lighter, more responsive and more efficient. Sustain does depend on good design, so its possible to build an archtop with poor sustain, or poor anything else, for that matter.
About classical archtops, it's an open question, as not too many of us have tried. My friend Mirko Borghino has built quite a few, and they amplify very well.
www.borghinoguitars.com/guitars-archtop-bb1.html
In 1980 I built a 17" acoustic archtop designed for nylon strings, and although it was crazy light at 3 pounds, and super thin (the perimeter of the back at the recurve was .040" 0r 1 mm), I never liked the response, and finally ended up making a 6 string neck for light bronze strings.
I suspect that there is room here for some fruitful discovery with a nylon Archtop. Maybe you'll build one?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks Ken. I watched some videos of Francesco Buzzurro playing his Borghino nylon archtop and it clearly demonstrates the value of the design to play crisp clear notes. I would love to progress my woodwork to that level, but still at the wobbly table stage unfortunately.
For your domed/arched tops carving, and referencing the violin you showed cross-sections of, do you follow a similar profile of thinner thicknesses toward the middle with a slightly thicker perimeter for the plates?
As I mentioned, most builders leave the center of the plate a bit thicker than the perimeter. You can think of the perimeter and recurve zones as serving the same function as the speaker's "surround", or flexable perimeter...
www.headstockdistribution.com/technology/loudspeaker-parts-2
The object is to create a weakened edge zone to free the plate in order to support bass response.
This is a very big deal, and doesn't seem to be widely understood in the archtop field.
As an aside, even though this 250 year old viola we're looking at seems relatively whole and original, it may have been regraduated. For better or worse, it is very common for a repairperson to tinker with graduation (remove wood from the inside of the plates) while the instrument is apart for doing routine repairs such as re-edging, or replacing/regluing the bass bar. This kind of "Hotrodding" has been so prevalent that it's very difficult to be sure what condition the instrument was in when it was new, which is a Bummer.
My general advice on this is to leave original work alone, and if you think you have a better idea, just build it yourself and see if you're right.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Guitars and the violin family surely diverge in this regard. On a violin or viola, the bridge is located towards the centre, and there’s also the sound-post, connecting the top with the back & ribs to create more of an acoustically *radiating* instrument. Stradivari and Guarneri soundboards are believed to have been thinner (2.0-2.9mm centre) than those of their contemporaries, but as you’ve said, most of these instruments were worked on subsequently, especially when players moved away from gut strings.
Given the idea that the resonance of your back & sides is valuable, perimeter flexibility and recurve would certainly seem significant.
Hi Ken, I was curious is you had an opinion on the Pinned Bridge "Halfling" that Tom Ribbecke builds? It has an arched, carved top and a pinned bridge and bone saddle. I've had a chance to play one and thought it had a lovely tone.
It was pretty heavily braced, however and could have used some additional carving to free up the top (at least that is how it appeared to me).
Thank you.
I'm afraid I can't really speak to an instrument that's not in the room with me. This glued and pinned bridge is part of Orville Gibson's original archtop guitar design. He never used a tailpiece / movable bridge design on an archtop guitar as far as I know. The way I see it, heavy braces are heavy braces, and you can't change them by thinning the top. Tom's built a lot of good guitars!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I did not know that about the original design, that is really interesting. Thank you for the response, I appreciate it!
Could a top be softened, and molded into the desired shape in a form, then be stabilized with braces? That would reduce wood waste, and might yield a better result more efficiently. After all, sides are bent, not carved.
Iffen you take a look at my bracing chapter available at Archtoppery.com You'll see that lots of folks have tried this, likely as far back as the early Renaissance. In this article, I include a photo of an early helpless pressed Stromberg top with oodles of braces and lollipop sticks glued all over the place to try to hold the top in the intended shape. On the other hand, I'm told that there are some very skillful violin makers who have built exceptional instruments with tortured spruce tops.
Check out this brilliant builder describing her techniques...
helenviolinmaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dartington-talk-transcript-with-pics.pdf
Oops, I guess I need to say that tortured wood bending involves bending in two directions, unlike sides which are bent only in one plane. As you may imagine, wood is not especially happy to bend in two planes, which is why we call this extreme and problematic high wire act "torturing" .
There is also a kind of composite method, with carved "wings", where most of the compound curves are located, joined to a central section which is bent. Of course, in the violin making world, there's a lot of controversy and spitting on the ground, but much remains to be explored. Have a taste of this discussion...
maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/347667-working-with-wood-plasticisers-to-bend-top-and-back/page/3/
In my experience, I haven't come across a guitar with a top made in this way that got me interested, but none of us have seen it all.
Good luck!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks for the detailed reply. I will definitely check out the links you provided. 👍😎
Edited: I found the article on HelenViolinMaker interesting, particularly where she wrote at the end:
"20. How do bent fronts sound different?
I’ve now made 25 violas and one violin with bent fronts. I’ve found that these instruments are more powerful, more responsive, and have a greater spectrum of tone colour than thoseI’ve made with carved fronts. According to an article by Joseph Curtin in the Strad,(reference 2) the acoustically best wood is that which has the greatest stiffness-density ratio. Bending rather than carving wood increases the stiffness of any piece you have."
That is what I'd expect, but agreeing and doing are not at all the same thing. I was thinking along the lines that when you have a really nice piece of wood, the more tops you can get from it the better, and if it sounds and performs better if bent into shape, then that's a win. Thanks again.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Hey Ken, I’m glad someone else asked this as was wondering the same thing myself (though I also haven’t yet got to your bracing section video). My thoughts were concerned with the fact that we’re taking quarter sawn (i.e. vertical grained) wood for the back and sides, and what differences in strength there may be between steam bending say a top into shape, whereby the original grain orientation is to some degree still retained, whereas there will be parts of the top where carved that I was imagining you would be creating a shearing force where the compression or tension is imposed on what has become more ‘end grain’ oriented by the carving process. Obviously I’m completely wrong about this, but as you are so very thorough in your examination of each element of the subject I had wondered if you considered the effects on the strength of the wood in carving out a quarter sawn top versus a domed shape arrived at through bending 🤔 Anyway, will watch the section you suggest on bracing to see if this covers my thoughts on this aspect. Many thanks 👍
I personally like the term domed top for tops that are bent significantly by bracing and carved for what you would call archtops as they are carved from a thicker piece . Now modern flattops are also slightly domed and theres pliaged or cranked tops ( wich i build as well) that kind of muddy the water
It's true that most "flat top" builders now use a shallow domed form to brace and shape the tops and backs, but this is very different from the relatively large developed curves of a carved plate. Call them archtops if you like, but I see it diffferently. The transition to this kind of domed building results from and exposes the terrible design/abilities of a flat plate to behave properly over time and resist the kind of forces administered by the strings. Clearly, a little curvature is a big help geometrically!
The big difference from these stressed domed tops and what I do is that the domed flat top guitars have no recurve, and therefore, in my. opinion, will nevr achieve the power and sensitivity of a carved, developed plate.
One man's opinion.
Why not go all the way and really give the plate a chance to move some air?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440interesting, havent built an archtop yet so didnt even consider the recurve part of it having an effect on the movement of the plate. Might have to do a deep dive on that tonight
Looking at the thicknesses of the back I wonder if they purposely made it asymmetrical
Well, this is certainly an interesting question all right! I think you must be referencing the Guadanini instrument starting at 5:20 or so. i don't think I'm the one to ask, but maybe I could reach out to a comrade or two and find out what the experts think. For my work, I try to be super accurate and make the thickness transitions as even as I can.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge gained from years of experience.
I'm very curious about the optimal shape for the shell. The catenary shape looks really interesting, since as an arch it is the shape that produces no bending moment (and so, used in large structures). For a guitar top, it could either be rotated to create a dome, or translated to create a cylinder-like shape. However, I calculated the differences in surface between a constant-radius dome or cylinder and the catenary equivalent for typical height of an archtop guitar (I tried 10 mm, radius 1.9 m), and I found only small fractions of a mm difference, so I'm not sure it would really matter much in practice. So I thinking of trying a cylindrical shape on an archtop.
I will be interested to hear about the purpose of the re-curve in a future video, and why one wouldn't just continue the curve of the dome to the edge.
All good questions, where to start?
I never thought about surface area, or of building a cylindrical top either, although there are lots of builders who have.
I'll say that some answers will shake out in the next segment, but the recurve is crucial, and gives the guitar its voice and power. Stay Tuned.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Sorry, I was unclear about "surface". I didn't mean area, I meant difference in heights of the arch on the outer surface of the top, for each shape. In other words, at the radius that would be used in an archtop, a catenary dome and a spherical dome, with the same high point, have surfaces that are practically co-incidental. You can't tell the difference between the two shapes at such a large radius.
@@gregholmberg2 Cool, I agree, and I don't think that important differences emerge from tiny model shape changes, but I Do believe that tiny thickness adjustments have Huge effects. It's hard to overstate this.
Howe - Orme and Sobell guitars are worth a close look if you're interested in cylindrical forms, just not my thing.
If an Archtop is the "Universal Guitar" a standard flattop classical guitar would then be conequently just an optimization for an instrument requiring less stablitiy due to lower string tension. I am struggling with the term universal. Archtops are mainly used in Jazz for a specific reason which is their distinct sound. What is your understanding of universal in this regard?
Let me suggest that you sample some of the recordings on my site. The variety of sounds and styles is very broad, if not universal. Universal was Jimmy's word, I usually say versatile, perhaps the most versatile kind of guitar if properly constructed. Archtops have been mainly used as electric guitars since 1935, that is to say, strung with electric guitar strings and fitted with electromagnetic pickups, but it's not their fault.
A light, responsive archtop with bronze strings behaves like a chameleon by enabling many different styles of players to express themselves musically and sound great in many different ways. Have a listen!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks Ken. I should have done this in the first place but was too drawn into your UA-cam series. Now I can hear and understand what you mean. It is this "universe" of ringing overtones, tonal spectrum and clarity which sounds different with every player and every style of music. Your instruments become alive by the dedication, craftsmanship and innovative engineering skills which go into them. Listening to the audio samples is even more amazing than following the process of creation. Being an engineer I am always too tempted to analyze than just to listen.
@@MrBruneaux Fantastic! An engineer with ears! Thanks for your kind words. After all, the big picture is that the instrument is a tool for the guitarist, so that makes me a toolmaker / humble servant of musicians. I love my gig.
Martin began (c.1935) selling Arched-top 'R' Style guitars a few years after they brought out their carved-top 'C' Style guitars.
It's a little frustrating trying to understand Martin's foray into archtop manufacturing, as knowledgeable folks seem to have different takes on just how the Martin archtop story played out. I'll just sum it up from where I stand that Martin was late to the archtop party, and likely hoped it could help them survive the crushing Great Depression. They set out in a new direction, but made odd design choices, sticking closely to their expertise in building flat top designs (apart from the tops, bridges and tailpieces, they were really otherwise flat top gutiars), and seemingly skimped on their design/testing efforts, and so the guitars didn't attract the target players. They tried round holes, f holes, carved tops, pressed tops, rail braces, x braces, mahogany and Brazilian rosewood bodies, all to yawns from the marketplace. Of course they are nicely made, and the top F7 and F9 models were very, very expensive, but overall, archtops proved to be an expensive failure for Martin.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I speculated that this where the term "arch(ed)-top" originated ,with the Martin " R " Style to differentiate it from the carved-top "C" Style .
Love these talks Ken. I may be able to throw more light on why the edges of that viola are not thinner than the centre. I made many violins and read a lot of the older masters
Murray! Please do tell!
Here's what I just wrote to another viewer on this subject...
As I mentioned, most builders leave the center of the plate a bit thicker than the perimeter. You can think of the perimeter and recurve zones as serving the same function as the speaker's "surround", or flexable perimeter...
www.headstockdistribution.com/technology/loudspeaker-parts-2
The object is to create a weakened edge zone to free the plate in order to support bass response.
This is a very big deal, and doesn't seem to be widely understood in the archtop field.
As an aside, even though this 250 year old viola we're looking at seems relatively whole and original, it may have been regraduated. For better or worse, it is very common for a repairperson to tinker with graduation (remove wood from the inside of the plates) while the instrument is apart for doing routine repairs such as re-edging, or replacing/regluing the bass bar. This kind of "Hotrodding" has been so prevalent that it's very difficult to be sure what condition the instrument was in when it was new, which is a Bummer.
My general advice on this is to leave original work alone, and if you think you have a better idea, just build it yourself and see if you're right.
An interesting difference between Guitar and Violin is the way the string is excited. A Violin is bowed with horse hair. If you look at horse hair under a microscope, you'll see that it has a ridged texture which when you drag it across the Violin string it imparts an incredible amount of energy which produces a lot sound from the Violin. It's like thousands of tiny picks on the string producing a sawtooth wave. The sound has sustain because the bow is constantly moving. The Guitar on the other hand is excited just from a single pluck of the string (unless you're doing some sort of tremelo picking, think Van Halen). It's much harder in some ways to get volume and projection from a Guitar than a Violin although Guitars have larger soundboards.
Additionally, to get the best tone & projection from an acoustic guitar, the string needs to oscillate in the plane *perpendicular* to the soundboard as much as possible. Fingernail shape and stroke technique on classical guitar aim to achieve this, but steel strings tend to be played somewhat differently. A magnetic pickup effectively senses lateral vibrations (parallel to the soundboard).
Yeah, I agree, and this is a point I've made before as I've discussed the relationship between bowed and plucked arched instruments.
The Bow is an essential partner to a bowed instrument, and it's capable of a whole different world of energy input!
The hair does have grabby - looking features, as you cite, but their job is to hold onto the rosin, a sticky material which gives the bow its grip on the string. Unlike the zillions of little pick behaviors you suppose, what really happens is that the moving bow and rosin get a grip on the string, and simultaneously drag the string sideways and twist the string, winding it up kind of like a turnbuckle. When these two kinds of forces add up to overcome the friction/sticktion that the hair and rosin can apply, the string is released briefly and slips back towards it's resting place (straight) while it unwinds, causing the string to vibrate while its sliding along the surface of the hair. Next, the string is again rolled and displaced by the same movement and the frictional forces of the hair/rosin, and so we hear the string sing out, as it is cyclically drawn to one side, then slipping back towards the other, all the while being controlled and disciplined by the bow, which is in solid contact with the string, and thereby limiting the kinds of vibratory dances it can perform. Not a perfect description, perhaps, but this is the gist of it. Of course, in order to get a good tone, the bow must be pressed down onto the string in order to get the required purchase to drive it, so this all starts with the string being bent before it can sound!
The plucked instrument is energized by a single displacement/release motion of a fingertip or plectrum, with the similarity that it is both pushed sideways (once!) and also wound up to some lesser extent. String behavior is a complex and very interesting thing to look into.
Indeed, it is harder to get volume and projection from a plucked vs bowed instrument, which is why we need to learn how to design and build light, supple instruments that behave efficiently.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I've never heard an explanation like that of how the bow excites the string. Very interesting. I know that while a Violin amplifies the vibration of the string, a good Violin also filters many of the undesirable harmonics produced from being bowed. That's why great Violins, like archtop guitars, are hard to make.
Thanx Ken;
!!!!!
You are welcome!
You're most welcome! Just doing my gig...
Piano soundboards have a slight domed or arched shape. It's called a crown. I've always liked this term. Crown-top guitar. Sounds good to me.
Even "Flat Top" guitars are mostly domed now! The secret is out!
Steve Howe should do an album with one.
Let's call him up and mention your idea! I like it.
Guadagnini and Stradivari, among other violin makers, also made guitars, but all with flat tops, as far as I’m aware. I’d imagine that the gut strings and manner of playing did not warrant a carved-top approach at the time, but they might have experimented!
I would submit that then, as now, the virtuoso players wanted to be heard, so Power is key to being taken seriously (11 ! It's one louder, innit?).
The bow conspired with the genius design of the Violin to provide a huge dynamic range, an indispensable ally to the expressive player.
The power applied by the bow to the string is analogous to the Renaissance Marshall Stack.
Guitars were then mostly played by amateurs for friends and family, as they needed an intimate setting to be fully appreciated.
Hi Ken, I'd be interested in your reasoning for deleting the F holes in your instruments
I recall Ken covering this matter in a 2019 talk: ua-cam.com/video/hHzmCw-bS0k/v-deo.html
They never really made sense to me on guitars, to be honest!
This may be interesting regarding their use in the violin family: www.openculture.com/2016/01/why-violins-have-f-holes-the-science-history-of-a-remarkable-renaissance-design.html
Originally ’S-holes’, for Italian ‘suono’ / Latin ‘sonus’ = ‘sound’ !
Hi Jeff, have a look here, I think I did an OK job with your question, but there will be more to come.
kenparkerarchtops.com/news/2019/9/30/kens-the-history-and-evolution-of-the-archtop-guitar-keynote-at-the-rocky-mountain-archtop-festival
Check capitalization in the string!
Please clarify? I'm not following you.
I just mean that when searching strings, it’s case sensitive. You mentioned you were searching for certain key words and not finding them. Sometimes it’s the capitalization . Other than that , no worries! I love your videos and I tell my friends about your amazing encyclopedic mind regarding tools.
I don't think that even Orville Gibson understood how his carved tops were going to translate to acoustic guitars. IMO, he was just translating his skills set to a burgeoning market in guitars and created a cultural style icon. Musicians quickly jumped to amplified pickups in archtops making the 'acoustic' version very niche. Compare this to iconic developments in acoustic guitars such as Selmer-Macaferri, Torres etc guitars, that beg not to be amplified by pickups to preserve their acoustic qualities. I think that Ken Parker is 'ground zero' of the development of real acoustic archtop guitar instruments that stands for itself in producing quality acoustic music. Just my opinion.
Thanks so much! I love building acoustic archtops. Yum.
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