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for my first few builds i purchased all the online classes from robbert obriens steel string course and loved them. i dont think i could have build a high end guitar without these videos. i still want to learn alot more and have heard good things about these books. they are pretty expensive and i already spent 300 on the online classes. do you guys think it would be worth it for me to buy one these books or not? if so which one would you guys recommend ?

I don't have either, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I sat through a presentation by Somogyi that was supposed to be a seminar on voicing tops. It turned into a one hour pitch for his books. I had a rather simple question for him at the end. He refused to answer. Said if I wanted the answer, to buy his book. At the end of the "seminar" he was selling books out front. He couldn't stop me from asking someone who had just bought the book if I could leaf through it. My simple question (do you taper the two legs of the "x" asymmetrically like Bourgois and others, or leave it even in the more traditional Martin style) was not in the book. In fact, I could find little practical or useful in the book by leafing through it. I decided it was NOT worth buying for me.

A couple of years later another friend had the Gore "build" book. Leafing through it I had a couple of "cool idea, I'll have to try that" moments. $250 is a lot of cash for any book, so I've never sprung for the Gore books. But my brief look through made me think that the Gore book was much more real and the Somogyi book a lot of luthier "magic".

Again, did not purchase either in the end.

So ... The answer to your question depends on what sort of learner you are.

If you are the typical engineer/mechanical/mathematical sort - you will probably love Gore/Gilette and not so much Somogyi's.....

If you are the typical English/history/liberal arts NON-math sort of person... Somogyi's book is probably for you and you probably won't like Gore/Gilette so much.

Beyond that - both do have reasonably good guitar construction instructions.

If I was going to buy one book for construction - it would be Cumpiano and supplement it with the info on his website. I keep going back to it because of its simplicity and straight forward manner.

Thanks.

I received the Gore/Gilette books for Christmas, and just had the first chance to take a look today, so I can't give my own opinion, yet. I have Cumpiano's book, and have gone through it many times, and with the online updates, it is a good choice, as well.
Years ago, I had a question regarding a point in W. Cumpiano's book, and emailed him. I received a reply in less than a day.
A good part of the reason that I wanted the Gore/Gilette books, aside from what many excellent builders on this forum had to say about them, was that Trevor Gore consistently enters into discussions, and lends his knowledge and experience freely. For me, that counts for a lot.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I have both sets and have read both sets. I will first state that I was an engineer by profession. I think the Gore\Gilet books are better. With regard to the design books the Gore\Gilet books give the knowledge and the tools to design and tune your own guitars. There is hard math but it is not necessary to go through. If you accept the math in the book each section and chapter lays out in english the relevant points. The design book is directly applicable to both classical and steel string guitars. I did like the Somogyi design books as he did a good job of laying out his internal model of a guitar; how he thinks about the plate thickness, the bracing and the like. You do not receive text book type of knowledge to deal with your own design goals as you do in the Gore Gilet books.

Both build books are good. The Gore\Gilet books has full sized plans for multiple classical and a steel string guitar. The instructions are very detailed targeted for building in a small shop without large power tools and provide detailed descriptions of basic building techniques as well as more advanced techniques. I thought the Somogyi book lays out very good instructions for building a basic guitar. He discusses more advanced design features but does not document them with detail.

I have read the Gore\Gilet design book cover to cover three times. I have a copy of the build book out in my shop at all times. My Gore\Gilet books have gotten so beat up I have a copy of the new version that I can keep clean in my library.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I have both, and I also have both feet firmly in the "traditional" camp, pre-war Martins and Gibsons. Both authors are in the contemporary side of the house. Good reads, good ideas, I'm just going down a different trail.

I have both, but I will say up front that I have a lot more books than building experience. While I will say that both are beautiful books and cover a lot, I relate better to the Gore books. John's comments above about who would prefer each book may be right on target in my case. I also agree with the comments about Trevor Gore sharing on forums is also a plus. The Gore books also give the impression that he is sharing everything with you while the Somogyi books make it clear that he is not sharing his specifications.

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina

Just sold my Somogyi set. I am a scientist by training. So is Trevor Gore. Ervin Somogyi, despite the impression he strives for, has marginal engineering and science knowledge and a flawed understanding of tree physiology. His text is to a large extent a compilation of previously published essays, so doesn't flow well. But Ervin is certainly a skilled craftsman and a gifted artist -- the pictures of his work are stunning and I found them inspiring. I just didn't learn much from him. My copies of the Gore/Gilet books have numerous post-it notes and annotations in the margins, and are covered with fine wood dust, like my Cumpiano.


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Remember that Somogyi was an English Major (I think) and he is firmly entrenched in the Guitar is Art end of the spectrum. His guitars ARE art as well as fine musical instruments.

I guarantee that he is not a "by the numbers" sort of guy. And so it would be foolish to think his "specifications" for top voicing or back frequencies would mean anything.... The exception would be his plantillas - which seem pretty well set because he uses special jigs to make them...

If you look at the guys that come out of his shop - they come out well versed in the ART of guitar making. And the guitars they produce are spectacular.

So.... You are on completely the wrong track looking for engineering specs in an artists handbook. What I found well worth the price of admission was some of the explanations for how to do some of the art stuff that my engineer brain just doesn't hack well.

For example - I could not level a finish for love nor money till I read his book.... About 2 simple sentences...... Ooohhhhhh.... That's how you do it! Nobody else ever explained the technique - they just said "sand it flat with progressively finer sandpaper and then polish it out with rubbing compound...."

And I am grateful to Ervin for including the bit in the middle that makes it work right.

I own both pairs of books. I learned things from both, and look back at both for their perspectives on specific things. Both contain wisdom. If I had to pick one as being more informative than the other, I think the Gore/Gilet books provide more information that I wind up using than the Somogyi books. Heck, they provide more information than I will ever use! Plus, the build book in the Gore/Gilet set has more of a "build it this way" level of detail, whereas the Somogyi build book never gets that detailed. So, pound for pound, I think you get more out of Gore/Gilet than Somogyi. But I want to be clear that I like them both as resources.

I have the Gore/Gilet books and have not seen the Somogyi book. I'm a novice builder and I just received the G/G a couple of months ago. I'm slowly reading through the design book and I skimmed through the Build book and am now going through it in detail, section by section as I proceed with the build steps. I'm awed by both volumes. I think I'll be learning from them for years to come. I don't feel I strictly "need" deep knowledge of Design as I build my first few guitars because I'm following published plans but the concepts it presents are already helping me when I'm doubtful about things like plate thicknesses (for instance). Build seems to answer most of my questions but it ties back to Design so that I know I can go deeper in the future and get more sophisticated about how I make my decisions throughout the build process. I am a retired engineer so it does makes sense to me to measure whatever I can and accumulate a knowledge base with each build. Without the Design volume I don't think I'd know what to measure. So my bottom line is: you can't go wrong with Gore/Gilet.

I own both, and have taken Ervin's voicing course.

I'm a writer by trade, so G/G intimidates me a bit. But having said that, I'll take Ervin for explaining how a guitar works, and Gore for building one.

I find Ervin's second book a little haphazard, though there's a ton of good information there, so I'll choose Gore for the build book.

But I find Ervin's design book, his first volume, way more accessible. No, he doesn't (mostly) give specs or dimensions. But he teaches you how to think about guitar construction. What happens if I do this? What if I do that?

I don't want a recipe for a Somogyi guitar. I want to understand how to make mine better.

I'll give you a secret from Ervin's classes. It's nothing proprietary, but it's really cool.

He had armatures/molds that would hold the tops we were working on. So you could shave braces and see what happened. In a semi-real world scenario. Shave the brace, tap, listen to the pitch drop.

So we're into day 3 or so, and Ervin makes a comment about a triangle being the most stable/stiffest geometrical shape, and that triangles in your bracing pattern could really overstiffen that part of your top.

So I pointed to Larrivee bracing, which had a number of triangles, and suggested that they were pretty good guitars.

Ervin said "great, lets see. Let's do some Larrivee bracing."

And what he did was to lay down masking tape on the inside of a top, approximating the position of Larrivee bracing. We then glued brace stock to the masking tape with 5-minute epoxy.

10 minutes later, we were shaving braces and testing Larrivee bracing patterns. Were there dead spots? Could you get the same low tap tones that you could with other patterns?

It was a fabulous exercise. He didn't tell us whether or not he approved of Larrivee bracing. He showed us how to test it. And how to make up our own minds.

And we could pull up the masking tape and try something entirely different the next day.

You may agree or disagree with many of Ervin's points. I do. But the man is an absolutely incredible teacher.

And just as a postscript, way funny. We all had a great time for 7 days.

Steve

Steve agree with your description of Somogyi's design book and found it valuable for the same reasons that you describe. He does describe how he thinks about a guitar. I thinks he has a very deep intuitive sense about what he is doing. As a writer he does a good job of describing the internal model that he works from.

On the other hand I had to wince when ever I read statements in the book along the line of "a triangle being the most stable/stiffest geometrical shape, and that triangles in your bracing pattern could really over stiffen that part of your top." A rectangular brace with the same base and height is stiffer than the triangle brace. I am not dismissing the value that rectangular braces might have for him and his sound; he has found a good tradeoff of stiffness and mass that works for his sound. It is just that this statement and others that I read in the book are nonsense.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I have both. As a liberal arts guy, I actually need the concreteness of the Gore books. For example, try actually making a bridge by following the section in Making the Responsive Guitar. There aren't any concrete details, so if I had never made one, I would find it rather difficult.

However, I really like Ervin's books because I deeply appreciate what he does and they give me some insight into how he thinks about the guitar and approaches it (as others have said). I really like seeing the jigs and setups he uses, and some of the sections are actually surprisingly detailed compared to others. For example, the section on making the neck. However, my book has a typo. I don't think the diameter of the transition from the heel to shaft of his necks is 5/16".

IMO, Trevor's Build book is the gold standard in terms of construction. Design is also very cool.

I've often read that if you have any questions, the answers are in Trevor's books. That hasn't been my experience. For example, If I want to bring out [blank] quality in my guitars, my experience hasn't been that I can just turn to a section and either find or synthesize the answer. If I want my guitars to be particularly dry in overtones, I'm not sure where to flip. If I want X part of the spectrum to be dominant so that the trebles have a certain quality or weight to them, I'm not sure where to flip. That said, I can read certain sections of Design and understand other things incredibly well, and whenever I have questions, Trevor always - always - answers them or points me in the right direction.

Trevor's books would be first on my priority list, followed by Ervin's.

Sorry John, my fault. I explained myself poorly. What he said was that bracing layouts that create triangles can overstiffen that area. He referred to Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes as an example.

Steve

You guys do bring up a good point. I probably wouldn't recommend Somogyi's books for a first time new builder. They really do seem aimed at someone who has several guitars under their belt - so they more or less have the carpentry under control..... But now it's time to think about what you can do with the design. Ervin doesn't try to hide that....

It's one thing to build "copies" of "traditional" guitars from a set of prints... But so often - we miss the things that the old masters adjusted to make their "traditional design" right. For example.... MacRostie's Herringbone dread is allegedly a pretty good print of an old Martin D28.... But the guitars faithfully made from that print almost never sound like a "Martin.." Where ironically, Martin guitars are assembled by an army of people in a large factory - most of which have never built a whole guitar from scratch... And yet they consistently sound like Martin guitars...

I sold my Somogyi set & bought the Gore/Gilet set prettty much for the same reasons mentioned - lack of details although he gives you things to think about but no way to test, unlike what Steve experienced in his class. I kept getting the feeling that he was withholding the secret sauce.

Gore/Gilet is an awesome reference but also a little pricey. I bought Cumpiano as my first book & think it's great too.

I would like to re-read the Somogyi design book since I have a little more experience now.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I bought the G&G books after trying to get a feel of both sets online. I found Trevor talking in threads online, just a few with Ervin, read his information on his web page. I got the feeling Evin might not get me what I wanted and sprang for the G&G books. I only skimmed the books and took from them what I need now but will go back to them after I finish the guitars I am doing now. I appreciate learning about the guitar engineering models and how you can adjust the specifics to get a different result (in regard to tuning). I will eventually set up a test setup (hey, I used to work in a mechanical test lab) to sort my materials. I would not mind reading Ervin's books but I can't really justify it yet.

IMO the G/G books are filled with data, whereas the Somogyi books are mostly opinion. Though, if you want to, you can spend 1000$ bucks on a leather covered Somogyi set, because that really enhances the readers experience. Right?

I've read Somogyi's books, taking notes throughout. I also have the G&G set. I found the latter much more useful. Ervin is a great guy who makes a fine guitar, but I find his explanations hard to follow at times. Partly, I'm sure, it's because I disagree with him about how they work, and get hung up on what I consider technical gaffes. It's possible I'm the one who's wrong, of course. IMO Gore has a much firmer grasp of the way a guitar produces sound, and he explains it all well enough. I think the guitar is deliberately complex, so if you're expecting simple explanations you're likely to be disappointed. If you get them, you're likely being mislead.

My impression is that G/G is actually interested in teaching you something. Plus, it does that in a systematised and fundamented way.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I agreed above with the preference for Gore/Gilet regarding that set of books' ability to pass along information. However, I think it is important to not judge Somogyi's set of books too harshly. Reasons:

1. He is a maker of fine guitars, and when a maker of fine guitars wants to share what they think, it makes sense to listen. We might not agree with everything he says, but it sure reads like an honest recitation of what he thinks. There is some wisdom in there we can all take away and use.

2. Like many non-scientists who try to talk about science, Somogyi is going to express it in a way that will make scientists wince here and there. I feel the same way about non lawyers who try to talk about the law (I'm a lawyer). But the fact that the person doesn't know the language doesn't mean they don't have something to say.

Just some thoughts on the matter.

I/ve talked to ervin a few times and dennis K was kind enough to lend me his books . I read them, and liked them. But was not ready to plunk down that kind of $$ for that info. I/ve had G/G book for several years now , and there is a lot of shop tested empirical information from years of hard work in luthiery . I /m reading it again at the gym when I can . There is truly a wealth of information in both books. The only caveat I would add is that novice luthiers, might want to wait a while before spending the $ on these books, and spend more time at the bench getting their skills honed, and a few completed instruments under their belt. My 2 cents worth. cheers

Cumpiano is best bang for the buck. Gore/Gilet is great. Skip Somogyi.

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Greg
http://garibaldiinstruments.com/

This is absolutely an expensive hobby, but I think education is undervalued compared to acquiring excess material and new tools. If one has the opportunity, I favor selling a few of the thirty soundboards on the shelf to get exposure to solid learning materials, because that journey and exposure, even if not directly, absolutely contributes to being able to make your instruments closer to what you dream of.


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