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Great ideas,
it's just a different approach, and i understand your thinking...
some people work better that way, others not so much.. im in the not so much camp..
i always enjoy my trip when i dont have a destination.. also, that way, i never get lost..
(tee hee)

as for the bridge bridge, its a great idea also, except for the fact that the vibration would then transfer to both tops from all strings, and
thus may as well not have split tops..
so to do a archtop type bridge, and still have isolated soundboards, there would have to be 2 arch bridges, which i have considered,
and they would be more or less fixed on the side that is closest to the middle, and vibrate down towards the soundboards..
i went with the "traditional" flattop bridge for ease, but i have considered making it wider to take the vibration further to the center of each top,
and also scooping the mid section of the bridge to in effect create a bridge more like you are describing,
however, I have a new idea for a bridge that will let me position the point of contact wherever I want, while retaining string position,
so I will likely include that in the next proto instead of the arch bridge..

Cheers,
and thanks agian for the input.
Dale

just so you folks have a bit of an idea why im not patenting right away,
or why maybe i should..

here is one of my earlier "inventions"
right when digital cameras came out... i worked at a newspaper, and saw the first models to come out..
they sucked, but i realized they were going to be a reality,
so i thought, well this changes how we will look at pictures,
and people will want them in there house without going to the computer.

i figured a new kind of paper was needed, that we could frame and hang on the wall,
so i set out to build a "Digital photo frame"

here is a pic...
i didnt do anything with it, other than take it to work, where my co-workers thought it was cool,
but looked at me like i was a little crazy..

you probably see these in almost every store now..
(for what its worth, there were probably others like me coming up with the same idea at the same time)

Sounds like the concept may be roughly analogous to a woofer-tweeter speaker design (vs. a single driver), in that isolation potentially allows better reproduction of each frequency range, and reduces destructive interference (but, it's not analogous in that most speakers share the same air behind the drivers. If so, that suggests the sound might be optimized by making the two chambers different from each other in some way -- by interior volume, top thickness, bracing, shape, etc. Perhaps the outer profile could be asymmetrical. And perhaps the division need not be along a straight line down the center, though of course that has many other advantages.

I would like to hear the bass from a 16-16.5" lower bout design -- I think many players would be concerned about an 18.5" lower bout.

Kudos for thinking outside the box... or even better, splitting the box in two! Thanks for sharing your ideas on the forum -- I think this kind of thread helps stir up ideas. And good luck with your design!

_________________
David Malicky

I know of a dobro builder that has the lower bout with the sound well isolated from the upper bout where the sound holes are and uses tuned port tubes between the two. Can't remember his name at the moment but I have some pics of his design and always found it intriguing.
Kent

thanks David8282

Yeah, sorta like the woofer tweeter idea,
good point, and thanks for the observation...

one of my initial thoughts when this idea came to me was..
hey, now i can have the warmth i like in the treble with a cedar top,
and also have the bottom I like in a spruce top..

there are hundreds of combinations now available, like you said, brace the treble side and not the bass side..
this wasnt possible before, as they shared sides.

yeah the 18.5" bout is an issue for it looking "normal", I knew i was pushing it with that,
and in fact the main reason I picked 18.5 was cause that was the largest "accepted" size I had heard, and I wanted
to be able to get a case for the thing, building a case seemed as daunting as building the guitar almost..

re: the division, well frankly, i dont like to call it that, because that tents to put peoples minds in the frame of a "tradition guitar" that is split,
when this is really in my mind the joining of 2 guitars. I realize it could be seen as semantics, but from a design standpoint,
I approached it, and still to as trying to join 2 guitars together,

as far as the straight line, I did that for a few reasons, firstly it allows for me to have the brides join between the 3rd and 4th strings,
this might have been tricky, but not impossible with a different junction surface,

also, one of the main challenges of bringing 2 guitars together, and asking them to vibrate separately, but right beside each other,
is cross over vibration... (im not saying cross over is bad, but i wanted to approach the idea in a purist form, trying to isolate each body)
so the technique i came up with, which i am not elaborating much on yet. (sorry) requires a fairly straight and uniform junction surface...

to be specific about the sides not being equal, i think that is absolutely true, and i would think it would be sensible to think
they should not be equal.. what are the odds that treble requires the same structure as bass to be at its best...
that is one of the main ideas, current thinking tries to do the entire range with shared structure,
i just thought there might be a better way.. I should use the word different, I dont want people to think I am say'in my way is better..
but I can see after it is evolved, there is a chance it will be seen as better...
when I play this prototype, in all its roughness etc, i cant help but wonder, was the first "traditional" guitar anything close to this good,
i.e. when whoever thought up the idea for a flat top dread lets say, was the first one they banged off this good?

that is what excites me most about it, as i'm sure if this design evolves, this first design, will be considered bad, and I would love
to hear the guitar that makes this one sound like a flop.. (does that make sense)

There have been people working with baffles in resos for about 9 years or so. But a reso is more like a speaker box then an acoustic flat top.

I started building resos as you can see by my Avatar and believe you me an acoustic flat top is way more difficult and complex of and instrument to build and understand what's going.

Baffles yes, but this builder is using a sealed two part box with tuned port tubes, which is a departure. And I know the flat top is way different, but my reference is just to the concept of using tuned port tubes between separate tone chambers. I find his design interesting, though it does push the sound holes higher on the upper bout, which is a departure from the traditional look.

Kent

Yeah Kent those are a type of baffle. There are a couple of ways of doing it. There is basicly a wall infront of the soundwell and there is a port in that wall . Some have put tubes in them at different lengths and there are other designs as well. But it works off the same principle as speaker cabinets. I've had been interested in for dobros but never got around to experimenting with it.
The whole thing with this split guitar is with the smaller boxes and tops is that the tops are smaller and thus stiffer then a single box and the mono pole is restricted as well as the long-dipole. I would think the cross -dipole is the only thing that's allow to move freely. You can't tell from a recording how it projects or really how loud it is. Then it seems to me that driving the top from the rim isn't going to be the best spot and use of string energy. At least that just some of the stuff that comes to my mind and I could be wrong. But like I said it all depends what you are after. I can see where Dale is all excited as I have designed and made jigs and it's really exciting when they work well. But if you don't know what tone you are after you are just driving around . And with acoustic guitars what your first preceptions are as to how they work are usually wrong.
But I wish you all the best of luck in your flight where ever it leads you.

Dale,

Kudos to you for your inventiveness. I personally have no interest in building with such a design but I would be interested in hearing a straight recording with no effects. Try when you record again setting everything on center balance and cut the reverb completely out (down to 0). It looks like you have a good mic so if your recorder is a decent quality digital then this should give us a better sample of what the guitar(s) really sounds like. Reverb always gives a false impression of quality and alters drastically from the true sound. Best to you in your endeavors.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

there is zero reverb on the guitar track...

i am going to be doing another recording tonite, without the voice etc.. so watch for that.
also there was no EQ on the guitar track..

Cheers,
Dale

Also, the mic is a $40 Apex, not what most people would call a "good" mic, but I do like it.. its really detailed and sensitive,
not sure what a studio would think of it.

The recorder is a Roland VS1680 audio out into Imac mic in.

Alrighty then. I was under the impression from an earlier post that you were recording the guitar and voice through the mic at the same time. It's hard to tell a good mic in a You Tube video so that was a poor guess on my part. I use a High Quality studio mic (no need to mention the brand) in my studio for vocals and plug directly into the system with my guitars. Since my recorder has capability to bounce up to 32 tracks I never record instruments and voice simultaneously. That way I can put my focus on one task at a time. Easier on the brain cell. Occasionally I will record a guitar with a mic in front of the sound hole (which is actually best for a realistic capture of the instrument's sound) with a good quality unidirectional mic.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Hi Bill,

yeah, let me explain a little better, the first take is me playing guitar and singing, no FX no EQ, the second track i did a backup vocals.. which i may have put some reverb on, i cant remember to be honest, i think they are both dry. (i.e. no FX no EQ)

the miC i used, the apex, is a condenser and i have found it to be fairly accurate in reproducing the sound of the guitars,
for example, if you click on my username on that youtube page "Dalefromtheblock" you can listen to other guitars I play recorded in the same fashion,
and you should get an idea of the difference..

I record vocals and a guitar track at the same time, simply because i work better that way, its not the best technique for recording, it is however the best
results i get, and i find it easier to just let go and perform.. if i track a guitar first, i find im over thinking the timing etc, and it comes out cold
and calculated, I have it down to lack of experience and timing..

thanks for all your input, I really like the way you explain things.

Cheers,
Dale

While yo are all sitting here debating the mic used in the youtube video i have filed for a patent on this idea. Thanks

tee hee, let me know how it works out?
how much did it cost you?


Dale

my immediate thought was to dump a tornavoz onto the bass box and see how that changes the bass output, it could help somewhat.

and a quick word on patents: i went to a medium sized guitar workshop in the summer (~350 guitars a year, if that), and they make all of their machinery, but haven't patented any of it, because of the costs (10k per item, talking in the region of 200k for whole workshop, and that would only cover europe), they even showed some guys from yamaha round and gave them details of how some of the machines worked and what they could improve it!

their main beef with patents was that if someone just changed the design slightly and they wouldn't be covered by the patent.

hmm, i think i should stop rambling now.....

_________________
"Anything that happens, happens. Anything that in happening causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that in happening happens again, happens again. Though not necessarily in that order." Douglas Adams

that is basically my thoughts on patents also,
I was going to get a loan and get it patented, but I just pictured it being copied anyway,
and that a company could modify it slightly to get around my patent.
I think i may be better without..

also, I have TONS of ideas, and if this does happen to take off, even if some other company or person
reaps the financial reward, I may at the very least get some street credit, so that when I approach companies,
or the luthier public my ideas get taken somewhat seriously?

know what i mean?

Dale,
I would like to hear your guitar by itself in a strum and fingerstyle setting if at all possible.


thanks for sharing,

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Quit talking and get to Building....

Take careful notes and pay attention to the Patent Applied For's out of the big boys. They won't actually build them, but they will go get the patent to keep you from doing it! (Gibson and Fender are Famous for this sort of thing now)

If you want to protect something, don't talk about the Voicing or the way it works... Enforce this as your "Trade secret." Be sure to have Signed Non-Disclosure agreements with whoever you let look at this thing.

Now... for Development work.... Build. Build different iterations of the design and work out the kinks.

There is no substitute for getting a couple of these into the hands of local starving Semi-pro musicians. As I said... they are real easy to find, especially if you are ready to loan out a couple instruments. I feel like it is the best "Beta testing" method we currently have available.

Get their feedback on the Neck feel and the Setup and Playability... as these are their #1 concerns.... Let these guys play them for several months.. and if they just can't part with the guitar after 2-weeks, you know you are on to something.

Good luck

John

I certainly have heard a lot about patents and trade secrets in this thread.

How long is a trade secret going to last if all I have to do is look at the guitar to figure out how it works. Right. Not possible to protect with a trade secret. If not reverse engineerable, how do you enforce a trade secret if you are telling everyone about it? You can't.

If one can easily design around a patent, either the inventor had no idea what the "invention" was in the first place and the patent attorney was grossly incompetent or the "inventor" did not deserve a broad patent because the field was crowded with close prior art.

Look, nobody here is going to file your own tax returns with tax advice from a fellow guitar builder, right? That would be foolish. Intellectual property law is no less complex, and almost all of the "advice" and "facts" being tossed around in this thread is not accurate. About the only thing I would agree with is that the process is expensive. Although it costs about the same as a good set of golf clubs and some lessons and a lot less than a one year membership at a club near where I live.

In all seriousness, if you are wanting to share your knowledge with folks here, that's great. If you want to build a business on your hard work, have a business plan. If your business plan depends on secrets being kept or your rights being protected somehow, talk to someone who knows the facts.

_________________
"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

coming up,
I'm gonna try to tonite if i get time, but you will see it for sure within the next couple days.

stay tuned.


Cheers,
Dale

Didn't get to it last night,
I'm considering getting a local artist to play it for the video..
as my finger-picking style is kinda sloppy, and the guitar is so detailed and responsive, it kinda makes that sloppy
more noticeable.

will be up as soon as i can..
(within the week)

I'd take heed to what Steve is saying here since he IS a Patent Attorney by profession.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Well, maybe it's time I jumped in on this one.

I've actually played this guitar and the first prototype that Dale had made. Dale's a very good friend of mine. He made the guitar at my place in my shop.

From a sound point of view, this guitar has far superior string to string articulation than a "normal" guitar. If you try this against a standard guitar, the standard one does sound "muddy" in comparison. The downside is that volume and bass isn't as good as a standard guitar. Putting side ports between the two sides definitely helps and would be something well worth exploring more.

A couple thoughts for anyone thinking of pursuing Dale's design:

The top of Dale's guitar is thin. Like see-through scary thin. And the guitar holds together. So, I'm thinking, because of the inherent structure in the design, these guitars could be built very very light.

Another idea I had, for what it's worth, was to run the top grain the opposite way. So that it is at a 90 degree angle to the strings. The thinking being that maybe you could get vibration going the whole length of the body 20" or so and not just the 8"-9" it is vibrating now with the half width of the guitar. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but thought I'd just throw that out there.

Neil

Neil