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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

Dale:

I haven't been on for a few days to see how this thread was developing. Let me catch up.

* sorry to imply or add to the implication that some or the responses seemed a bit prejudicial regarding your idea. Close minded was not a term I used or intended.
* sorry also to imply that "recording engineers" knew anything about accoustics. My bad.
* The woofer/tweeter analogy is a good one for your design. Review of the design of speakers, Bose included, could help you tweek your idea.
* In speaker design and accoustic space (studio) design a tuned "tube" or clyinder is a Helmholtz resonator. Google that to find calculations for tuning the resonant frequency of a tube. It might help give some direction.

Anyhow, I meant to be encouraging and not disparaging.

Danny R. Little

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.

SOUND CLIP OF PROTO 1.

note this is not prototype 2 as seen in the video..

I think this would make the bass even less responsive than what we're hearing now. Too much stiffness is an enemy of good bass response.

I think that to go any farther with this you guys really need to go out and try and listen to as many different hand made guitars as possible and see if there's a direction you want to go. There's still a lot of art when it comes to designing instruments but there's enough science to it that one can make general predictions to the outcome of certain designs. Specifically, you probably ought to listen to some fingerstyle guitars and parlor guitars. Generally guitars without scalloped braces.

I mentioned in another post that there will be a Luthier's gathering in South East Michigan in November. I for one would love to hear the thing in person. If you're not too far away, consider making the drive. There will be a lot of luthiers/forum members there with a large variety of high quality hand made guitars (I'll bring my guitar too, even though it doesn't hold a candle to what some of these guys put out) that you'll be able to try out and compare to. It might help focus your direction.

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)

This is a joke right? Put an empty picture frame in front of a computer monitor and call it an invention?

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