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Greetings,

What specific things in a guitar would make it be specifically good for Celtic playing and DADGAD tuning. Customer wants it based off an OM body with cutaway.

Here's some things I brought up...

Long scale with hybrid strings for the drop tuning

1 11/16 nut for faster chord changes

Ebony fingerboard and bridge for clarity and note separation

Customer want lots of crystalline highs, but..since it's for a lot of background strum accompaniment, I'm thinking dialing a bit of that back with walnut instead of rosewood for back and sides.

What top? Lutz or Sitka?

Any of you that make guitars like this have any thoughts on the matter?

Much appreciated...

DADGAD is my favorite tuning as a 20 year+ fingerstyle player. The guitar that I want to build for myself is a 27.5" ~ 25.7" multi-scale baritone. I play in several drop tunings and the price of having a custom one of these built spurred me to buy the tools to "build it myself". That was 5 years ago and I still haven't finished the 1st one lol. Hopefully I get the hang of things soon. Your customer is likely a lot smarter than me! Give him the goods, multi-scale all the way.

Lutz or Sitka? That's up to him. I want to build mine with a sinker redwood top and my avatar Cocobolo. It's all personal preference and aesthetics. Nothing will have a larger impact on the sound of the guitar than a multi-scale build IMO.

Maybe you could find out Pierre Bensusan's guitar specs. I'm pretty sure he plays Lowden guitars.
I'm looking forward to hearing/seeing the end result, Ed!

Alex

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I once built a redwood/mahogany 00 for a fellow who played Celtic in drop D, and he loved it. All the main resonances on it were either D or G....

Try some Katz


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I'm too tired to think of anythink clever to say, so I'll just say too-shay Lonnie!
Also too tired to look up the correct spelling.
Dan

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I've built a number of guitars for people who play in DADGAD or other drop tunings. I've generally used my standard scale (25.4") as the starting point. I'd maybe look at doing something slightly longer like 25.7". If you go too much longer than chord stretches become an issue, which may not be a problem for solo finger-style work but would be a problem if your customer wants the guitar for rhythm playing. As has been mentioned a multi-scale can work really well for DADGAD and drop tunings, if that is something you offer. If you don't do multi-scale than something in the 25.4-25.7" range strung with mediums would be my starting point.

We get a lot of celtic musicians through town hear every year for our Celtic Fest and I always try and pay attention to the guitars I see these guys playing. Rosewood/spruce and Walnut/spruce are both popular choices, but also a good amount of Mahogany/spruce. I really like Adi for a clear rich tone, but Lutz or Sika would also work well.

I would let the customer decide on the string spacing, and probably match it to the guitars he is already playing. Personally I find anything less than 1 ¾" uncomfortable with my long fingers and big hands. I've also seen various celtic players doing rhythm work on guitars with wide spacing (1 ⅞" nut) and it is not slowing them down. Find out what the customer is used to and stick with that.

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Josh House

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If I were to build it I would use a 26 inch scale length, and go with Sitka if he strums chords or Engelmann if he fingerpicks. I would stick with a rosewood, but I do the laminated thing and have good luck getting bright trebles. I would pick the nut width based on his playing style (strumming or finger style).
For Celtic players I have built some double tenors - 8 string guitars, short scale ,tuned in 5ths (GDAd) small bodied, octave pairs. They are killer!

+1.

The wood combination is irrelevant IMO. It's all down to the player.Over the quarter century that I have known him, I have heard Tony McManus play live on many different guitars, and he sounds just as "Celtic" when he is playing a Martin dreadnaught as when he is playing his current fav, his PRS Signature model.

Re nut width, here is a video of one of the finest flatpickers on the planet doing absolutely incredible Celtic flatpicking on one of Josh House's guitars , which, unless I am much mistaken, has a 1.75" nut . This kind of gives the lie to the myth that you need a 1 11/16" nut for fast flatpicking ... and as for any idea that chord changes on a narrower nut are quicker and easier, the accompanist in the video is playing a classical guitar with a full width classicalfretboard and nut, and his chord changes are like greased lightning.

Hey Ed,

The Celtic guitar I made was cedar over imbuia. Scale is 25.6" (I've got template if you need). Wonderful for DADGAD. All macassar ebony appointments.

I have to agree with Josh and Murray. The player certainly has more to do with the production of a Celtic sound versus the guitar. Mind you if you make it look Celtic, it'll be Celtic

Here's a sound clip of the guitar and a couple pictures as a reminder (although I think it's the one in my avatar).

Auld Lang Syne

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Yes, both the guitars I've built for JP Cormier have had 1.75" nut width. He has played lots of guitars with varying nut widths. For a good guitar player it doesn't seem to matter. As has been said it has a lot more to do with the player than the guitar. I was 15 when I first saw Tony McManus. At the time he was playing a Coco 000 with a wide nut (I believe 1 ⅞") and wide bridge spacing. I've seen him play a variety of guitars over the last few years and now he's playing his PRS signature which has a tighter spacing. Just go with whatever is comfortable for the customer and he can take it from there.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
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I think though with drop tuned guitars an important component is the scale length. One can definitely get away with 25.4" scale for drop tuning, look at Phil Keaggy and all the drop tuning he does on his 25 11/32" (25.343") scale Olson's. I am partial to a 25.6" scale for drop tuning but that's my liking....Set up is equally important for the style of play....

I am partial to the warmth of cedar for a Celtic sound, but that's just the icing I think.....The player has the control.

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Probably be 25.5". Got some time to think about it as I won't even start it for a few months...

Set up does play a key role. Last I knew Tony McManus played D'addario mediums on his guitars and they worked well even for a few of his tunings that have a low C. But you need extra height/relief to keep the low C from buzzing.

Whenever I build a guitar and I know the customer wants it for a variety of tunings I always ask for a list of the top 3-4 tunings they plan on using. Then when setting intonation I average out the tunings and set it to the average notes(example: the low E strings will either be tuned to D or C, so I intonate it at C#). I find that this way the intonation is decent for all the tunings as opposed to be really good for one tuning and not so good for others.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
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That seems very reasonable.

The lions share of the guitars I've made have been tuned to dadgad. That's quite a few dadgad guitars over the last 25 years or so. When I worked for Sobell, we usually used a 650mm scale. It works well, We made one or two 660mm, they worked well too.

Under my own name I've made dadgad guitars with 660mm, 650mm, 25.4", 24.9". They all worked well in different ways. I'm actually starting to prefer the shorter ones as they can feel softer and have more depth but the shorter scale makes it vital to intonate both ends: the nut/zero fret and the saddle. There are a few different threads about this by me, Trevor Gore, and if you dig around the web you should also find two excellent articles by Mike Doolin and Greg Byers (though his is about classical guitars, the same principles apply.) if you build for clarity and power (as I do) intonation issues become really apparent so you do need to intonate both ends to get equal temperament - perfectly out of tune. If you want a warmer sound, like a Lowden, it's not such an issue.


Sound:
There is a big difference between the sound of the instruments I make and the sound of a Lowden so it's worth knowing which "Celtic" sound you're after. A Lowden is very woody and warm compared to my work or to something like a Sobell, so a longer scale might help to avoid muddiness, if it's the warm Lowden sound your customer likes.

This is one of my 650mm scale dadgad guitars in European spruce and Rio.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J8VniuamtoA

Here is an Indian/European spruce 24.9" "Cylinder top" in dadgad getting a hood hiding :

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N0zz4Pu8wyU

Materials: depends what sound you like. For a sound like mine, if you can't make a good dadgad guitar with Indian rosewood and European spruce, something is amiss, so unless your customer has a budget for a fancier rosewood or exotic tastes, stick with those two. For a "Lowden like" tone you have more choice, Lowden have used most tonewoods at some time or other to good effect.
To be honest it's as much to do with construction methods and design as timbers, but that's another story...

Hope that helps,

Nigel
http://www.nkforsterguitars.com/luthier-book/

Well, there's certainly some timbre in the timber, but I agree that overall construction is more important overall than what type of wood.

I've never tried euro spruce. Seen a pile at work (Italian Alpine spruce, supposedly, though I guess it could have been anything).

To me it's reminded me very much of engelmann, sort of a sort dry mellow tap. The guitars made with it carried that tonal balance as well.

I've got the GG books, so I can temper the nut, but I probably won't. I think a lot of the chime and shimmer comes from the overtones battling each other, much like when you tune with harmonics and use the beats to tune. I found the ones I built with compensated nuts to be bland and sterile compared to normal nuts, but different strokes for different folks...

He's not after a Lowden sound. And I do actually happen to have a pile of 650 mm fingerboards around so that's a good thought, as is intonating it differently like Josh said. I wouldn't have thought of that.

We're going with walnut/lutz, basically middle of the road woods tonally.

I just finished a 25 to 26 inch fan fret and it is a dadgad monster. It's not enough of a spread to notice, but enough to keep the bass strings nice and tight

Hey Sam, What strings do you use on a guitar like that?

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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Just regular acoustic mediums. I thought I might want a hybrid or custom set, but it turns out that regular ol meds work perfect

I just thought this was so funny!