Did you know you can subscribe to free email or RSS alerts of new articles?

Here are April 2008’s most popular articles. Did you miss any or forget to leave a comment?

• Forshage Guitar - Black and Beautiful - Another wonderful electric guitar from Chris Forshage with figured maple top and mahogany back.
• Lace Alumitone Pickups - This radically different pickup design results in pickups which are significantly lighter than conventional ones. I know of several guitar builds that are considering them so there’ll be more to come.
• Eric Olds Klein Electric Guitar Project - Part 2 - Eric Olds not only treats us to his Klein based electric guitar build featuring Alumitone pickups but provides us with several plan drawings which include the guitar body and his own headless tuning solution.
• Xavier Padilla’s Torzal Custom Electric Bass Guitar - This Little Guitar Works custom bass for Xavier Padilla features his Torzal Twist neck which is designed to reduce wrist flexion and reduce the potential for RSI.
• Canton Custom Guitars Design #2- Custom guitar maker Rick Canton treats us to an update on one of his electric guitar designs.
• The Forshage Hollow Body Electric Guitar - Chris Forshage’s ergonomic electric guitar continues to delight readers. This was our first coverage on his fine work and certainly not our last.
• The Orchid Bass Sprouts An Unusual Neck - The Toone Guitars Orchid bass guitar shows off sculpted curves, an ergonomic guitar body and an unusual trapezoidal profile guitar neck.
• Headless Guitar Parts Resources - A crowd favorite, this article focuses on commercially available as well as DIY headless guitar bridge systems.
• Make Your Own Headless Guitar Tuners! - Three different approaches to making your own headless guitar tuners. Very interesting stuff.
• Headless Guitar Bridge by Jon Bondy - A look at a replacement fixed bridge for the Steinberger R-trem, S-trem and Trans-trem tremolo bridges by machinist Jon Bondy.

Published May 3rd, 2008 | Topic: Blog Notes | 3 Comments →

Here are the latest progress pictures of the electric guitar model last seen in Canton Custom Guitars Design #2.

Mr. Canton on the instrument:

I decided to go further with the rounding of the edges to see what both designs looked like. I also thinned out the top horn and created some more contouring there as well. Also note the output jack location. Right now the fret work needs to be completed and some fine shaping with sandpaper here and there. Next week I will be starting to add oil coats for finish, then it will see final assembly.

The resulting guitar is just beautiful IMHO and I like the contrast created by the front’s sharper edges and the back’s softer organic look.

Note the highly sculpted heel on the guitar’s bolt on neck. The extended heel on the neck reaches far into the guitar body which explains the unusual bolt pattern.

Lovely. I can’t wait to see the finished guitar.

Published Apr 30th, 2008 | Topic: Electric Guitar | 12 Comments →

A while back, Al Shaffer purchased the Koll extended range guitar featured in Koll Guitars Multi-Scale Archtop and promised to share his experiences with the instrument.

And so, here is Al Shaffer describing a recording session with his jazz group “The Three Halos” and a restaurant’s “guitar night” with a local jazz musician playing the Koll.

The Three Halos Recording Session

The trio is “The Three Halos” and I focus mainly on an NS Designs WAV4 Electric Upright Bass and sometimes a Steinberger XM fretless bass guitar. My guitarist wanted to check the Koll out so I brought it for him to play. We actually never got around to using it through the afternoon.

At the end of the session we decided to record an improvisation with myself on the Koll and the guitarist on his chambered swamp ash Klein along with our drummer. I played it directly through my Hartke HA2500 amp and HCX 115 cabinet, no effects at all. I didn’t think it would sound very good through the bass rig, but was surprised how well the seven string worked with a bass amp. I have a set of heavy flatwound strings on the Koll and was able to think both as a guitarist and a bass player with the combination.

This was really the first time I played it at any volume or with any other musicians. I felt very good playing in this environment and the multi-scale fretboard was never an issue. I had been having trouble with the seventh string when playing the guitar at home, but that disappeared in this situation. I think that the single coil pickup had a very unique sound and covered the range of the guitar beautifully.

If you will note in the video (seen below), I do not always have the guitar in its proper position as I am seated and I found that to be a bit uncomfortable. My Kleins always seem to sit correctly when I am seated.

From the session, here are Al Shaffer on the Koll, Joel Knispel on guitar and Marshall Hughey on drums:

Guitar Night

The other outing with the Koll was taking it to a “guitar night” at a restaurant hosted by a very good local jazz guitarist, who is also a Benedetto dealer. I had called him up and asked him if he would be
interested in trying out a seven string headless guitar and he was up for it. He did look rather oddly at it when I took it out, but did not seem put off. He played it for the entire first set of mostly jazz standards. He was playing through an AER Compact 60/2 (which sounded great!).

His remarks afterwards were that he had a bit of trouble with the seventh string and that he stuck mainly to the 5th to 9th fret positions because he had some worry with finger position at the more “fanned” higher areas of the fretboard. I do believe that given more time he would have been completely comfortable with the fretboard. All in all I think he enjoyed the experience and was definitely interested in Saul Koll’s work.

Upcoming Canton Electric Guitar

Al also noted that guitar builder Rick Canton is making him an ergonomic electric guitar with a similar multi-scale fretboard.

Rick is hard at work on several models so expect to hear more.

Many thanks to Al Shaffer for feedback on this truly unique instrument by Saul Koll.

Published Apr 27th, 2008 | Topic: Electric Guitar | 11 Comments →

Threaded comments? What are threaded comments? Glad you asked.

Threaded comments make conversations in the comments section easier to follow. Rather than have one long list of undifferentiated comments, you can now reply to a specific comment and have your comment nest itself underneath - making it clear that you are responding to that particular reader.

Many of you may remember threaded comments from before the recent redesign but styling and functional concerns with the old code prevented me from including them at the time. Thanks to the Wordpress Thread Comment plugin, they’re back.

For a couple of examples, check out the comments section on The Hohner EGS Electric Guitar and Eight (8) Ways to Combat Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). Or see this post’s comments section for examples. And don’t be shy. Give them a try!

Published Apr 24th, 2008 | Topic: Blog Notes | 10 Comments →