Posted on August 1, 2022May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Transducers Transducers by Reagan Cole Originally published as Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #54, 1977 The purpose of this particular article is to project one man’s opinion about the theoretical whys and wherefores of the transducer for acoustic instruments. This is not a consumer’s report analysis of commercially available products. Anyone interested in this information may consult the series which is currently running in Mugwumps Instrument Herald. A full market report and commentary has been promised. I have never had the money to run out and A-B all the stuff that crops up in the pages of Guitar Player; anyway, I have never used any of the commercial units since I build my own systems. There seems to be several major camps regarding the amplification of acoustic instruments. These I would categorise as follows: (1) Only microphones should be used. These devices are, after all, an electrical analogue to the human ear, so if the mike is good all will be well. Absolutely nothing should be attached to an existing acoustic instrument. (2) Transducers are a necessary evil. They do allow musicians playing acoustic instruments to compete in an electric or an electronic ensemble. At any rate, if they are used they should be easily removable, leaving no trace. (3) The acoustic-electric is yet another evolutionary phase. The performance of the instrument transducer system is of paramount importance; It may be necessary to modify the instrument or even to design a new type for acoustic-electric use. I don’t believe that there are grounds for a serious feud lurking in any of these arguments; all are correct from their own frames of reference. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 1, 2022May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Making Your Own Amp Questions: Making Your Own Amp by Dave Raley Originally published in American Lutherie #73, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Joe Oliver from cyberspace asks: Do you know of a manufacturer of guitar amp kits? Years ago my father bought me a Heathkit, smug in the knowledge that I would never complete it. I fooled him. I played it through high school and into the local club scene up until 1980 or so; my interests changed and about 1990 I sold it to a friend, who promptly lost it. Now I’m starting to play again and would like to build a bigger and better amp to go with my handmade bass. Of course, there is no kit maker alive anymore, so I’m kind of stuck. I would settle for a good book that catered to nonelectronic-type people. Dave Raley of Laurel Hill, North Carolina responds: Jim Oliver has rattled the cage of a die-hard tube man. I’ve been building and working on them since the early ’50s. I can furnish him a diagram or two if he wants to make up his own kit, transistor or tube. Transistor amps are much simpler to build for a given output power, but you can feed a tube amp into a reflex baffled speaker or a Klipshorn and get more and smoother loudness from 10w than you would from 100w solid state into a closed baffle. Solid state amps, lacking output transformers, handle the back EMF from open baffles poorly. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 3 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on August 11, 2021May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Electric Violins: The New Frontier Electric Violins: The New Frontier by George Manno Originally published in American Lutherie #12, 1987 In the past, my contributions to this journal have been of the more traditional subject matter. From repairing cracks to varnish recipes, I lend my knowledge of the violin to all our readers. Although this article is not about the traditional violin, I have the same enthusiasm to share the following information with you. Twenty years ago, electrifying a violin was a simple matter of attaching a DeArmond pickup clamp to the tailpiece and plugging the cord into an amplifier. Not much attention was given to the quality of sound that came out of the speaker. Players were more concerned that the violin could be heard over the drums and other electric instruments. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on April 29, 2021May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Electronic Aiding of Stringed Instrument Sound Comment on Electronic Aiding of Stringed Instrument Sound by R.W. Burhans Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #10, 1975 Introduction In perspective we should view modern sound reproduction as an “Electronic Art” which requires somewhat different types of skills than the “Mechanical Art” developed by the Luthier. The same type of careful attention to detail are required in both and there is no substitute for long hours at the workbench with a lot of reading of the literature published in periodicals like: Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics, Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, Electronotes Newsletter, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, and even Scientific American. There is even a trade quarterly circulated to music shops, Musical Product News and Musical Electronics, which is a sales promotion and product announcement type with information on the myread of stuff on the current market. Still others are dB the sound studio engineers magazine, a magazine called Audio, and another DB, Down Beat. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 2, 2020May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Gimme Back My Minutes Gimme Back My Minutes by Rick Turner previously published in American Lutherie #26, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 I’d like to share a couple of things with those in the repair business: how I handle the financial end of repair work, and what I’m trying to do to gain back some of the eight to ten hours a week I currently lose talking to customers. I do repair work for Westwood Music in Los Angeles, working as an independent contractor. I set my own hours, use my own tools, pay for my own worker’s compensation insurance, and establish the prices for the repair work. There is one other part-time repairman, David Neely, and he works the same way I do. Prices for repair work are set for each job either by direct quote from our price list or an estimate of time at $50 per hour. On big jobs or for building custom Strats from generic parts I drop the hourly to $45; I figure there’s less time wasted talking on bigger jobs. Our store sales people sometimes take in the work (the more of that the better), and they might make a ballpark estimate. We in the shop usually call the customer to give a closer price and/or suggest additional needed work. When the job is complete, I fill out a four-part sequentially-numbered store invoice which includes labor, retail-parts cost (at the net-to-musician price — we figure any applicable discounts), sales tax, and the invoice total. I keep a copy which I use to bill the store, and the second copy goes on a clipboard in sequential order. The instrument, along with the two remaining copies, is put in the front of the store in the “to be picked up” pile. When the customer picks up the instrument, he or she gets a copy, and the remaining copy is filed with the store’s daily receipts. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
