Posted on June 6, 2024January 15, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: 3 String Balalaika Tuner Questions: 3 String Balalaika Tuner by Francis Kosheleff Originally published in American Lutherie #71, 2002 Bob Mussro from cyberspace asks: I’m trying to find replacement tuners for a three-string balalaika. Would you have such or know of a source? Francis Kosheleff from Los Gatos, CA responds: The easy solution to the problem is to remove the old tuners, plug the three holes , and get single tuners like Schaller or Gotoh. Drill a hole on the treble side of the peghead for one tuner (steel A string ). Do the same on the other side for the two nylon E strings. The hard solution, if you absolutely need a perfect, identical, replacement is to send somebody you trust to Russia to search for the craftsman or the factory who made your instrument and buy the replacement tuners. (Good luck!) Another (expensive) solution is to have somebody (professional) build a copy of your tuners. And finally you can alter two of the three tuners by making a longer shaft (a small length of thin tubing) that will reach the edge of the peghead from the existing holes. It’s not too difficult to do. I have done that a couple of times. ◆
Posted on June 6, 2024January 15, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: About Tusq Letter: About Tusq by Roger Sadowsky Originally published in American Lutherie #71, 2002 Dear Tim, In regard to Fred Carlson’s review of Tusq in AL#70, I have recently become a fan of Tusq saddles for under-saddle pickups. I’ve always struggled for good string-to-string balance and have tried every material and every trick in the book. I even published an article in another guitar publication about the fine art of achieving string balance with under saddle pickups. Building my Electric Nylon Guitar gives me an opportunity to evaluate materials under relatively controlled conditions. In the last twelve years I’ve built over 300. For years the best material I used was Micarta, but I frequently had to make three or four saddles per guitar to find the one that had the best string balance. Recently I tried Tusq and had perfect string balance on the first try. I have used it now for about six months and in every situation, I have had perfect string balance with the first saddle I made. For other applications I can appreciate the benefits of bone and ivory. But when it comes to string balance with an under saddle pickup, nothing is better than Tusq. ◆
Posted on June 6, 2024January 17, 2025 by Dale Phillips Product Review: Samson Zoom H4 Recorder Product Review: Samson Zoom H4 Recorder by Harry Fleishman Originally published in American Lutherie #92, 2007 I’ve always fancied myself something of a modern day Alan Lomax, recording the world’s unsung heroes as they sang. Perhaps even a modern Jane Goodall, reaching out to other cultures, other species, to try to understand them better by putting myself into their milieu. Of course I had never actually done any of those things, but they seemed like a cool thing to do. So when my wife Janet, who has developed a gallery of handwoven textiles and handcrafted handicrafts, was making plans to travel to Bali to work with carvers, painters, weavers, woodworkers, kite makers, and, of course, rattan motorcycle builders, I suggested that she count me in. To live out my anthromusicological fantasy I would need a recorder and a camera, and I already had a camera. By a combination of good luck and seeking him out, I met Jack Knight, the VP of Samson, the company that makes the Zoom H4 digital recorder. When I explained that I wished to record the Balinese Monkey Chant live, and as a side note use the H4 to record guitars for my website, he excitedly suggested that he could help me get one wholesale. 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. Product Review: Samson Zoom H4 Recorder by Harry Fleishman Originally published in American Lutherie #92, 2007 I’ve always fancied myself something of a modern day Alan Lomax, recording the world’s unsung heroes as they sang. Perhaps even a modern Jane Goodall, reaching out to other cultures, other species, to try to understand them better by putting myself into their milieu. Of course I had never actually done any of those things, but they seemed like a cool thing to do. So when my wife Janet, who has developed a gallery of handwoven textiles and handcrafted handicrafts, was making plans to travel to Bali to work with carvers, painters, weavers, woodworkers, kite makers, and, of course, rattan motorcycle builders, I suggested that she count me in. To live out my anthromusicological fantasy I would need a recorder and a camera, and I already had a camera. By a combination of good luck and seeking him out, I met Jack Knight, the VP of Samson, the company that makes the Zoom H4 digital recorder. When I explained that I wished to record the Balinese Monkey Chant live, and as a side note use the H4 to record guitars for my website, he excitedly suggested that he could help me get one wholesale. Photo courtesy of Samson. The H4 offers luthiers the opportunity to do several things that not too long ago would have required an enormous outlay of money, energy, and learning. With the H4, however, we can record our instruments at home, in the shop, from the audience at a club, in our bathroom with that lovely natural reverb, or even in a quiet glen in the mountains, the river just out of earshot, but still there. About the size of a small submarine sandwich, that is, about 6"×2.5"×1", the H4 is lightweight in the hand but quite heavyweight in terms of features. It has a built-in pair of condenser mikes, set in an X/Y configuration and protected by a little roll cage. Additionally, there are cleverly designed inputs that will accommodate either 1/4" ring-tip-sleeve connectors or XLRs, all with the availability of phantom power. What this means is if you wish, you could use those cheap but great-sounding mikes that Radio Shack discontinued the same month that Audio Magazine rated them as superior to their reference mike. Until now it was hard to find a 1/4" balanced input to make the most of them. Since there are now so many good-sounding large-diaphragm condenser mikes available at good prices, you could set up a pair of them externally, powered by the internal phantom source in the H4. To further break it down, what this means to us is that we can record well using only the H4; but we can also use our arsenal of mikes for even higher fidelity and tone. Because the H4 employs SD memory cards, you can record over six hours at CD quality using a 2Gb card. You can erase and rerecord as often as you like, or archive them in your computer, or just start collecting SD cards. As cheap as memory cards have become, I’m surprised they aren’t offering them in bubble gum. If you only want MP3 quality, you can record thirty-four hours on that same card, which is enough to get all the verses of “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” I realize this is starting to sound like a late-night commercial for Ginsu Steak Knives, but if you order right now.... For the data hunters and gatherers the H4 has a USB mass-storage jack. This means you can output directly to your computer. The H4 comes bundled with recording software to edit, EQ, and mix. It is surprisingly intuitive and has decent help screens to get you out of trouble. I expect the Sci-Luths will be getting us reports of more specific data than we have been able to glean up until now. It should be relatively easy to record, archive, and analyze the recordings to parse out various aspects of our guitars. A picture of the various amplitudes of various frequencies at various phase relationships (I think we could do that) would be a boon to those luthiers seeking to control their instruments by corralling data. I can imagine taking the simple measurements such as weight, flexibility, strength, and resonant frequency; coupling them with Q, Lucci measurements, and aroma; dividing by the flavor the dust leaves on the back of the throat; and running it all, folded gently into the Fast Fourier Transform available in my computer. OK, I cannot really imagine that, since I don’t even know what it means, but I’m getting closer to that day. On top of all that, you can use the H4 as an interface from your instrument or mikes to your computer to record directly to your hard drive, or to employ the continually improving and inexpensifying software that is also practically free. And by practically free I mean actually free. There is freeware, shareware, wetware, software, gelware (well, there could be!), all for us to play with. I have not had a chance to experiment with the 4-track capability of the H4. At this point that is not high on my agenda. I did record at each of the four settings, 96kHz, 48kHz, 44.1kHz (CD quality), and MP3. I like that I can decide what balance of bits to time I need. Most H4 functions are controlled by a single “joystick” button on the front of the recorder. It only took a few minutes to get used to that and to be able to navigate the input menu. OK. So, how does it work? The first thing I did after a very cursory look through the manual was set the record quality to CD, set it on the ledge of our treetop-level guest house in Ubud, and record the cacophony of frogs, crickets, cicadas, monkeys, and who knows what else. Using the included earphones I listened gleefully to the sounds of the Bali night. As it turns out, even geckos make a really amazing sound. What I assumed must be a huge, fierce amphibious creature turned out to be a frog the size of a silver dollar. By fiddling a bit with the input levels and laying the recorder on its side on a pillow, I was able to improve the already cool sounds I was capturing. On the downside, the earphones are barely usable, both uncomfortable and a bit flat sounding. Luckily better earphones are readily available. At a concert of gamelon orchestra the next evening I recorded music that covered the entire dynamic range from whisper-soft wood flute to the truly deafening roar of the full gamelon. Nyoman Darna, a driver whom Janet has now known for a couple of years, is an accomplished wood carver, as well as a student of the bamboo gamelon and a guitar player. On a trip across the island Nyoman suggested a stop at a gamelon maker’s shop. In addition to being a truly fine craftsman, the gamelon maker turned out to be Nyoman’s teacher. Hmm, we drive up into the mountains, visit a gamelon maker, Nyoman gets a lesson. Not a bad day’s travel. As Nyoman and his teacher squatted on the dirt floor of the shop, a chicken and a dog casually meandering around us, the other craftspeople carving or painting instruments, I was able to record this impromptu music lesson in CD quality. (Listen to some of these recordings at the Extras page of the GAL website: www.luth.org.) A few nights later I recorded the famous Bali Monkey Chant dance, with its wildly percussive, rhythmically complex vocalizations. It is formally known as Ketchak, and that is the main syllable I could discern. (The sound is “tchak!” I suspect they use a silent “Ke,” just like in English.) Wonderful music. I have made a few recordings of guitars and I plan to record as many of my guitars as I can get my hands and ears on. They will be available on my website for my potential customers to hear and for me to refer to as I wish to remind myself of my former glory. The H4 is not the only small digital recorder out there. Several companies make them. The H4 (retail price is $499, but I’ve seen them online for as little as $253 — shop around.) is affordable, well designed, and as far as I can tell the only one that can be used as a USB interface. The H4’s light weight may also translate into fragile. I wouldn’t drop it too often or from too great a height. I did drop mine from about four feet. After reclosing the battery compartment it worked just fine. Also, as I said, I wish the earphones were more comfortable. The H4 can run on two AA batteries or the included wall wart adaptor. I would have liked it if the adaptor could be used to charge rechargeable batteries, but you can’t have everything. I almost forgot to mention the little foam windscreen that can be either placed over the mikes to cut wind noise, or placed over the nose to garner cheap laughs. At a recent Northern California Association of Luthiers meeting, one of the topics of greatest interest was the potential of using small, affordable recorders to gather data as well as record and post to websites. For many of us, the H4 will simplify these tasks. I, for one, plan to take mine to the beach and record the surf late at night. ◆ [/wcm_restrict]
Posted on June 6, 2024January 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Catalyzed Polyester Finish Letter: Catalyzed Polyester Finish by Mike Doolin Originally published in American Lutherie #85, 2006 I’ve switched from waterborne finish to catalyzed polyester. Why? Hardness and speed. Poly provides the durability to which most steel-string players are accustomed. It’s basically 100% solids and cures by catalysis instead of evaporation, so it doesn’t shrink over time. I can rub out a finish after five days cure, and a year later it will look just as good. But those qualities come at the price of toxicity and flammability. I now have a commercial spray booth with an explosion-proof room around it, and a supplied-air full-face respirator. With solvents like acetone and MEK and with MEKP as the catalyst, this stuff is not to be trifled with. Besides, it stinks to high heaven until it’s cured. I still recommend waterborne finishes, particularly KTM-9, to small-production and hobbyist luthiers and anyone unwilling or unable to make this kind of investment in finishing equipment. ◆
Posted on June 6, 2024January 17, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Regarding Alex Willis Book and Fretboard Tapering Method Letter: Regarding Alex Willis Book and Fretboard Tapering Method by John Mello Originally published in American Lutherie #95, 2008 Dear Tim, While going over a section of Alex Willis’ Step By Step Guitar Making with a student, I came across a tip on p. 109 regarding cutting slots in a tapered fingerboard blank and realized I had unfairly criticized the suggestion in my review of the book in AL#94. It may be a little ambitious for a student to make the precise wedge necessary on a tapered board of finished dimensions since a line scribed from the temporary reference face would need to coincide exactly with the centerline of the original taper to insure perpendicular slots, but it’s certainly doable. On an oversized board, the wedge would be less critical as a new centerline could be scribed referencing the temporary square face and the final taper cut based on this line. In either case, Alex’s suggestion was sound and my criticism unwarranted. I apologize. ◆