Acoustic Guitar Videos and More!

alternate tunings

2010-12-03T09:41:00.001-05:00

http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/alternatetunings/alternatetunings.html
http://www.museweb.com/ag/tunings/fm_tunings.html
http://www.museweb.com/ag/tunings/fm_tunings.html
And my favorite....
http://www.stropes.com/index.php?glbm=19&fa=7

mic your guitar?

2010-12-03T09:40:00.001-05:00

http://www.miniflexmic.com/

Jigs for making guitar bracing

2010-10-11T08:52:00.004-04:00

Jim at JMAC guitars builds his own jigs to make things more accurate and less time consuming. These are a few of his jigs that he uses to shape and radius the bracing.

Jim builds the back of his dreads with a 15' radius. This is achieved by cutting a 15' radius into the back braces (top photo). These shaped braces, when glued to the thinner back material, transfer the radius to the back of the guitar.
Making the back with a radius makes it stiffer and more resistant to climate changes. Humidity can wreak havoc on an acoustic guitar and the radius helps prevent disaster.

JmacGuitars.com

Adirondack Spruce Bracing

2010-10-11T08:10:00.005-04:00

Here's a photo of the Adi bracing after it's been shaped, thicknessed, carved etc... Many top builders use Adirondack for their bracing regardless of the type of wood used for the top. Adirondack is much stiffer than the standard Sitka braces. This allows for a more responsive and powerful sound board.

The bridge plate is made of Maple.

www.JmacGuitars.com

I'm having a custom guitar built!

2010-10-07T08:55:00.013-04:00

Something I've always wanted to do is build and acoustic guitar. But after I did a lot of research on the subject I realized that I didn't have the time, tools or patience to do the job right. Fortunately I've met up with a local builder, Jim at Jmac Guitars, who is willing to build "my guitar".

I will get into more specifics in future posts but
for starters the guitar will be a Martin style dreadnought sized guitar. The top or "soundboard" will be made from Adirondack Spruce. This particular Adirondack top was harvested by Smith Creek Mandolin from virgin forests in my home state of Maine. Back in the day Martin and other guitar makers used Adirondack for the tops of their guitars. Over time it became difficult to find trees large enough to make guitars out of. In the 40's the switch was made to Sitka spruce for the tops.

The back and sides will be made from Honduran Rosewood. I've heard a lot of great things about this wood as a tonewood so I thought I'd give it a shot. It is a little harder and more dense than other more common rosewoods. HR is said to be very "musical" and is the primary wood used to make marimba bars.

Honduran Rosewood back and sides.

The combination of these two not-so-common tonewoods should produce and great sounding guitar with plenty of power and strong clear bass tones.

Custom Acoustic Guitar by Jmac Guitars

2010-09-29T13:14:00.005-04:00

Here's a video of a custom built acoustic guitar buy Jmac Guitars in Massachusetts. This particular guitar has similar features to a Martin HD-28. Please visit JmacGuitars.com for information on this model and other acoustic guitars that they have to offer.

Recorded with the MiniFlex 2 Mic for Acoustic Guitars

2010-04-05T10:26:00.007-04:00

"Clarity" by Mark Bower

This is an original song recorded with the new MiniFlex2 Mic system for acoustic guitars. Mark is using an alternate tuning for this song DGDGAD.

Neil Young performs on Conan O'Brien's last show.

2010-01-26T19:16:00.003-05:00

Neil Young showing his support for Conan O'Brien on his last show on NBC. Conan gave a lot of up and coming musical acts a big break with appearances on his show.

Long May You Run

Pre-war Martin D-18 Appraisal Video

2010-01-20T09:21:00.007-05:00

I'm sure many of you are fans of Antiques Road Show on PBS television. Every once in a while someone will bring in a cool vintage guitar to be appraised. In this episode a 1937 Martin D-18 was brought in for the experts to weigh in on.
Here's a link to the appraisal video. There are some good close-ups of the guitar and the appraiser does a little strumming towards the end. The sound is just amazing.

Appraisal video

If you're looking to buy a modern replica of a pre-war D-18 but don't have the cash for a Martin D-18A, check out the Blueridge BR-240. A very well made, well designed guitar that will get you in the ball park sound-wise for a lot less cash.

Acoustic Guitar Instrumental, alternate tuning

2010-01-08T21:59:00.006-05:00

Here's a video from my favorite youtube guitarist M. Bower. He writes some very original tunes using a lot of alternate tunings. Here's a link to his youtube page ob1ob123.

This is a video of one of his original songs. The guitar tuning is -cacgge- capo 3rd fret, 1st through 5th strings. Enjoy.

Acoustic Pink Floyd - Breathe

2010-01-06T16:00:00.010-05:00

Probably my most popular video is my acoustic version of Pink Floyd's "Breathe" from The Dark Side of the Moon album.

I had recently watched The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon and got inspired to relearn a few Floyd tunes.

I shot my video on Feb. 1, 2008, playing my trusty Blueridge BR-140 guitar (which I just recently sold to a student of mine). They are really well made guitars with very slim necks which make them very playable for most folks. Some players find them too thin.
The guitar has a similar sound to a D-18V, maybe a little more mids.
The audio for this video is straight from the camera mic which unfortunately doesn't do this guitar justice. I now record the audio for my vidoes with separate mics running to my computer, then mix it down to the video afterwards.

Welcome to my blog.

2010-01-06T13:14:00.000-05:00

I thought I would create this blog as a companion site to my music website and youtube video page.

I am a guitarist/singer/songwriter and do all of my writing and recording in my house in York Maine USA.

I will be using this blog to discuss anything and everything relative to acoustic guitars, songwriting, home recording techniques and youtube videos. Both the making of my videos and commenting on other music oriented videos that I come across.

Your comments are welcome!

Cheers
Jeff