Unmasking the hubris behind guitar making.

Guitars can be described as hellish contraptions—structures of high entropy, with an uncanny tendency to come apart even when left alone. To perform properly, they must be made of thin sheets of brittle material that inconveniently change shape in response to humidity. And yet, this same fiendish device must maintain perfect stability beneath the strings: a rise or fall of just a few thousandths of an inch can turn it from a musical instrument into a wall ornament. Still want

I've just received a technical paper from a Canadian supplier (one prepared particularly by a research scientist working for a Canadian organization which carries out scientific research for the Canadian forest industry) which compares, among other factors, a variable called the wood's ATR or Ability To Resonate. Interested? "In the musical-instrument building industry, researchers have established the importance of Modulus of Elasticity (MOE) and wood density (Krzysik 1967,

Acoustic Guitar Pickups I © William R. Cumpiano 1998, All Rights Reserved Greetings, friends and fellow travelers: I've been asked to comment on acoustic guitar pickups. I'll oblige by discussing my own approaches, priorities, and prejudices, and invite folks to reply with theirs, if they wish. I hasten to admit that I am not an expert in electronic sound processing, so it is fully possible that I may misspeak herein on specific details of science or electronics. However, my