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| This is a tone producing machine,
plain & simple ... no gold plated hardware, no peghead or fingerboard
binding ... no fancy inlay ... just a set of seasoned Master Grade tonewoods
that have been selected and voiced by one of our generations truely great
steel string guitar builders ... Dana Bourgeois!
Let's start with the top. Of course
all components on a guitar impact the tone but the top is certainly critical
in this regard, especially when it comes to immediacy of response,
the shaping of the note fundamental and the overall power of the instrument.
Procuring instrument grade Red spruce from the upper elevations of the
Adirondack mountains is difficult, and finding a set with Bearclaw
figure is very rare indeed! In Dana's words: "Adirondack spruce,
also known as Eastern Red Spruce, was the legendary topwood used on most
pre-war American-made guitars. Properly sawn, Adirondack is much stiffer
than Sitka and Engelmann spruce, both along and across the grain. This
allows us to make thinner, lighter tops, resulting in lightning-quick response
and power to spare. Most guitar grade "Adirondack" spruce these days comes
from our own backyard - the state of Maine, which still has large stands
of original and second growth softwood forests." |
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"Bearclaw figure, or hazelficte, is a delightful
pattern in the grain occasionally occurring in all species of spruce. Bearclaw,
like the curl in curly maple, is a rippling of the longitudinal fibers,
which divides the surface of the wood into shimmering patterns. Unlike
the even waves that usually occur in maple, bearclaw usually appears on
asymmetrical or randomly broken patterns. This phenomenon almost always
occurs in older trees that have dense, stiff grain structure and high sound
velocity. Thus bearclaw is usually a reliable indicator of the better examples
of tonewoods within any given species of spruce."
Of course one of the other main tone shaping
elements in a guitar is the back & side material. This Custom
Vintage D has an especially lush set of old growth Brazilian rosewood with
a deep rich chocolate brown colour and a dazzling display of "Rio" grain
patterns. To paraphrase Dana: "Brazilian rosewood has an extremely
high velocity of sound and a broad range of overtones. The rosewoods have
strongly pronounced low overtones, usually the lowest resonating frequencies
in the entire guitar. These lows help to create a complex bottom end and
to impart an overall darkness of tone to the instrument. Strong mids and
highs serve to reinforce overtones generated by the top, contributing to
a fatness of tone on the upper registers. Guitars made of rosewood also
have a pronounced "reverby" tone, caused by a strong, clear set of sympathetic
harmonics with a delayed onset and slow decay. I’ve found that Brazilian
rosewood has everything that Indian rosewood has, only more."
You can have the best tonewoods in the world,
but if the builder is not gifted ... it is all wasted. This is where
Dana Bourgeois comes in. "No two pieces of wood are alike. Woods
can differ in weight, lateral and longitudinal stiffness, and resonant
characteristics. Bourgeois guitars are voiced at three stages of construction.
First we thickness tops and backs on the basis of flexibility and weight.
After tops and backs are braced, we tune the braces to get as many clear
notes as can be found in given top. I think of braces as little tunable
marimba keys. These can be tuned by holding the plates in certain places,
tapping over the braces, listening to the response, and adjusting the height,
thickness or length of each brace. If this step is properly executed,
the guitar ends up with an even, balanced tone, from one end of its range
to the other. Once the top and back are glued to the rim, we fine
tune the thickness of the top and back by sanding around the perimeter
of the outside of the guitar. When this last step is done properly
then the wood and air can vibrate sympathetically, and the guitar gains
power."
The word "power" definitely comes to mind
the minute you touch a pick to the strings of this Custom Vintage D!
This guitar combines an absolutely crushing power with Dana's legendary
even balanced voice, astonishing immediacy of response ... and just
THE perfect balance between a very very sweet note core and a stunningly
beautiful overtone display!!! |
