Acoustic Guitars

Alongside the electric guitar the acoustic guitar is one of the most popular instruments today. It has a 200 year old history and many construction particulars are as old as the instrument itsself.

Due to the steel strings the acoustic guitar has a higher tension than concert guitars which are stringed with nylon. The neck is thiner and usually has a steel bar to hold the strong back-pull of the steel strings. The top and bottom braces of a "normal" guitar (concert guitar) had to be altered due to the higher string draught. In the 19th century C. F. Martin invented the so called "scalloped bracing" at which the top braces are open pointing in order to strengthen or weaken certain resonances of the instrument. To this day acoustic guitars are still braced according to the Martin-principle.


Wood Selection

Alongside the form the sound of a guitar is defined by the wood it is made out of (more info further down). The top wood has a great effect on the sound and responsiveness. In most cases the top is two-pieced made of spruce or cedar which are found in many different grades. The bottom and ribs can be made of mahogany or similar wood like rosewood, maple or tropical woods.


Bodyform

Next to the top bracing and the wood selection the body form is another important feature which defines the sound of a guitar. As the guitar player will look at a guitar first, the form will probably be the preliminary reason for deciding on a guitar, because every body has its specific sound features and is therefore suitable for certain music styles. A distinction is drawn between flattop- and archtop-guitars. Flattops have flat tops and bottoms - like the name suggests. Most acoustic guitars belong to this group. Archtops have curved tops and bottoms and are mainly used by jazz-musicians.


Flattop Dreadnought

Today the Dreadnought is one of the most popular and surely most often built guitar forms at all. It is named after the worlds greatest warship of the time, the HMS Dreadnought, that was put to sea in 1906. The Dreadnought-guitar was built in 1917 by C. F. Martin under the brand Ditson. Ditson, a large manufacturer at that time wanted a guitar that could play together with louder instruments and still be heared. So he enlarged the depth of the body and took away the slim waist of the guitars of that time (usually 000). Inspite of initial sceptism C. F. Martin took the Dreadnought into his range and created the legendary D-18 and D-28 models. Dreadnoughts are good for every music style, but you can say they are typical flatpick-instruments. Due to their sound intensity they are often used to escort songs (as a rhythm guitar).


0 (Concert), 00 (Grand Concert), 000 (Auditorium)

These body numerations were also introduced by Martin and adopted by other manufacturers in the course of time. The 0-size, presented by Martin for the first time in 1850, was the biggest guitar of the time. The number 0 became official and has been consequently continued ever since. At that time there were models with the numeration from 1 to 5 whereas 1 was the biggest body form. Logically the Nr. 0 was even bigger. The 0-models stand out due to their fine tune and are the favorite models of all studio and home musicians. Yet, Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) proves that the "little one" can be played completely different.

In 1870 the 0-series was extended by the 00-series. This size was the outcome for a lot of models that exist today, e. g. the Taylor Grand Concert Series. The 000-collection, designed around 1900, was a real bestseller. Up to 1937 it was only supplied as a 12-fret which was quite popular by finger-pickers. After the introduction of the 14-fret-neck it became a "working horse". With a reduced neck and shorter measures it became a guitar for folk-musicians. Yet, the exception proves the rule: Eric Clapton and Elvis Castello are only two enthusiastic 000-players.


OM

OM is the punch line of the guitar series that was started by Martin. Apart from the longer 14-fret-measure and wider nut, this orchestra-form is identical to the 000. Yet, the tone differences are gigantic. The wider string space and the growth in volume make this guitar a lot easier to play.


Jumbo

The name "Jumbo" was originally coined by Gibson as an answer to Martins´ Dreadnought. The J-45, introduced in 1934, can - from the draughtman´s point of view - be described as a round-shoulder Dreadnought. Today Jumbos are characterized by their strong waist. The first proper Jumbo was presented by Gibson in 1937: the legendary J-200. Above all the Jumbo is a rhythm guitar used for accompaniment.


Mini-Jumbo

As a cheap alternative to the J-200 this guitar was built in 1951 with nearly the same proportions. Only the bottom is a little smaller. On the basis of the NEX-body, Takamine developed the fundament for a whole new inexpensive range.


Archtops

The history of archtops begins in 1924 with the Gibson L-5. It was developed as an addition to the popular mandoline orchestra of the 1920s and gained attention in the new jazz scene. As the archtops were confronted with the same problems as the flattops, they were also constantly built bigger. Today the models only have a little in common with the original form of the L-5. In the 1960s the all-acoustic instruments were displaced by semi-acoustics.


Woods

The influence of wood on the sound of a guitar is usaully explained quite simple: spruce sounds loud and clear and mahogony sounds warm and tender. Yet, there are a lot more features that determine the sound. The surface, for example, can be coated, waxed or oiled. In addition to that - and what is more important - is the workmanship and construction of the guitar, the body form, the bracing (ecpecilly the wood that is used for the top brace, neck and fret). All of these influence the sound. Furthermore the quality and origin of the wood also count - where does the wood come from? From which climate? And cut out of which part of the log - top or bottom?


Tops

You cannot deny that the top is the most important component of a guitar concerning its sound. Tops are mainly made of spruce, but also of cedar, walnut and mahogony. Physically talking a guitar sounds a lot clearer the stiffer, lighter and harder the wood is. Therefore there are a lot of experiments with materials like kevlar, a very hard but light plastic. This is also the reason why the manufacturer Ovation builds guitars with a thin sandwich-top of spruce and carbon fibre. High-quality guitars are built out of solid wood, whereas inexpensive instruments are usually built with a plywood top. Plywood tops consist of multiple layers of veneers which are rotated 90° and glued together. Concerning their quality, high-classed plywood tops get quite close to solid wood tops and are a lot more sturdy than the solid wood tops. Still a great disadvantage is that their sound doesn´t develop the longer the guitar is played.


Spruce

As mentioned before, spruce is the most common wood used to build guitar tops. Woods from the northern regions are favoured, as the trees from these regions grow very slowly due to the weather conditions and the annual rings are closer to each other. The closer the annual rings of a wood log are, the stiffer the wood is itsself. For this reason trees are preferred, which grow slowly, thus from regions with short growth periods, e. g. from northern Europe or the alpine region. Different spruce types are used: the European spruce, the North American spruce, the Engelmann-spruce which also comes from North America and the Appalachen spruce.
American manufacturers favour wood of the sitka spruce to build their acoustic guitars. It is said that this type of spruce has a special sound. Engelmann spruce is more expensive, but not necessarily better. It is a small tree that educes only little utilizable wood. Wood of the Engelman spruce is softer and sounds a little warmer. SPruce tops sound loud, clear and powerful, but they also show weaknesses. If the guitar is played gently they lack complex overtones and sometimes sound to thin. A good manufacturer will consider this when building. Spruce wood needs a long warm-up period of several months until it sound has developed completely.


Mahogony

In comparison to spruce mahogony is a soft wood. If it is used for the top of a guitar, the sound is warmer, softer and more gentle with less overtones, sometimes a little "punchy" but with more sustain.


Cedar

Cedar is also a soft wood. Guitars with cedar tops normally sound quite loud and rich.


Maple

There are different types of maple, the well-known sugar maple, sycamore maple and the big leaf maple. Maple wood is very heavy and therefore quite loud, but clear with a lot of sustain. When recording you hardly have feedback. The beautiful wood is usually used for guitars that first and foremost play with pick-ups, thus through an amp.

Walnut

This wood has been used more often in the past years. The advocacy say that it sounds discreet and very balanced, the adversary think it´s boring. So, I guess it´s a matter of taste, like everything else in life!


Does it have to be wood?

At Musik Produktiv we tested different guitars, which didn´t have tops made of wood. The Adams-guitar from Ovation with its sandwich-top made of carbon fibre and plywood, but also guitars from Martin with novel top material and - last but not least - guitars from England that we built out of complete kevlar. We expected great sound differences, but were disappointed: these guitars didn´t sound much different from those instruments made out of wood, but they were definitely not better. Apart from the sound we were annoyed by their smell and they didn´t feel good. It might sound old-fashioned, but before the test we were quite open to these new materials.


Woods for the bottom and rib

This choice of wood doesn´t have much to do with the sound and therefore can be chosen as favoured. Generally the trend is going away from tropical woods - maybe for ecological reasons. The Rio Palisander from Brasil, for example, has been on the "red list" for years.


Maple

Maple is a very popular wood, particularly the rare grains like bird´s eye maple, tiger stripe maple and quilted maple. These are not special maple trees, but grains that emerge through fungus disease and intergrowth.


Cypress

This wood is exclusively used to build flamenco guitars. It is very light and sounds clear, loud and very rhythmic. A flamenco guitar doesn´t have a long life span though. If it´s because of the wood, the build or the aggressive way to play, we from Musik Produktiv can´t really say.


Mahogony

A beautiful wood with clear overtones and warm bass tones.


Koa

Koa has a wonderful grain. In direct comparison to mahogony it sounds centred with less overtones.


Walnut

A trendy, beautiful wood with little tone colour. Like mentioned above, it´s only the top wood that has influence on the sound.


The right guitar for beginners

(Text by the founder and owner of Musik Produktiv Günter Zierenberg)


Milestones

I worked as a guitar teacher for several years, so my experience tells me that a beginner should start with an inexpensive concert guitar. It has the advatage that, because the strings are made of nylon, a beginner will not hurt his finger tips so quickly. Furthermore, the strings are wider apart so your fingers don´t touch the other strings unintentionally what would muffle the tone. Inexpensive guitars like our Collins model are very robust, as they are made of plywood. It shouldn´t be a problem to leave the guitar in a hot car or near the heating, without it getting cracks. There are also concert guitars for small kids, small 3/4 guitars or even smaller 1/2 guitars.


Important

If you buy a guitar, you should already be aiming at your target, e.g. if you hang in there the next four months, you can treat yourself to a better instrument. Or your target could be: if I play this or that song very well, then I´ll get myself an instrument that I can get the best sound out of. You should set an achievable goal.

You can keep the inexpensive starter guitar as a substitute for camping, parties or other opportunities when you don´t want to take your new, precious instrument with you - or you can give it away as a present...

You should treat yourself to a new guitar that´s worth it, ´cause this guitar will be accompanying you for some time. It doesn´t matter if it is a concert or an acoustic guitar but you should invest at least € 150, or even better: double that amount. In this price category you can get really good instruments that sound sweat and can be played simply. The short detour over the concert or acoustic guitar to the e-guitar is definitly worth while and probably the best way to learn the e-guitar.

And then there´s the next milestone: If you play the guitar successfully for a period of time and your technique develops positively, then it´s the right time to purchase your final guitar. That could be a classical Martin or Taylor.


Marginal advice

Again and again we experience clients come into our store with a guitar that they have digged up from somewhere and that has strings as old as Methuselah. What´s even worse is when they ask for a new d-string as if it were the only one completely worn to threads. Please - I beg you - treat yourself and your guitar to a whole new set of strings. Strings of different ages sound terrible - a real catastrophe! With a whole new set of strings, you´ll soon hear how good an old guitar can sound!


How to care your guitar

Everytime you change the strings, you should use the chance to clean the body and neck of your guitar. There are diverse ways and means to clean your guitar, but principly a cloth or an old t-shirt and a drop of furniture polish will do. As some laquers are quite sensitive you should always tryout the polish first.