I took a deep dive into a series of long video interviews of Santa Cruz Guitars' owner/designer/builder, Richard Hoover, who gets into the weeds about guitar making in great depth.
They were done by Premier Guitar's John Bohlinger. It was fascinating.
I'm not interested in arguing about someone else's ideas. I'm sharing this because I found it extremely interesting. You don't have to agree. It's simply stuff to think about, explained by a master.
For those who haven't played one, Santa Cruz are acoustic guitars that start at Private Stock cost and go up into the stratosphere. They're fantastic guitars.
Whether you like, dislike, buy into, or don't buy into Hoover's ideas about guitar making, they're certainly worth a listen since (like Paul R. Smith) the man has devoted his life to high-end wooden instruments and has learned a lot over many. many years.
Of particular interest to me was this video about things I never thought were important - lots of unexpected info!
In our third installment with Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, the master luthier shows PG's John Bohlinger how his team of builders assemble and construct guitars like a chef preparing food pairings. Hoover explains that the finer details like binding, headstock size and shape...
www.premierguitar.com
Among the tidbits:
Hoover uses wood bindings and other trim pieces, not just because they're pretty, but because he finds the edges of the top, where it joins the guitar and where bindings sit, have an effect on the sound; wood bindings in that critical area work better sonically/inhibit the vibration of the top less than plastic.
He also uses violin-makers' tricks in the kerfing inside the body to transfer the sound to the sides and back differently. This is apparently unusual.
He feels that a nitrocellulose finish is best because nitrocellulose is a wood product (hence the 'cellulose'). He finds it reacts to vibration
with the wood instead of inhibiting the wood. I hadn't thought of it that way; I just prefer nitro. Maybe that's why.
In Hoover's world, the most important tone is what projects to the audience and mic, as opposed to guitars that are made to sound impressive to the player sitting behind the instrument (I should point out that they also sound great to the player, IMHO).
All in all, interesting points of view. The series is both recent and very much worth the watch if you're into the arcana of making guitars, and the things that pieces of wood do for tone.
