It was never part of the process used to make a Martin or a Gibson guitar of any vintage. There never was a "top voicer" who sat down with each top and decided how it should be braced or how thick it needed to be sanded etc., and yet, these companies over the last seven decades managed to produce some of the best guitars on the planet. How is this possible?

The primary goal within the large companies throughout their histories was consistancy, everything as close to perfectly the same as possible. To this end Martin and Gibson, to name just two of many, have done outstandingly well. Every top came out of the sander at the same .110 "(or whatever the spec. d'jour was) and you can be sure that there was someone on the line checking the thickness.

I often use the analogy of the ten thousand monkeys with ten thousand wordprocessors; odds are that eventually one of them will come up with a line from Shakespear. The same idea holds true for the Martins of the world, in that, given the number of guitars produced using the same construction specifications, odds are that some of them will be extraordinary (without the use of any kind of "voicing" process) and most of the others will be at least pretty good to possibly very good. Simple statistics.

We small shop, hand builders must make every guitar count. They all have to be "extraordinary". Why bother taking the time and pains turning out guitars entirely by hand which are not significantly better than those being made by the modern factories? While it must be the goal of the factory guitar producers to make every guitar as perfectly similar as possible (and they do it SO very well!), it is the goal of the hand builder to make every guitar similarly excellent, especially in the "feel" and "tone" departments. Is a flawlessly executed factory produced guitar better than the almost, but not quite so flawlessly produced hand made guitar? Does it do more than simply look good? Does it have "soul"? I leave you to answer those questions for yourself. Check out lots of guitars from a wide variety of sources. To my eye and ear, the best guitars of the present generation are not being turned out in large numbers by many pairs of hands in the factory setting. The law of averages.

If , as I go along,you find your eyes glazing over, try the Gallery Page to revive your spirits.)

Top Bracing Sample

A braced off Sitka top to be used for flat-picking and fingerpicking on a maple DX.

So what does this have to do with voicing tops, you ask? History. It is important to know where we have come from to know where we need to be going. I will try to distill from my own 40 odd years of working with fine instruments (and building a few of my own along the way) how it is that I work with the various woods to maximize their output in the finished instrument. Remember the word "subjective" as you read this.

First some general observations. Wood type (Sitka, Englemann, German, etc.) makes a difference. Each top material has a particular vocal quality. However, it is also true that within a species, specific physical properties also make a difference. Choose a wood based on it basic tonal envelope, then play with the inherent properties of stiffness, hardness, density, and elasticity to manipulate the envelope to produce a specific tonality.

This is not a matter of engineering and science, although they play an important part in the very understanding of how and why what we do with wood works or doesn't work. It is more a matter of practice, patience, and experimentation; learning to listen to what is behind and beyond the sound of the finger tapping the top plate, not simply focusing on a specific fundamental frequency the tapping produces. I hope I can convey some of what I experience as I work with a new top. It is both intuitive and abstract, yet very readily learned with some practice.

Examples:

Sitka :(can be anything from soft/less dense to super hard/dense). It has been the standard for tops for generations. It is an articulate wood with great strength and durability. If soft, leave it on the thick side (.130 inch) and brace it a little more heavily (less deeply scalloped) to give the top enough stiffness to bring out the highs. A soft top has better bass than treble response, so the highs need some help by adding structural stiffness to the top plate which is not inherent in the top without bracing. Clear so far?

A stiff/dense Sitka top, by contrast, will have very strong highs and not enough bottom end. The stiffness of the top does not favor the long sound waves of the bass notes but rather the very short wavelengths of the high partials. In this case, it is necessary to thin the top (making it a bit more flexible reagardless of bracing) to about 0.115 inch and brace with heavily scalloped braces. Thinning the edges of the lower bout from the outside will also help and is something I do routinely.

The first top (soft one)will have a sweet, woody, mellow (but not muddy) sound while the second top (stiff one)will have an edginess or brightness to it along with good bass. Both will be equal in overall power and articulation using this "voicing" method.

The Top is the Voice:

The top is the voice of a guitar, it is the soul of the sound. Treat it with the greatest of respect and it will reward you with a lifetime of improving and amazing tone. One has only to play and listen to some of the fine vintage guitars out there today to see what is possible. So how does one go about getting that sound in a brand new guitar?

When I say I do not "voice" my tops, I mean that I do not try to manipulate them to produce a particular fundamental frequency. I discovered in my years at Gruhn's that the best D's had F# tops. I also discovered that virtually ALL D's have f# tops. It turns out that the particular size, shape and thickness of a D top determines that it can only fall within a very narrow frequency response range, from E flat to F sharp! Go figure! So that wasn't the long sought holy grail of sound, after all.

When I "voice" a top, I am actually trying to FIND it's voice, hear where it sings best (thicker, thinner, braced more, braced less etc. and I do this by listening carefully as I tap the naked, unbraced top after the rosette is installed and the sound hole removed. It is cut down to near its final outline as well.

I first flex test the top to determine relative stiffness across the top. This will tell me how much bracing is needed to make up for lack of stiffness or the reverse, to let me know not to increase the stiffness of the plate by making the braces too heavy. Axiom: overbracing kills!

I like to scratch the top with my fingernails to listen to two things, clarity of the sound and quickness of the response. Both qualities are very audible after a little practice.

I then hold the top with my left hand lightly pinching the upper left bout while I tap the opposite corner of the lower bout with my middle finger, right hand while my right hand gently supports the edge of the lower bout. (don't try this at home, kids...)The tone this tapping produces is highly indicative of the quality of the sound the top will produce when strung. I look for a crisp, very clean tap tone which has a nice long sustain (slow decay). I can also hear the background tonalities the finished top will have in this process.

For example, the top on my own lacewood FX is a soft bear claw Sitka. It is much softer than most current builders would be comfortable working with. However, when I tapped it, the tone was absolutely clean, crisp and "pingy" with excellent sustain. It also had a background tonality of woodiness (lack of edge). I took this information and did the following: I left the top at full .130 inch thickness at the center, thinning it at the edges to .120 inch (around the edges of the lower bout only); the bracing was very light and very heavily scalloped (perhaps contrary to what you might intuitively do.) The sound of the finished guitar was huge, warm, woody, crisp and punchy, all with light strings and light set up. This finished sound was mirrored exactly in the initial tap tone from the raw top.

A second example is the very stiff Adirondack top I used on a Brazilian OM. Here the top had extreme stiffness without any bracing and tapped a hard, percussive edgy tone with very long sustain. Here I needed to make the top less stiff to bring up the bass and be very careful not to over brace it. I thinned to top to .125 inch in the center with feathered edges down to .095 inch around the lower bout. The braces were scalloped as hard as I dared with the peaks at .500 inch and the valley centers at .350 inch. This guitar had a very big, responsive sound that I would describe as "crunchy", piano-like. Big notes, bold notes, slightly edgy notes but complex and intriguing to the ear. Again, the tap tone was diagnostic of the finished sound.

Bottom line; let the top do more of the structural work of displacing the string tension by leaving it a little on the thick side (unless it is a very stiff). Don't load it with wide, tall, braces. Make the brace footprint no more than 5/16inch, not more than 1/2 inch tall at the peaks and scallop to beat the band. Don't be afraid to make the top look a bit fragile, it is probably still overbraced even at that! I have played D-28s from the late 30's that looked like their bracing was sprayed on at the factory it was so tiny. They were still hanging together as of 1975. Axiom: think light!

If you have any questions, write them on the back of a crisp new $100 bill and send them to...

Return to HomePage