Some details about this guitar:
Sitka top
Mad rose back, sides, and peghead backplate
Brazilian body/neck/peghead binding, bridge, peghead frontplate
2-piece ebony fingerboard, ebony arm rest
Maple neck (flame, birdseye, flame)
Amboyna burl neck heel cap and rosette
Loquat plug for cello post hole
9-string nylon, 644mm-696mm scale
Neck joins body at 14th fret, 22 frets treble, 17 frets bass-side
Currently tuned EE AA D E A g b e', sometimes DD GG C E A g b e' and others
Double-action truss rod, adjusted at the headstock, "hidden" cover plate
Cantilevered neck & fingerboard
Lattice bracing
Compound fretboard profile (radiused treble, flat bass)
"Scooped" neck profile
Stereo K&K (3+3 sensors)
Cello post opening in tail
The goal was to provide an extended range instrument which retained a guitar-like feel, playability, and sound. The thin neck (with the scooped profile on the back and the half-curved, half-flat finger board) was designed specifically to address the playability of such a wide neck. Most guitars with extra courses treat them directly as diapasons (no frets installed or rarely fretted by the player). I have small hands but wanted to fret all 9 strings, including the occasional 8- or 9-string barre.
The thin, scooped neck profile combined with very low action gives a jazz-guitar feel in the left hand (for the upper six strings) because the thumb seems to "wrap" the neck by settling into the groove between the 6th and 7th string. Barred stops and glides feel very "electric". But because the width of the neck and the string spacing are standard multi-string classical, the guitar supports classical technique in both hands: plenty of room for all manner of finger-style movement. The surface of the fingerboard on the bass-side helps reduce interference between the strings and the underside of the fingers when fretting strings 7, 8 and 9. It also "tricks" the fingers into thinking the action underneath the bass strings is lower than it really is, because the fingers do not have to stretch quite as far to press the string into the fret. Consider that if the fingerboard was radiused across the entire width, the fingers would have to stretch slightly further "around and down" to fret those bass strings.
Edward's very precise construction tolerances mean that all strings sustain fully at all frets, including string 1 @ fret 22. Indeed, the open string sustain is the longest for any guitar I have played.
The sound is a mixture of nylon-jazz and "rich" classical. The middle strings sound very cello-like and the basses growl very deeply. There is even response and tonality across all strings, an amazing achievement, IMO. Plus the guitar has oodles of that seductive "cathedral" effect common to multi-string classicals.
A 14-fret guitar with access to 22 frets for the treble strings combined with a nearly 5 octave range really opens up the musical possibilities.
|
![[clap]](./images/smilies/smiley32.gif "adulations")
Congratulations to you and Edward both.