Building Philosophy

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To go a little deeper into the philosophy with which I build my guitars, let me address a few often-asked questions:

What sound exactly are you aiming for?
I believe that the source is where TONE is defined most. Frank Sinatra on a Radio-shack microphone would have sounded much better than yours truly on a tube Neumann. Altho amps shape the tone and put a definite acoustic stamp on things, it is the guitar where the TONE is born. Put a mediocre guitar thru a great amp and the amp will do a beautiful job in amplifying mediocrity. (Many discussions on this topic have ended with me saying: ‘Take me to your worst sounding amp’.) Thus I feel the need to make a guitar that has, like a built-in tone generator, all of the following: balls, sparkle, balance, warmth, punch, and sustain. THEN I can filter out what I so not want at any given time.
To achieve this, I do two things:

• I completely ignore all common wisdom on the electric guitar (an instrument this young should not have set rules of construction yet).
• And I do not believe for one second any theory that is released on the matter. Trust ONLY your ears. The rule that helps me most is actually a quote from a movie with Robert DeNiro, where he says: “When there is doubt, there IS no doubt”.

What effect does the aluminum have on the sound?
The aluminum simply adds brilliance, almost like a tweeter in a hifi system. By carefully gauging the amount, and alloy of the aluminum I use, I can fine tune the tone of my instruments. The aluminum is found in three spots: 1) the bridge/tail; 2) the front plate, and 3) the headstock.

1. This bridge is the most musical sounding adjustable bridge I have heard. Whereas 99% of guitars simply use the available pot iron or steel constructions, I go thru the trouble of making rigid yet vibrant aluminum constructions. Altho the looks are great, the real secret is the TONE. Even Mr. Les Paul himself commented ultra-favorably on my bridge.
2. The front plate adds brilliance to the tone. I use other tricks to get extra brilliance in those guitars that do not have an aluminum front plate. Nonetheless the aluminum capped guitars have a slightly more glassy sound than the maple-capped ones. The maple caps still sound nicely brilliant and balanced, just slightly woodier than the alu-caps. Pearlies sit more or less in between (the La Perlas have a maple cap underneath the pearl).
3. The headstock aluminum I added to my electric guitars after a flamenco show I played where the sound engineer used my active pickup for the monitors but used two mikes for front-of-house: one on the 17th fret, and one on the headstock (!) I could hear the sparkle from the headstock mic coming back at me in the still empty venue: beautiful!

I do my best to balance out these different tonal elements. For example, there is no aluminum cover on the headstock of the T-series. The T-series is in itself slightly brighter than an A- or S-series: if I used full headstock aluminum, the result would be overly bright.

Why mahogany for neck and body?
Mahogany gives great low end, well-defined and warm. Since I rely on other factors for my top-end, I am free to use the darkest, warmest sounding wood for body and neck. That said, I also get beautifully sounding results from using Korina (or more correctly called Limba) wood for the body, and can add a little ‘spank’ by using walnut for the neck.

A scarf joint on the neck? Isn’t that ‘cheaping out’?

1. Have you ever witnessed a Gibson headstock fly off of a neck? So far, I have had ONE of my necks break in the Gibson-fashion, and it was an experimental one-piece neck that I built. Nuff said.
2. Why would you have the grain of your wood run at an angle with the string tension? That does not make any sense, yet that is exactly what happens on the headstock of one-piece necks.
3. Do you really think that with all the work involved in making a scarf-joint, I use them to do a little cost-cutting?

Much in the same philosophy, I use three-piece mahogany necks. The center-piece is simply turned over, so that IF a piece of mahogany wants to warp, the warping will cancel itself out.

The jack plug on the front of the guitar: isn’t it more classy to have it on the side?

1. I have never seen or owned a side-jack guitar that didn’t run into some kind of jack problem.
2. Just sit down on the couch to play, you’ll quickly find out just how classy a side jack is…

(Teye on-stage with maybe the world’s oldest rock band the BINTANGS)