Ever wonder how they bend all those sides, making all those shapes for all those acoustic guitars? Some of you may have some idea how this is accomplished, and some of you may have actually attempted this while building a handmade musical instrument. Big factories have expensive, customized, steam-forced molds that produce guitar sides with ease, uniformly and consistently without warps or cracks. Even higher volume factories use laminated sides, which are the easiest to bend because they are not prone to cracking like solid wood. These processes are well established, so the focus this month is bending sides of solid wood – one-at-a-time, by hand. For hundreds of years, the shapes of many stringed musical instruments have been defined by their sides, made from very thin (.060”-.095”) pieces of tone wood, often bent on a hot iron of sorts. Bending irons vary in size and shape, some fueled by flame, some by electricity. The sides are typically half as long around the guitar with a seam at the very butt end.
For sonic and visual purposes, the sides are normally “book matched,” meaning they are sliced from the same piece of wood, side-by-side, and butterflied open. This repeats the grain pattern on the top and bottom sides of the instrument and it also ensures similar sonic qualities within both pieces of wood. Hint: if you see a certain grain pattern on the top side of your guitar, then you should see the same pattern, in the same place, on the bottom side, proving it’s a genuine book matched side set.
To bend a side with a hot iron one must know the shape of the guitar and have a template to compare your progress. Soaking the side in distilled water (to prevent mineral staining), the sides are slowly moved along the hot iron, steam rising, rocking back and forth, and applying minimal pressure to shape the waist and upper and lower bouts. The trick is how much pressure to apply to get good bending results without cracking your beautiful $1,000 Brazilian rosewood sides! This is the age old question, without a great answer. That is until I found Irving Slone’s book on guitar construction in the late ‘70s.
Irving teaches us how to build a guitarshaped mold-bending fixture – heated with embedded high-powered lamps. This was magic, and it seemed like the final solution for unwanted side bending blunders. Truth be told, this was a huge step for the small shop builder, and for years it offered consistency in shape, and it took a little risk and anxiety out of the bending iron. But it wasn’t fail-safe. The heat source was often not enough, particularly at the waist and around cutaways, leaving potential side cracking and splitting in the loom.
The age of “silicone heating blankets” is upon us. This is the new revolution in small and medium scale side bending. A silicone heating blanket is simply a highpowered “electric heating pad,” long in shape like a guitar side. They are thin, flexible, hard silicone with electric elements embedded inside that can reach temperatures up to 450 degrees in a few minutes. To use them, you still use Irving’s mold, but omit the lamps and replace the heat source with the silicon blankets. You can get them from most lutherie supply houses, and I recommend getting the on/off timer control to prevent over scorching.
For the process, I use two blankets, one on the top and one below, bending both sides at the same time. I also use two 6”x36” pieces of thin and flexible stainless steel between the wood and silicone blankets, making a side sandwich with a total of six layers.
I turn on the heat and start bending when I see nice flow of steam rising. When done I leave the sides in the mold until I see no more vapor. All this ensures perfect heat and pressure distribution, almost guaranteeing a successful side bending experience every time; it’s really fantastic. If you are bending with a hot iron or hot lamps, I highly recommend you checking out silicon blankets … they’re even hotter!
Jeff Babicz
founder of Babicz Design Ltd., builds acoustic and electric guitars using his award winning Lateral Compression string anchored Soundboard, Torque Reducing Split Bridge, and Continually Adjustable Neck designs.
www.babiczguitars.com
Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Guitarist Dave Harrington concedes that while there are a few mile markers in the music that he and musician Nicolas Jaar create as Darkside, improvisation has been the rule from day one. The experimental electronic trio’s latest record, Nothing, which released in February on Matador, was the first to feature new percussionist Tlacael Esparza.
Taking the record on tour this year, Darkside stopped in at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, where Harrington broke down his complex signal chains for PG’s Chris Kies.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Express Yourself
Harrington bought this mid-2000s Gibson SG at 30th Street Guitars in New York, a shop he used to visit as a kid. The headstock had already been broken and repaired, and Harrington switched the neck pickup to a Seymour Duncan model used by Derek Trucks. Harrington runs it with D’Addario NYXL .010s, which he prefers for their stretch and stability.
The standout feature is a round knob installed by his tech behind the bridge, which operates like an expression pedal for the Line 6 DL4. Harrington has extras on hand in case one breaks.
Triple Threat
Harrington’s backline setup in Nashville included two Fender Twin Reverbs and one Fender Hot Rod DeVille. He likes the reissue Fender amps for their reliability and clean headroom. Each amp handles an individual signal, including loops that Harrington creates and plays over; with each amp handling just one signal rather than one handling all loops and live playing, there’s less loss of definition and competition for frequency space.
Dave Harrington’s Pedalboards
Harrington says he never gives up on a pedal, which could explain why he’s got so many. You’re going to have to tune in to the full Rundown to get the proper scoop on how Harrington conducts his three-section orchestra of stomps, but at his feet, he runs a board with a Chase Bliss Habit, Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV, Eventide PitchFactor, Eventide H90, Hologram Microcosm, Hologram Chroma Console, Walrus Monument, Chase Bliss Thermae, Chase Bliss Brothers AM, JHS NOTAKLÖN, two HexeFX reVOLVERs, and an Amped Innovations JJJ Special Harmonics Extender. A Strymon Ojai provides power.
At hip-level sits a board with a ZVEX Mastotron, Electro-Harmonix Cathedral, EHX Pitch Fork, Xotic EP Booster, two EHX 45000 multi-track looping recorders, Walrus Slöer, Expedition Electronics 60 Second Deluxe, and another Hologram Microcosm. A Live Wire Solutions ABY Box and MXR DC Brick are among the utility tools on deck.
Under that board rest Harrington’s beloved Line 6 DL4—his desert-island, must-have pedal—along with a controller for the EHX 45000, Boss FV-50H volume pedal, Dunlop expression pedal, Boss RT-20, a Radial ProD2, and another MXR DC Brick.
