
A close look at acoustic design reveals artfully engineered contours that strike an ideal balance between structural strength and musical responsiveness.
As acoustic guitar players and makers, we use the term "flattop guitar" so often it may come as a surprise when careful investigation reveals the top and back of a guitar to be anything but flat. While an archtop guitar's dramatically sculpted top and back contours are obvious at first glance, signaling cello-like inspiration and construction, the subtle contours of our favorite flattops are equally critical for the structure and sound we love.
To better understand how this gracefully curved structure works, consider the practicalities of how a guitar top is constructed. From a board, a very thin sheet of wood is cut. Typically, two or more pieces are joined together edge-to-edge in order to provide the most predictably uniform wood grains across the width of the guitar. This top usually has what's known as quartersawn grain orientation for maximum strength and consistency, with the growth rings of the wood perpendicular to the guitar's face, as if the hard grain lines were miniature structural beams.
Braces are glued to the underside of the top in any number of different arrangements. The purpose of these braces is to guide the vibration of the top in a way that makes a pleasing musical sound, while imparting enough strength to the top to avoid physical distortion or outright fracturing when supporting the tension of the strings.
One challenge a guitar maker faces is to build the top with very light weight, so it can respond easily to string vibration, yet enough strength and stability to withstand the immense tension. When a flat sheet of material is bent into a curve, even a subtle curve, its strength is increased significantly. Imagine a sheet of paper. It's very thin and incredibly flexible. When held in a curved shape, it becomes far stronger perpendicular to the axis of the bend.
When a flat sheet of material is bent into a curve, even a subtle curve, its strength is increased significantly.
In a more extreme example, if the paper is rolled into a tube, it becomes exponentially stronger, all without adding any additional mass. This same principle is applied to a guitar top. Most commonly, instead of a mere cylinder shape, where the top is arched in a single direction, the top is gently coaxed into a spherical shape, increasing its strength in every direction. This spherical shape is formed and held in place by cutting a corresponding curve into the braces and sides of the guitarāwhich are far less flexible than the thin wood of the top itselfāand gluing the entire structure together to anchor this shape in place.
Unlike the top, the grain orientation of the braces glued to the top prevents them from following the shrinking or swelling in dry or humid conditions. As a result, the top or back will slowly sink, eventually becoming flat, or even slightly concave, in dry weather. The subtle built-in arch of a top or back allows the wood to have room to shrink before it cracks. We could think of this as building in some slack to prevent damage. In humid conditions, the top and back will swell, rising up into a higher arch as the wood grows in size. While this will temporarily raise the strings higher from the fretboard and make the guitar harder to play, no further damage is imminent.
The practices of arching a top and back are practical habits of instrument makers that stretch back hundreds of years. Each maker has its own approach to this subtle art and uses this as an ingredient in voicing the sound of instruments. Regardless of the exact amount and relationship of the arches, which vary by the maker's design and are further influenced by the weather and conditions of the day, it seems our guitars remain a curiously beautiful balance of carefully thought-out physics and artful practicalities.
The Hummingbird Studio EC features a mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top, a Round SlimTaper profile mahogany neck, and L.R. Baggs electronics.
The Hummingbird has become more versatile and expressive than ever with the introduction of the Hummingbird Studio EC, Hummingbird Standard EC, and the Hummingbird Rosewood EC. Equipped with cutaway bodies that provide improved access to the upper frets of the Round SlimTaper profile mahogany necks, L.R. Baggs electronics, and shipped in hardshell cases, theyāre ready for you to take them wherever the muse carries you.
Hummingbird Standard EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12ā radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Standard Rosewood EC
- Rosewood body and sides with a Sitka spruce top gives more bass and harmonic complexity
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12ā radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Studio EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Utile neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 16ā radius
- L.R. Baggs Element Bronze electronics
- Satin finish with one-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
A forward-thinking, inventive, high-quality electro-acoustic design yields balance, playability, and performance flexibility.
High-quality construction. Flexible, responsive, and detailed-sounding pickup/mic system. Lots of bass resonance without feedback or mud.
Handsome, understated design may still estrange traditionalists.
$1,599
L.R. Baggs AEG-1
lrbaggs.com
Though acoustic amplification has improved by leaps, bounds, and light years, the challenges of making a flattop loud remain ā¦ challenging. L.R. Baggs has played no small part in improving the state of acoustic amplification, primarily via ultra-reliable pickups like the Anthem, Lyric, andHiFi Duet microphone and microphone/under-saddle systems, the overachieving, inexpensive Element Active System, and theM1 andM80 magnetic soundhole pickupsāall of which have become industry standards to one degree or another.
Lloyd Baggs got his start building guitars for the likes of Jackson Brown, Ry Cooder, Janis Ian, and Graham Nash. So he can tell you that building a good guitar from the ground up is no mean feat. Enter the AEG-1, L.R. Baggsā first flattopāa unique thin-hollowbody design that leverages the companyās copious experience with transducers of every kind to create a successful, holistically functional instrument. In some ways, it feels like an instrument built to match a great pickup systemāa cool way to consider guitar design if you think about it.
Gentle Deconstruction
Admittedly, Iām a flattop design traditionalistāthat jerk that thinks any acoustic sketched out after 1962 looks a bit yucky. So, the AEG-1ās looks were a bit jarring out of the case. That didnāt last. Though itās very shallow and soft curves sometimes evoked a swimming pool outline, that of a nice Scandinavian coffee table, and Gibsonās L6-S (these are highly positive associations in my opinion), the lovely body contours and shallow cutaway have a slimming effect and give the guitar a sense of forward lean at the aft endāalmost like a sprinkle of Fender Jaguar. The more you stare at it, the more it looks like a very artful deconstruction of a dreadnought shape, and a very natural one at that.
The construction itself is unique, too. The sides are CDC-machined poplar ply, oriented so you see the laminate in cross-section. The top is a very pretty torrefied Sitka spruce, which is braced in a traditional scalloped X pattern. The sides are also braced with arms that radiate toward the waist and heel at 120 degrees from each other, reinforcing the soundhole and the substantial neck heel. The back is critical to the AEG-1ās tone makeup, too. Rather than a merely ornamental bit of plywood, itās a lovely Indian rosewood that vibrates freely, enhancing resonance and the many organic facets of the AEG-1ās tone spectrum.
The 25.625"-scale mahogany neck is mated to the body by way of four substantial bolts and an equally substantial contoured heel and heel block. Sturdy, perhaps, undersells the secure feel of the neck/body union. In hand, the slim-C neck is lovely, too. The bound rosewood fretboard is beautiful, and the playability is fantastic as well. The action is snappy and fast, the 1.7" nut width is comfy and spacious. And, in general, the build quality of the Korea-made AEG-1 is excellent.
Resonant With Room To Roam
With the exception of country blues playersāand guitarists like Blake Mills andMadison Cunningham, who dabble in rubber bridges to prioritize focus over breadthāmost 6-stringers want a lot of resonance from their instruments. The AEG-1 resonates beautifully, particularly for a thin-bodied guitar. And the HiFi Duet, made up of the HiFi bridge plate pickup and the companyās Silo microphone, is deep and detailed, so the output is easily reshaped by the flexible volume, tone, and mic/pickup blend controls. But the balance of the constituent parts, and the deft way with which the design sacrifices a little body resonance for string detail, is smart and satisfying to interact with.
This is especially true when you use blend settings that favor the microphone. If you get the tone control on the AEG-1, and your amp, dialed in right (I used a mid-scoop and slight bump in the treble and bass from a Taylor Circa74), the extra bass resonance is warm but without being overbearing, adding mass to tones without slathering them in mud. But you donāt have to get too precious and precise about such settings to make the guitar sound great. Working together, the HiFi Duetās pickup/mic blend and tone controls provide the range and variation to shift bass emphasis or put sparkle to the fore. This range is helped in no small part by the guitarās basic feedback resistance. I spent a fair bit of this evaluation playing loud, plugged into the Circa74, which was tilted toward my head at a 30-degree angle. Only when I bent down to turn the amp off, situating the guitar about a foot-and-a-half from the speaker, did the AEG-1 start to feed back.
The Verdict
Inventive, attractive in form and function, playable, and above all forgiving, full-sounding, and balanced when amplified, the AEG-1 is an unexpected treat. The HiFi Duet pickup-and-microphone system is a star. But rather than feeling like an afterthought, it feels like an integral part of the whole. And itās the cohesiveness of this designāand the wholeness of the many sounds it createsāthat makes the AEG-1 different from many stage-oriented electro-acoustic guitars
During routine quality checks, Blackstar has identified a problem with specific Debut 100 Series amps.
Statement from Blackstar:
"Nothing is more important to Blackstar than the safety of our customers.
During routine quality checks, we have identified a problem with Debut 100R 112 and 212 Combos with date codes from 2403 to 2411.
Due to cabinet production errors, a larger than intended gap between wooden parts of the cabinet can cause some electronic components to be accessible or partially exposed. As a result, in some circumstances a user could come into contact with safety critical internal chassis components. This poses a risk of serious electric shock.
Given the circumstances and our commitment to absolute safety, Blackstar has therefore decided to recall these affected products to resolve the issue. No other Blackstar products or Debut 100R date codes are affected.
Blackstar asks all customers with a Debut 100R 112 or 212 Combo to visit the following link to determine whether their product is affected: https://blackstaramps.com/product-recall/
We wish to thank you for your cooperation and to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
If you have any questions or concerns, or need any support regarding the details of this Product Safety Recall, please contact our team in the UK via https://blackstaramps.com/contact-us/"
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