---

Top and Back - Design, Bracing, and Voicing

The top and back are the primary tone-producing elements of the guitar, and both must be carefully built and voiced. Each piece of wood is different, and so each guitar requires a slightly unique recipe of thickness, brace height, and flexibility in order to work to its fullest potential.

My guitars have a somewhat unusual bracing design — it is based on a fairly classic "fan" layout, but more widely spaced than a classical pattern.

There are also several lateral braces, interwoven with the fan bars — so the final result is a fairly wide lattice. This is quite different from the close-spaced, diamond-pattern lattices that are popular with many modern builders.

This pattern permits very direct control over the ratio between cross-grain and axial stiffness — a critical aspect of the finished top. I voice my tops by ear, without any additional test equipment.

The guitars' backs are braced in a radial pattern, with a central "X" augmented by two radial bars. Careful shaping of these bars, along with an intentionally decoupled crossover joint, promotes lower-mode or "monopole" motion, allowing the back to participate in producing wide, deep, and well-formed low notes.

---

Sliding Adjustable Neck joint

One of the most unusual features of my Auriole guitar is the sliding adjustable neck joint. My goal was to design a system which was discreet and minimally visible, and still offered maximum adjustability and a rock-solid and dependable connection.

This neck joint system has many advantages over the standard dovetail or bolt-on approaches:

• The player can adjust the action in a matter of seconds, using a simple 1/8. hex wrench. This adjustment can be done with guitar up to pitch — in fact, most adjustments do not even require re-tuning!

• The neck can easily be removed for maintenance, repair, or even travel. In fact, the whole guitar can be "field-stripped" down to its basic component parts in about 5 minutes, with just the single hex wrench.

• Finally, the removable neck lets me fine-tune the response of the guitar. By varying the bridge height, I can control and adjust the amount of load on the top, and find exactly the right amount of pressure to make each guitar work its best. This can be done after the guitar is assembled and finished, a time when most guitars are already fixed to a given geometry.

The heart of the neck system is a custom-machined pair of aluminum parts. One is a "track" which attaches to the neck block, and the other is a "T"-shaped bar that lives in the neck heel. A 2-way screw acts as a turnbuckle that pushes or pulls the two parts relative to each other.

---

Bridge and tailpiece system

With clear roots in the archtop guitar tradition, the floating bridge and tailpiece system are a key part of my guitars' unique response and personality.

In contrast to the typical flattop bridge, the floating bridge/tailpiece arrangement has some clear structural advantages. Primarily, they simplify the forces acting on the top, applying a direct downward pressure rather than the complicated twisting/torquing stress of a pin bridge.

This type of system makes the top much less likely to suffer the bulging and caving-in problems that are almost inevitable with traditional designs.

The different set of forces acting on the bridge also creates a very different note contour — with clearly audible connections to its archtop heritage, the Aurioles have fast, crisp response with a strong attack and a lot of 'cut' — very distinct from most flattops.

The low break angle and moderate downward pressure (around 30 lbs.) also permit me to build a light, responsive top with excellent bass response.

The tailpiece runs inside the laminated tailblock and anchors around the handmade wooden endpin, emerging through a wooden eye on the face of the instrument. It is attached using Vectran cord, a space-age fiber that even outperforms Kevlar and other "super-materials" in some applications. This cord simply will not stretch or break — ever!

---

Soundhole — size, shape, and location

The most common first questions about my acoustic guitars relate to the soundhole and its location. The answer is always — yes, the location makes a difference!

The placement of traditional soundholes has always seemed, to me, more inspired by looks than by function. Classic instruments were generally designed to look symmetrical, and that requires a centrally-located hole.

However, this is a poor choice structurally, compared to the alternatives. Mainly, the central hole interrupts the load-bearing grain along the central axis of the guitar. This creates a huge weak spot in one of the most highly-stressed parts of the top. To compensate, traditional designs are heavily braced around the whole, which stiffens the entire top at the cost of responsiveness and bass. This is just a fact of life unless you move the hole.

By placing the hole in the upper bout area, the top does not lose this critical structural integrity, and can thus be braced more lightly and tuned for greater response and low-end extension.

The offset location also creates a larger area of unbroken top surface, which can act as a larger and more effective vibrating plate.

The size of the soundhole is also a critical design decision, as is the shape. An elongated hole actually has a larger functional diameter than a round hole with equivalent area - a fact that violin makers have known for centuries.

For any acoustic enclosure, the area of the soundhole is vitally important to the tuning - in fact, it is the single most important variable, and small changes can make a big difference. The Auriole soundhole is carefully sized to maximize the bass response of the guitar without compromising treble clarity.

For this reason, I generally prefer not to equip my guitars with "side ports", especially not adjustable ones. I believe that the guitar is best served by a single hole that is the correct size, and an adjustable opening is basically just a chance to make it less correct.

As for open or "fixed-size" side ports, I would encourage a player to try my instrument without them first - thanks to the soundhole placement, most players feel that the Auriole design is very easy to hear while playing. My outlook on holes as weak spots applies to sides as well as tops, and I think they are best avoided unless absolutely necessary!