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Larrivee plant tours part II

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Now I’d like to complete the final part of a post I did a while ago about a guided video tour of the Larrivee plant. If your a serious or casual guitarist, you might find some neat answers to questions about how they make acoustic guitars. Enjoy!

In video 4 @ 01:13, they talk about all the parts of the neck of a guitar. The way they carve the neck is a craftsmanship at it’s best. I was amazed at how many parts of it that has names attached to them. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks or words! The prep work before painting is neat as well as the technique itself. The finishing part that Larrivee uses in this section is called a UV finish. They use to use a lacquer finish now but took around 2 weeks to dry properly. The new stuff cures in a minute and a half in comparison to 2 weeks for the older finish. I wonder if the new finish they apply affects the guitar’s tone, even a little bit? If you know this answer, I’d love to here from you.

In video 5, they show a technician using wood shims while installing the neck of the guitar to the body. I just thought it would size up perfectly but for a supper snug fit, I can see how shims come in handy @ 01:52. The way the neck is glued onto the body has to be a bit stressful for the technician. This is brought to us @ 03:28. It has to be perfect or otherwise and little problems at this part of the process will be magnified at the end. If the friction fit dove tail section is not match perfect, I think that there you got some explaining to do! Near the end of this last video, at the final polishing/buffing stage, I was hoping that the guy was going to show us what might happen if he launches a guitar when using the buffing wheel. That would be priceless! At my second jewelry job, I did that launching thing once while polishing a necklace for a boss of mine and I mangled the hell out of it. it can honestly be quite dangerous.

Here are the remaining links to complete the Larrivee Plant Tour.

Part 4, and 5.

To finish off the tour I thought that I’d add video of the man himself Jean Larrivee the genius behind the Larrivee.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3P6HcKVTrY&NR=1

Keep on Jammin’





Off to see Bruce Cockburn, Neil Peart & Jeff Tweedy

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My beautiful wife Tricia, just got us some tickets to see Bruce Cockburn, Neil Peart and Jeff Tweedy being interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos today! The show will be in the CBC building in downtown Toronto and I would not miss this for the world.

(side note: I wish I thought about telling you earlier Dom and Julian because I would of at attempted to get each of you guys tickets, at least to see the drumming god Neil Peart of RUSH.)

I believe that Bruce will be on to promote his 31st studio album Small Source of Comfort on True North Records.

I’ve seen Bruce before in Chicago and Mississauga but this will be a nice setting. Just him and George chattin’ together in a small studio. I’m bring my Larrivee in the hopes that he’ll sign it.

So wish me luck on getting to meet him after the show and get his signature!

Keep on Jammin’

Selinger’s Music in listowel Rocks

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Through good old Face Book I ran into an old guitar playing buddy of mine who now runs a music store called Selinger’s Music in Listowel (pronounced Lis-Twoll) Ontario. I’ve never been there before but if my buddy Al is the same kind of stand up guy he was when we were kidz then his store must truly rock.

Looking at a few pic’s from Selinger’s Music site, I spy some nice vintage axes hanging around the shop. He has a nice collection of Taylor acoustic guitars in all sizes. He also looks like he has a decent selection of amps and pedals as well. And speaking of pedals, the other part of the store he has that I like is his tech department that is dedicated to rebuilding vintage guitar pedals. It’s nice to see all those old school pedal(s) are there, still alive and kicking around!

If you check out this link you’ll see a picture of a very old pedal called the Silencer by Electro Harmonix that they are working on. I use to own one when I first started playing electric guitar and it brought back some painful memories. For the life of me I can’t remember what this pedal sounded like but I thought it looked real cool.

There’s an area in Selinger’s that highlights their drum section, which appears to be quite big. I’m not a drummer but what they had I was impressed with.

Last but not least you have to see this sign they have offering lessons to anyone purchasing any instrument, best ad I’ve seen in years.

Keep on Jammin’ Selinger Music in Listowel!

The Stereo Acoustic Guitar

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I ran into this rather interesting story about a custom made acoustic guitar called the Stereo Acoustic guitar created by a guitar luthier named Paul Kinny. I found the story on Gizmag.

At first, the appearance of the Stereo Acoustic, looks like it’s a guitar right out of an Austin Powers movie. Then when you take a closer view of it you go hmmm … interesting indeed! With a large top or face of the guitar, it gives you the impression that what you have here is one loud acoustic! In my travels, I have found that the larger the surface an acoustic guitar has, the more area it has to vibrate, thus achieving a loud sound. There are other factors in play here that will make you instrument louder overall.

Like the inner bracing of an acoustic, like the OM technique in creating fantastic sounding acoustics, that give you this effect.

Unfortunately you can’t see exactly how deep the Stereo guitar is in this particular video. If you could, it would help you quickly determine if you are looking at a loud acoustic. The greater the distance between the top and the back of an acoustic you have, the more area your sound has to bounce around giving you a deeper, warmer sound, generally speaking that is.

In the video that I’ve included below, do you notice something else that was different with this guitar than with others you’ve seen or played? Where is the sound hole located on it?

Traditionally sound holes are circular holes placed in the front of the guitar. If you look at where the microphones are in the still picture of this video, you’ll notice that they are positioned right above the guitarist, both to the left and right of his head. I noticed a mic in front of the Stereo Guitar that would pickup other ambient sounds, but what they would sound like is anyone’s guess. Anyways, these two sound holes are called guitar side ports.

I’ve touched on the topic of guitar side ports before, but this guitar has something about it that makes it stand out from the rest of the crowd. This one has two guitar side ports on it. By having the side ports in this location of the guitar, they focus the sound to both of your ears. You will achieve a stereo effect with something like this, this is really interesting to me.

I’m not sure what the sound would be like to a person sitting in the same room. Would it be too tin-ie? Too Airy?

If you’ve seen one of these guitars in your local watering hole, please tell us what you think about the Stereo Acoustic Guitar?

Keep on Jammin’

Great Ear training site

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I was looking around a website from an old friend of mine in Brantford Patrick Feely and I came across a link on his guitar page directing me towards an ear training website. The site is called Good-Ear and it has some real neat lessons on it that will test and help you to expand your overall musical knowledge. Most importantly it fine tunes your mind to help you understand what it is that you are listening to when you try to figure out songs by ear.

When I first started the basic lessons on Good-Ear, it reminded my of my early days when I wanted to focus all my attention towards ways that would help me grow as a guitarist/musician. I feel that working on ear training made me become a more well rounded guitarist.

When I was around 15, following being kicked out of Pylis, I was feeling a little bummed out. Shortly after shaking off the Progressive Rock blues, I decided to pull up my pant legs and begin to focus on another musical chapter in my evolution as a guitar player. This new direction brought me to my classical guitar playing era, which in turn brought me to ear training.

My ear training helped me out a ton when lifting songs off an album or just to the radio. Today I can have a song playing in my head then grab my axe and figure it out in mere seconds. This something that I highly recommend everyone to try!

Sure some people out there will argue against this discipline that it is a waste of time but I hope that I can nudge some people out there to follow this path or just explore what ear training can do for you and have some fun! Remember, the worst thing that can happen is you learn something!

So for all you adventurous types out there, take the test and tell me what you think.

Keep on Jammin’

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