Partnership?

[Daniel Sorbera]

Guitarists I think automatically connect a sound/tone to a specific body shape and go off that.

+1 I've seen this happen so much it makes me sick.

Can I also add that it's not good to be different just for the sake of being different. I've seen some pretty crappy guitar shapes on here that we're very "unique".

[davee5]

To be honest, most of the new and interesting body designs that I've seen are basses. For whatever reason, bassist are not in such a rut (like guitarists) when it comes to body shape. Guitarists I think automatically connect a sound/tone to a specific body shape and go off that.

Oh man do I fully agree with that. Years ago when I started planning my guitar and collecting images of beautiful design details it was all basses. I even thought the only way to make a cool looking instrument was to make a bass, so I naiively asked a pro bassist buddy of mine if he would buy a custom off me. Of course having both never built a guitar and having asked a pro musician to cough up "spare" cash was a little ridiculous.

I didn't end up using many of the details I liked because they don't seem to fit into our relatively conservative world of guitars. Someday I'll build a bass, so I can feel freer with design and so I can finally have a bass.

-Dave

[Mattia]

To be honest, most of the new and interesting body designs that I've seen are basses. For whatever reason, bassist are not in such a rut (like guitarists) when it comes to body shape. Guitarists I think automatically connect a sound/tone to a specific body shape and go off that.

Oh man do I fully agree with that. Years ago when I started planning my guitar and collecting images of beautiful design details it was all basses. I even thought the only way to make a cool looking instrument was to make a bass, so I naiively asked a pro bassist buddy of mine if he would buy a custom off me. Of course having both never built a guitar and having asked a pro musician to cough up "spare" cash was a little ridiculous.

I didn't end up using many of the details I liked because they don't seem to fit into our relatively conservative world of guitars. Someday I'll build a bass, so I can feel freer with design and so I can finally have a bass.

-Dave

I think it's only partly an issue of conservativism, though; there are some wilder guitar designs that work well, and look 'right' to me, just as many wild bass designs look really very ugly (not balanced, out of whack, whatever; most singlecut basses fall into this category). The general proprotions also have something to do with it; you can get away with a longer/different/more sculpted body on a bass because the instrument itself is a whole lot longer; the scale length stretches it along the vertical, and you can go along with it. Do keep the same aesthetic vibe on a guitar, you'd end up with a very, very small body (my travel sized headless looks bass-esque to me, because of the relative proportions. And yes, it has a small body). Whenever I draw up swooping curves, more 'out there designs, it's almost without fail suitable for a bass, but aesthetically doesn't work for a guitar.

The inverse is generally also true; what works for a guitar rarely works well for a bass; Les Paul basses are unwieldy and unattractive, Fender's basses sound good, but they're big, bulky, heavy, things, overall (MusicMan's better, bit slimmer, and longer body shape than fender has), and I've never met a bass shaped like an SG, Explorer, V, Parker fly that I liked the flow of.

[davee5]

Mattia, your entire post is spot-on to be exactly what I found. The design I ended up using is still a bit stretched out, the upper horn will end up around the 12th or 13th fret, but when I initially made a much curvier, longer, & sleeker design in CAD it looked great until I put in the neck.... oops those proportions won't work. Although for my taste I've never seen an SG, Explorer, or V (Parkers are O.K.) I liked the flow of in a guitar either. The proportionas are usually right, but "flow" is not the word I'd use to describe them, and the fluidity and femininity of shape whic they lack and many double-cut bases have is exactly what I like in electric instrument design.

[tim_ado]

i dont think theres anything wrong with wanting to make it as a guitar designer

like people design cloths, cars etc.

and if theres a person whos a mad builder but has little ideas then i dont see y a partner ship would be in order(perssuming that they can both build a bit)

i find it so homo when like new guitar brands come out on the market and there building the same old strat guitar P basses

i mean theys got the knowhow to get there product out there but they just make the same old crap

(not saying that those models are crap)

but like try somthing different

like if u think about if it started with the fender most other guitars have brached off this

so think about it wat if something befour the fender was made

guiatrs would branch off that

so in theory only one out of possibly thousands aspects of the guitar design have be explored

There are a lot of holes in that timeline... big periods of nothing new and amazing. Its time for a new idea to come out to blow away the marketplace...

good call

like im only a first timer but rhoads

take the challenge man

maybe not this guys designs

fill the australian music stores with hot guitars

sorry if none of that made sense

:

Edited February 14, 2007 by tim_ado

[davee5]

i find it so homo when like new guitar brands come out on the market and there building the same old strat guitar P basses

i mean theys got the knowhow to get there product out there but they just make the same old crap

So "homo" huh? I'll give the extreme benefit of doubt that you're not displaying your youthful ignorance and bigotry but rather using "homo" in the original Greek for "same," thereby underscoring your point about all the "same old" designs being recycled Fenders.

Watch yourself and your lanugage, or someone just might misinterpret what you're trying to say. Or maybe they won't, which might even be worse.

-Dave

[tim_ado]

i dont think im "displaying your youthful ignorance and bigotry "

im entitled to my opinion and just becasue i use the word homo dose mean that in ignorant at all

you would be lucky your self not to be guilty of "ignorance and bigotry " if a passing comment such as homo

is getin you worked up

as for youthful ignorance i would call it more youthful lanuage

Watch yourself and your lanugage, or someone just might misinterpret what you're trying to say. Or maybe they won't, which might even be worse.

i gotta say this one made no sense to me. i kinda meant wat i said weather you interpret it into greek or not

i think you should just take it easy and look at the big picture of wat i was talking about

cheers

Edited February 15, 2007 by tim_ado

[davee5]

Monsieur Tim,

Let me play it real straight this time around, no pun intended at all.

When you use the word "homo" in the same context that your other 16 year old friends might interchangeably use the word "gay" as a derogatory term, that is bigoted by definition. Homosexuals, gays, lesbians, transgendered people, bisexuals, etc, may not be a race, but they are class of people who are too easily categorized and grouped by ignorant people who do not realize they almost certainly are in the midst of such individuals on a regular basis. Using such a term to cast a disparaging remark is equivalent, in the eyes of those who are more aware of their fellow people, of using a racial slur to describe a guitar as ugly.

So allow me to push your boundaries a bit, if you're willing to pay attention without passing early judgment on this minor tome. You're young, that fine, we all were and according to the latest polls a lot of us are quite young. When I was your age, not all that long ago, I said the same sort of stupid things that you probably do now, such as "that's hella gay" and the like. Then, over time, I went to college. Afterwards, ahving graduated I got jobs.

If your life's immediate future includes goals of education and later employment, like mine, I expect suddenly you'll find that as you get older the people around you being to figure out who they are and what they care about. More importantly they begin to take pride in who they are and start living their own lives, rather than stick to the sort of collective pack-like mentality most held in some degree during the days of their youthful indiscretions. You may begin to notice that there are, in fact, gays all around you. Maybe not en masse, but you will know a few, and chances are (if you truly aren't a bigot, which I don't really think you are at the core) you will like a few as friends and maybe even good friends. You may even have a family member, perhaps a cousin, who comes out of the closet after hiding a significant portion of their identity from their family for years, even decades.

So here's one of the big questions you need to ask yourself, do you know why they hide? Do you know why many homosexuals find "coming out" so difficult? Because their entire lives, from the day they began to know they thought differently on the playground in elementary school, or in middle school around puberty, or later in life, they noticed that the thing they associate part of their very identity with was used as a put down indiscriminately by much of the male populous. Their friends, family, bosses, teachers, and coworkers seemed to despise them to varying degrees. You want to find out what it's like to shoot the breeze with your cousin, calling things "gay" all the time only to find out years later that you were the last in the family to know that he came out of the closet because he thought you would hate him for it? I'll tell you what. It hurts for both of you, and I know this personally. I wasn't the kid who said it all too often, but I saw my own cousin's struggle to share the things about his sexuality which he had wrestled with for his entire waking life with his conservative family. They still love him, that's never changed or was even in danger, but it's hard for a group that's repeatedly marginalized in our culture by what I have called "youthful ignorance and bigotry." Your actions now have significant potential to follow you the rest of your life, and it's an important lesson to learn early if possible.

Frankly, Tim, I don't care what you want to call it because using "youthful language" doesn't excuse using hurtful language. You're 16, and in the US that's when one of the real privileges of adulthood are bestowed upon you, and the rest of adulthood's legal privileges are close behind. It's a sign you're supposed to be maturing, rather than falling back on tired and thoughtless colloquialisms in lieu of recognizing there are myriad things you hadn't understood before. It's a call to realize that everyday is an opportunity to be learning from past mistakes or new things pointed out to you by others or experiences. My earlier, more concise message was a warning shot high across the bow for you, to try and laert you to the fact that the words you chose to use for communication are often far more relevant than you might think. Just because I know the gist of what you are trying to say, does not mean the way in which you did so was appropriate. So consider this a warning shot a little lower, and I hope it at least gets your attention and cgives you pause. I certainly can't change you, it's not remotely my responsibility anyhow. You're only responsible to yourself and your fellow man, "homo" or not. If you want to ridicule me for having a number of gays I keep in my good company, in my very close family, it's your prerogative, but I would hope that somewhere in you there's a spark of recognition that it would be an incredibly immature thing to resort to.

As a parting note, I truly hope you consider this note a constructive criticism rather than a flame. As I see it, my picture is already pretty big on this matter, and I would just like to show you a little more of it so yours can grow too. Please, prove me wrong about your youthful ignorance, prove yourself as a person of superior character and fortitude by avoiding insinuations that I myself am bigoted for pointing out your use of low-grade and probably unintended hate-language. Prove me wrong by demonstrating your compassion and even a little remorse. Prove me wrong by beginning to change the way you use your words.

You see, even if hate is not the message you intended to deliver, even if you are merely using youthful language because it is the lexicon from which your peers chose to select their diction and syntax, the content of your words and it's roots in fear and hate-mongering are no less real and no less hurtful to those who are sensitive to the subtle barbs attached to your calloused phrases. Describing something or someone as "gay" or "retarded" with intent to slander is just a few decades away from calling someone a "ni**er" or perhaps my calling you a "roof**ker" or "skippy."

So I'll say it to you again: watch yourself and your language, or someone might just misinterpret what you're trying to say.

Cheers to you as well, and good day,

Dave

P.S. I don't know if roofu**er and skippy are actual, hateful slurs for Australians, I had to Google a slur database and most of it contents are pretty obstuse. Perhaps my parting example is, in fact pretty weak and comical, but I don't actually know. I ought to heed my own advice on this matter I suppose...

Edited February 15, 2007 by davee5

[rhoads56]

Dave, no more than one paragraph please, it confuses us.

[biliousfrog]

well put Dave.

I just wanted to add,

Say what you like in the comfort of your own home or with friends & relatives but bear in mind that there's a community of anonymous people on here, some will be black, white, oriental, homosexual, christian, muslim, jewish...etc.

Anything that is derogatory could & probably will offend someone whether you meant it in an offensive way or not. It's all there on the front page for a reason.

[tim_ado]

i hear where ur coming from but this

my calling you a "roof**ker" or "skippy."

i gotta say ive got no idea what your going on about

i think that this is just a differences of culture

the fact is were i live making racial derogatory comments will get you bashed

u get bashed just for being from a different races

were as the word homo (although meaning gay)

is never used to put down people

you find homo affencive and i didnt know that skippy was bagging on aussies

trust me in a christian and live in a highly multicultural society and i wouldnt have use the word "homo"

if i knew it would had made all this

so take it as me saying sorry

[davee5]

my calling you a "roof**ker" or "skippy."

Yeah, well I was trying to make a point about slurs and since you're from Oz I thought I'd try and localize it a bit, but being an ignorant American myself I did a Google search for something like "Australian slur" which yeilded mostly nasty titles for Aborigines and only those other two for Australians in general. I have no idea is "skippy" really offends anyone over there, but I found a few news postings to imply at least a few people are put off by the phrase.

I probaby should have quit while I was ahead, but I was tired after flying back from China for work and then working another full day after the 10 hour flight (25 hours of consecutive work should not be performed on anything other than guitars).

Perry, I'll try to use smaller words and sentences next time

Spread the love, people.

-Dave

[marksound]

i dont think theres anything wrong with wanting to make it as a guitar designer

like people design cloths, cars etc.

and if theres a person whos a mad builder but has little ideas then i dont see y a partner ship would be in order(perssuming that they can both build a bit)

i find it so homo when like new guitar brands come out on the market and there building the same old strat guitar P basses

i mean theys got the knowhow to get there product out there but they just make the same old crap

(not saying that those models are crap)

but like try somthing different

like if u think about if it started with the fender most other guitars have brached off this

so think about it wat if something befour the fender was made

guiatrs would branch off that

so in theory only one out of possibly thousands aspects of the guitar design have be explored

There are a lot of holes in that timeline... big periods of nothing new and amazing. Its time for a new idea to come out to blow away the marketplace...

good call

like im only a first timer but rhoads

take the challenge man

maybe not this guys designs

fill the australian music stores with hot guitars

sorry if none of that made sense

It might have made more sense if there were more actual words. And spelling. And punctuation.

Then again, maybe not.

[tim_ado]

It might have made more sense if there were more actual words. And spelling. And punctuation.

hahaha yeah im good at being bad at that sort of stuff