Treatise on the True Art of Making Musical Instruments: A Practical Guide to the Hidden Craft

[Charlie Schultz]

Anyone familiar with this book "Treatise on the True Art of Making Musical Instruments: A Practical Guide to the Hidden Craft of Enhancing Sound"? Think it's worth the $189 price?

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1791889611

[Bob Gramann]

Wow! I’d like to read it, but not $189 worth of like. I looked at all of the pages available on the “look inside.” I wasn’t blown away, but I would probably read it if it were affordable. I was a bit disappointed in the bibliography in that it was lacking references on acoustics. I haven’t bought Gore’s or Somogyi’s books either, though I would like to read them.

[Bill Raymond]

There was some discussion of the book on the Harpsichord list. Apparently the author has "strong opinions" and the reaction by most makers of harpsichords was not positive. There appears to be more of a philosophical rather than scientific bent to the book. The author's website has the preface in full available to read, it is said. Does sound more like snake oil to me, but I haven't read the preface or any of the sample pages on Amazon, so all I can offer is an opinion based on the advertising and the opinions of others.

[Bill Raymond]

P.S. His website is www.keithhillharpsichords.com.

[Matthew Lau]

Personally, I just got the Gore and Gilet book on guitarbuilding.

V1 delves into the physics of sound really, really well.
V2 delves into the woodworking really, really well.

Fwiw, I saw one of Gilet's guitars in the Musical Instrument Museums on Saturday.
If you're around Pheonix, AZ, it's well worth a look!

[Barry Daniels]

Isn't that an amazing museum? I was there a couple of months ago.

Regarding the Gore book. I would encourage you to get a USB microphone and starting recording and graphing tap tones on your guitars. It's a lot of fun.

[Bryan Bear]

Isn't that an amazing museum? I was there a couple of months ago.

Regarding the Gore book. I would encourage you to get a USB microphone and starting recording and graphing tap tones on your guitars. It's a lot of fun.

Barry, what is the minimal equipment needed to get started doing this? Are you using an app or some other program?

[Bob Gramann]

After going to a workshop with Brian Galloup, I bought a good FFT program for my phone (FFT by Studio Six Digital). It really does show what’s going on when you’re tuning a top. And, I get to save the graph for each top.

[Barry Daniels]

I use a freeware program called Room EQ Wizard (REW). You can also use Audacity if you have a Mac or Gore recommends Visual Analyzer which is only for a PC. All of these are free programs. The advantage of REW is that it will graph the frequency spectrum in real time. No other program does this. I also really recommend a microphone with a USB connection. A normal mic has to go through an interface box.

https://www.roomeqwizard.com

[Bryan Bear]

Thanks guys! Also, I didn’t mean to hijack the thread.