Ep. 19.45 Steve Grimes

[Music] cool Aloha and thank you for joining us and we have a world-class legendary builder with us today one of the Great's truly you know there's so many custom builders nowadays like gajillions it seems like but back in the 70s and back in the day there was a few you know and this was one of them so Steve thank you for joining us it's my pleasure to be here and I can actually say I remember that day you're talking about that era yeah well take us back there well you know I I thought I wanted to be a violin maker and I was playing violin I was playing fiddle and a bluegrass band who are you like in Washington or somewhere well this time I was well yeah I was playing fiddle and mandolin in Baltimore I grew up in balls no but then I thought you know I'm gonna get into this I'm gonna jump into this hippy thing that's going on in San Francisco so I moved to Haight Ashbury why not I moved to haight-ashbury in 69s where all the funny after I got out of the Navy and by that time Haight Ashbury was kind of ugly you know all the flower power and peace and love had kind of left and just as a bunch of doggies and I'm gonna strung out strung out yeah so but I I wanted to be a builder I was a player and I was I was working as a draftsman for Boeing I went through school and engineering and I got a job as a engineers draftsman at Boeing and thought saw myself working my way up as an engineer because I mean so much money Steve it's not you could have made so no so in 72 a guy came to me and he knew I made things with wood I was making what I considered today to be some of the ugliest furniture in the world but it worked good and he said can you fix my guitar you're a guitar player surely you can fix them and I said really you think so and he said well I called Goya factory and they they won't take it back they won't fix it so I just launched into it and I figured out I got a house it's not rocket science how how can I do this I got a book out on guitar repair and I fixed his guitar and then that kind of puts something in my brain like maybe I don't want to be an engineer at Boeing because I loved it I loved it to this day I have a little sign on the wall of my shop that says the greatest accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play yeah once I set out to do but so in 73 I think I made a mandolin because I I had a Martin a Martin flattop mandolin that had to back off and I had to reglue the back on this mandolin and so I looked inside it's not much in there so I thought I can do this so I made a mandolin along the lines of a Martin flattop mandolin and that was like an e style it's like a style yeah then Martin mandolins have a kind of a little bevel right with the bridges that that almost takes the place of a brace because the bevel some breaks up the flat plane and it gives it some rigidity so I made mine just like that Martin mandolin but when I finished it and I put strings on it I put a lacquer finish on it and I just want oh my god this is the the most fun I've ever had you know with doing something with my hands and so I started out too and I'm just going to name them like hurricanes so the first one is Amanda so and I called it Amanda Lynn okay next one we're playing in bluegrass bands and stuff right so what's that we you were playing in bluegrass bands you just why I had a bluegrass band we were called loose caboose caboose cats and we were but uh I just I was so blown away by this this mendelian so I made another one and I made another one and then I quit my job at Boeing thinking I can make a living at this and that was 74 when I quit Boeing and remember talking to my mom and she said you quit your job at Boeing that's what you went to school for and I said well I know but I found something I love to do way more and she's what's that I said I'm gonna I'm making mandolins and she says you're gonna throw your education away you're gonna destroy your patient away and I said no there's actually there's quite a bit of engineering and building musical instruments so you so what are you gonna do you're gonna build it build these things you're gonna make these things and what do you guys stand on the corner and sell medallions I said mandolins mom not medallions Bob whatever she said whatever and I said well I hope I'm not selling him on the corner at street corner but fast forward 20 years from that point where I was actually flying back from Hawaii to Baltimore to see her three or four times a year she realized that wasn't poor and I was doing all right and I was happy so she finally accepted the fact that I was a luthier yeah you know it's like every parent worries for their children but like what they really want is for them to be happy you know it's just everybody's got to survive in this world you know you just happen to be really talented and you know have that passion and continue to grow because even with your arch tops like there was a whole evolution to you know how you were shaping them and right there was and I played a lot of arch tops in their early days I wanted I was making art by that time is make an arch top mandolins I started with the flat top but by by the second well by the third or fourth mandolin i've realized that arch top was the way to go because you played a gibson arch top mandolin and it didn't sound like martin yeah as a matter of fact it sounded much better it had that sound you know and i'm what is it that makes that sound it's got to be the arch top so I studied with this violin maker in Seattle and I thought well I'll make violins for a while and that's not what you do a violin is it is a vocation that you spend a lifetime trying to perfect and every one of them has to be the same shape and it has to be German spruce and it has to be German maple it's very regimented and I didn't want it I didn't want to do that so when I started to use violin construction in making an arch top mandolin I thought you can make you can do it two points you can make them different shapes you can do whatever you want and I that appealed to me more so I forgot about learning to become a violin maker and started making mandolins yes I'm sorry you asked about arch top well no but you know if you guys go to Steve's website look at some of the mandolins and just yeah I love your take you know you've gotten quite creative on doing kind of your twist on the classic not to mention is archtop guitars I mean he's in my personal opinion the best arch top baker in the world and I've played a lot of archtop guitars yeah Aaron's not alone in that yeah so he basically there's well two two builders I really really appreciate it as far as archtop guitars go and it's always like Steve Graham's has always been like tops for me and living on Maui that kind of like made me like the Hawaii Builder we might be a little bit biased was rebecky I mean you were but you are with these guys at that time he plays at a 1000 a Steve Anderson so a great builder not Steve Steve's not a player Steve H is not player you might play at home with somebody Rebecca Rebecca yeah yeah Rebecca yeah one whenever possible when we go to these guitar shows part of the draw for me is to go set up a table show my guitars and hookah lilies and part of it as I know Rebecca's gonna be there and I know Julius Borgess is gonna be there and I know dick Boak is gonna be there and we all just I think I saw you guys in Helzberg at one point probably that would might have been like nine years julius Borges got drunk and trashed the top of my guitar oh he's such an incredible guitar builder I don't know if I know another flat top builder that I respect more than Julius but uh I shouldn't be saying it because you know it was Allen he knows I mean he he woke he was actually rooming with Rebecca at this I think no it wasn't Hill's burger was the Montreal Guitar Festival 2008 and we were all jamming and I guitars were being passed around you know I mean you got to expect some something little bit of glitter and terror a little bit yeah but I just looked over and Julius is gone Mona Oh whose song is that the kinks I don't know it's a that Bo Diddley beat you know and he's just thrashing on the on the guitar and that's when I thought maybe I should go over and check on my guitar and went over and he had a flat pick and there was just scratches all over the top and I said I picked it up and there was a crowd of people and I went oh and then the whole group of people went oh yeah that's what you call a double carved arch top known as the flat as a Boomer it was a double hole flat top oh oh so he felt really terrible next morning woke up he was rooming with Rebecca and he goes I think I trashed Grimes guitar last night so he felt bad and I didn't want to send a guitar to him for me for refinishing so he treated me very one of these guys it might even be this Mike it's a EKGs AKG AKG 401 B they don't make him anymore and it's like the holy grail of pencil instrument microphones and he sent it to me and I still have it I should send it to you Andrew because I have yet to use it that was 2008 so it's been 11 years yeah I think I think that's a classic Mike that's 951 B I'm not sure I would love to try it you know anyway man that's great they'll see like you come from an era where you rub shoulders and you know all these builders and it's like you're in a band with Tom rebecky you I mean part of this it's like back then there was only these guys you know it was like yeah that's where these conversations started you were talking about back in the 70s we did there was no internet so we did some research we found out this to the best of our knowledge there was de Christo Benedetto Monteleone oh what's that guy's name besides rebecky and myself yeah there was one other guy that we could find and he was in Santa Cruz there were the only archtop builders in the country oh wow so we could come up with six and we were asking everybody who do you know and archetype Builders communicate with other art sub builders and was Benedetto in there too at that time who's that Benedetto yes I said Benedetto so you know Benedetto and that was so he had a lot of space always impressed by Monta Leon you know and your stuff come on - John stuff is impeccable and more direct he is a builder and an art because his heart stops go beyond the craft and they get into this realm of us just you look at it and go yes 50 grand but I mean you know if you got it I would I would still kid he I was at a shop after the Newport Guitar Festival I was oh six it was quite a while ago no since there's sooner than not anyway I was back and I was visiting him and he was building his series the seasons the four seasons oh yeah those are beautiful for guitars that represented each of the four seasons and so he had only finished two of them but he showed me summer and it was an 18 inch arch top and he builds heavy they're heavy arch tops but they're really well made and they sound great but I just got to see the shop and see his you know molds that were handed down to him from Jimmy do crystal yeah we which were handed down to him from John d'angelico etc it was at that point you know before the internet you had to be in the circle of you had it was almost something you know you were they didn't allow everybody to know everything back that day there's like there was you had to learn in like stages there's like six degrees of separation and though the whole world or so and you had to apprentice for sometimes a long time before you could get in there back in the day but how did you I mean you just went from mandolins to and I mean because it's like carving a top and a back is on a different level from making a flat top you know I got to be friends with Jimmy de Christo back and they're all really early in the 70s he came up to me at the Winfield Kansas show and I had an archtop guitar there but that arch top was there was no books on it there wasn't it was just I thought okay I'm gonna take violin construction like pretend this is a cello without a sound post what bracing would I have to do to support this top hell I was shooting in the dark I didn't have another archtop guitar that I could dissect or measure so I had my might have been my first archtop guitar no is my second my second archtop guitar the first one was an oval hole second one was an F hole arch top and he came up to man he goes pretty nice because where do you get for something like this I lied I was I would have been happy to get like $1,000 for it in 1977 and I said um because I knew he charts a lot money and I said 2500 he goes why are you charging so little mm and I said well coming from you maestro I know he does know you're there I said well could I could I measure some of your guitars and you by all means so I got to measure many de Cristo's and then I built a guitar for a guy named Scott Chinnery who was a big big time collector on the East Coast and had a thousand acoustics and I'm more than that in electrics he had the first or second martin ever made from 1833 but he had a room full of arch tops and so I took all my measuring tools that I spent two days and just measuring what's this one made out of here's the stromberg from nineteen you know 35 how is it made and I just took notes in the notes and notes notes them so then after that after my I think that was probably my tenth or eleventh or top I had all these notes of other builders and my own notes what did it sound like and so that helped me a lot that must be interesting as a luthier to go through the Rd phase of building something you know so just coming out and taking like a bunch of ideas that you got from different builders and you start building it but now you're working on this one you've got like 1500 ideas yeah and it's like it must be very hard to like sit down and focus and really tap into what you're trying to do well you know what you lie I mean I think helps being a player and I knew what I liked you know and I would just go around the NAMM show and I go to other builders know cool callings used to come over he's not an archtop guitar here but bill callings used to come over before the NAMM show was even open to the public but the Thursday before the Friday he would just come on big oh hey Grimes what's going on biggest finger in the F hole that sounds terrible but he would stick his finger they go and I go get your finger out of my F hole and he goes I go what do you think I didn't say 140 thousands and I said why I and I've always thought in millimeters when it comes to heart stop sight so what is that he's such a genius four point six millimeters so I checked it he was feeling he said one hundred and forty thousands so I knew what it was in millimeters and I checked and it was 140 thousandths holy crap so he had digital calipers four fingers he could just go oh yeah that neck so I learned I learned a lot from Bill in the early days because he was another master just shaping a neck you know a lot of people haven't experienced it but Steve Grimes neck has got to be the most comfortable neck I've ever felt personally and it's a personal thing sometimes for people but it's just right for me it's it's slender shaped with just kind of a touch of a soft v or something in there it's it's it's not too not too thin but it's you know not a beefy neck I can I can actually tell you what it is and I encourage other builders to try it it may not be your thing but try it if you haven't tried it and it's some it's how the top edge of the neck starts from the top edge of the fingerboard yeah a lot of builders the fingerboard itself they'll come straight down to the bottom edge of the fingerboard and then they start to curve on exactly I mean I've done that too when that curve starts at the top edge of the fingerboard and it's that C shape and so the most important place to have the right shape is not in a it's right here the shoulders of the side the profile right in here if you cut away a little bit it feels slender and then you might like you said just feel slender but I'll bet if you measure it at the first fret thickness wise dead center yeah same as many of these other ones but it has a lower profile because of the cut in from the top edge of the fingerboard which gives it that feel like it's just like fits the palm of your hand doesn't feel like you're squeezing a box I've always felt that with with necks that it's more the shape of it than the size of it that makes it comfortable you know like there's some people that city like fat necks some people say they live wider slim or whatever you know but like when you actually have like when you actually have like a neck that you hold in your hand and if like you said the sides are the most important part when you hold it that way and just kind of conform straight let me melts in your hand it does if you look at assets you know and that just it cradles the neck and then the neck is the same shape it just feels yeah II grew into the palm of your hand well you remember it that that thing at the bishop museum I didn't want to put your Yuke's down I mean I probably I think it almost got noticeable people were saying like hey he's been playing the grounds for a long time what's like well here's a you know I don't I don't like the drop names but I I'm I'm actually excited to be I'm building a couple of guitars for Paul Simon and he did it he did a concert last month on Maui where were in October he did it in August and he did back-to-back nights and he had been up to my shop a couple times and and we repaired one of his guitars and then he played some of mine and he ordered one and then he emailed me later and because I think we're talking about two guitars so it's still up in the air I'm gonna build because that's awesome yeah awesome oh I meet you soldier came up to pick up the repair a couple days later the first day was in my shop he spent four hours sitting around drinking beer and talking about politics and social things and the Fibonacci sequence and you know science and teachers and things like that my wife is a teacher and she came into the shop and his mom Paul's mom was a teacher and so it's when he left I emailed him and when I heard he was coming to Maui to do a show I just I bought tickets right away I didn't want to ask him for tickets I bought tickets and I walked to him and I said I'm so excited I got tickets tomorrow and we're in like the sixth row and he said great come to soundcheck and he says bring your caliper because I want you to measure some of my favorite necks I went perfect so I did I went the first night well I had tickets for the first night so I went for soundcheck four in the afternoon and so we had I don't know he must have had ten guitars in this one big case and so I thought he's going to show me his favorite god of them in this batch and he says this is one I just love this is a this is a Collings and it was a Collings 335 style guitar so I measured the scale 24 and 3/4 measured the nut and 1.72 measured this measured down and I'm writing all this stuff down he goes and I just love this neck it showed me another neck and I said oh okay and I thought it got to be the same no it was 25 and a half inch scale and it was 1 in 3/4 and it was thicker and I checked six guitars took notes extensive notes and not one neck was the same I said Paul you're gonna have to tell me what size an F you want I want to make it so you take it out of the case it feels like your favorite guitar you've been playing for years and he said I like em all I like all these different sizes and shapes and everything he says just make me a great guitar I've never had I mean I'm approaching a thousand guitars I know yes not guitars thousand instruments right mandolin Mukul Elly's guitars few bases but I never had anybody say I never saw faces i I would love to have a bass from you he was a bass player oh yeah we have very good baseball silly but I bet you know then we know net steinberger yeah Ned and I were partners in this project for five years from 88 to 92 for years and he designed this guitar a guitar first as was a guitar that was this called the stress free guitar and I met him at an Asia symposium Asia stands for Association of string instrument artisans in eastern Pennsylvania and he came up to me and he liked my instruments and he told me about his project and he said would you consider because I'm a designer I don't build I said wait a minute your Steinberger you make hundreds of guitars a week because that's my factory but I'm not a I designed the guitar and I have people build it for me my employees he says but I this is an acoustic guitar and you're a great acoustic builder could you please build I just took a photo of the ceiling technology home I got into a partnership with him and his idea for this guitar was a flat top instrument ukulele guitar that has the strings that attached to a bridge when you tighten up the strings they pull up and forward on the top and an arch top guitar as a tail piece and the strings go over the tail piece and then there's a brake angle and they go down I mean they go over the bridge and then they go down to the tail piece so when you tighten up the strings they're pushing down pushed down on the top his guitar had the strings if you look at it from flat the strings there's a tail piece but that there's no brake angle this go through a thick saddle a wide saddle and this the hole it's a hole they don't go over it they go through these holes in the saddle and the holes are angled slightly so when you tighten up the strings the it's hits at the front edge of the hole and it hits at the back edge of the hole but when you look at it from the side the strings are all level so they're not pulling up on the top and there's no break angle down so this we know breathes it really lightly you could it brace it extremely lightly there's no push down or pull up on the top so that was his idea he goes but I don't know how to build it I mean could you experiment with building he would send me these saddles with the holes in them and so the first one I made and strung it up had no braces at all and it didn't it didn't deflect the top and didn't push it down up and the thing just had this quite an awful sound it just had no discipline at all I was all floppy yeah and I said Ned I think we definitely even know we don't need braces for strength we need braces for tone so we made a guitar and we put a polyester finish on the outside of me hot melt glue we glued braces to the top on the outside of the instrument and we listened to it we mic it and record it and then we would heat him pop them off and move them to other locations or make them smaller we just did all these experiments with the same instrument so you could just remove the braces gloom on somewhere else and then take them off move them somewhere else and when we found something we liked and we glued braces similar on the inside of the next instrument and we made an instrument that sounded so loud that it almost would hurt your ears Wow so was that under the Steinberger name well we call it a grime burger grime time when had Stein Grimer was one variation and grime burger was another but we could actually when we sold it to Gibson it said grime and it said Steinberg rhymes he sold it to Gibson we Gibson liked it and they tested it and they ran it against the they raced it against the the J 200 and a Martin d-18 and they found it to be louder than either one of those instruments but there was like a 12-page critique of this instrument as compared to the best flat top Gibson and the best flattop Martin and so we really thought we were on something and Gibson wanted that wanted the patent that we had a patent on it so Gibson bought the patent for it in 1992 1992 so we sold the patent to Gibson we made some money and then Gibson had three years to bring it to market and good old Henry just kibbutz the president of Gibson was buying everything you know he just wanted this and he was you know he would probably sue me today because the top of the peghead looked too much like Gibson yeah you know Hugh if there was a lot of that yeah so they managed to they run a lot of stuff I mean Gibson's done of awesome stuff for eight years but there's been periods where it's kind of questionable a long period I am I am when I had my first shop on Maui this old guy even older than me at that time walked into my shop and he was just this old curmudgeon guy Warren what did it minikin her I said I'm a cart stop guitar shop guitars let me see one so I showed him one he didn't play it he just held it he looked at it and he said uh it's pretty nice I think uh how much charge of something like that when I said $3,000 that's a lot of money and I said excuse me but are you a player nah I don't play I just designers I designed guitars I said you don't play do you build no I don't build I just designed guitars and I said who do you design for and he goes well I was president of Gibson from 1948 to 1966 yeah I said are you Ted McCarty he says I am and I was like super embarrassed that you know I didn't know it when he walked in the door but we became friends he had a place on Maui and so we started hanging out and going out to dinner and everything but Paul Reed Smith you know adored models after right now so but Ted told Ted told me that day hell he had designed the stop tail piece the two pneumatic bridge he designed the Les Paul they took him three or four tries to talk the Les Paul into endorsing it but he designed then Leo fender called Gibson company archaic and that really bugged Ted and so Ted for the 1958 World's Fair designed the Flying V and the Explorer guitars and he goes I did it just to piss off Leo fender he was trying to make like he was good-looking right and it's all this futuristic kind of stuff for the time but wow those shapes and those designs like they're still like the foundation of electric guitars yeah and I was in he was doing it in 57 and he wasn't a player or those did it to piss somebody in real way and what away man that Flying V is like you know I think rock and roll right like you can't have the Flying V you think of Randy Rhoads playing that what is that good Kelly have you ever had a Flying V I owe you one oh really I'm surprised I've never owned one but I've played a lot of them I borrowed one for like four years but he has that technically we had a Corrina wood Hamer fee that was dude that was amazing anyways how did you I guess well George Benson was was playing your art stops pretty early on that must been a huge breakthrough for you oh it was a huge breakthrough that basically uh unfortunately that's you know it doesn't make you a better builder when somebody signs or anything like that but it sure makes your business yeah got some orders you know I think it was 82 or 83 and George called me up and he had the studio in Lahaina and somebody had mentioned my name they called me up and he goes why don't you come over to my studio and bring a couple of guitars and I I did and he bought both of them that day he ordered a couple more which you were done a couple of years later but uh yeah he's and he was a big endorser I mean yeah I did even like I'm I'm just imagining like the Japan market and like there's a kind of an international love for that style and that sound you know he wanted to redesign the Ibanez GB model and so for two years George and I worked together on the new George Benson Ibanez and I still have full-sized drawings lots of them of variations that we did on the GB 10 the GB 20 and he wanted to incorporate some of my artistic ideas and I really thought that it was gonna go and it was just one of those things and in the end I've been as said we want to keep it just the way it is we don't want to and I think the sales may be a we're going down under George Benson models arch tops in general as you know they their glory days you know at least a more modern glory days were the 90s and the early 2000s and I talked to my arch top friends Steve Anderson I talked to just the other day and you know that's a third of what it used to be they archetype orders is it making a comeback now though it seems like more and more guys are starting to get into players like Curt Rosen Michael purpose and is great I don't even know what he plays but he plays a West it's it's something it's a Japanese made guitar yeah it's a Eastman no no it's called Wes no it's like a custom yeah Oh custom guy huh so he's playing that and then you got Peter Bernstein that plays that old Sadler there's guys out I mean there is still a market for it but maybe you know the boom is not as much but yeah I still get orders but not not anything like that my wall I have this in process shelf of instruments and there would be in the 90s there be two or three ukuleles up there and 20 guitars and now it's 20 okay lilies it's 20 it's wrong on that shelf it'll only hold so much but we have I think I have 25 ukuleles in the works Wow showcase instruments I think is well it's not being done right now so anytime you want to set this overuse we'll definitely do our best to show in the world bring your camera and let's do a session up at my shop sometime I would love to do that I mean I need a reason to go wait but so busy right now so we're doing a lot of video now because I'm working on number 1000 which is a flattop guitar that's or a different shape it's it's a little akin to my free hand model Glalie which is an asymmetrical design but we're getting number 1000 ready for my I'm having a celebration on February 29th over on Maui my 1000 it's called the one grand party baby but it took 40 47 years no no it really 45 years to get to a thousand so I'm doing the math and I'm thinking okay I'll be a hundred and fifteen when I get to 2000s might get faster a might bring spot yeah there you go there's no reason ourselves should stop multiplying or whatever happens Vicky good hey the brain the hands that's all it takes I think the brains and hands are good so what is it called cryogenics I mean yeah wait till somebody I had to get my thumb rebuilt and this one's gonna need it a couple years but this one's good for another morning for stem cell-like therapy to be like just a regular thing you just hop into Kaiser and get yeah literally live forever yeah are you here for the new something no I'm here for the new shoulder huh you're in that light yeah well you know you've had just gotten better and better man I mean like these four that I just looked at her amazing when did you build your first do coletek 76 there was a soprano oh whoa actually for the scene you were like one of the first custom gelila makers ever I was in Port Townsend Washington and I had some coal as a matter of fact one of my might it might have been that my first archtop mandolin was carved Kovac oh wow and that maple I had I don't know where it got it I might have gotten it from the lumber yard down on East Lake Avenue in Seattle but yeah I was built Sopranos I built a baritone in that first year that was making so it was a couple of tenors of soprano and a baritone and then there was a there was a decade well I don't think I made one who khalili because there I was easy to here with arch tops and arch tops the price of arches also I mean we knew from that oh yeah totally what were you getting for your I mean your what are your art shops go for it well you know I don't have an Italian last name so I couldn't charge rebecky and I have this joke about it you got to be Italian to charge what the instruments are worth but so I changed my name to do Grimes oh yeah and rebecky knee thank you chains we italianized our last names so we could double the price of our arch tops but another's Monteleone there's busca reno there's camp alone a there's interesting yeah came from that yeah and i think that it again basically was started that whole trend was started you could say it was started by Stradivarius because he you know the ultimate italian luthier probably but the Angelico john d and Jenko and then his apprentice was Jimmy Duke whist oh and then them right on down the line and so it's it's there's a lot of Italians I think that it kind of attracts them because they know that they're it's kind of in the blood may be said the DNA to carve atop I guess pop in the back well you know the the probably the prettiest archetype I've ever seen I didn't get to see it in person but I sat on your website was did you see the one that he made with the hein hook how's the song did that was the first asymmetrical archtop that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen yeah the guy is coming to the guy made it for us coming to the 1000 party and the guy that I made my first archtop guitar for not my first instrument but the first start-stop guitar it still has it and he's bringing it and he's a great session player in LA I'll kill so he's coming and he's gonna play he's gonna play numero uno you're just teasing us already where is this it's a private event well it is private I mean I'm inviting people but it's on my website I'm yes you know it says Steven you might be able to come I'm saying I mean the blue guitar I would yeah I get that one day I don't know whatever happened you know Scott Henry passed away yeah and his wife I think sold off some of his record of his record collection his his guitar collection he had a over a thousand arch tops I mean a thousand acoustics some of those were arch tops and then well over like 1500 electrics he wouldn't buy a guitar unless he thought it it had some historical significance and so I met him at Willie Nelson's house on Maui that's right Willie Nelson got a guitar for me too he did he did and then Scott was at Willie's house and called me up he says bring some instruments down so I did and he ordered a guitar and when I finished that I called him up and I said do you want it sent but what's the address and how do you want it sent he goes I want it brought Wow he lived in Toms River New Jersey and he he sent me a plane ticket and another plane ticket for the seat next to me for the guitar and then when I got there the guy you know he had this house it must have been a 10 million dollar house and he had a huge car collection he collected cars and guitars like he had an original Batmobile which he gave me a ride in the original Batmobile around Toms River New Jersey it was it was amazing but he that was the first of four guitars that he that he ordered from him but I can get off topic faster than anybody so yes I've gotta keep an eye on okay styles that you got yeah let me know when the tape is rolling rolling it's always really always rolling always rolling so I brought an assortment we have a lot of Cola I guess Cola everybody visiting or why anybody wants an all Cola oka Lily but there's lots of other woods than codes that make them beautiful sounding instruments Wow this particular one is a Sitka spruce top and I really do love the sound of a spruce top or softwood top red wood cedar spruce so this is a Sitka spruce top ten aruku le where is your coat day yeah besides him back zero coat day is a very dense wood that's indigenous to Central America I've heard it called Mexican evany although I think much of it or most of it grows south of Mexico but it's just anywhere just and it's sometimes you find it with the blonde SAP wood and you can use that in the center or outside on the edges and it just has this ribbon ribbon Network that that is spider webbing spider webbing and it's called a lot of different things but Brazilian rosewood doesn't but I don't know of another wood that does it though yeah not like that no other wood does it better yeah they're cookies firstly maybe cocobolo next then the Brazilian yeah sometimes but yeah cut sub-zero Cote like that are amazing yeah amazing looking so it's and it's very dense and very hard and resonant there are hardwoods that don't have much in the way of tone tone musicality and you can tell right away if it's not an archetype piece but if it's a smaller piece that you can actually hold between two fingers and just tap it you can hear the musicality that's inherent in a piece of wood and and it has to do with not necessarily a note but the resonance of that note and how long it lasts and what other notes are accompanying it if it's if it's got a distorted kind of a sound to it or if it's a pure musical and so it's hard to top Brazilian rosewood for that musicality you can just pick up a little bridge blank which is one inch or an inch and a half by six inches by a half an inch thick and just hold it you know at the top edge or 1/4 of the way down and tap it when you listen for a tap tone you're basically finding the node and as a musician you [Music] know the harmonics are the notes so you got a note at the fifth fret the seventh fret 12th fret etc so if you hold any piece of wood by if the end of the piece of wood one end of the piece of wood was the net and the other end of the piece of wood was the bridge you're gonna hold it at the 12th fret the fifth fret the 7th fret or approximately where you don't see we'd hold a piece of wood there and then tap it I mean you could you just get this sense of musicality I didn't know that that's cool man I'm gonna have to try that now yeah those are the notes you want to hold it at the node because it's a it's this point of least vibration it's where the waves the the you know are it's like the time on the right guitar if you hold it at a place of maximum vibration you're gonna kill the vibration you stop so you want to hold it worth not vibrating and that allows the piece to resume vibrate yeah so anyway so that and this is bound with this reddish colored wood that's really beautiful for binding it's called blood wood that one has a little bit different logo uh I like that what's that the logo the logo I um I do get I started to get requests from people that would ask me does it have to say Grimes on the peghead I said I know as a matter of fact does not say anything like classical guitars don't say anything and whatever your preference is so then I thought well some people don't like a word you know a name blasting away on the top so I designed a letter G that was two leaves two bamboo leaves that are overlap a little bit and form the letter G yeah that's a nice logo I mean you know that has a classic look to you just your signature yeah at the top that's how it's been done and this is very traditional that's a little bit more modern yeah talk about this this is all this is sides top and back our German maple and this is some wood that was left over oh when I'm cutting a billet of German made for the back and sides of an archetype guitar I'll sometimes end up with a piece that can be reefs on more that's big enough for this piece right here just you know one hell all you need is one half because you have your center seam so it just has to be 5 inches by you know 12 and a half inches and so this is just leftover wood from one of my archtop guitars and it's just score twice what you would call master grade are so curly that's an early you can get it and so and and there it's some a very light but stiff maple if you were to compare to another maple like sugar maple or red maple from the United States or a big leaf maple from the United States it's lighter and yet it's stiff and those two things you know two main ingredients of a great sounding instrument you need wood that's stiff and light as soon as you add weight if you were to clamp a clothespin on this bridge you'd kill half the tongue as a matter of fact violin mutes to kind of make it so that the thing is not as loud while you're practicing it's just a weight that you put on the bridge kills its own so if you have a bridge that's too heavy you're just robbing the instrument some of it's doable I remember when Noah redesigned the kollel bridge to be more slender in the wings to be less and just kind of paring everything down lighter and lighter looking at ways to cut from the inside yours are very light and like you know you were talking about the qualities of that type of maple because it kind of defies what maybe some people would think as far as a maple top like it's really resonate you know it is really resonant and I remember at the show a couple years ago it was when the luthiers for a cause ukuleles were unveiled the show is at a hotel Surfrider yeah I'm not sure but you were there Andrew yeah we filmed it and I pulled a quilted maple sunburst Atoka Lilya the casein and you want huh maple ukelele and then you want what but you can you can get really obviously you want the light as possible who maintaining the amount of strength that you need for the thing to last a hundred years I want all these instruments to be around for a long long yeah I don't ever see like weird movements on the top from yours I mean I'm just like every instrument you have to take care of and can you know things can happen but like right there well seated so what I do when I'm building is that the back goes on last a lot of builders don't like to do that because they like to glue the back on and then make it really look perfect inside and then glue the top on because it's hard to get in and clean up the excess glue through the sound hole but it's so important that once you glue the top to the sides the top is basically defined it's you cut off the excess it's it's it's the way it's going to be and so you can tap it and you can shape the braces on the inside until you get the optimum tap tone and then once you voice the top and you really have it to where you know it's going to be a great sounding instrument glue the back on and then you don't have to get in there and I mean you have to clean up with a long little paintbrush any excess squeeze out cleaning up with a paintbrush and water you know just clean it up but the you know it looks fine that's but you get to voice the top that's not that's different than what I've seen almost everybody do I mean almost everybody glues the top on after but you know you are still shaping the tone bars and still I'm still toning the instrument and the strings are not obviously right but you can yeah and one of the spots that you tap that gives you so much information that you would think it'd be right here and it's right there between halfway between the bridge and the tail block and just tap that and then that has a certain ring to it that seems to be unencumbered by though or just dampened you know like don't think it's going or like doing gum and that's some sustain to it you know you're it's like when people wonder why you can't get a factory to do this level it's like because it's something you can't put into production it takes like you can't many years of understanding would in the first place and then a real dedication like that each piece of wood has its own voice and some you know some people will look at a piece of spruce and go that's a great piece of spruce and I go how do you know because you can pick up a piece of spruce and do the cross grain flexing test and it's just mush and look it's got 6970 lines of grain lines perfectly even and it's firewood it's trash because it has no cross grain stiffness so each piece of wood is different you can't go by how it looks you have to just feel it see what it you know yes that's it not a factory process there are factory instruments that are great I mean bill did it probably better than anybody could Bill Collins did it yeah yeah and who else makes it the guys at the Breedlove they make it really they're a boutique factory and Martin surely makes some great sounding instruments but Martin also just cranks them and so there's Martin's where you go this doesn't sound like a Martin Oh what they make the every lip I mean Martin's anywhere maker result to an a-plus right but just because you're getting a D 41 or D 45 it doesn't mean that somebody voiced it mmm I don't know maybe they do it just I've played some one I go it's beautiful to look at and where where is that thing that I heard in this old 57 you know it's just and partly just the right person putting their heart into it and having that deep knowledge but it's it's it's not like you can't find a factory-made guitar that really speaks like that it's just not gonna consistently you got a player box that's the thing where you gotta run laws you know you got a child Iraq yes I am out one of them is gonna just jump out at you you know exactly so I haven't come across an instrument a dud from you I mean that's what I I don't allow though when I when I hear it when it's done if it were to be completed and strings on it and I won't then I go after why is it that why is it sounding like that and I don't know if I've ever completed one and sold it and and not been satisfied and I did have one guitar in the early 80s comeback the guy that didn't like it and when he ordered it I said do you want an acoustic archtop yes do you want a pickup on it yes and I said you got to understand that when you put a humbucker pickup on a very lightweight acoustic archtop and if you sit in front of your amp it's gonna feedback I want it to be acoustical okay so I build an acoustic put a humbucker pickup on it but he did his gigs and he was a good jazz player and it it feeded fed back and so he traded it in and that was the first guitar I hung it at the wall on the wall bounty music and an 83 Walter Becker walked in and bought it and that was the first of eleven guitars that I made for Walter Becker but so one man ceilings another man's floor Walter liked it because it had this big acoustic tongue and he wasn't gonna sit in front of an amp and crank up the amp and not expect yeah BB King's like we're just painted on F holes right it's like you if you're cranking it like it's like you don't lie you mean the Gibson's yeah yeah yeah Lucille I don't know I think you they they weren't even real F holes you know is because of the feedback yeah exactly well when the second guitar made for Benson he wasn't actually allowed to play any other instruments in live performance then Ibanez because he had the contract very nice but he told me that he wanted to play this at one of his gigs and I said you you can do that he was I can do whatever I want so I said okay he goes but when I play it really loud it feeds back so I said send it back to me and so I made these plugs for the f-holes they were f shaped tapered edged plugs out of spruce painted black so they couldn't really see that they were plugs from too far away and I plugged both the F holes and he was able to actually be on stage and play at a high volume and not have the feedback but and then they just you top up a mountain you get a good acoustic yeah that's a little man so anyway this is German German maple with I think it's Eastern USA maple that's not tinted for the binding this is a red kind of a reddish cherry sunburst cherry berry burst that's a great-looking burst is mahogany yeah I really like it especially like following through in the neck you know and everything yeah there's I thought you know should I tent the mahogany and you know usual sunburst mahogany but I thought it's got to have a little bit of the time a to it yeah beautiful beautiful a be some of these ever see Steve Grimes showed up with a bunch of but wahoo cases to where do you think I got oh man there's the asymmetrical right there this is yeah in the mold this is a spin-off of the art the asymmetrical arch top the fishhook arch top was the first asymmetrical one that I mean but which I called the 40th anniversary man yeah anyway so I thought you know let's make a you know one thing Jimmy did Christos said to me just before he passed away in 98 he said he was doing these futuristic arch tops and he said I said really getting away from tradition and you you know you're really getting way out there and he goes it's about time because then he implied when he you you're not that you know he was almost what he's a couple years older than me this is experiment you know have some fun so that's great it still took our opposite of like you've got to stick to tradition and all that right now but I you know my O'Kelly's are pretty traditional if you look around there's some people doing some beautiful and outstanding with lilies look at Manny's ooh Khalil yeah you gotta love them yeah they look good they sound good and they're not they're not traditional at all but mine are more traditional and this is my I guess somewhat of a break from tradition but um so it's it's cold sides and back and talk look at that call it to the blue tears for a cause Yuki did this asymmetrical I did that was the first Duke Lily that I made asymmetrical was the luthiers for cause what do you think the tonal differences are from what you can hear I don't know I don't think there are I cannot pretty much like your tenor yeah they do and I I think I just kind of I don't know maybe it's a groove or rut I've just kind of gotten into a certain sound the way I've voice I'm gonna listen for listening for I'm not trying to make them sound the same but we do have our optimum thickness ratios with the top surface back surface so that when the bodies are together that tap tone that you hear that it's the air resonance you're hearing the help but to call the Helmholtz mode so you different shape cuca Lily's tap it it goes don't go to the next one boom boom boom a whole line of Tenor Ukulele boom boom boom it's the same note and so it's crazy because your sound holes are different you've got side ports but you yeah work it to get the sound that you are going for regardless no so this I don't think it has a really I think this particular one I think it's the cola is a little tighter than well it's certainly tighter than the spruce top yeah but even the maple one which is a big mellow kind of this one has a voice and I've gotten into discussions with other hookah Lilly and guitar builders about the side port I do him when I'm requested to do them but I wasn't on this one because I just decided let's do it because half of the people that want to buy a new clearly now want a sound port but I got into a lengthy discussion with J lichty and he's he won't build a new khalili without a side port and I wouldn't build one with the side port unless I was forced to do it so at some of the shows we would we would compare and I think it was at the Surfrider he we had three or four O'Kelly's there and some of them had side ports some of them didn't and so he did this little test and we picked up the Lichty ukulele and we he had a side port here and we put my hand over it and somebody struggling and the sound seemed to drop the sound coming this way not to the player this way seemed to be less just a little bit less and J was like see what I'm talking about you need a side port and I said oh well check this out and I had a cool le with a side port and just strumming as loud as I could and then somebody plugged that up and he got louder and J one he it's louder and I said what you know we didn't know and we still don't really know well it changed I mean that like you were talking about the high mahal multi Helmholtz yeah cuz like that is it depends on the openings know that that's a part of that whole ratio you know right why would it bother the soundboard being plugged make it less loud on one who clearly and louder on another clay but it has well it has to do with that because it's changing the fundamentals of the whole thing resonating so yeah but remember ty he used to he taught used to work for well his name is Holden now he changed the day but he is Thornton for a time Rebecca and he was telling me that what they would do is they'd measure like the F holes with a piece of string and try to like you know get everything to a certain that you had Perez much yeah this much surface space being like what is the word I'm looking for dissipated I guess by the by the blankness of where the sound hole was and so he was saying that like if you took a sound hole on a regular guitar and an arched irregular flat top guitar if you took the string around there you know and then you took like the surface space of two F holes those F holes would be probably more than that and so because of the way the topic he had like all these ideas about this stuff and I was oh that's pretty pretty interesting you know it's a very very interesting and there are there are people that can can talk I mean I went through school and engineering and there's a there are luthiers that was the goodness they got it was David heard oh my goodness he could get so like science forever Mottola and he is a scientist but he also is a good excellent instrument builder and I called him up one time and I said I I make guitars with two flattop guitar with two sound holes and I'm just noticing some differences but between diameters of the holes I I know that you can't take a four or standard four inch sound hole and then just divide its area up into two sound holes and get the same because it's the same amount of opening you got to have more isn't that right because you do have to have more and you not only have to have more but you have to have more than more than you would think because of the increased edge drag I want what and he says because the foreign sound hole what's the diamond see if 3.14 times 4 somewhere around 14 I mean 13 inches 12 and a half that is the circumference of that circle but if you took the circumference of two circles you have a lot more edge that's dragging on the air that's breathing in and out of the instrument play so he was saying I mean so there are scientists and I was never this is my science right there I just said that's the piece of test equipment that real sometimes that's the best thing out there because it's it's music is first and foremost a listening art and now as in as a luthier building sometimes all the science is wrong too you end up experimenting you just got to follow your ear well David and I had our differences kavika and he was a great builder - I'm he's greatly also great I think wasn't he he was a scientist and mathematician maybe I don't know what oh he wrote a whole book on the science of acoustics yeah it's very knowledgeable and then so I used to go to the big island Cajun land I would stay it could be cos house but we had our differences in what we like to see and hearing so science can't tell you what your personal preference is for sound it can quantify like I was saying earlier what's a louder instrument that's quantifiable yeah the voice is quite subjective yeah but um yeah the asymmetrical one and then you brought up one other I think some query some very plain koa single a oh no this is this I just decided to go a little crazy with the abalone on this one and it's got the I guess you'd call it a D 41 right there abalone treatment sound holes body fingerboard that thing is gorgeous but it's got some real pretty core and this is really bold flame also as usually go is the flamenco is usually did very very fine eighth of an inch 3/16 of an inch and then this is more like the flame that you'd find in curly maple western big leaf curly maple but I thought it was really pretty and I saw it off a piece from the block listen to it and it has been in my shop I think I've told you the story the guy had three chunks of wood that in my shop I don't remember exactly why they were in my shop he wanted me to make something I think there were paddles and I don't know back 20 years ago he was a good friend of mine I said sure just tell me what you want me to make but he never did he moved to the Big Island I didn't see him for many many years and he came back to pick up his four pieces of Goa and I said I stored your four pieces of call for 20 years I think you ought to give me one of them that's love right so Wow what if he's go so that one piece what being about two and a half inches thick a chunk like that has probably got three or maybe three more four more okay lilies like this of this of this flame it's so yeah it's so it's a very very beautiful little chunk all right let's get Aaron to start with us why don't you get in into position that Steve is in and we'll get some sound samples let's start with - spruce is there good day that thing [Music] [Music] remember I start talking stories and I look down the audience I always tell everybody that the less you could see of me the better that's also good at selling lilies because you look at this ugly guy and you see a beautiful you looks even prettier I'm sure you're gonna love Joe Shuster ginger yeah his string set is he can do he can do low and high and he's the only guy I've ever played his strings are the only ones I've ever played that has an envelope that's ounds great it sounds like I mean III don't play a lot Janis yeah yeah no windings and it's the only set I've ever played that I like that didn't have a long string on I love wash like a wild load you [Music] how could I miss Steve Grimes he caught he called me up and and like I I love coming out to do this anyway me and him just hang out like it's something we've been doing for years Aaron for hours whether there's cameras or yeah we just kind of like but you were around Steve would be the same thing and I'm sorry for what I interrupt you guys I just excited this for the song sample thing remember um Capelli did that song kalehua Amelia Todd broke the oh cool Ellie part to that and then I had to teach it or not teach it I completely wanted me to figure it out because it's taught and so [Music] sorry about that see if I can play this thing this is what happens in the ghetto when you flush the toilet my house if you hear upstairs like I can't use the bathroom on my daughter's taking the shower because if I flush it this is great didn't touch on that I meant to bring up was that Steve let went when we met you gave me two-year CDs and I I gotta say normally somebody will give me their City and I listen to them like oh yeah pretty cool like I was I was listening to your CD for like two weeks like the first one then the second one I listened to for like another two weeks I wonder what CDs they were I have four so I guess they're probably the latest - yeah if I gave them to you at the Bishop Museum yeah they were probably that okay yes one of them is more funky rock you know it was very very catchy playing and singing and it was it was like I mean well can tell like you know you have a very deep background as far as like what you would you like stylistically it was great I loved it so we're gonna start with a spruce 0 a tenor and yeah let's take a listen [Music] beautiful [Music] [Music] I think this ring was this alright this has GHS strings on it and I want to take this one down to Joel and I want to hear it with some of the street says yeah because you were saying you're open to you know different things and let's so that way we will take a listen to this and while he's doing that we can you know try out some other you don't don't cut them off just take them off and then I can either put them back on or or not if I like to the other ones I'll leave them on I don't have one of these here leaving with these do it are you gonna hear it with the other strings and you're just gonna be like change them all well I'm I want to have I want to find it be obvious it's obvious that to have all four strings made out of the same thing instead of two yeah nylon and two wound with metal but I want us I haven't been able to find a string that had a powerful G right exactly and that was my biggest my biggest thing was like I don't think it's gonna work and you know I told I told I told you when they first came out with the worth you know because everybody was oh yeah the low G said is great and that was like well you know I played the set but I would put a lone string for my low G and I just never got that low G because it was it wasn't as loud as the other strings right and when you play the chord it would overpower the other strings so I was like I don't know I don't like it and so I started using the Fremont's and then the tamasic in fields and and I was like okay these are great this works out so I kind of left it yeah but what had happened was I came up here to do one of these podcasts and they bring me up Joe string said on the sink and I'm like okay it's gonna be a cool set like joel is set up more you can anybody I know so it's really good yeah Joel Joel is like the guy so I'm like yeah that's probably gonna be pretty decent I play it in that way I need these so what is the name of the string set again I have no idea but the pink well I like a watermelon why can't like pink string watermelon color well this it's what I got to tell myself as a matter for material yeah well it's um it's a floor across the floor carbon but it's um it's like a really expensive fluorocarbon like I know Joe P is a lot for it but Wow he and he went through like all these oh he buys the raw material the next two sets yeah and so yeah I'm not sure I want to know about this string because if it's not available and I get a craving for it well you know what he's tonight he's marketing it so it's gonna like Andrews gonna actually be selling it here so yeah there's gonna be tons of it oh this is maple maple it's one of the reasons why it became popular for archtop guitars they don't have a maple top that one's gonna be able top yeah but maple is a very pure note it does it's not very good at the overtones which is why it's good for violin right and why it's good for archtop guitar you want a fundamental note you want a pure note you don't want that complex sound like you the complex sound like when you put it on a brand-new set of steel strings on a guitar as opposed to a set that's been on there a year yeah that they say that's dead well the jazz guys liked the dead yeah that's right and then other players like the bright sound there's a video of she's what is his name I can't it was a he's a bluegrass player but he was he was known for mandolin but he was like christie Lee christie Lee he's a he was a guitar player for he kind of went over to mandoline he and he was he got like his his hands or something like we're giving him problems so he had to stop playing guitar I can't think anyway I can't I can't figure it out soon as the podcasts over I got it yeah but um you know what I should have brought it I have water downstairs to you guys I keep threatening to bring a bottle of whiskey over here me and this guy me let's go kill a bottle in like we'd be here till 2:00 in the morning yeah I I can do some whiskey I could I seem to just like get more brilliant or I think I get more poison until they see us I know you think he's like oh yeah we say that oh yeah when I drink a lot and we do a podcast I'm like wow I do that's not a good choice dude so you like the maple I know listen to that does it sound like [Music] this sounds fantastic I want to hear this with the strings well we could try a different set so on the spruce zirco day he's gonna use a smooth round low G and a flat wound C so you both whap well but not you know different so you can check those out along with oh I thought it was gonna be all plain nylon no no it this is gonna be more in line with what you like as a set but a variation of that oh you're putting the doll play no no but um you know I mean we can try that on one too and it's it's a great all plain low G set to but maybe we can try that on this one why don't you give us a sound sample without me jumping let's see try to play that same thing it's something I remember because I had to learn how to play it as a piece see how it's the same volume down here it's crazy it doesn't get quieter love it further up you Gus would you guess that it would be mahogany I would think yeah I almost would think it was a softwood top he's not like harsh in the mids it's really sweet yeah like you were saying that also has to do with the type of maple that is right very light instead it's very light English sycamore is very akin to the German and a northern Italian southern Germany maple in that it's very stiff but it's but it's light and then you cross the ocean you get into the States and the eastern seaboard has sugar maple red maple and they're dense and they're heavy and they they don't sound good that's why there's nobody I mean and they're super curly so people go all this will be like a great instrument doesn't sound good [Music] sounds great [Music] [Music] what do you hear difference in this one the low end is a little bit more pronounced the the highs are still there but it's like rounded it's it's a more mellow kind of high and to me the mid-range is almost kind of like pulled back a little bit yeah but it's a very I thought it was a mid-range at first but it's the low end listen I'm gonna have to turn on the mics it has to me it's more complex yeah it's more overtones yeah sounds like a new set of strings as opposed to an old set of strings yeah [Music] it's got like a very and again like what you were talking about what is next this thing is just like so comfortable this is like the the sound that comes out of this thing they lose its complex that's really the only thing you could say about it's a very complex sound it's almost like the way the note hangs there you know it's it's a different that's I hear what you're saying about the fundamental getting like the something that's coming up it's crisper and that yes this is is that overtones that picking better I hope it is I like the overtones overtones creep up that's not a oh no it's not that oh I love oh yeah this sounds fantastic well the main traditionally its reputation is its fundamental mmm you don't hear that overtone structure as much now this thing has that's a really unique because I'm going dude you that the real broken some tight but broken curly I've heard it described as crushed velvet Wow but it's also very blonde she give a nice spin for the cameras yeah totally and if you look at you look at it exactly it has that crushed velvet sort of look I hope our lighting is done this thing justice man I like how you bind the the side port to you know just little touches like that to me it's like something you didn't have to do but it just ties it all together too it also helps reinforce it's pretty but it helps reinforce it too because it's something that's obviously a hole has no strength so if he if it gets hit near the hole it's gonna break yeah unless you have something I love right shall or to lose the ease on this thing with the shower grand Tunes that have a new product astok tunis and see more people using those and I love them yeah they're like I think I would take it over Waverly yeah I'm I'm I'm in the same boat and I've always been a Waverly guy you know and but these things just look so great so smooth they tune really easy [Music] [Applause] [Music] again with the volume of the further of the neck is that like a design thing I think so as it goes up how do you how do you get it to okay so I've played a lot of uke sin and the thing is as you shorten the string that of course the pitch gets higher but it doesn't resonate as much so the volume doesn't come out the same as when you're playing up here as when you're playing down here but on every one of the uke see you've brought tonight as we go further up the neck it doesn't lose volume it's the same value I've heard that on other ones of your use and noticed it I think you even told me that before about grind yeah [Music] well I noticed and I first noticed that with with your arch tops and I was like that's unusual and then I thought it wasn't archetype things until I started playing March tops and I was like it's just hot and that big volume yeah they'll lose volume the further up the neck you go most of them even the Great's you know but like his don't they just get like it's the same volume and you can adjust your attack and so I always thought that that was a Grimes thing but how the hell do you do mr. Grimes secret if it's a secret I haven't haven't told myself what it is but I think the voicing of it is where you you determine the balance between treble and bass and if you take too much off of the braces or around the perimeter of the guitar take the soundboard down thinner at the edges you're gonna get more in the pits gonna be more responsive in the bass yeah and then I don't know about it being less loud as you go higher but what I have noticed and this might translate and basically the same thing is the high notes get an echo a character - yes if they're not pure and sweet if they have it's almost like a the sound of a 15 inch speaker trying to playing a violin through a 15 inch speaker no you need a small yeah to really replicate the sound of the violin and a bass guitar you need a larger speaker so it's trying to get a balance between treble and bass because you don't want an instrument that's all trouble and you don't want certain one that's all bass yeah it's Woofie or but you know what like your instruments have I mean I think Kimo Hoshi put it best they have a very good harmonic balance and that's kind of like when I when I look at a really great instrument it's because like anything sounds good when you play it in a group with a bunch of people but if you're sitting at home playing by yourself or you're doing a one-man show or something like that you kind of want to have something that's gonna make you want to play it it's gonna sing to you your plan and your instruments all have that kind of interesting you know the what I try to do is I think I mentioned earlier as I try to make the lightest instrument that bold be strong definitely like strong for them for the years people pick up one of the first things people say when they pick up an archetype flattop guitar or ukulele of mine they just go whoa it's so light so I think that a lot of instruments out there are over built yes yeah and they're heavy as a matter of fact kala Bhima brought our into my shop and I think probably 1988 and it was a double hole what I call the Beamer model I named mine after him with his permission but he had I'm not sure where there was a Donald Marienthal or a George Gilmour or there was a guy in Honolulu at the acoustic guitar workshop that kala started I think was Douglas Ching and one of those three guys had me I think was maren Thal Douglas Marienthal Donald Marienthal and it was heavy and when I looked inside I saw the braces were heavy and I asked Kail if he would do me the favor if I built a double hole guitar would he come back to my shop in a year's time or six months whatever and just give me some pointers tell me what he thought of the tone and he did and he brought a couple guitars with him and and he said would you part with this guitar and I said well I was hoping you were gonna say that and that was the first of several guitars have made for kill and but he said it's so lifelike though it's so light well that's the iconic Beamer yeah well I mean I would think that would have made a lot of sales for you but honestly the locals we're all playing like uh Khomeini's and watchbird stuff I guess once you plug it ok Barry's guitar know you built that right Flanagan yeah I built three to two guitars for Barry one was this oddball thing that he wanted to have a different scroll on the peghead he wanted to have basically a cello little scroll just like a cello on that and a double hole guitar sound board and we called it the hapa and that was the first one that I made I made for Barry Flanagan he wanted it to match the curls and his hair no maybe maybe I think he wanted it just because it was an attention grabber you know to make people know what the hell is he playing what is that thing yeah yeah I mean he grabbed our attention once he started playing either way all we had to do was start playing that guy's such an amazing player amazing player one of my one of my favorite um like what what started getting me back in the plane Hawaiian music was my grandma used to always play the music in the car and she had the first hopper CD and like I like lay pikake and the way they did cool they have a poofy and I was like okay so I stole my grandma's CD became the thing I'm on that CD you are playing fiddle okay so they listen really cool of video ki kya the fiddle part yes I know yeah where the banjo comes in yes it'll comes in oh that's you uh yeah I never knew that no I know I mean everybody had that record on play everybody yeah oh it was just that got me back in the playing local music you know I mean I had stuck for a long time I was gonna try to be a metalhead [Music] you still are like in your heart you're like half heavy-metal have sweet Hawaiian working somebody still working here at this oh yeah man we just have people working 24 can't stop Billy and Joel or just did we just change out the batteries these batteries he's on that he's on lithium he's like rechargeable yeah I mean I've been going since 6:30 but I wouldn't call this work this beauty man this thing is one of the most gorgeous pieces of Earth ever first off this core hell man look at that the Alpha and Omega I had to look at that call for 20 years because it wasn't mine and I could I couldn't tear into it because I thought yeah I mean like man you build such amazing instruments you should have taken all four blocks and the other three you know I told you they're going for paddles well you know it's not to say paddles aren't important yeah yeah but yeah yeah I've seen some pretty gorgeous paddles oh yeah totally dude this thing is doing it to see [Music] same volume is crazy slightly different comb yeah definitely different different tone and it's such I mean I build these things I'm too close to them and now I get to sit and listen to a great player have a distance if you want to put on your headphones there you can hear when the mics are picking up their right to your left on the chair [Music] [Music] [Music] see I think the overtones and would really come out a lot more with like a fluorocarbon said like especially the right one on those I mean these are just nylon GHS and you know it's not nearly the brilliance and sustain I think you can get out of it but I mean still it sounds awesome so it sound better I think they they could sound even better like you would get more of those like no no I was I think that's Joey Rita strings yeah that's what we are doing we were we were playing Sonic Farkle stop - [Music] so I just I just hit the big four oh so sometime before I hit the big five oh I'm gonna have to have my wife give me permission to steal my balls out of her like this and then it has [Music] what I'm hearing is I'm hearing the the similarity and dwande all over across the 4th strings Bradley - strings sound one way in two strings sound another way and that's what it is it's balanced it's not balanced so much as it is the color is the same the color tonality of the string is the same rather than a different tomber [Music] Andrew what's his name you know he's great he's very knowledgeable but he's worked with us for about ten years now that he's been doing nothing but working on youth and he's tried every string imaginable and so about you know a little bit less than a year ago he set out and tried to he got all of these different materials nylon and fluorocarbon and the different wounds of the smooth ones of the flat ones that he's just been collecting them from different suppliers and piecing them together and he found the floor carbons that he found are much different than I mean fluorocarbons to me can kind of like be a bit on the bright side too much or lacking a little bit of the warmth but these have a almost darker overtone that I love but insanely good sustain and character gonna stretch out for a while I haven't been on wanting to have the metal wound strings but they do have the power and that's the reason I the that that uniformity of Tong to have the power and the C the G and this seems to have the power oh yeah [Music] that can feel it already with just that they're the notes just hang longer you know just look at sustains more [Music] the high strings are definitely brighter but the low strings have more complexity and from here it sounds like they have as much power yeah well these are round Wang but there's still watch strings on the the C and the D or C energy and then smooth round on the G which it's a different way to see I mean when it's a flat long string there's a different construction to how way that's done but I really like the the flat bound for the see you know that piece you were playing you said Todd wrote that yeah Todd Adamski man that guy genius inspirator for all the sun samples yeah he um he it's actually he rolling on guitar waited on Akula for capital e capital calles it's called kalehua Emilia he did it like his own version which is much slower and more the hula dancers in Japan really loved it so if you guys get a chance check out Kali who Emilia from capella kala on YouTube so that you can hear Todd playing the guitar murder in the back what's what cool early part played on the guitar bodies fit friend yeah he was our store manager for five years and he passed away a few years ago but like he was like kind of amazing on a lot of instruments bass he was like just the best bass player on a lot of albums too and helped a lot of songwriters kind of hone in on stuff it it was great working with him but that's a really interesting piece you know yeah it's something that like I mean it's it's based off of right but it gets so complex that's all it is but Todd as you know you know that kind of stuff so I mean it's a to figure out how to stop kicking my butt I [Music] still know I like the smooth one and even the flat one for the third but if you want an all plain set it just has a better balance than what I would like to try this is probably still like that first set that we were I don't know man this thing is pretty killer listen this thing and every string is it this that you're gonna put and I'm picking up a couple extra sets from yeah Joel I think he wanted to give you a set I mean you guys I mean it's one of those things where he's just trying to get it out there get feedback and yeah but I I'm so I heard downstairs I said and I haven't played it yet heard it close right but from over here which I'd never get to do then and hearing Aaron play it sounds to me better than the GHS so if it's better I would I would want to recommend a new customers and unless they're telling me I want dairy or whatever oh yeah two screens everybody's gonna everybody's gonna have their you know so it's like yeah well change it out yeah would you put on love to be able to say well you quad you knew something new yeah there's a new pickup that I wanna I'm working with a luthier named Paul McGill it's a called the pickup system Ben Shaw and Paul McGill have invented this pickup system that has a little preamp board that's mounted to the input jack inside it's the very lightweight and there's a control board that's a one inch by one inch that goes on the edge of the sound hole and it has a volume pot a little tiny trim pot on the circuit board for each string whoa so if you get a pickup under-saddle pick up with sir famous for of having one string that's not quite loud enough you don't have to take the saddle out and put a little drop of superglue and wait for it to dry and it says try to bring up the volume but is it in the saddle like individual pole pieces or is it there's four four black the pickups are manufactured by these does it go under the saddle or is it the saddle it is okay why is something like that and write it but to be able to control each strings yes like that yeah and it's it's ridiculously anti feedback oh no something just I talked been sha and doing one frugal le because all they have so far was guitar and I said I'm doing this workshop with Tommy four day workshop on Maui at the end of the year but Tommy a manual Jake Shimabukuro Wow Jeff Peterson ho Frank Vignola January 28th 9th 30th and 31st we're at the Royal Lahaina Hotel in Maui whoa it's pricey I don't know and then who's the Brent Mason you know who that is yep Brent Mason rennaisance part I have to so I'm just I'm a student I'm just gonna go over and do this workshop thing for four days it's $2,200 for the four days absolutely I saw the Hangout and get lessons from Tommy and Ben I know one-on-one are you kidding me that's cool there you go just a little write it off as a business venture but I told Ben Shaw and bum kill I said can you get one a nuclear version of this pick up before the end of the year they got it already so he went right to work on it oh you gotta let me know if you will and because we're constantly trying pickup offering different pickups for our homes you know with our setup team I have one of my gigging guitar and I've never heard a sweeter sounding under-saddle pickup it doesn't have that piezo sounds yeah it's just I know I know it's because I've had I had Blackbird put in some and there's an RM siege style pickup with the individual pole pieces for the saddle but um you get less holding well with this and if it's got the right preamp it's can be like there's the RMC preamp that i have that if you plug that style pickup into that and then it gives you all of the EQ controls and everything but yeah and you get the best sound from a new kalila yeah I've used a bunch of Richard's pickups before and I like the RMC pickups and they've worked closely with Richard to their former oh okay collaborators part of that they parted in and the way they do out of phase one string out of phase from the neck so that feedback doesn't get a chance to start going all nice and tender so instead of a tone knob on the edge of a board there's a three switch tiny little three switch attenuator that you can have the high on and the bass on in the middle up I wish you can do with a tone knob but it gives you more you can have them all down three band all three band but it's a it's not a pen uation it's he explained it I can't repeat it but it's just cutting or busting they're gonna Florencia his unbelievable song really I said I'm gonna be hanging with Jake Shimabukuro for four days yeah and so I would love to get one of these installed in a new khalili so I can say that soundcheck because they got they're gonna do in a concert at the Mac so that soundcheck I would like to say Jake plug this in here through the house system somebody think yeah that'd be great I mean he already has a youth from you right or one or two yeah he's got one and who did he lend it to who's that somebody told me that somebody was recording with it really he's soft songwriter what's his name Ron artis yes yeah so let's run Ron's coming up man that guy is yes yeah he's a good songwriter yeah he's great and hell of a guitar player he's got some messages too and you know like yeah just as far as songwriting like it's just in his blood you just want to hold his name out yeah yeah friends I hope I'm not you guys got it yeah yeah yeah we got I shoulda let go you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] chat with you and Aaron let me have many hours but I appreciate the time that you came and spent and I really appreciate the level of building that you bring to the ocol Ellie and you've been doing it since 76 and before custom Mukul oles was a thing you were making custom Lilly's and these are just top-tier absolutely thank you Andrew and and I can't thank you guys enough for this opportunity for me you don't know how much of an opportunity it is for me I've heard great players play my ukulele is before but I've never heard him in this kind of a setting where I could hear one here another here one that I heard earlier with a different set of strings you see in the hands of a really good player so that was a real opportunity for me so I appreciate that well I can say with emphatically anytime sir yeah anytime be back next week there you go bring them all I'll play them on I love these things I'll bring an arch top guitar for it next year yeah absolutely thank you guys so much we'll see you yes next week

Channel: HawaiiMusicSupply

Views: 4,292

Rating: 4.9000001 out of 5

Keywords: theukulelesite, ukulele, Steve Grimes, Grimes Ukulele, The Ukulele Review, Podcast, Aaron Crowell, Custom Ukulele, Hawaii Music Supply

Id: AOf0RNz_YJk

Length: 118min 31sec (7111 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 13 2019