First, the hornets nest comment was about the internet at large. I did not mean here. This place is great. I don't mean you guys. But if I share something here it's permanent & searchable. I hope no one took that comment about here.
Yes I'm aware of the connection here to Trevor's work. I will try to make the most concise point on that, forgive me if it seems incomplete. Also it is not derogatory. I support that approach for traditional design, but all of it seems to center around two things:
1. Taking readings prior to the plates being attached, simulating attachment at the border, and after the box is built.
2. Driving the top (motor) in a way that is not the same as the way the strings vibrate the top.
Neither of these two things make it "wrong". It is beautifully suited to replicating things we know we like. But the top changes under tension and torque. So to say that a free top plate with a spike at F# will "sound good when playing in F#" ignores both the 175lbs of tension and the phase incoherencies when the F# chord is struck. Anecdotally, those guitars of mine that have a resonance around 80hZ still open up and sound huge in drop D. They have no deficiency at the tritone, 7th, 9th, etc.
As to whether a resonance lands directly on a musical pitch vs a quarter or half tone away, my position is that for the disassociation to musical notes to be responsible for improving the guitar's tone across all the key centers, is validation of the phase incoherencies and comb filtering I'm talking about reducing.
Again not a dismissal of these methods. Trevor's work in its entirety is absolutely fine by me. I'm just pointing out how those things don't tell the whole story of what I'm trying to say here, that my torque arrangement does things that will need to be demonstrated in a different way. That's a marketing conundrum for me, and makes for long, boring discussions with luthiers like yourselves and I thank you for continuing to engage.
Bryan Galloup was at the Santa Barbara Acoustic festival. We discussed this for a long time at his booth before he came by mine. In the discussions, he was (rightfully) challenging everything I was saying and interested enough to come see my guitars. (He has a nice cantilever bridge design that lets the bridge be at the back of the instrument, but drive it from the center, in a similar phase aligned way, on a bass)
Eventually he tapped the dread into his iPhone and an analyzer app, and while I don't want to speak for Bryan, confirms the resonances I'm talking about, and then congratulates me on good work. Again I don't speak for him and make no attempt to use his name, suggest that he approves or supports my design or career. Just that there was a bit of skepticism reversed when in person.
I spoke with Martin Taylor of the Australian Guitar Making School and we had a great exchange followed by him saying something like my jumbo was the best sounding guitar he'd heard in the hall so far. He could very well have just been being kind. Perhaps he thought it was terrible. But at face value he was understanding what I said the design was doing, AND then he heard and felt the results first-hand.
By no means do I want anyone to change anything about the way you make guitars, and the way you implement Trevor's research and wisdom. This is a situation unique to me. I bear the burden of demonstrating levels of phase coherency but it will be quite some time before I have a clean bulletproof way of presenting it to the public. In the meantime the sound of my guitars will have to do, and the flowery analogous descriptive terms I use, along with my magnetic personality.
