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 A
catalog entry for a Decca 12-string.
Decca
12-String
Q I came
across a 12-string Decca acoustic guitar that I guess goes back
to the ’60s. I wonder if you have any information about this nice-sounding
guitar.
Mitch Herron
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A After the
Beatles made it big in 1964, guitars were golden, and like all big
companies, Decca Records wanted in on the gold rush. In 1965, CBS
bought Fender, and a corporate feeding frenzy followed. Some companies
bought American guitar makers, while others started selling Japanese
imports. Somewhere around 1965, Decca started a division known as
Decca Home Entertainment Products, which for several years imported
Japanese acoustic and solid-body electric guitars aimed primarily
at the beginner market.
––Michael Wright
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Multipiece
Backs
Q What
is the difference between an acoustic guitar with a three-piece
back and one with a two-piece back?
Carter Edge
Acworth, Georgia
A Backs
made from three, four, or more pieces of wood have a long history
in guitar making. The wild multipiece extravaganzas of the 18th
century echoed the even earlier designs of lutes and cittarones.
In the more modern era, Antonio de Torres made multipiece backs
and even some four-piece tops. The three-piece back was popularized
by C.F. Martin and Co. in its D-35 model as a way of using Brazilian
rosewood that was too narrow for the two-piece backs on D-28s and
D-21s and too short to use as sides.
Classical and steel-string luthiers are making four-piece backs
in which the joints are nearly invisible. Some builders do this
deliberately for tonal reasons, and some, such as Harry Fleishman,
mix species on a back or even a top. It isn’t necessarily cheaper,
as there is more labor involved in building a multipiece back, but
it does allow luthiers to use the dwindling stocks of really great
wood to best effect.
It’s hard to tell whether multipiece backs really affect the tone
of a guitar. There are other structural differences between, for
instance, a D-28 and a D-35 that make a direct comparison a moot
point, but I believe that most guitar makers will tell you that
a well-made guitar with a three- or four-piece back will sound just
as good as its two-piece counterpart, all other things being equal.
—Rick Turner
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Music
Engraving Software
Q I’m looking for notation
software that will allow me to customize chord shapes, show picking
patterns, and include tablature. What software does Acoustic
Guitar use to format the songs that appear in your magazine?
Matson Wade
Redwood City, California
A
Here at Acoustic Guitar we use Finale from Coda Music
(www.codamusic.com/coda)
to engrave the music in our pages. Some less expensive alternatives
that perform well include Melody Assistant (www.myriad-online.com)
and TablEdit (www.tabledit.com).
For more information, check out the article on free and inexpensive
notation software in our October issue (Reviews).
—Andrew DuBrock
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Tip
Sheet: Tuning by Telephone
Got any great guitar tips or discoveries that you’d like to
share? Send them to Tip Sheet, Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767,
San Anselmo, CA 94979. If we print your tip, we’ll give you a year’s
free subscription, gift subscription, or subscription renewal. Here
is this issue’s winner, submitted by Steven L . Broitman of Wilmington,
Delaware.
In the days of rotary phones, the telephone dial tone was a Bb
note, and you could tune your guitar by it. Things changed with
the Bell breakups and digital electronics, but I gave it another
check the other day, and noticed my tone appeared to come in just
about 10 cents sharp of F. I posted this on the A.G. discussion
board, Guitar Talk (www.acousticguitar.com),
and someone responded saying that it was actually an F chord containing
an A fundamental that was almost precisely 440! It seems that we
still have an electronic reference tone that we can all use to pretune
before jams, gigs, etc.
Send Questions, tips, or observations to Acoustic
Guitar’s online discussion forums at www.acousticguitar.com
or write to Dear A.G., Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo,
CA 94979-0767.
Excerpted
from
Acoustic
Guitar
magazine, November 2001, No. 108.
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