As some of you may know, sound is a wave, and as such it needs matter to move from one place to another, between the speaker and your ears there is air….forget it, we won't bore you with physics.

1^st part: The wood

The absolute core of a great sound in a guitar is the wood. It is the responsible for 70% of the sound results in a finished guitar.

The reason:
Sound can be divided into Fundamentals, Overtones and Sub tones.

Fundamental is the actual tone (musical note in our case) that we hear. Overtones and Sub tones are harmonic subtle sounds that can be heard each time a sound is made; they are a lot less powerful in relation to the fundamentals and they appear in the same order each time (intervals 8th, 5th, 8th, 3rd, 5th and so on).

Example:
play the open 6th string, now play it slightly touching exactly over the 12th fret with your pinky, now your hearing the first overtone of the open string (which is the 8th interval of the fundamental). In essence, each time you play the open 6th, the first overtone is there all the time (as well as all the other higher overtones)

The definition of good sound is a very subjective matter to discuss, obviously because it is decided by personal choice.

For most of us a great guitar sound is one that is defined, full, rich, round and creamy. This richness, definition, etc... is determined by how and how much of these overtones and sub tones are enhanced by the wood.

Each type of wood and each piece of wood can enhance or suppress any given overtone and sub tone produced by vibrating or not at the same speed. So when we hear a really rich and full guitar sound it's because the wood is enhancing the natural overtones to be heard louder.

1. You pluck a string.
2. The string vibrates creating the fundamental and overtone sounds
3. These vibrate the wood
4. The wood vibrates stronger in certain overtones
5. The string vibrates stronger on those overtones enhanced by the wood
6. Everything is perceived by the pickup and is sent to the amp.

2^st part: Handmade

The pieces of wood alone cannot make a good guitar. It’s the hands of builder who makes them.

Choosing and matching the pieces of wood, making the neck pocket exactly the size of neck, gluing of the neck to the body, gluing the fingerboard to the neck, carefully shaping the nut so that it contacts all the wood on the headstock, routing and placing of the knobs and switches, installing the frets on the fingerboard, lacquer and color finishing and completing the electronics.

All these should be made in way that it lets the wood vibrate to achieve the sound results expected by the customer.

If two pieces of wood don't match, then they will not vibrate together thus suppressing overtones from getting to the pickup of the guitar.

Example:
Take a look at the nut, try to visualize the pressure it has on from the strings, if there is good pressure then it will pass on the vibrations to the wood. But if there is a little gap between the nut and the wood at some point (not properly seated) then there is less transfer from the strings.

Now take a look at the neck pocket, try to see if there is any gap between the neck and the body, gaps mean less wood to wood contact (less vibrations).

Another example is the wood grain, look at the body from the bottom end, grains that run straight and vertical to the body (as if the strings are a continuation of them) will help enhance the vibrations a lot better than wild and circular grain lines.

Remember that transferring vibrations is the key to a full and rich sound.

Hand building guitars is the art in which the luthier carefully follows the steps mentioned before to make an instrument play the way the customer has requested.

Each and every part used should not interfere with the sound of the guitar, so much that a bad nut or a wrong knob configuration could compromise the entire work.

As you would probably have figured out, we can't really discuss what our methods are to achieve all of the above. But trust us; we know what we are doing.

3^st part: Hardware and Electronics

The hardware is responsible for transferring the strings vibrations to the wood of the guitar. The quality of the frets, the bridge weight and material, the nut as well as the design are most important in making a good instrument.

These parts should be strong and not too light in weight (no aluminum) otherwise they won't transfer the strings vibrations to the wood.

The electronics are the last part between the guitar and the amp.

Choosing the right pickups, pots, switches, wires, the pickup layout, the distance in height from the strings and even the wire use for grounding is important in the process.

Pickups work as follow: A magnet inside the plastic cover and the surrounding coil "pick up" the movement of the magnetic field of the string (that is vibrating from playing), the coil transforms this into electricity and sends it to the jack through the pots.

If a strong magnet is inside the pickup, it will eventually stop the string from moving because of magnetic attraction, therefore killing the sustain and giving the "wolf sound" that single coil guitars usually have in the high frets.

Having a bad set of pots will lower the amount of electricity that goes to the amp, thus loosing sound.

4^st part: Our instruments

As you probably understand by now, making quality guitars and bass guitars is not something that can be made by using every piece of wood, every bridge or every pickup that's out there and more important by every person who wants to.

It is an art, to be performed by people who have studied and researched the materials and who have an interest in building guitars and bass guitars to the highest level achievable.

Our instruments are of the highest standards worldwide, made from handpicked tone woods, carefully matched with the best hardware and electronics.

Most important made by luthiers.

Alfredo Zuckerkorn
ERG Custom Guitars