The
Babicz Identity series Acute Rosewood Guitar ID-ACRW-06 - Reviewed
Flat top guitar design
hasn’t substantially changed since CF Martin & Co. introduced
X bracing way back in 1840. However the traditional design is
known to suffer from a number of problems. While some makers have
attempted solutions using modern composite materials, such as
carbon fibre, the Jeff Babicz (pronounced Babbits) range of Identity
and Signature guitars are built with traditional materials and
instead rely on structural innovations, to solve these problems.
The Babicz
design (refer to the side-bar for
descriptions of the problems of traditional flat top design)
The Lateral
Compression sound board, bridge and string anchors
The Babicz design solves
the sound-board strength versus response problem, by shifting
the string anchor points away from the bridge, towards the edge
of the guitar and realigning the stress, so that it compresses,
rather than deflects, the sound-board. Jeff Babicz refers to this
feature as Lateral Compression. You might think that you would
want to relieve the sound board from the stress of string tension
altogether, but, as Jeff points out, the string pull does act
to tune the sound-board, in much the same way a drum skin is tuned.
At the right tension, a drum skin makes a loud resonant sound
when struck, but slacken the skin off and only a muffled thud
can be produced.
In the Babicz design
the strings run over the bridge saddle, through holes in a separate
locating block and then radiate out, across the surface of the
lower bout, to six string anchors spaced in a semi-circle near
the edge of the guitar, spreading the stress across the soundboard
and away from the bridge.
Sufficient break angle
over the saddle, to transmit the strings vibration to the ‘board,
is maintained, since the strings angle down, to pass through the
holes in a locating block. With this design, although there is
still some torque to the bridge, due to the break angle, the majority
of the string tension is transmitted through the anchors to edge-tension
the ‘board. Bridge lifting, a common problem with standard
flat tops, won’t happen with this design, because the strings
are actually forcing the bridge down onto the ‘board. Since
there are no string pegs and the bridge isn’t glued down,
but held on by special hex head bolts and fasteners, it’s
possible to mount the bolts into slots in the ‘board, allowing
the bridge to be slid backwards and forwards to adjust intonation,
once the bolts have been loosened. With this bridge design there
is no possibility of a ‘bridge lift’ problem, since
there is no glue to fail and in any case the string down pressure
is entirely forcing the bridge down onto the sound board.
The neck adjustment
In the Babicz guitars,
rather than requiring a complicated neck reset, action
(not to be confused with relief, which is set
by the truss rod) is easily adjusted, by turning a screw which
moves the neck up and down relative to the body. Although guitarists
have a reputation for being slow to accept innovation in the design
of their instruments, the idea of an adjustable neck has an ancient
pedigree. As long ago as 1825 a geared, tilting neck, adjusted
by using a clock key, was incorporated in the design of the Stauffer
Legnani model guitar. C.F. Martin worked as an apprentice in the
Stauffer workshop and the first Martin guitars were based on Stauffer’s
designs. More recently, Greg Smallman has introduced a tilting
neck on his classical guitars, to avoid the negative effects on
tone and volume caused by the guitar owners adjusting action,
by altering the saddle height. The Babicz neck adjustment is perhaps
unique because it shifts the neck up and down, rather than tilting
the neck. Making this neck adjustment is extremely easy using
the hex wrench, supplied clipped to the back of peg head and the
same wrench fits the truss rod.
The Guitars
look and finish
One of the problems
with marketing a mass produced guitar with so many innovative
features is that these features must take a large bite out of
the manufacturing budget, leaving less available for high quality
materials, cosmetic touches and finish. The Identity series of
Babicz guitars is manufactured in Indonesia, just outside Jakarta.
This location puts the factory right on top of one of the prime
sources of luthiere quality woods in the world, helping to keep
raw materials and labour cost down.
Our review guitar is
a Rosewood model, so it has back and sides made from nicely-grained,
rich, dark, solid Rosewood. The back is made from two semi book
matched pieces and has a lighter stripe from the sapwood along
the centre joint. The top is solid Spruce, probably of American
origin, lightly braced in an A pattern, rather unusually, with
Mahogany braces.
Hardware parts - machines,
string anchors and strap buttons are all gloss black finished
and are matched by the ‘ebonised’ Rosewood bridge
and string retainer (on their site, Babicz spec. the guitar as
having an Ebony bridge, so we will have to check this).
A single circle of
two strips of dyed wood, referred to in the company literature
as a 'Peacock tail' pattern, forms the rosette. Frankly, in our
opinion, this really doesn't suite the guitar and a Rosewood,
or even black plastic inlay, would look better.
The neck is made in
five pieces from fine grained Mahogany, with the heel built up
in a stack of three pieces and the headstock diagonally scarf
jointed between the second and third frets. As raw resources become
scarcer it's common to see necks built up in this way. In any
case the adjustable neck joint requires a substantial bulk of
wood. The headstock and heel are capped with a thick Rosewood
veneer.
While the neck is lacquered
to a perfectly smooth, slick feeling, mirror finish, the body
appears to have a thinner coating, with some grain showing through.
This is desirable since it protects the wood, but doesn’t
damp the tone.
Obviously the most
visually striking aspect of this guitar is the split bridge and
fanned semi-circle of string anchors around the bottom edge of
the guitar.
Playability
Because the neck continues
through the neck joint to the end of the fingerboard there is
no possibility of the last six frets lying at a different angle
to the rest of the frets, as they often do on standard flat tops.
The ‘through’
neck design, combined with the ability to change, or fine-tune
the action in the fraction of a second, mean that the Babicz guitar
plays fantastically well. A side effect of the design is that
the fingerboard extension is effectively raised, like the Thomas
Humphrey Millennium and the McPherson designs. Combined with a
cutaway, this makes reaching the top fret very easy and fortunately
the guitar even produces true notes at this fret.
Both the neck profile and width at the nut are very comfortable.
Although there were some slightly sharp fret ends this is very
common on new guitars. Fret ends may be dressed perfectly flush
at the factory, but it only takes a little shrinkage in the fresh
cut fingerboard to expose them. Fortunately this is a very easy
problem to fix and really it’s the sort of thing a dealer
should take care of before letting a customer have the guitar.
Frets are unusually large for an acoustic guitar, but should help
make it instantly familiar to a habitual electric player.
Sound
As shipped the guitar
was fitted with D’Addario EXP 0.012 to 0.053 strings. These
are a sensible choice for guitar makers, since they are one of
the ‘long-life’ string sets that won’t corrode
and go dull while the guitar is shipped and passes through the
sale process. However our impression of these strings is that,
due to their particular construction, the wound strings are one
of the duller sounding examples of long-life strings available.
Since, like most extended lifetime strings, the two top plain
strings are untreated, they produce noticeably more top end shimmer
than the wound strings. So the sound of the guitar ‘out-of-the-box’
is quite heavily influenced by this string choice. After playing
the guitar for a while we re-strung it with the same gauge in
Elixir Acoustic Polyweb’s (any normal string set will fit,
special length strings are not required). Although these also
feature a protective sheathing on the wound strings and generally
aren’t as bright as brand new unprotected strings, they
did exhibit brighter tones from the lower four, resulting, to
our ears, in a better tonal balance across all six strings.
Again, as shipped,
the guitar is fitted with a plastic nut and saddle. Although these
work perfectly well, it is certainly possible to coax a slightly
brighter response from the wound strings and overall a more refined
voice from the guitar, by fitting, for example Tusq replacements
(Jeff says he uses Tusq components on his high-end, personally
constructed, Signature series of guitars).
Straight out of the
case the guitar sounded unimpressive. However, even a short period
of playing in (new Spruce sound boards are well known for developing
better tone over time, as a guitar is played in) resulted in an
obvious improvement. This, combined with a string change to the
Elixir’s and the installation of a Tusq saddle, resulted
in a huge step up in the sound quality of the guitar.
The new bridge design
and light A frame Mahogany bracing produce a very balanced and
refined tone. There is perhaps more fundamental present than in
some guitars and a powerful ‘tubby’, rather than boomy,
bass, is evident on the lower strings. The rich low end is nicely
balanced by a clear shimmering treble from the upper strings.
Fitting a pickup
A factory fitted. L.R.
Baggs iMIX Onboard pickup system with on-board active volume and
EQ is available on all Babicz guitars as an option for an additional
$399. Fitting your own pickup is slightly complicated by the fact
that the A frame bracing used passes close to either side of the
sound hole. This limits the diameter of the sound hole to roughly
9cm (3 & 5/8 inches) making it a little difficult to get a
hand inside the guitar to fit an end pin jack and to get a magnetic
pickup into the sound hole. We did mange to fit an LR Baggs M1,
although the pickup sits a little further away from the end of
the fretboard than it would in many guitars. A Fishman Rare Earth
pickup could also fit this guitar.
An under-saddle pickup would need a slot, rather than a single
hole, cut in the sound board, if the ability to move the bridge
is to be retained. Bridge plate pickups should present no problems,
other than the difficulty of fitting them via the small sound
hole (the Baggs iMix is a blended system using both an under-saddle
pickup and bridge plate pickup).
Conclusions
First of all we have
to say all credit to Jeff Babicz for being brave enough to tackle
the problems of the flat top design and to come up with a guitar
that incorporates so many clever solutions. The question you have
to ask is – are these solutions successful? After checking
over this guitar we have to say definitely yes. You might also
ask whether the Babicz guitar plays well and sounds good regardless
of the clever bits. Well we have to say yes on those counts too.
The neck adjustment is a thing of wonder in itself and the Lateral
Compression sound board gives the guitar a beautiful sound with
its own subtle character.
If you are looking
for an acoustic guitar with fantastic playability, excellent sound
and that allows you, the player, to instantly and easily, adjust
all of the critical set-up parameters, there just isn’t
anything else out there.
© Terry Relph-Knight
02-11-2004
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Structural
problems in flat-top guitar design
String tension
and the sound board
One of the biggest
structural problems in a traditional design, flat-top guitar is
due to the over 200 pounds of tension from the steel strings,
anchored at the bridge and pulling on the sound board. Without
substantial bracing this force would greatly distort the ‘board,
resulting in an increasingly high action and would eventually
tear the guitar apart. With any acoustic guitar the sound board
is required to do two things; it must be light and stiff in the
centre, but flexible at the edges, so that it responds quickly
to string attack and is easily driven by the string to produce
maximum loudness and sustain, but it must also be strong and rigid
enough to withstand the string tension and not be easily damaged
in normal use.
Starting with the earlier ‘Spanish’ gut or nylon
strung guitar design, where string tension is much lower, the
first makers to use steel strings simply tried to adapt this fan
braced design for the greater volume obtainable with steel. They
solved the higher string tension problem by adopting a stronger,
stiffer bracing pattern and thicker tops. Unfortunately there
is always a compromise between response and strength and a thicker
top or heavier bracing tends to make the top less responsive.
Set necks
Two other common problems found with flat tops are due to the
‘set’ or glued-in neck. The playability, or action
of the guitar is largely determined by the angle of the neck to
the body and to the strings. With a glued neck this angle is set
during construction. To make any changes to this angle on many
guitars requires steaming open the neck joint, trimming or shimming
the joint and re-gluing. Even on some modern guitars with the
new bolt-on neck design, re-setting the neck isn’t a trivial
operation. The other and easier alternative to re-setting the
neck, is to alter the saddle height. Unfortunately the range of
adjustment at the saddle is often limited and the saddle is a
critical part of the guitars tone path. The saddle acts as a lever
that translates the changes in tension of the vibrating strings
into torque, to twist the bridge and drive the sound board. Since
this lever is relatively short, only small changes in saddle height
can result in big changes in tone and volume.
The neck joint on a traditional set neck acoustic tends to act
as a very stiff hinge. Over time, string tension on the neck,
or movement in the body, bends the finger board extension that
is glued to the sound board on the upper bout of the guitar. This
means that the last few high frets on the guitar tend to ‘ski
ramp’ up.
The glued bridge and intonation
Unlike most modern electric guitars, acoustic flat top guitars
traditionally have no means of adjusting the vibrating string
length for correct intonation. Intonation is set during manufacture,
by the position of the glued-on bridge and the position of the
saddle slot in the bridge. This is only ever an approximation,
since intonation varies from string to string and changes, depending
on string gauge and the chosen tuning. String tension, combined
with heat, sometimes results in the glue melting and the bridge
may start to lift from the sound board.
All of these
basic design problems are addressed by the Babicz design
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