02
Dreadnought
Square-shouldered and deep, braced in an X under a spruce top. Built for volume and a heavy low end — the shape that carries an unamplified voice.
- Strings
- 6 steel
- Scale
- 645 mm
- Voice
- Loud, bass-forward
A guitar's voice is decided long before anyone plays it: by how much air the body holds, how the top is braced or carved, whether a string's motion is turned into sound by wood or by a magnet.
Every drawing on this page is line work — outlines, circles and dashes at their true proportion. Nothing is photographed.
Square-shouldered and deep, braced in an X under a spruce top. Built for volume and a heavy low end — the shape that carries an unamplified voice.
Carved arched top, f-holes instead of a round mouth, and a bridge that simply floats under string pressure. Dry, quick attack; short decay.
No cavity, no soundhole: a slab of mahogany with a maple cap, two magnetic pickups and a glued-in neck. Sustains as long as the string will hold.
The waist is shifted so the body balances when seated. Bolted neck, narrow single-coil pickups, and a bright, glassy attack with far less low mid.
Four strings an octave below the guitar's bottom four, on a scale long enough to keep them under tension. Fewer notes, more air moved.
A spun metal cone replaces the wooden soundboard, driven at its centre by the bridge. Nasal, loud, and metallic — built to be heard over a band before amplification existed.
Two measurements explain most of the difference between these instruments: the scale length, from nut to bridge, which sets string tension; and the volume of air behind the top, which sets how much of that motion becomes sound in the room.