Video of the Week - Blackbird Super OM by Teja Gerken

It is a pity that the audio of this video doesn't pay justice to this guitar. Teja Gerken is the Senior Editor of Acoustic Guitar Magazine and an incredible musician. This piece of music is simply lovely!

Video of the Week - Blackbird Super OM by Martin Blanes

Here we go! This is a tune i composed for the amazing 'Name my Tune' contest held by Macnichol. Somebody composes a tune and posts a video of it and people has to choose a title for it. This time the winner was 'Inner City Rhythm' and the prize was more than 200 dollars in guitar goods! For the current contest please check Macnichol's forum.

Video of the Week - Diving Antarctica with a Blackbird Rider!

This is one of my favorite videos and it really highlights how durable is a carbon fiber guitar. You can see it diving in Antacrtica and surviving! Don't try doing this with a wooden guitar! This is simply beautiful...

Carbon fiber used for guitar tops? Aren't you kiddin'?

I want to echo here a really good text written by Joe Luttwak, CEO of Blackbird Guitars, about using carbon fiber to build guitar tops -> the link

Carbon fiber vs. wood sound board + stiffness
Over the years, we've observed a lot of mystery around the material and construction of acoustic guitar sound boards amongst the guitar playing public, after-all sound boards account for the majority of 'tone' of the instrument. In particular, the art/design/science of making guitars achieve a certain quality of sound, volume, frequency response. This became very clear when we received the following comment on our Youtube account:
These guitars are CRAP, considering the price you pay... Guitars are made out of flexible wood. Carbon is one of the most rigid materials known to man... It's good for bracing and truss rod support, but not for anything else. Especially not building a resonating chamber. -AlisonChaynes 

Here is what I more-or-less responded:
'Actually Guitar-top material Aka Spruce is exceptionally stiff for its weight- this is the most basic point of acoustic guitar building and you missed it! Good spruce is a hard material to beat actually, but composites have the advantage of being tune-able so you can dial in the stiffness. Just like a wood guitar, we have bracing to determine stiffness of the top (except we use carbon fiber for our braces), but we also can adjust the thickness, material, weave, orientation of the top to determine stiffness.'

I reached my character limit at that point, but there is another big advantage over wood tops, namely consistency. Because our tops exhibit nearly the same mechanical properties every time, we can quickly develop the perfect blend of top bracing and the other aforementioned variables (aka  thickness, material, weave etc.) so we get the desired responsiveness- every time! Responsiveness is what we are after which broken down means volume, frequency response, dynamic range. Blackbird guitars are closer to the more response boutique guitars by design. Your mass-produced wood guitars (even the pricey ones) are typically 'over-built' aka too stiff... One more thing about the post, if carbon fiber is good for bracing, which is the basis of achieving good tone and stiffness, shouldn't is also be good for the top itself?

Blackbird Rumor - Nylon Carbon Fiber Guitar

Our spies in the guitar world will post here the most important rumors heard around... 

Our featured rumor today was leaked from Blackbird Guitars' Headquarters in San Francisco. Joe Luttwak and his team are working on a new nylon stringed guitar based on their already highly successful Lucky 13 introduced this year. What we know so far is that it will have a 650mm scale and 12 frets to the body (instead of 13 as the standard Lucky 13 has).

Looks gorgeous! Please keep in mind that it is a mock up. We really hope to hear some more information about this thrilling project soon!