Which UK luthiers are able to add a sound port to an acoustic guitar?

ToneControl

preferably in North west England

basically you drill a hole in the side of the guitar, and probably add a little finish to the new edge

FelineGuitars

You just want to see where your pick went, don't you?

zepp76

What are the benefits of doing this? Genuinely interested as I've seen a few guitars with this on here and have wondered exactly what it does?

ToneControl

you get a bit of the sound that the audience normally gets, straight to your ears, makes the guitar sound to the player like it does to the audience - louder and more mids and treble

ToneControl

very noticeable in anything larger than a small room

ToneControl

I bought a classical with it from new, and just had an Avalon altered (by Avalon), sounds much better now, but posting guitars to NI seems expensive and riskier than finding a local luthier

zepp76

ToneControl said:

you get a bit of the sound that the audience normally gets, straight to your ears, makes the guitar sound to the player like it does to the audience - louder and more mids and treble

Very interesting, thank you. 

VimFuego

s'funny, they've been around for ages, as far as I know there are no downsides, but still most makers don't seem to do them. 

ToneControl

VimFuego said:

s'funny, they've been around for ages, as far as I know there are no downsides, but still most makers don't seem to do them. 

only downside I know is that if the hole is too big, the sound you hear can get too mid-heavy

fields5069

Now where did I put my trepanning kit?

Andy79

 Mainly low frequencies come from sound ports and it really doesn’t matter where they are positioned. Do a search for tuned speaker sound ports to check the technical 
Side ports seem to be in vogue right now. I prefer mine at the front 

thomasross20

FelineGuitars said:

You just want to see where your pick went, don't you?

That's handy, actually! 
What about outdoor gigs and rain getting in guitar? 

I really want to try one. Though on my recent L2-230 purchase .... The guitar is already deafeningly loud!

VimFuego

if it's raining, no way I'm playing my acoustic outdoors, sound port or no. 

GTC

Brook were able to incorporate one into my current Taw build half way through.

ToneControl

Andy79 said:

 Mainly low frequencies come from sound ports and it really doesn’t matter where they are positioned. Do a search for tuned speaker sound ports to check the technical 
Side ports seem to be in vogue right now. I prefer mine at the front 

do you mean you prefer the normal one at the front?

tuned speaker sound ports are use long pipes to reinforce low bass frequencies between around 70Hz-100Hz
Just cutting a hole in a soundbox does not produce a tuned port.
You can actually buy tuned ports to add to the normal sound hole, I have one in a drawer, I've seen a makeshift one done on a contrabass guitar with plastic sheeting cut and rolled into a tube, to lower the bass handling of the contrabass

http://www.calculatoredge.com/new/ventlength.htm
having a crack with this calculator, I assume a guitar body is about 18 litres but I am not sure what numbers to put in for the rest

In use, I can hear the same frequencies from the port as the front soundhole, but when I play a normal guitar, I tend to hear the treble and bass more than the mids, so using the port brings the mids back in to play for my ears

www

Fylde Guitars, if you want the best
https://www.fyldeguitars.com

ICBM

Just buy an electro-acoustic and take the preamp box out .

I'd take a bet that's how this concept was discovered in the first place...

For what it's worth, I would be extremely wary about doing that to a solid-sides guitar without reinforcing the inside around the hole, otherwise splitting and/or the wood trying to return to its un-bent shape around the edges is quite likely.

ToneControl

ICBM said:

Just buy an electro-acoustic and take the preamp box out .

I'd take a bet that's how this concept was discovered in the first place...

For what it's worth, I would be extremely wary about doing that to a solid-sides guitar without reinforcing the inside around the hole, otherwise splitting and/or the wood trying to return to its un-bent shape around the edges is quite likely.

I did worry about the structure

Avalon were going to strengthen the one in mine, but decided not to. It's an oval shape, about 45mm x 25mm 
As you say, it's similar to a preamp hole really

My Yulong Guo classical was made with a much large port, and also has no extra support

ToneControl

www said:

Fylde Guitars, if you want the best
https://www.fyldeguitars.com

Great idea, but a 2 hour drive each way twice!

I am thinking more somewhere round Chester, Liverpool, Manchester, Crewe, Warrington, Macclesfield

MichaelWatts

Soundports are a fascinating part of modern luthiery and when they work it can be very beautiful. In this episode of Luthier Stories Matthew and Matthias from Casimi Guitars (Cape Town, South Africa) talk about the process of retro-fitting a soundport to an existing guitar. I hope you enjoy it, the soundport chat starts at around 23:31



I would personally warn against having a soundport cut into a guitar by a luthier who doesn't already incorporate them into their work 

DiscoStu

Breedlove put sound ports in some of their acoustics. The one I tried in PMT was very engaging.