Unusual Harp Guitar

ChrisMusic

Links to Nathan Sheppard Guitars - thought you might want to have a look.

http://www.nsguitars.co.uk/galleries.html

http://www.nsguitars.co.uk/gallery_item_harp.html

With my thanks to @ThePrettyDamned for alerting me to Nathan's work in my P90 Pickups... discussion, cheers  

octatonic

Love it!

JayGee

If you like this sort of thing I refer you to...

http://www.defaoiteguitars.com/page10.htm

...the fanned fret baritone harps are particularly awesome, even if you don't actually touch the "extra" strings the sympathetic resonance makes it sound like a guitar with a BFO subwoofer.

Dave's work is fabulous by the way, I had a brief play with one of his more conventional instruments, this one I believe...

http://www.defaoiteguitars.com/page19.htm

..and as well as possibly being the single most beautiful man-made object I've ever fondled it was so nice to play that I wanted to cry when I had to put it down :-)

Hertz32

Love it What's the purpose of the hole in the side? Not really familiar with anything that doesn't have some kind of pick-up in!

JayGee

Basically it's an additional soundhole which projects a little bit of the guitars proper "voice" (as you'd hear if you were in front of it) up towards the player, kind of like an acoustic monitor, and yes, it really does work....

TTony

Iirc ( and it's quite possible that I don't ), Nathan made that 2-3 years ago now as a special commission.  

It might even have been featured in "Guitarist", which used to be a fairly popular magazine until one of its sister publications was fracked.  At which point it sunk without trace.

Shame Nathan has similarly sunk.  

ChrisMusic

@TTony, I gathered that things were not as they should be for Nathan.  I hadn't heard of him before.  Nice work, shame.

What happened to him and the guitars, do you know?  Obviously his website is still up, or is it now orphaned?

TTony

ChrisMusic said:

@TTony, I gathered that things were not as they should be for Nathan.  I hadn't heard of him before.  Nice work, shame.

What happened to him and the guitars, do you know?  Obviously his website is still up, or is it now orphaned?

Where to start ...

Keeping it as factual as I can;

1.  I'm a fan of his guitars.
2.  He made some great instruments and used some really top-quality materials.
3.  But it's generally accepted that he over-promised and under-delivered and so upset a number of people.
4.  His customer-relationship and general business skills were not as "well developed" as his guitar making skills.

The website hasn't been touched for a few years.  I don't know whether Nathan leaves it there in the hope that one day he'll return to guitar-making, or whether he's just forgotten about it.

Reading between the lines ... he was a great craftsman, but it's difficult to make a living out of being a craftsman.  A family came along, and I'm sure that increased the pressure on him to make money rather than just making nice guitars.  He tried to scale up the guitar-business to make the money that way ... but it didn't go so well (see point 4 above!).  So he packed in the guitar-building and went back to building work (IIRC) to make the money. 

It's been a while since I've had any contact with him, but I've still got 1 or 2 of his guitars;

There are a few others on here with his guitars too, and with other memories of Nathan.

ChrisMusic

Thanks for the insight @TTony.

I believe that both artists and craftspeople vs the business world make slightly uncomfortable bed-fellows.  It is a rare person that has the natural aptitude and the available time to bridge both worlds effectively.

It brings that old wisdom to mind "be careful what you wish for - it may come true"

Thanks for the pictures of your "one or two".

It brings to mind a story of Steve Miller doing one of his clear-outs.  At least one big barn on his land is full of gear.

There was a video of a large semi (US truck) delivering to Guitar Centre I believe.  Acres of guitar cases.  And me with my mouth open.  And that was just the ones he was clearing out.

If I find the clip I'll post it here.  BTW how many barns do you have on your land.  Just wondering...

oh and nice guitars too...

(I think I have an old PRS SE Soapbar II from your stable, via DDLooping, that's nice too)