Crimson Guitar Building Course - a Student's Perspective
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- Hi people!
I spent a little over two weeks building a guitar at Crimson Custom Guitars in Piddlehinton (UK) in late 2019. Here is a short documentary about that experience!
Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed it.
Leave any questions you might have below,
Cheers!
/ barrylimestoneofficial
/ barrylimestoneofficial
crimsonguitars...
(In case you are interested you can find more details about the course on their website.)
www.barrylimes...
Incredible result. I’m heading there to do a 6 day course in 2 weeks and cannot wait.
Epic! I just had my guitar refinished! I will have to share an update, looks so nice with a nitro finish. Same look, but more high end.
The finished instrument looks amazing. I remember seeing glimpses of your build in Ben's "What's on the bench" video(s) and it's nice to see and hear a student's completed guitar build. You should be proud of your work.
I think they're well aware of the need for an extra instructor luthier, Ben has been asking for applications for the position in his videos for months.
Thanks! Apparently when I was there in late November/ early December Christopher, one of the master luthiers and instructors, told us he’s leaving to set up his own shop. (Which by January might have happened now.) So I can see that they are in a bit of a pickle with regards to having a personnel shortage. I don’t doubt they are trying to find more instructors as I do believe they really care. I just thought I would be honest regarding my experience. It really was great though! It is also worth mentioning that after having completed one build, if I were to go back I would be a lot more independent and would require less supervision/help from instructors.
Every time you show the guitar result I had to look twice and admire its beauty. What an amazing story! Looking forward to your next project.
Thanks Kat!!
Beautiful guitar, I especially love that you used a chunk of wood that holds some emotional value for you and your family. Very nicely done!
Yeah I was very happy I could use it, it had been lying there for years and was a real dream come true!
Great video and end result . Love the Piezo Pickup ....really makes the guitar so versatile :)
Thanks, yeah that's what I was going for!
This is the first time I'M seeing a student of Crimson showing there LONG and HARD work. In Ben's and your video we feel you're love for this family wood. It look's & sound's very cool! All lp's don't sound the same. you don't want 2 lp's that sound the same, Do you ? Way cool that you did this video and Thank you for the hard work you have done. stay cool man...
wpg56 Thanks, exactly I have different sounding ones which is great!
Hello! Have to say, you've built a really stunning guitar! Also sounds fantastic too, I believe tonewoods obviously have a far bigger influence with tone on acoustic instruments. I like to think they have a part to play in electric guitars too, but it really comes down to the electrics of course.
Anyway, great guitar!
Musically Ingenious thanks, I totally agree! I guess that is true for everything, it always comes down to the individual instrument. And of course it makes sense wood is way more influential in the case of acoustic instruments, but I also believe it does influence electrics enough for it to be audible!
thanks for sharing,always nice to get an independent view.
Beautiful guitar.
Mark Tanner thanks mark!
You sir have built a stunning guitar! I hope that it has become your main axe. It is beautiful and it sounds fantastic.
Thanks!
Dude what an awesome looking guitar. I look forward to your next build. Great stuff. Enjoy.
Thanks John!!
Very nice video. Congratulations for your hard work. Beautiful guitar full of history for you.
Thanks 2011k!
Very nice guitar good job making it yourself hats off to you. Awesome guitar.
Cheers Garro!!! I did get a lot of help though, but it’s cool to be able to say “I built that”.
Thanks for the video, I've been watching Crimson vids for a while and was really interesting
Thanks!
instagram.com/barrylimestoneofficial/
Quick note here! I did not mean to sound disrespectful towards Crimson and staff when I mentioned that it seems like the wood influences the tone, which is a personal opinion obviously! The folks at Crimson are all top notch master craftsmen/luthiers and in that regard their opinion is probably more valid than mine, although I still do believe the wood is a big reason my guitar sounds brighter than my other les paul. The fact I put the little Pete Thorn snippet in is because it was just funny how he actually replied which was cool! I might do a little comparison in the future.
Wood does influence tone, but similar density woods result in very similar tone. Swapping pickups probably does more and switching strings (gauge, metallurgy..) is pretty significant too.
Bruce Sutherland that makes sense!
I'm of the opinion that if it does or not, I can't hear it. However, Rob Chapman has demonstrated that he can hear the difference when blindfolded... so there must be something there.
His explanation that the wood doesn't add anything to the sound, rather that it absorbs certain frequencies does make sense to me.
@@chroniclesofbap6170 or "reflect" them (frequencies) in different modes
@@yourDeath86 I'm guessing that would give the material its 'sustain' characteristics?
beautiful job on your first guitar man, looks great, sounds great
Thanks man!! Appreciate your comment and time.
That circular saw thing is called a radial arm saw. Pretty decent work for a beginning guitar builder.
Well done.
Thank you!!!!
Nice video chap, good to see the student's eye view of the course at Crimson. It's something I've been considering saving up for.
Thank you! As I say in the video, it’s definitely worth it and great, apart from the lack of instructors, or the large number of students, so just ask if they have a week available during which there aren’t too many other students. Not that it would’t be good if it was busy, but you’d probably get more done and it would mean a little less waiting around.
Very cool, man - good job
Very good!
Nice to see Crimson from a student's perspective..and you turned out a good looking & sounding guitar to boot.
Thank you I really appreciate you watching it and leaving a comment!
Well done mate. Beautiful instrument great tone combinations from that configuration.
Congrats! Great looking guitar!
Thanks!
You’ve built an absolute stunner there.
Nice guitar and very interesting video!
Thanks Sean, I really appreciate your comment! Never dared to dream this video would get 5000+ views!
Good effort!! A new hand made tool for creative inspiration. . 😎
Good to see a video from a student perspective. I've enjoyed crimson videos for years now v
Thanks! Really happy you and everyone else enjoyed the vid! Didn’t expect such a response, so many views and likes! Subscribe for more music and guitar related content.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I really like the Crimson channel, and it's great to see what it's like from the other side of the bench. :-)
Fred Patton thanks, that’s what I was going for, a students perspective.
Gorgeous looking guitar; well done!
Thanks Mark!!! I really appreciate your comment and time!!!!
Always nice to see other Crimson alumni's stories. That's a good looking guitar you've got there, glad you're happy with it!
Thanks!!
Love to see you play, we want more! Beautiful piece of work!
Thanks!
man for only 400 subs, you make great videos! great edits and story line
Thanks!!
Sounds great, looks great. Your happy accident with the string holes worked out a really nice design feature. Well done.
Thank you!
Nicely done.
Cheers!
Beautiful guitar, sounds great too!
Thank you, really appreciate your comment!
Hi, there. Just come across your video. I followed your progress on the crimson channel and so it's nice to see the process as you filmed it. Really enjoyable to watch and you now have a stunning guitar made from some unique wood from your grandparents' place. Priceless. (With much confortality!!)
Thanks Glenn! Yeah gotta love comfortality carves! Appreciate your comment!
Your guitar looks and sounds incredible. Especially on that 'Roundabout' excerpt. Good job!
Thank you!
Great video. Well edited! The guitar is fantastic too. They should absolutely do a book. 👍
Thanks!!
Interesting and you can be proud of yourself!
Thank you!
Watching in the US and watching you ride your bike on the left hand side of the road...ack. The Zircote and spalted top looks fabulous btw. Love the veneer over the headstock to match. Beautiful instrument.
Thanks!!
That thing sounds AMAZING! Congrats to you. Cheers!
Thank you!
See a clip of you on crimson's whats on the bench. Glad to see the vid. Thanks... ill watch more if you continue building guitars
Thanks! Will be uploading more guitar/music related content soon! Another build as well, this summer...
I have to say. I'm not a big les paul guy. But that is one SEXY axe!! Sounds good too. 👍🤘
Thanks Sean, it really has become a on-off guitar! Unlike any other LP!
Well done 👍 great looking guitar and a good representation of the experience at Crimson thanks. Bye the way you play very well keep it up rock on 🤘
Thank you, that’s what I was going for, appreciate your comment!
keeping family history alive,') you rock
Thanks for the watch!!
beautiful tones, fair play love the guitar !!
Thanks!
Really well done.
Beautiful job and sounds fantastic. I bought a really good book back in the early 90's called - Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock. first edition the one with the ash body on the front cover. Keep up the great work.
I actually got a few for Christmas, one by Martin Koch, it’s really good! Thanks for the recommendation I’ll look into that one as well!
This was a very interesting post I'm actually talking with my travel agent to book a trip to England and enroll in a two course....
Cool!
Beautiful Guitar,
Nice work.
🙂
Thanks!
Wow! That is a nice looking ax, and it sounds absolutely amazing. You still play that? I would love to go to one of these schools or work at a shop. I think you should be super proud of that, bro. I just found your channel so forgive me if you've covered this recently. This is the first video I've seen here, subbed!
Thanks! Yeah it's cool! I'm more active on Instagram @FollydenToom I shared updated pictures there too.
What an awesome video thanks for uploading and beautiful work!
I wish I'd booked a course now I've started my first build at home and thinking I've bit off more than I can chew lol
Yeah man it’s definitely worth it.
19:36 I love how you can see the grain of the top in 3d looking into the cavity. That's all some very good feedback, good and suggestions for improvement. I did wonder if they had basic course materials and now I know. I've also been considering visiting Kanji Guitars/CT Customs as they do a 5 day build course and I get the feeling you'd get more attention with fewer students there. Although I don't know because I haven't done either :) Anyway, cheers.
Yeah the wood is so intensely spalted, it looks great. I didn’t know about kanji/LT guitars but their course looks good though, it would have been a lot closer to Brighton than Crimson. But then again, I had always been a Crimson fan so it was cool going there. Kanji only seems to offer a 5 day course though, so I guess you’re limited in what you can build in that time. Thanks for your comment!
You built a fine instrument and I appreciate your video perspective after having seen the Crimson videos previously. Nice work and great sound!
Thanks Jim, appreciate the kinds words!
Great video bro!
Cheers bro!
Fantastic result / fantastisch resultaat!
Great sound & looks!
Bedankt !
@@BarryLimestone
Seriously considering doing a course myself!
Like you, I am a Dutch guy living in England (Northeast).
I've been following and watching Crimson Guitars videos for quite a while now, and it's such a cool company. Ben's craziness is seriously infectious!
Keep up the good work.
Oh, and: insta-subscribed to your channel, of course :)
Matthijs Hebly Leuk om een ook in Engeland wonende Nederlander te spreken! The course is great, and Ben is a nice guy. I would say though, if you live up north, it might be worth doing a course there, as it’s probably cheaper and easier than travelling to Piddlehinton.
Love the overall look of your build just the control knobs I'm on the fence with anyhow congratulations great looking guitar 👌🏻
Thanks! I just wanted something different and something silver/Alu coloured so this was one of the few options
@@BarryLimestone like the aluminium look just my personal preference is different on the shape my favourite guitars are the aluminium neck and forked headstock's from Kramer in the 70's/80's
That looks awesome dude. I really like the finish you did (or at least thought up). I'm not sure which has the most influence on the tone, but to me it is much brighter than a Les Paul (a good thing) and the piezo sounds killer! Cheers!
Thanks Gary!!
Cool vid.
Cheers
The piezo pickup sounds awesome!
Thanks mark!!
You've built a stunning guitar.
Thanks!
Beautiful guitar! :)
Thanks so much, I appreciate your comment and view!
Mate thats a beautiful guitar! The top is fantastic. The piezo sounds amazing. I've been looking at doing a course with crimson so this was. a great insight. thx.
Thank you, happy this gave you an idea, I struggled to find any student experiences online so I figured I would make this video.
Piddletrenthide sounds like another name for Ammonia.
Chronicles of Bap lol, so many weird place names in that area
Your guitar looks great!
Thanks. Very happy with it! Appreciate your comment and view, please consider subscribing if you dig this kind of content, more is one the way!
Great video. I was a bit concerned about that string hanging from your hood while you were using the tools. The guitar looks and sounds fantastic.
That’s a good shout! Didn’t notice the danger in wearing that hoody, will keep the string hazard in mind!
By the way the tonewood discussion , tonewood for. Acoustics yeah , for electrics maybe iff it’s a real hard wood /tone differs whit a softwood maybe . But i have made several guitars and the only deference I hear is in the humbuckers or. Single coills and. How they where set up and wound .
I appreciate your findings!
Great first guitar build. Better than my first build in my garage when I had no idea what I was doing, you can check a few of them out on my channel if you want (dpowerguitars), I have a few cigar box builds and an EVH replica I built for myself. I have a goal to go to through the Crimson school some day (hopefully soon).
Thanks Derek! I think that’s the great thing about this course, you can build your first guitar from scratch, and then actually enjoy it. I’m sure if I would have built it in my shed it would not have turned out this great. Although tbf I would have built something easier in that case haha. I’ll check out your channel! I actually also built a frankenstrat a 5/6 years ago, was really fun! (That was just a parts guitar.)
..... In my opinion ...Wood matters ...Paul Smith at PRS has a video where he chooses all tone woods
for a guitar that he knocks on and they all ring. I'm not sure that that makes a difference .
I feel that you pick the woods you like and hope that the woods, pickups and all come together
and give you a magical guitar. Me and my buddy , who's built guitars for 40 years feels like I do.
You can never tell until you play the guitar, if you've got the magic ingredients. It's a Kind of
luck thing. I have an all Brasilian Tele and and an all Brasillian Strat. I can't say that they sound
better than some of my other magic guitars.
Thanks for the comment! Yeah it just really comes down to the individual guitar.
Wow you did a great job , it looks fantastic. I don't like the knobs but then.....I didn't make it :)
There are actually different knobs on there now. instagram.com/p/CeidmU4sjJ6/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
Was there any mention of potential respiratory issues with sawdust from spalted wood? I'm hoping they counted on the dust extraction on the Sanders etc removing enough from the air to be safe and didn't just ignore the risks.
They didn’t mention anything about this. All of the machines did have extraction/vacuum systems connected to them.
Bro, what did you play at the last part using Piezo Bridge .. ??
Roundabout by Yes (one of the greatest bands in the history of music IMO) go check them out! Maybe listen to fragile/close to the edge/ the Yes album or going for the one. They have many different period/line-ups and sounds. I’m actually working on a full band cover of starship trooper with my dad. So expect to see that in the coming month on this channel.
I really like your guitar much then the Gibson, we'll done!
Nice build! Beautiful finish and it sounds fantastic.
As far as the difference between your LPs, do you have the same pickups in both guitars? My experience has been the pickups really make the difference. I’ve had two very different guitars-different materials and construction and the sounded very different. I then swapped pickups between and it was like they just swapped voices. I did some comparison recordings and they sounded the same with the same pickup. I was honestly surprised as hell, but it makes much more sense if you understand how electrics produce sound. The body is just something for the pickups to be attached to. Why else would LPs, Teles and Strats sound so similar to others of the same model even though they’ve been built out of many different types of wood. Think about it-Teles have been built out of all sorts of wood yet if you were to hear it, you would instantly know it’s a Tele-if it had Tele pickups. Then you’ve got things like the Jim Root Tele which sounds nothing like a Tele.
When it comes down to electric tone, really it’s all about the pickups. They make the most difference between versions of the same model.
This one sounds quite different from my R8 CS les Paul. Both sound good though.
Black hardware would've been better looking on that guitar in my opinion, but you did a damn fine job.
Thanks man. I guess black could have looked cool as well, but I dig it like this, also the piezo bridge wasn't available in black. I guess tastes differ anyway! Thanks for sharing your thoughts though! Maybe in the future I'll build an all black hardware guitar!
Very cool video, man, I've been wanting to see something like this for a few years now. Did you have any woodworking experience before building this guitar?
Thanks man, I appreciate the comment! Not really, only built a few kit guitars. The people at crimson basically told me what and how to do everything. Obviously I was aware of what processes are part of building guitars, but not all of the details and practical stuff.
SIMPLY STUNNING!!! Question: Do the strings/notes ever tend to "sharp" depending upon where you place your picking hand due to the wide space behind the bridge?
They don’t go sharp but the g buzzes so I will have to put some rubber tubing around that string next time I restring jt. ( it’s so far back because of a mistake, I ended up using the wrong side of the fret template ruler/ which apparently has different scale lengths on each side. Meaning I put the bridge in the position for 24,75” but my actual scale lenght was 24,625”... so I had to move the bridge up.)
How many days did you stay extra and how much did it cost im thinking of going there and i was curious for myself. Thanks for the cool video from a student perspective pretty cool! But does it DJENT?!?!?
3 in total, although one came down to some bad luck and a very stupid mistake I made lol. You can look up the prizes on crimson’s website. Lol it’s no Djent guitar, two other dudes were building strandbergs though, one did an 8 string. Check them in what’s on the bench.
Just watched this was considering a Crimson course, i like the inlaid coins on the headstock, im big for inlays. To me the tones are really really nice, now later on would you do anything differently ?
Amen to the comment about insufficient instructors, reference materials and technical support on hand. On my 6-day course it really sucked! Lost over 2 days of the 6 just waiting!
Yeah I agree there was a lot of waiting around involved, but I still enjoyed it!
@@BarryLimestone I did too, mostly. Just I'm annoyed how my simplified build just meant that I was ignored more, with my instructor time being lost to me. The 5 day build man up the front had constant instruction, but up the back there was little. Not fair. No way I would've paid for more days; if they offered for no extra charge then maybe
Agree with your and Ian B comments about instructors being too thinly spread. Also, being high-maintenance (i.e., inexperienced and needing lots of basic support) in a very mixed-ability group, I felt, put me at a disadvantage. There was a lot of waiting around for Chris to come back from talking to other people before I could correct errors or move on to the next stage. Did you feed any comments back to them at the of the course or afterwards? I'm sure they would be happy to receive constructive criticism as well as positive feedback. Overall, it was a great course. I learned a lot and met a great bunch of very friendly people and it seems like your overall experience was very positive also. If you haven't already, then I think you should link them to your video. BTW, your guitar looks and sounds great.
What was the piezzo setup you used on this awsome guitar
It's a Fischman Powerbridge + Powerchip and the that went straight into a DI/interface with some verb etc.
@@BarryLimestone Ok then thanks for that am looking for some sort of piezzo setup to use in my elec guitars that can be wired into existing pickup system and couldn't seem to find anything other than ghost acoustiphonics system which is bit out of my price range
@@timothyeames2187 Normally you'd either put in a stereo jack or have a switch like mine. And then you just wire it up like any other pickup, or use a built-in preamp to wire it to.
@@BarryLimestone Ok then cheers for that will see how it all goes anyway keep up the good work and hope to see more builds from you
No worries!!! Will upload more content soon!
Such a beautifull guitar. Enjoyed the video, nice to see "student"-perpective of this place.
What is the weight of this guitar?
See my comment under rocketson’s question!
I watch vids from Crimson, but didn't realize it was a place you could go and use their equipment to build your own. Do the give you any help or are you more or less on your own, and do they teach people how to build their own? Very cool place
YeaH they have a luthierie school. You do get shown how to do everything, but as I mentioned at the end there is room for improvement with regards to structuring and stuff. Again, I think a workbook and more tutors would be good. But I get not everyone needs as much supervision and that ev every build is obviously different. But yeah they do show and teach you. On their website you can anything from a 5 day to a 3 month course.
I am curious as to the final weight given the woods used.
I will have to figure out a way to weigh it, I don’t actually have any means of weighing it atm. I could see if I can borrow someone’s scale, but I don’t know how accurate the results with a regular person scale would be. It’s a lot lighter than my Ibanez pre lawsuit les paul recordings copy, but slightly heavier than my CS featherweight R8 Gibson, which is hollow.
Here is a an update post with pictures of the anodised control plates and the nitro refinish!
instagram.com/p/CeidmU4sjJ6/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
103rd.
Lol
Thanks! Good video and great guitar and playing. I built a guitar at Crimson on a 6 day course 2 years ago - czcams.com/video/ywRAv2ihB_c/video.html - and your video brought back a lot of memories. I had a 45 minute walk to the Crimson shop, and despite the rain, I loved the country side.
Watched your video! Great stuff.
I've also built my guitars..and alot weren't finished yet..gas is real
Haha!
sweet video but those control knobs are disgusting that top however is gorgeous man!!
Haha I dig them but tastes differ, just wanted something a little different!!!!! Thanks though man! Very happy with it.
I've seen this guy before.... 🤣🤣🤣 We're all jealous you got the chance to work at Pretty Guitar Mecca.
Haha, you could too! save up and do a 5 day course. They even do 1 day setup courses.
Semi toxic lead paint
Lol
I really like your guitar much then the Gibson, we'll done!
Thank you!