When the original Chrysalis guitar first appeared in 2001, the grills got the most comments, called both strange and beautiful. As an experiment to dial it back a bit, I wanted to see how close the Chrysalis guitar could be modified to a “traditional” look. To find out, the grills were replaced by a set of three inserts made from Sitka spruce and Indian rosewood. The spruce face segments were bound with traditional maple and black-white-black binding, then finished with nitro lacquer like a regular acoustic guitar. The inserts were attached from the back just like the grills using the same screw holes and even the same screws. Some aluminum clips were mounted to the face parts for the bridge to hook onto that were hidden under the wings of the bridge, so the instant break-down aspect of the instrument could be maintained.

A traditionally dimensioned body shell made of Brazilian rosewood was attached around the outside perimeter of the frames by a swarm of tiny flathead screws. The results, shown above, I think could be called a success, at least visually.

The original carbon-fiber grills couldn’t make music by themselves because there was nothing for the air to grab onto – air has to be compressed to make sound. When a Mylar balloon was inflated inside a fabric body and pressed against the string-drive grills, the membrane now linked the grills vibrations to the air, and some pretty nice-sounding music emerged. It wasn’t as loud as a regular spruce and rosewood guitar, but it could definitely be called a nice and familiar tone. The grills had been designed to mimic the mechanical and vibrational properties of a traditional guitar soundboard, and to a first approximation it worked, which is about all you can hope for with a first design of anything. But the Woodie inserts were a different story, being designed for looks and strength without much thought being given to tone. The first carbon-fiber and Mylar membrane grills had sounded pretty good, so the traditional materials  of the new inserts and body could only improve things, right? What could go wrong?

It is not often that you actually get shocked by a guitar’s acoustic tone, but the Woodie’s unamplified tone made you both cringe like you were listening to nails on a blackboard and also made you hold your ears like a donkey was braying right in your face, loudly. In science they say that if you get the results you expected from an experiment, you haven’t learned anything. Over the years I have gotten pretty good at teasing out the complex acoustical anatomy of sound-producing objects like acoustic guitars, but the Woodie left me wide-eyed to this day. As long-time musical wizard and Chrysalis guitar player Harvey Reid put it succinctly, “It sounded like dog”.