X音梁的创造者——Larson兄弟

In consequence, the small-scale American makers — whether they made a product under someone else’s brand name or their own — are all forgotten. The single exception to this is the Larson brothers (see below), who, from the 1890s to the 1930s, made pioneering contributions and significant innovations to steel string instrument-making.

Starting in the late 1800s, brothers Carl and August Larson made the first durable steel string flat-top guitars in response to these circumstances. The success of their designs were based in two things: first, excellent workmanship; and second, the intelligent application of engineering-sense to flat-top instrument making. In fact, their seminal contributions are recognized today largely because their instruments have survived — when most of their predecessors’ and contemporaries’ have not. This is yet more remarkable in light of the fact that the Larson brothers’ overall production was minuscule in quantity compared with factories that were turning out thousands of instruments yearly 5..

At about the same time as the Larson brothers were inventing the durable flat-top steel string guitar, Orville Gibson was solving the same structural problems by making his steel-strung guitars arch-topped; while that design/technique is the subject of a separate article, it should be pointed out that here also, as far as the emergence of any individual American craftsmen whose names might be associated with improvements in the steel string guitar is concerned, only that of one other — Lloyd Loar — has come down to us.

Also, the worldwide popularity and acceptance of the flat-top steel string guitar as we know it today is, in my opinion, attributable to the genius of the Larson brothers who, regardless of how cheaply (and therefore accessibly) a guitar could be made in their day, made the first ones that could be used without sooner or later collapsing under the pull of metal strings.

Even the Larson brothers, who had made pioneering contributions and significant innovations to steel string instrument making, were forgotten after their deaths — until they were rediscovered by American musicologists, and the guitar culture, of the 1960s. A large part of the reason for this is that, unlike the Spanish luthiers whom we know of who made guitars under their own names, the Larsons produced instruments under many others’ labels, including Euphonon, Prairie State, Maurer, Dyer, WLS (“World’s Largest Store”), Stahl, Stetson, Leland, Meyer, Larson and other labels.

Larson 兄弟的创造还有很多，比如夹层肋木（比如云杉+玫瑰木+云杉）、金属加强条等。

从 Larson 兄弟的 X 音梁之后，人们发现这种神奇的结构既可以抵抗琴弦的高张力，又可以尽量减轻面板整体重量增强响应性。自此，全世界大部分的钢弦民谣吉他几乎都以 X 音梁为基础进行调整。

从那之后，Martin、Gibson、Taylor 等公司将这种结构发扬光大并获得巨大的成功。但 Larson 兄弟的伟大不应该被时间遗忘，我们应该永远缅怀 Larson 兄弟，感激他们的创造，心怀敬畏，不断前进。

既然说到了 X 音梁，那我们就从交叉梁开始说起。交叉梁的意义主要在于抗衡琴弦大部分的拉力。琴弦拉力合计大概在 70-80KG 左右，如果没有交叉梁的加固，整个吉他面板就会分崩离析。我们的顾问 Roger Siminoff 曾在业内发起了在琴弦包装上印上琴弦拉力的倡议，各大琴弦厂商从那时起就对各种粗细的琴弦的标准音张力设定了标准，这无疑也推动了这个行业的进步（顺带一提，Roger 也为 Santa Cruz 研发了一种琴弦，平衡了琴弦的张力。虽然各琴弦的张力和其他厂商有所不同，但是也有着极佳的音色）。现在我们可以很方便的查到各种琴弦套装中每根琴弦的张力，这也为制琴师和吉他手提供了极大地方便。有时候小编就在想，这些编撰规范，推动行业进步的人，他们一开始的想法究竟是什么？这些看似没有任何利益好处的行为，背后究竟隐藏了多么大的恒心和决心？

好像扯得有点远，我们回到正题。X 梁的意义在于，它仅用很少的木材就提供了可以抗衡 70-80KG 拉力的结构！这也极大提升了吉他的响应性！

两根交叉梁的耦合也十分重要，很多制琴师和工厂习惯在两片交叉梁上方贴一个木片以增加强度，而我们的做法是通过 CNC 保证接合的公差然后加入胶水，这样可以稍微减少部分质量。

它的上面是横梁，这个粗壮的家伙界定了振动的区域。一般而言，钢弦吉他面板的振动区域是以横梁为界限的，而作为传递振动的琴码一般坐落在振动区域的中心。
交叉梁下部的扇形梁（我们也习惯称之为梁下肋木）也是个重要的家伙，反手吉他之所以不能把正常吉他的琴弦反过来装原因之一就是音调梁不是关于中心线对称的！它是调节音色的重要部件，高度、形状、宽度、密度都会产生决定性的影响。我们曾经做过其他特征相同，扇形梁结构不同的吉他，那是完全不同的声音。
边上还有音调梁（小肋木），它可以对音色产生微妙的影响，同时补足一部分强度。

音梁和侧板的耦合也会对吉他的音色产生影响。肋木槽的加工此时就显得至关重要，手工很难确保精度，所以我们选择使用 CNC 来完成这重要的步骤。

好的音梁结构应该是这样的：耦合紧密，加强均匀，协同振动，音色因此和谐统一，均衡性极佳。

X 音梁会确定出几种标准的振动模态，我们以此为基础，分析了各个音梁的不同位置进行调整后，模态振动的变化。通俗的说，也就是分析各个尺寸变化后频谱的变化。之后我们用实体面板进行实验，在控制变量的前提下调整音梁并在消声室中测量了频谱的变化，追寻、验证仿真和实际结果的一致性。

实际情况非常复杂，每一个木料都不同，机械性能、化学组分、天气情况、胶水情况很多很多因素都会影响最终的结果。那么仿真有什么意义呢？当然有意义，它可以提供公差范围内的指导，就如牛顿的经典力学无法应用到量子领域和广义相对论领域但是基于牛顿经典力学衍生出的工程力学等细分学科在人类的发展中也起了至关重要的作用。

简而言之，我们现在的音梁结构不是用耳朵听出来的也不是靠手铲出来的，而是经过多次实验 “优化” 出来的。

在积累大量的音色数据和结构数据后，小编的梦想是，能够定制声音。比如有人喜欢海浪的声音，我就去海边采集海浪的频谱，然后把海浪的频谱数据结合到振动模态中最后做出的吉他音色就会有海浪的感觉。

这个梦想很大或许有些不切实际，这个过程也会很漫长，如果看到这里的你有兴趣参与到这个过程中来，请点击这里加入我们，或者直接给小编我写信：contact@kepmaguitar.com

期待听到你们的声音。