Jeff Kemp

Jeff’s current guitars are designed to give a well balanced sound with clarity and definition. Energy efficiency is another aspect that is addressed in his design, allowing great volume and projection with a wide dynamic range.

Construction:
The overall design idea is to build an instrument with heavy and extremely stiff back and sides, allowing greater freedom in soundboard construction. Using this method, less energy is taken from the soundboard by thin sides and there is less interaction between the back and the top via the air volume. This means that the back is not trying to behave like a second soundboard. The result of this is a more efficient soundboard capable of greater volume and dynamic range. This gives the guitarist a very usable palette of tonal possiblities which span the entire (extremely wide) dynamic range of the instrument.

The backs and sides are made of Brazilian Rosewood with the backs being arched in the same style as a cello back. This is acheived by laminating Brazilian Rosewood with epoxy resin to a critical thickness allowing the desired stiffness with no internal bracing. With the thickness involved in achieving the desired effect, it is almost impossible to construct using solid wood. The forces of expansion and contraction of solid wood construction at these thicknesses would eventually result in joint failure and severe cracking.

Jeff uses cedar for soundboards almost exclusively as he prefers the warmer, darker sounds inherent in cedar. He does make spruce guitars but continues to receive more orders for cedar than spruce. All braces are Balsa/Carbon Fibre composite and bracing patterns are of non traditional design.

Necks are made from Honduras Mahogany and incorporate an adjustable truss rod which adjusts in both directions to counteract both back and forward bow. This allows Jeff to build the correct curvature into the fingerboard when he is making the guitar, and to allow for neck adjustment if necessary. Temperature and humidity changes do affect the neck, so the truss rod is available to allow adjustment if needed.

Material selection is of an extremely high standard and only the best ‘Master’ grade woods are selected and utilised in the construction of Jeff’s instruments.