SPACE FRAME TECHNOLOGY

TECHNOLOGY

This is the first guitar of its kind. Its design and unique tone structure were patented in 2004. Harmos did more than just lengthen the shape of the horns, put some new paint on the body or add a poly-finish. We created a totally new design with a sound spectrum based on the concept that a light guitar, if it is strong, has excellent sustain and really unique tone. It has worked.

Initial Guitar Work.

Just like Fender and Gretsch in the earliest days of electric guitars, Harmos started perfecting its new guitar design, by first building lap steel guitars. See www.harmosmusic.com/SG for more information on Harmos Lap Steel guitars.

Basic Principles.

All musical instrument bodies vibrate at various frequencies during playing. The spectrum of body vibration frequencies determines the overtones that carry to your ear and are the substance of timber or "tone". Overtones can be affected by electronics, but the basic fundamental tone of a musical instrument is generated by the instrument itself and the way it is played. Fundamental music is made by what you hold in your hands and how you use it..

Current Guitar Design.

Except for a few digital effects or highly polished guitar finishes, basic electric guitar design is the same now as in the 1940's and 1950s. Even the Steinberger carbon fiber design of the 1980s and the thin body Parker Fly from the 90s still go to the 1940s and 1950s for their fundamental design. These designs have been limited by the technology and knowledge of the those times. For example, in the 1940s, wood was the basic material of guitar bodies, Bakelite (plastic) and aluminum bodies were also tried, but each of these materials were limited by their relative physical weakness or relative heaviness.

A few changes

The Steinberger carbon fiber guitar of the 80's was a leap forward and took a lot of courage to introduce. The Steingerger overtone structure though was the same as older guitars, because it was limited by the availability of a light weight design and newness of carbon fiber as a material. Ken Parker in the 90s incorporated some carbon fiber into his ultra-thin guitars, but the limitations of the ultra-thin shape keeps the basic overtone structure unchanged.

The Harmos Difference.

Harmos has picked up the latest advances in carbon fiber design and added them to a guitar structure that wasn't patented until we did it in 2004. Only by incorporting the lightness of carbon fiber with tonal wood in this patented structure, can you get this new tone - the Harmos tone.

Laws of Vibration (Sound).

The vibrational frequency of a physical body is determined by its strength and its weight. The weaker something is, the more slowly it vibrates. Similarly, the more something weighs, the slower it vibrates.

Guitar Vibration and Tone.

The number and strength of the overtones help determine the characteristic sound quality of a musical instrument. For instance, a note on the flute sounds soft and sweet because it has only a few, weak overtones. The same note played on the trumpet has many, strong overtones and thus seems powerful and bright. All of the previous electric guitars have fundamental resonance frequencies of 50 to 80 hertz. (The fundamental resonance is the lowest structural vibration in the guitar.) 50 to 80 hertz is very low and as you can see from the transmision chart, it causes the overtones of the guitar to be attenuated (absorbed). The fundamental resonance of the Harmos guitar (body and neck) is above 400 Hertz and as you can see, this helps amplify (enhance) the overtones and therefore the life and timber of the guitar. You can physically hear this difference in Harmos' clear and lively tone.

More Sustain


The extra energy designed into the MatraX guitar body improves sustain as well tone. Figure 3, shows the un-amped sustain of several guitar designs. The MatraX guitar (red line) has the more than the Fender Strat and Gibson Les Paul. The most pronounced improvement is the 30% longer sustain on the 3 highest strings of the MatraX.

Sound and "Feel"

The MATRAX guitar structure puts energy and responsive overtones right where you can play with them. The MATRAX can generate vintage sound as well as its own huge tone envelope - it puts innovative music right at your fingertips. There is no other guitar with this tone capability. You will hear and "feel" the Harmos difference.