Featured Seminars

Please click on the titles below for information on each of our Featured Seminars.

We are a Certified Buzz Feiten Tuning System® training facility. Become an authorized Feiten Installer through this training you'll receive in our shop. In this two-day session, you will be trained in both Level 1 and Level 2 Buzz Feiten Tempered Tuning System and retrofitting techniques. Along with the system training there are many valuable repair techniques that are covered in the course outline. Bring your own project guitar to "Feitenize" during this seminar.

Two days (16 hours) of class time. $1000

”I defy anybody to not hear the difference.“ —Michael Thompson	”There’s no time for tuning problems. Now I don’t even think about it.“ —George Marinelli	”It’s in tune all over the neck now.“ —Scott Henderson
”I've been playing guitar since I was six years old, and it's finally in tune.“ —Larry Carlton	”I think it's one of the greatest innovations in guitar technology.“ —Steve Vai	”Having played guitar for nearly forty years, I've learned to expect intonation problems. But now, for the first time, the problems are gone. I'm in tune.“ —Robben Ford

The Problem: Your guitar doesn’t play in tune

Tune an E chord at the first fret so it sounds in tune with itself. Now play the A and D chords and at least one or two notes are sharp or flat. No matter how carefully you tune your guitar, without the Buzz Feiten Tuning System you can’t compensate for this ’brick wall’ in intonation. So you play around the bad notes or avoid certain notes and chords altogether. Besides cramping your technique, it’s a constant annoyance when performing or recording. The Buzz Feiten Class from Galloup Guitars teaches you the reason behind this and the solution: The Buzz Feiten Tuning System.

The Reason: Standard intonation is not pleasing to the ear

Guitars are designed and built using a standard formula for intonation and nut placement. Each string is intonated only to itself resulting in an attempt to create perfect, mathematical intervals. Piano tuners abandoned the use of perfect mathematical intervals over 400 years ago because it simply is not pleasing to the ear, and the Buzz Feiten Tuning System works on a similar principle. Piano strings are ’stretch tuned’ so that the intonation is pleasing anywhere on the keyboard. The resulting ’tempered’ tuning is superbly musical, and most important, in tune with the ear at all intervals. A properly tuned piano provides the absolute pitch reference for all instruments. The Buzz Feiten Tempered Tuning System applies this intonation model to the guitar.

The Solution: The Buzz Feiten Tuning System

Inspired by the piano’s tempered tuning, the Buzz Feiten Tuning System is a revolutionary intonation model for guitar that intonates each string not only to itself, but also to every other string. Furthermore, to eliminate sharpness in the first three frets, the nut is moved a prescribed distance closer to the bridge. The result of the Buzz Feiten Tuning System - play any note, any chord, anywhere on the neck and you’ll be in tune. And, it doesn’t change the way your guitar looks or plays.

Topics covered in the Buzz Feiten Tuning System Class:

• Selection of a strobe tuner
• Intonation theory of Buzz Feiten Tempered Tuning System
• Scale lengths and fret placement
• String gauge selection
• Removing a nut
• Installation of the shelf nut to composite for end tension
• Filling a saddle slot
• Locating saddle placement using tempered intonation
• Cutting a saddle slot on the guitar
• Setting tempered intonation on a bone saddle
• Setting action

The Buzz Feiten Class from Galloup Guitars is a fully Certified Buzz Feiten Tuning System Training Course. Once completing this training session you are certified by the Galloup School Of Lutherie in the techniques necessary to install and retrofit fretted instruments using the Buzz Feiten Tuning System on your personal instruments. We will also brief you on how to become a fully certified and registered Buzz Feiten Design retrofitting center at no extra cost. Once registered you can retrofit your customers instruments with the Buzz Feiten Tempered Tuning System for profit.

As with all of our programs, we will assist you in purchasing the necessary tools for the Buzz Feiten Tuning System while you are a student here at the school. If you would like more information about the Buzz Feiten Tuning System, visit www.buzzfeiten.com

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This seminar gives you the knowledge and skill to confidently handle any basic pickup rewinding job, and to hand-wind pickups for your own custom instruments. As part of this course, you'll wind your own humbucking pickup.

"Really understanding how pickups work gives you an edge in building custom electrics and doing pickup repairs." - Bryan Galloup

One day (8 hours) of class time. $125

Topics covered:

Assemblies


Materials


Wiring options


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In addition to the electric guitar building elements of the Galloup School curriculum, Bryan has added tube amp building to round out your experience in creating killer electric guitar tone.

In this weekend seminar, you'll assemble a replica of a 1950's tweed tube amp, point-to-point wired for the classic tone that defined the sound of the American music scene. You'll leave the course with a working amp, hands-on experience, and an understanding of tube amp building.

"This two-day intensive expands your knowledge of an amp's internal workings, and improves your wiring technique. You'll make yourself a point-to-point-wired, vintage style tube amp." - Bryan Galloup

Two days (16 hours) of class time. Materials included. $1000

Topics covered:

Tube amplifier theory


Component Identification


Tube amplifier construction


Tube amplifier modification


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Acoustic guitar voicing is a very challenging, but essential skill for any instrument builder. Traditionally, it takes luthiers most of their careers to develop an understanding of instrument tone and how to shape it. Something this vital should not be left to chance, and it's not necessary for you to spend your own years of trial and error in the hopes that you'll rediscover this knowledge.

Our voicing classes, introduced in 2010, are the result of five years of intense research and development into exploring and explaining voicing. We've deeply studied the structure of too many guitars to count, measuring, record-keeping, examining each element with computer-assisted audio gear, recording and comparing our findings. In these five years, we've built, tested and destroyed more experimental guitars than we care to think about!

But the result is more than worth it. We now have a unique and systematic approach that blends traditional intuitive building methods with modern technology and measurement techniques. Our course is built on information that is measurable, understandable, and teachable. It will help luthiers of every skill level build better and more consistent instruments. It has helped us build finer and finer instruments, and it will help you.

This voicing training is now built into the Galloup School's Journeyman Program, and it's expanded in our Master Program. We're also offering this training as an independent seminar, open to everyone.

This four-day seminar presents the theory and practical techniques of acoustic instrument voicing. The lessons are delivered in both lecture and lab format: you'll receive the theory, clearly explained, then you'll apply the concepts by making and voicing your own top during the class. With this lecture/lab combination, you'll genuinely understand voicing and see for yourself how this knowledge will affect your building.

"This knowledge has a huge impact. It has such a payoff in the students' future and career... This is the ability to control and improve their tone with every instrument they build from here on." - Bryan Galloup

Four days (32 hours) of class time, covering all three levels of Dynamic Voicing as taught in our Master Program. Materials are included. $3,000

DYNAMIC VOICING, LEVEL 1
Advanced Principles of Instrument Design and Construction
The physics of sound as applied to acoustic guitars. How does a guitar work? Which parts actually produce sound and can be adjusted by the builder?
Topics covered:

• What is sound, and how does it function?
• Compressions and rarefactions (the slinky model)
• Human hearing range
• How the guitar body works to create sound
• The physics of a vibrating string
• Fundamentals and harmonics
• What is resonance
• The Helmholtz Resonator, complex oscillator
• Understanding and using tap tones
• Selecting materials: density and strength-to-weight
• Bracing: its function and various approaches
• Voicing the braces
• The effects of body geometry
• How volume and porting alter air resonance
• How changes in plate size affect plate resonance

DYNAMIC VOICING, LEVEL 2
Materials measurement and data collection
New concepts in measurement and data collection, helping the student understand and quantify the material properties of wood.
Topics covered:

• Using measurements to select materials
• The value of quality materials
• Importance of record keeping
• New data collection methods
• Material properties of wood: density, modulus of elasticity,
• Determining Modulus of Elasticity
• Dynamic and static determination of Modulus of Elasticity
• How to obtain and measure a tap tone
• Using an FFT analyzer
• Speed of sound and quality
• Thickness sanding to a deflection
• Utilizing MOE, speed of sound, quality measurements
• Setting standards for top plates

DYNAMIC VOICING, LEVEL 3
Applying voicing knowledge in building
Building on the foundation established in Voicing 1 and 2 through practical application. Setting aside any bias about what is the best tone, the builder's challenge is creating the conditions that deliver the particular tone needed from a particular guitar.
Topics covered:

• Review: overview of material testing
• Applying your measurements
• The purpose of voicing
• Brace carving: scalloping, tapering and other carving methods
• Practical application and demonstration of top voicing
• Back tuning
• Measuring the final resonances
• Tuning body resonances
• Summary, conclusions

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Once every semester Bryan gives the students the opportunity to choose their topic and instructor for a two-day weekend class. Currently Master Luthier Dan Erlewine has agreed offer his talents for this two-day session.

The visiting instructor who will focus on subjects not currently covered in the Galloup School sets topics covered. The format for this two-day class offers the opportunity for students to spend time with a world class Luthier in a small class setting.

"In these Master Luthier seminars you'll learn from world-class craftsmen in a friendly, small class setting." - Bryan Galloup

Two days (16 hours) of class time. $500

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The CNC (computer numerically controlled) router is becoming affordable even for small businesses, and exciting new software is more user-friendly than programs of the past. Our CNC Seminar shows how this technology creates real possibilities for anyone with a basic background in computers and woodworking.

The seminar covers the process of introducing this system into a shop, taking hundreds of hours off the learning curve (which keeps thousands of dollars in your pocket). We look at currently available systems and learn what to consider when purchasing a CNC system. Tooling and vacuum jigs are big part, and you'll leran how to get them right the first time.

After carefully testing a wide variety of software options, Bryan has selected a system that is well suited to students learning this exciting new technology.

"Today's students are more computer savvy than ever. This CNC technology is something they want and need to know about, and the subject is totally within their grasp." - Bryan Galloup

Four days (32 hours) of class time. Materials included. $1500

Topics covered:

Programming

• Software selection
• Using two- and three-dimensional representations
• Walkthroughs of several guitar component designs
• Drawing techniques
• Importing outside drawings
• Curve editing

Machines

• Gantry vs. Vertical Knee vs. Machining Center
• Servo vs. Stepper
• Ball Screw vs. Rack and Pinion
• Spindle vs. Router
• Mounting table

Setup


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Pearl inlay can be an excellent way to personalize guitars, and it's a great selling tool. In this one-day seminar, you'll experience an intermediate level project from the beginning stages of layout and design to the final stages of engraving.

A sample drawing project is provided to help you get into drawing your own designs. You'll learn that drawing isn't hard when you take your time in the approach we'll teach you.

"Custom inlay is a major selling tool in the custom guitar world. It takes time and focus to get good results — you can't rush it. This seminar is a chance to completely focus on inlay without distractions." - Bryan Galloup

One day (8 hours) of class time. Materials included. $125

Topics covered:

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