Beardsell Guitars

The 4G is the latest variant of the 4A, my original design for the side-ported guitar. The G guitars have a deeper body, wider waist and laminated "platform" sides, plus all the usual features offered on my acoustic guitars. The 17" body offers a full range of sonic possibilities.

When I was playing acoustic guitars in clubs and auditoriums I would be playing behind singers, and sometimes with larger bands, going between fingerstyles and flatpicking. I was having a hell of a time hearing the guitar as a dynamic voice. When I was hearing only the electronic foldback in the monitor I would end up playing as hard as possible all the time just to feel present in the mix on top of the compressed character of the pick up. It meant my playing suffered and I broke a lot of strings. This got me thinking about projection and volume, resonance and how these things define the way we interact with, respond and use a musical instrument, especially these days when amplification is virtually a given. I wanted to figure out how to create a situation where the instrument speaks to the player first, with all the dynamic of an acoustic performance –- that's where the side ports come in.