- The Royale. Imagine a guitar body that has only one glue joint and whose internal carvings resemble the inside of the human ear. A totally new concept in archtop guitar design, the Royale offers the player enhanced biofeedback— intimacy through vibration.
- The Royale's body is comprised of two plates of basswood. There are no attached braces, kerfing or even sides. Instead, its interior is carved like a human ear with a system of uninterrupted organic curves that are appropriate to withstand structural stresses and to reflect and channel vibrations.
 photo/Ray Reiss |
Royale
Premiere - the
first Royale archtop guitar Freeman
Royale The making
of the Royale Guitar |
- The human ear has evolved to receive vibrations efficiently from a maximum field and channel toward a specific point. With a guitar the process works in reverse. The bridge is the specific point, or "hot spot," from which the vibrations must find their way out, not only unimpeded but actually reinforced, just as your voice is amplified by a megaphone. As the ear is side-specific, so is the Royale. Instead of a front and back it has left and right chambers, each dealing with a different frequency spectrum.
- This guitar practically jumps out of one's hands when a chord is played. It sustains like a solid-body electric guitar, but its resonance and volume is far more like that of an acoustic archtop. To carve a table this deep and three-dimensional is a laborious process, but well worth it. The Royale represents a new class of guitar—an evolutionary step forward for the archtop.