My Trio of Beards - An Odyssey

[HowardR]

Over the years I've collaborated with various builders to produce unique & one-off steel guitars. My closest & most involved collaboration was with the late Carroll Benoit who built magnificent dobros for me, the likes of which had never been made before and probably never will again.

These days I have been working with Paul Beard who has just been knocking it out of the ball park, building personal one-off guitars for me.......The first guitar on the left is an E Odyssey body 8 string, in the silver red burst with a custom vintage ash coverplate......it's also made of birch ply which was the choice of wood of the late Mike Auldridge.....Mike's MA Beard series were/are all made of birch.....birch has a very even warm sound, without the mud......it also has the Fishman bridge pick up...

The Odyssey 8 is tuned to Em11......L>H.....E G B D F# A D B

The middle lap steel is The Trailhead.....it's the standard Paul Beard build finished in the silver red burst......it has two P90 pick ups with volume, tone, & three-way switch......it produces a variety of tones.....it can be powerful or soft, and everything in between,,,,,,very comfortable to play.....it will be going back to the shop next week for a Hipshot Double Shot upgrade.......tuned to G major......with the Hipshot, I'll have the option of an added D major...

The third guitar on the right is, at present, a one of a kind......it's a six string A Odyssey mini jumbo body with a square neck which had never been done before.....the A Odyssey has always been a round neck underarm guitar, but why should those guys have all the fun?.......I wanted something different and this turned out to be magnificent......built of birch ply and also finished in silver red burst with the vintage ash coverplate and,.....a vintage ash finished Hipshot Double shot which is also a first.......both Odysseys are built with sound posts and bass reflex baffles in addition to the cones.......They both sound like a melding of guitar & dobro, which is what I wanted and extremely happy with......I do have to say, this six string mini jumbo body sounds truly amazing......brass bell quality tone with excellent string separation, sustain into next week (not always the case with resophonic guitars) and the 6th string is so clear even down to the 19th fret......no thud.....the neck meets the body at the 14th fret btw......Fishman bridge pick up also on board.....

I play both Odysseys through a Henrickson Bud 10 amp and it's like being in heaven......although with my playing, it's more like being in that other place

The A Odyssey is tuned to Gmaj9....L>H - G B D F# A D.......when flipping the lever it becomes Am11......L>H - A C E G B D

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[Jonathan Scherer]

Beautiful!

[Steven Pearce]

Howard,
All I can say is ‘magnificent’.
Steve

[Howard Parker]

An "A Odyssey" square neck is a rare beast indeed!!

hp

[HowardR]

An "A Odyssey" square neck is a rare beast indeed!!

hp

They were very surprised at my idea & had no idea how it would turn out, but I took the gamble......according to Denny, Paul said that it was one of the best sounding guitars that he's built.......this is not your bluegrass type dobro.......this is something else, like a lounge or jazz club type guitar that just happens to have a cone in its gut......I'll have to make a video, which I'll apologize for in advance.....

[Mike Neer]

These are lovely, Howard.

[Steven Wilson]

Beautiful guitars; I am a Beard fan myself. I didn't know Fishman made an eight-string bridge pickup - is that something new?

[HowardR]

I don't know how new the 8 string Fishman pup is......I know that at times, they are in short supply......

[Chris Templeton]

Paul made an 8 string for me, and one for Buddy Emmons, in the late 80's, and the two things I didn't favor, were, 8 strings can dampen the resonator, so it cuts down that nice dobro sound by a 1/3 or so.
I see Paul's changed it now, but for 8 strings, he used a six string tailpiece and drilled two extra holes, high and low, and because of the sharper angle of the string from the bridge to the tailpiece, the outside high string would always come out of its bridge slot.
I'm super impressed by those guitars. I'm sure they sound great. Congratulations, Paul!
I had a 30's Regal dobro that Gene Wooten, who worked at Sho~Bud, had refinished. He had sanded it down and had a great sound.
When I was Robert Randolph's guitar tech, it was one of the bus guitars, and the way Robert plays, he tore it to bits .

[Kenny Davis]

Magnificent Mr. "R"! You have a wonderfully imaginative mind. I remember Carroll would say "You won't believe what Howard has come up with this time!" (He always kept your secrets!)

[Stephen Cowell]

The guitars are stunning Howard.... and a matched set to boot.

My ears perked up at 'Fishman 8'... so I've emailed Gabby at Beard to see if this is become a reality. I had asked her to let me know if production started... I'm guessing they spun up one custom for you though. I'll post back with her reply.

My understanding is that to create one it takes much more time and effort than it's worth production-wise... to get one, you'll need to commission a custom guitar (or 3!) as you did.

Anyway, bring it to Ft Worth if you can, hope to see you there.

[BJ Burbach]

Very nice pics. We need a little entertainment about now. Thanks,
BJ

[Gary Meixner]

Howard,

These guitars look spectaular. I love how you committed to creating something unique in both look and sound. Thank you for posting so may pictures. Do you mind telling us how thick the tops are on two resonator instruments? I have built a couple guitars for myself and used 1/4" baltic birch but these look to be thnner than that.

Thanks,

Gary Meixner

[Howard Parker]

The Odyssey is a baffled, open body, top braced design. The internal technology was first used in the Mike Auldridge series and currently in the Jerry Douglas guitars in addition to the Odyssey.

That Paul Beard, he's a genius (imho).

Full disclosure - Yeah I worked for Paul for a decade or so.

hp

[Joe Buczek]

Those are stunning guitars! Thank you for sharing, especially all the great pictures!

Cheers,
--Joe

[Andy Volk]

Howard,
Your support of modern steel guitar Luthiers has been incredible and you've been willing to take creative chances that resulted in some jaw-dropping instruments. Your instruments by Carroll were stunning and these new Beards are very cool! While, personally, not a fan of the transparent red finish, I realize how subjective this is and I loudly applaud you for raising the bar (pun intended) for steel guitar building both today and over these many years.
Kudos, my friend!

[Stephen Cowell]

My ears perked up at 'Fishman 8'... so I've emailed Gabby at Beard to see if this is become a reality. I had asked her to let me know if production started... I'm guessing they spun up one custom for you though. I'll post back with her reply.

I just talked to Gabby. The Fishman JD 8 is not yet in production... so HowardR you got a special deal! They had a meeting on this yesterday in fact.

My understanding is that to create one it takes much more time and effort than it's worth production-wise... to get one, you'll need to commission a custom guitar (or 3!) as you did.

Gabby did not disabuse me of this conjecture, if it was easy we'd all have a JD 8 by now. Still hoping to see HowardR (and HowardP!) at the Jamboree in March, guitars or not.

[Brooks Montgomery]

HowardR, all three are stunning and the colors, styling, and finish on all of them make them instant classics in my eyes. Beard and crew did amazing work, congrats!

I recently purchased my first Beard, the Road-a-phonic with hipshot. It is my swiss army knife lapsteel—wonderful axe.

[Glenn Wilde]

Wow! Stunning works of art, congratulations.

[Joseph Lazo]

Wow, those are all stunning! And I'm sure you do them justice.

[scott murray]

gorgeous guitars and some interesting tunings to boot.. I need to experiment with some of those.

always nice to see another 8-string dobro (how many of us are there?)
the large center soundhole rather than the 2 traditional circle holes is also quite unique.

love to hear how these sound!

[HowardR]

Howard,

These guitars look spectaular. I love how you committed to creating something unique in both look and sound. Thank you for posting so may pictures. Do you mind telling us how thick the tops are on two resonator instruments? I have built a couple guitars for myself and used 1/4" baltic birch but these look to be thnner than that.

Thanks,

Gary Meixner

Here is a response from Paul Beard Guitars that hopefully answers your question:

"On our guitars the target top is .150”, the back .135” and the sides.095”. (thousands of an inch)That is before sanding.

The type of bracing is also a factor."

[Gary Meixner]

Howard,

It is awfully good of the folks at Beard to provide such detail. Thank you so much for following up with my question and for sharing your knowledge. I bet you are having a blast playing your new guitars – enjoy them.

Gary

[BJ Burbach]

Wow, D/G flip to Am11!
Now that you've rounded out the collection will the show be at MOMA or the Whitney??
BJ

[HowardR]

On facebook someone was intrigued by the 8 string Em11 tuning and asked me what I like about it.......here is the answer that I posted:

"I'm not a maven on this tuning by any means, but as you say, it's intriguing....it's also a secondary tuning for me and it's fun to play.......first off, there are a lot of various full chords on adjacent strings all on one fret.....Open - Em, Em7, Em9, Em11, Gmaj, Gmaj7, Gmaj9, Bm, Bm7, Dmaj, Dmaj with a D on top......if you wanted to play a 1-4-5 progression, you could do that on two frets using adjacent strings......if you want to play the relative minor for the key that you're in, it's on one fret......and then there are skip grips, slants, behind the bar string pulls, and dyads,,,,,,there's a ton of things to unpack & discover here.....

I view this tuning in two ways - I view it as a separate chords tuning......in other words, if I'm playing pop, rock, blues, country, my sweet go to spot is centered around the D chord as it's sort of central to me and I'm familiar with the patterns that I'm used to playing (I'm a G tuning based guy).......same if I need a minor chord.....I can opt for a lower/bass minor (Em on strings 8,7,6) or go to strings 6,5,4 for a higher register minor.....it's a great tuning for playing arpeggios......HOWEVER, the one con of this tuning is that you lose inversions, and those are missed......every non-pedal tuning has its advantages along with disadvantages - you have to pick & choose your battles here......

The other way I view it is one huge tuning....it's a great tuning for noodling & inventing.....when I'm just messing around, I'm not really thinking of what I'm playing in terms of notes and/or intervals......I'm just playing what sounds good to my ears.....I use a lot of skip grips and hear all kinds of interesting chords especially when using an open string or two while playing in a closed position......when an "invention" really intrigues me, I'll then look at what notes I've just played.....an invention can be a chord, a riff, or a combo of each.....I think this is a good tuning if you want to get into standards & more jazzy stuff......just about anything you do sounds either jazzy, ethereal, & loungy (think Julie London)......or just plain cool......

The 6 string Odyssey (Gmaj9 & Am11) also has some very cool & powerful tunings.....these ain't your grandpappy's bluegrass dobros....."