Dün gecenin yorgunluğu ile dosya ekini unutmuşum. İ̇ngilizcesi olmayan arkadaşlar için,
@TürkRockçı nin dediği gibi Fender'ı Fender yapan ASH'i ağır olduğu için kullanmıyoruz.. Coooorttaki bataklık külünü kullanıyoruz diyor. (Ağaç kalitesi tabii ki farklıdır bu arada. Sonuçta kimse gidip 15 k lık bir gitara AA kalite bir ağaç koyamaz. Kaldı ki Cort bir uzak doğu markası, Fender Amerika markası. Biri Amerika'daki ağaç rezervini kullanıyor. Amerika'nın da mısırından tutun da ağacına, elektronik aletlerinden tutun da arabalarına kadar her şeyinin iyi olduğunu da bilirsiniz!)
154877 eklentisini görüntüle
Fender diyor ki. Ben cooort gibi batak külü kullanacağım demiyor. DİYOR Kİ. Hafif olması, rezonansı güzel olması, ulaşılabilirliği ve yetiştirmesi kolay ve UCUZ olmasından dolayı batak külünü kullandık ama başta iklim değişikliği ve içine mıçtığımız böceklenme sorunu bizi bu ağatan başka ağaçlara yöneltmek zorunda bıraktı. Şuan ASH (dişbudak) ve 8 ağaç daha kullanıyoruz. Ama nostalji arayanlara ve parayı bastıranlara bataklık külü ağaçlı gitar üretimini de devam ettireceğiz diyor. Ama hala Butik gitar üreticileri bu ağacı kullanıyor diyor. Hatta makalenin bir yerinde de insanların bataklık külü yerine kullandığımız bazı ağaçları daha çok benimsediklerini de belirtiyor.
İşte benim ingilicce seviyemde bukkadar.
In April 2020, after seven decades of making ash-bodied guitars, Fender announced it would phase out the wood, reserving it only for premium and historical models.
Norvell said it was an "unbelievably hard decision" for the company. "There's an element to this that it's the end of an era," he said.
Boutique guitar makers are still able to get swamp ash in the quantities they need, so professional musicians and gearheads who are set on swamp ash can find it, at least for now, but its status as a go-to, everyday wood is quickly changing.
Fighting to preserve ash trees, while looking for alternatives
Roots of Rock, a collaborative initiative between the US Forest Service, Fender, and the nonprofit American Forests, is working to save America's ash trees from the emerald ash borer. Researchers have identified "
lingering ash trees" that survived infestations after all other ash trees had died.
"We're taking survivors that had natural resistance and breeding them with each other to produce a green ash species with resistance," said Born, who helped start the project when he was at Fender.
Plans are underway to plant the first of these trees in Detroit, near where the beetle was first detected in the US. Even if successful, the project will ultimately take decades, but Born said it's the first step.
"At least they're going to save ash genetically and they didn't have to hybridize," he said. "This is pure American green ash."
Meanwhile, guitar makers are working hard to find a suitable replacement for swamp ash.
Roger Sadowsky, a renowned instrument maker, has been building electric guitars for legendary musicians since 1979. When he first started researching, all the best musicians he consulted had Fenders from the late '50s and early '60s that were lightweight, which meant they were likely made of swamp ash.
Sadowsky said the last few months of 2020 he was calling every wood guy he knew to find ash. More recently, when it was available, he was stockpiling it to get through the next drought. But to compensate for the shortages, he's been running listening tests to find a replacement. He has tested eight guitar bodies made of alternative lightweight woods.
"Ash is still the best sounding to my ears," Sadowsky said. "
What we're trying to do is find the runner-ups as alternatives to swamp ash."
The leading contender so far is eastern white pine, another tree native to North America that primarily grows in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes. Sadowsky said the white pine is best after it has been torrefied, a roasting process that emulates decades of natural aging.
A new sound
Fender has also employed a torrefaction process with pine as a replacement for ash. Norvell said it has been very well-received, though there's still a "wistfulness and nostalgia" for swamp ash.
According to the guitar-maker Marchione, musicians are extremely conservative when it comes to their instruments. "People are still trying to recreate what guitarists like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix did," he said. "Those guys had plenty of swamp ash."
But Born said the deep love for the storied wood could, in some ways, be a chicken-and-egg scenario, rather than there being an inherent magic in the wood.
"I think it's more that rock 'n' roll grew up with that as being the sound, so that wood became the tone that people like to hear," he said. "It could've been something else and that wood might have had the same kind of myth to it."
Regardless of the reasons, swamp ash is woven into Fender's DNA, and the history of electric guitars in general. But Norvell said now it's about finding the next generation of woods.
The guitar continues to adapt and adjust, and the music people make changes. Everything changes over time," he said.
"For us, now it's about finding new voices and new tones and new woods.
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