All language subtitles for American.Made.S01E10.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC.2.0.H264-ARCHIVED.-CEsubs

Music is the most important thing in the
world.

Music is the way that people connect,
and you don't see that with other

instruments. You don't see that type of
historical parallel with that

type of music. I think the guitar
traveled with people through American

and that's a real special part to be a
part of.

So when you pick up a really great
guitar, you just pick it up and start

playing. You get lost in the moment.

You play a note, you play a chord, and
it makes you feel something.

And I feel that excitement build when I
play a chord and I hear something I

haven't heard before, and I'm lost in
that moment, and I'm playing, the

giving me something back.

That ball is rolling down the hill, and
it's this really special moment

where what's happening right then is
only happening.

And I have a philosophy called be here
now.

It's this moment that we're in.

This moment can't be anything else than
it is. And when you're with a really

special instrument,

you know that might be the moment that
that song comes out and if you had

up your guitar later it wouldn't have
happened and you picked up a different

instrument it wouldn't have happened be
here now with that instrument and i

think a really great guitar allowed you
to do that

So what is a resonator guitar anyways?

A resonator guitar is a type of guitar
that two brothers came up with in the

1920s. So that was the brass band era,
and we didn't have amplifiers yet. So

these two brothers, the Dopier brothers,
came up with this idea to make

resonator guitars. And what a resonator
is, is... Inside of a resonator guitar

is the resonator cone, and it kind of
looks like a speaker cone, and it's made

out of very thin aluminum.

And because it's thin and it's metal, it
transmits the energy from the strings

into the guitar really efficiently.

That makes it really loud.

They also made it out of metal because
they could make big tools that made

guitars very quickly. That made them
even louder. So they came up with these

cones. They came up with this metal
body, and they made a very, very loud

guitar.

Well, a few years later, guitar
amplifiers came out. So all the jazz

who had bought these resonator guitars
sold them so that they could buy guitar

amps. The people who ended up with
resonator guitars were blues musicians.

would use them to play on the street and
in clubs that didn't have amplification

yet. because they were loud. And so for
100 years, they were really identified

as like a blues guitar instrument.

That's a really exciting thing as a
builder, to see people take it and run

it.

I think it would be hard to overestimate
the influence of guitar on American

culture.

As people travel, you grab your guitar
and you go.

Maybe you're working on a railroad, and
you're traveling as you go. You're

picking up this regional music because
you have this instrument with you at

hand, and I can learn from a guy who I'm
working with or a guy that I meet.

As our country was forming, as these
rural communities were connecting

in this way, music is the way that
people connect.

You don't see that with other
instruments. You don't see that type of

parallel with that type of music. I
think the guitar traveled.

with people through American history,
and that's a real special part to be a

part of.

So I grew up in Elma, Michigan, which is
about an hour west of here. It's a

small kind of farm town.

My dad's a pastor there, and my mom was
a schoolteacher.

And I ended up going to high school here
in Saginaw.

I started being interested in playing
guitar.

I didn't really love it in the
beginning. It didn't really feel like my

but... I ended up starting being very
interested in how it worked. There's a

bunch of pieces that go together.

You know, what are these pickups? What
do they do? How do they work?

And so when I was in high school, I put
together a kit guitar.

You know, that was junior year of high
school, and so you're starting to think

about, what am I going to do for the
rest of my life?

And so I went online and I found this
guitar making school in Phoenix,

It was a completely new experience in
all sorts of ways. I went from small

Midwestern town to Phoenix, Arizona,
middle of the desert, run

by a bunch of ex -hippies, you know, and
all sorts of different types of people.

And they're teaching us how to make
these instruments.

The instructors there were perfect.

You know, they were very aware that they
were giving us a very basic

groundwork so that we could go out and
work. And I was like eating that up.

You know, in the beginning, I spent two
years in a little basement room with no

windows, no heat.

It was just me. It was...

me failing, trying to figure out how to
do this metal guitar thing on my own.

And I always wanted it to be bigger than
me. I didn't want it to be

my show. I wanted to work with other
people and have a team.

I wanted to make instruments for people
who really understood that they were

being part of a bigger relationship.

When I started making guitars, I was
incredibly fascinated with The making

of it, how to make a perfect miter on a
binding joint or

weighing bray stock and how that
influenced an instrument. And all of

things are important parts of making an
instrument. It really is.

And I think it's our job as professional
makers to learn that stuff and to

execute it.

We also have to be aware of the
priorities, right?

What is the purpose of this music tool?

The purpose of this music tool is that
someone picks it up and they play it and

they hear a sound that they've never
heard before and that makes them make

different musical choices.

If I picked up guitar A and I played a G
chord, I might hear something in it and

that makes me choose a different chord
or a different melody note, right? The

way that the low end...

Maybe I go up instead of down.

Well, if you pick up one of our
instruments, maybe you go down instead

you know.

That's building inspiration into a
guitar.

That's building a tool that's going to
affect someone's musical choices.

There was that perspective change.

Oh, this is about some kid from a small
town in Michigan ending up in the

Shenandoah Valley making these beautiful
instruments with these beautiful

people. It's something that not
everybody gets to do, and I get to do

I'm really thankful for that.

So this is where every guitar starts
out. This is the receipts of steel.

got pieces for every instrument starts
here. So this is cut out on

a giant laser machine.

We've got relief cuts on the outside for
flanging the tops and backs. That's how

the tops and backs are joined. We've got
the mill caster sets here.

this is all 22 gauge stainless steel use
stainless steel because it sounds

really good uh mild steel and stainless
steel actually sound different and um

and then we can put a patina on this but
it won't rough so the guitar you get is

the way that it'll stay so

the resonator guitars are soldered
together there's Three main types of how

join metal, soldering, brazing, and
welding.

And we use soldering because it's the
lowest temperature form of joining

The metal has to be really thin so that
it sounds good, but the trouble with

that is if you add too much heat, then
it'll warp.

So we use soldering with these joints so
that the steel doesn't warp.

So after the body's made, it goes over
here to the next station. So this is

where the necks are made and attached.

And they all start out like this, like a
block of wood.

This is a particularly nice piece of
wood.

So we cut and join the headstock and the
heel using stacked heel.

And then it goes on the CNC machine and
we get this.

This is one of our neck blanks.

These are slots for the truss rod and
graphite rod reinforcement so that neck

stays where we want it to stay.

So this is how a neck goes on a
resonator guitar.

This is the neck stick, very technical
name.

It's glued into the heel there, and this
acts as like the backbone of the

guitar. So this is what's going to end
up taking the structural load off the

body so that the body can just act as...

a sound -producing mechanism.

So go through here, and then with a
couple different wedges and screws,

that gets attached to the body. So this
acts as the scale so

that the resonator cones are producing
the sound that's reflecting off the back

of the guitar, and that contributes to
the tone of the instrument.

So both these gentlemen are fretting and
setting up and wiring the instrument.

And if guitar making is 500 steps, these
are 400 of the steps.

It's all the really tiny detail work
that you don't know is involved with

an instrument, but you can feel it.

When you first pick up an instrument and
start playing...

How that board is leveled, how the frets
feel, how the edge of the fingerboard

feels. These are all the subconscious
things that make a guitar feel

comfortable. And now you can just play.

Our job is to be as transparent as
possible. So you're not thinking about

setup. You're not thinking about how it
feels. It just feels comfortable, and

now you're playing music.

After the guitar is all strung up and
checked out, then it goes in the cases

chipped off to there.

So this guitar is the first 12 -string
guitar that we've done, and it's going

a musician, Chris Turpin of Ida Mae, and
he has a Mavis, but this is...

twice the Mavis. It's a 12 -string
Mavis. And it's a tool that he wanted.

And it gave us a little extra push to
figure out the things that needed to be

figured out in order to make it happen.

And having the team of guys that we have
here allows us to be able to

do that.

I strung it up in front of the camera.

The pressure.

Oh, and this is standard tuning, so.

Yeah.

You can edit it, right? Look at Kim.

Oh, yeah.

There's so many little things that are
involved with creating something new you

need all these brains in order to figure
it out and And they crushed it This is

not something that I could do on my own.
I pushed this off.

This is an idea that's been on the
radar. But having the group of people

have here now, we can do stuff like that
where a musician wants an inspirational

tool, and we can make it happen for
them. So this is kind of the final

It's being strung up. It's being
finished.

And then we're going to take it to
Nashville and deliver it to Chris.

Witness that really exciting moment of a
musician getting something that is

going to inspire new songs, inspire new
albums, is going to take them to new

places. And it's really special sharing
it with these guys.

So we are on our way to Nashville to
deliver the first 12 -string Mavis

guitar. That's a really new instrument
for us. We've never built anything like

that, and it has a really distinctive
sound.

And we're getting it to a musician who
is going to take it to, like,

really amazing musical places.

Chris and I, the customer, really
developed a relationship through the

process. And that's what this is really
about, building things for people

and connecting that way.

And for me, being there in person and
experiencing that moment

of excitement and inspiration and seeing
the look on his face and seeing that

moment when he hits that first chord.

And the excitement of the potential that
could happen is really important.

You can't get that online. You can't get
that through email. So we're driving

down there with the guitar, and we're
going to hand it to them and experience

that moment together.

How are you? Finally!

Yes, finally!

How are you? Okay,

so earlier I thought that, like, I
wasn't going to be nervous and anxious.

But I really am, like, surprisingly. So
now we're in the moment, and now it's

like, you know, you put so much work
and, like, thought into it,

and it is such, like, a big thing. It's
like you had this idea, and it was like,

can we make it happen?

Can we do it? I didn't even know yet.
And then it's like, here.

It's wild.

I cannot believe it.

The river.

Oh, my word.

Oh, my God. How's that pop in person?

It's unbelievable.

Yeah,

that's the right sound.

Guitars make music needed about people.

And the guitar is that mechanism that
connects people.

I can make something that connects
people that otherwise wouldn't be.

And I see those things over and over
again in what we do.

Someone picks up one of these
instruments and plays a song or writes a

inspired by what they hear that they
wouldn't have otherwise.

And then somebody hears it, and it
connects with them, and then they're

along with it at a concert. So when I
started Mule, that was really part of

I wanted to do. I wanted to make
instruments.

for people who got that part, you know,
that I'm gonna get this instrument and

connect with people in really
substantial ways.