Cutaway or no cutaway? An honest guide from the workshop

The cutaway is one of those design features that players seem to have very strong feelings about, often without being entirely sure where those feelings came from. I get it, I'm exactly the same about a few things in life (don't get me started on the proper way to make a cup of tea). But when it comes to commissioning a guitar that you're going to live with for decades, it's worth pausing for a moment to think about why you might or might not want one.

I certainly don't claim to have all the answers here, and I'd never want to talk anyone out of a design choice they love. What I can do is share some of what I've learned at the workshop bench about how a cutaway actually affects a guitar, and hopefully help you make a choice that feels right for you.

So what is a cutaway, anyway?

A cutaway is the scooped-out section on the treble side of the upper bout, the bit that lets your fretting hand reach the higher frets without your knuckles meeting the side of the guitar. All of my designs are available with a cutaway as an option, but whether it's right for you is a more interesting question than it might first appear.

Do non-cutaway guitars sound better?

Right, let's tackle the big one first.

It would be perfectly natural to assume that a cutaway primarily affects the way the soundboard vibrates. You're cutting a chunk out of the top, after all. But in the context of my guitars, I've found it's actually the back that sees the biggest change, and that took me a while to wrap my head around.

The cutaway design I use stops short of the upper transverse brace, which means the most active part of the soundboard is left completely unaffected. The back of a Turnstone guitar is voiced very deliberately to be as active as possible. It's not just sitting there as a passive lid, it's properly contributing to the sound. So when you reduce the surface area and the internal air volume, the back inevitably tightens up a bit.

The physics here is reasonably straightforward (and I'm certainly no physicist, so I'm going to keep this in the kind of terms I'd use in the workshop). A smaller air volume and a tighter top and back generally pushes the treble response forward and pulls the bass back a touch. On my guitars specifically, it also raises the body's resonant pitch by about a semitone.

So yes, there is a difference. A cutaway will give you slightly less volume and slightly less bass. Not dramatic, but appreciable if you put two otherwise identical guitars side by side.

But, and this is where being a small custom workshop really matters, this is exactly the sort of thing we can compensate for. Body size, tonewood choices, scale length, soundboard thickness, bracing patterns - there are plenty of dials we can turn to bring back what the cutaway takes away. I would never want a client to end up with a cutaway guitar that felt like a compromise, and I don't think you should have to. It's about working out what your priorities are, and ergonomics is a hugely important part of that.

Are cutaway guitars just for lead guitarists?

Not at all. I think this idea has drifted in from the electric guitar world, where cutaways live in close association with soloing high up the neck.

On an acoustic, cutaways are just as useful for fingerstyle players, singer-songwriters, and pretty much anyone who likes to capo high up the neck. If you regularly play with a capo at the fifth or seventh fret, a cutaway suddenly makes an awful lot of sense, because everything you do above that capo is now happening in cutaway territory.

That said, if you live happily in first position and the cutaway shape doesn't appeal to you, please don't have one! Our dear friend Emma Tricca can't even bear to be in the same room as a cutaway guitar, and that's a perfectly valid position too. People feel passionately about this and I rather love that about guitar players.

Florentine, Venetian or scoop - which cutaway is best?

There are three styles you're likely to come across, and we offer two of them at Turnstone.

A Florentine cutaway has a sharp, pointed horn. It's the one I prefer and it's what I use on most Turnstone models. There's a reasonable argument that the Florentine shape gives slightly better access for the whole hand, because the cutaway opens up more decisively as your hand moves up the neck.

A Venetian cutaway is the rounded version, the gentle curve you'll see on a lot of arch-tops. I think a Venetian looks absolutely beautiful on something like a D'Aquisto-style arch-top, but for the kind of flat-top acoustics we build, I think the Florentine is the stronger choice both visually and ergonomically.

A scoop cutaway is something a bit different. Rather than removing a section of the upper bout entirely, the side of the guitar is scooped down lower so the neck-to-body transition opens up, but the silhouette stays symmetrical and the back is left in its full form. On our smallest model, the TS, I generally recommend a scoop rather than a full cutaway if access is needed. It keeps the soundbox volume as close to original as possible, which matters more on a small-bodied guitar than it does on a larger one. It's also a lovely option if you want the upper-fret access but you want to keep that traditional silhouette too.

Do you need a cutaway on a 12 fret guitar?

Right, here's where things get genuinely interesting. A 12 fret guitar with a cutaway can be a thing of wonder, particularly for fingerstyle players, and it's a combination that I don't think gets talked about nearly enough.

On a 12 fret instrument, the neck joins the body at the octave. So the cutaway gives you direct, unobstructed access right where you most often want it, at the 12th fret itself. And this isn't just a small-body consideration. Picture a 12 fret TG, or even a 12 fret dreadnought, with a cutaway. Suddenly that octave is right there under your hand with no awkwardness at all.

If you've ever tried playing a blues in E on a non-cutaway 12 fret and reached for the octave shape at the 12th, you'll know exactly what I mean. The side of your hand meets the upper bout almost immediately and the whole thing gets uncomfortable very quickly. With a cutaway, it's just not a problem.

Can you put a soundport into the cutaway itself?

I do get asked this occasionally. The honest answer is technically yes, but I'd need a very good reason to cut a port directly into the cutaway on one of my guitars. The cutaway side is already a structurally and acoustically more sensitive area because the upper bout has been shortened. Putting a hole into that same region compounds things in a way I'm not really comfortable with.

A side soundport on a cutaway guitar absolutely can work beautifully, it just belongs on the bass-side upper bout where there's plenty of intact side area to work with and the structure is undisturbed. That's where I'd always recommend putting one.

To conclude, or maybe not...

Like so many aspects of a custom guitar, cutaways are absolutely not for everyone. None of this is obligatory, and your own playing style and sense of aesthetics are by far the strongest guide here. There is no universal right answer, which is precisely why we talk it through with every client rather than making assumptions.

If you regularly play above the seventh fret, capo high, or work in fingerstyle territory where you need access across the whole neck, a cutaway is well worth a serious look. If you spend your musical life in first position and you love the visual symmetry of a traditional acoustic, leave it off and don't look back. And if you're somewhere in the middle (which is most people, in my experience), that's exactly the kind of conversation we love having at the workshop.

I hope you've found this useful, or at least mildly thought-provoking. If you have any questions, differing opinions, or just want to chat about cutaways, do please get in touch. I'm always happy to talk it through.