I've changed my mind about overtones!
 

I have thought that I liked guitars without all that fuss of overtones. So I like lots of fundamental and not anything else. But I was playing my Godin 5th Avenue acoustic archtop last night and started to wonder. I really love this guitar - it is literally a cherry plywood box with only two braces in the whole thing and a bolt on maple neck. I have shaped a rosewood bridge for it and it wears 13-56 monel strings that are at least 18 months old.

As I was was playing it I was hearing a complexity to its timbre. It has a very distinctive timbre, which can be like a rich velvet if I play it right. I have always thought that this guitar had limited overtones but, if that is so, then what is shaping the timbre?

So I guess that this particular guitar is actually very rich in overtones and they are moulding the timbre to give that velvet sound. The guitar can sound like I'm playing it through a valve amp when I'm just playing it through a mic' on stage.

Anyway, I have just recorded the above clip this morning. Please excuse the playing - I'm both not very good and my fingers have that morning arthritis stiffness that I guess many of us here suffer from!!!

What are you hearing?

I like this a lot, your playing and the tone. It’s too bad Godin dropped this model, but I guess they weren’t getting enough sales to justify keeping it in production.

I agree with your sentiment in an earlier thread that it really would be nice if someone could fill the mass production archtop market like Harmony and Kay did of old. I know Harmony is back in business (owned by the same group that owns Heritage, and the guitars are made in the same factory—Gibson’s old building in Kalamazoo), but they aren’t offering any acoustics for sale (and from what I can see, neither is Heritage).

I registered for the Harmony mailing list. I also sent them an email suggesting that they get into that market. Fingers crossed…

Robin,
What i am hearing is very pleasing to my ears regardless of “plywood box”!

If I could play that piece as well as you have, I would never apologize!!!

The guitar has great tone attributed with your skill!

Thank you for sharing!

Nice playing! What I'm hearing is a pretty dry (short sustain) guitar with a strong fundamental. It sounds good to my ear, since there is good note clarity and a lot of warmth.

The overall timbre is nice. A lot of guitars with thick, lush overtones are also often too "bright" and "harsh" for my ear, because those overtones add high frequencies (treble) and can clash with the rest of the song, since overtones tend to get more out of tune with the guitar the higher they go.

To me, one of the hallmarks of a really good guitar is having a good balance of harmonic content, but it's a lot easier said than done. A lot of the popular fingerstyle guitars out there just sound harsh and trebly to me, but I guess it sells to players that want lush overtones above all else, or those who really need to spend the money on hearing aids and are buying brighter and brighter guitars to compensate for hearing loss.

What we know or think we know has a huge effect on what we think we hear. So knowing that it's a laminate archtop can't help inform or misinform what I heard.

Having said that, I think Godin is making use of what Gibson, with the hollowbodies in its ES series, and Guild, with its arch-backed D-25, have know for years: A lot of a guitar's sound simply comes from air moving (a.k.a. resonance), not wood vibrating. And an arched back, even plywood, resonates.

I used to have a 1940s Guild ES-150, and it's sound had a lot in common with your Godin: dry and not real loud or sustainful, but pleasant, balanced, bluesy, and highly playable.

Lol - now THAT'S a testimonial about the longevity of Monel strings!!

And they have had a lot of playing in that time!

I contacted Godin in January to ask if they had any plans to produce an acoustic version of the jumbo bodied 5th Avenue - and they don't. If I was still running Busker Guitars I'd be asking if I could buy a production run of 50 as they basically have the tooling already in place!

Thank you.... I have Steve DeRosa from AGF to thank for pointing me towards the 5th Avenue.

The downhill skier looks to have good form. As far as the guitar goes…
I’m hearing a bit of sustain and a warm tone with great note separation. It’s a very pleasing combo. Nice playing.
Best,
Jayne

I think that you sum up the guitar nicely. It is surprisingly versatile - although my playing isn't that versatile. I'm quite minimalist in my playing - and the guitar reinforces that. It does work nicely for Travis picking with thumb pick and metal finger picks. But it is not a great "strummer" - but neither am I.

That's an interesting insight Charlie - thanks.

This gives me ideas for business plans for which I don’t have the capital, but I will start a new thread in the Archtop or Builders subforums.

I am not a skilled listener, but I liked your playing.
Mike

Hi Robin,

Nice sound playing! I don’t think I’m hearing a lot of overtones. However, it’s fairly simple to measure your overtones with a spectrum analyzer like the Decibel X app for iPhone.

To illustrate what a spectrum analyzer can do: One rainy day a few years ago, I measured the speaker output of my bass plucking the low E. I was interested in different speakers and the effect of a circuit I was working on. The frequencies of the low E harmonics on a bass are roughly 40, 80, 120, 160, and 200. Most speakers for live sound drop off at about 50Hz, so the analyzer sees 80, 120, 160, and 200. The interesting part was the difference between acoustic speakers, general purpose, and bass guitar speakers. The bass guitar speaker gives a wall of sound with no distinct peaks, and the acoustic speaker (Shertler) had distinct peaks at the anticipated frequencies. The bass guitar’s E predominates at 80 and 160. I could see a bit of an odd harmonic peak from the bass speaker at 120 (a fifth, making a power chord).

TLDR: our brain knows the difference between an E on a bass and an E on the guitar from the mixture of harmonics - the guitar’s E is missing the 120Hz tone, for instance.

https://i.postimg.cc/Znq4Lvj3/IMG-20240316-163837.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/8z7d0ysX/IMG-20240313-122332.jpg

Hi Jayne, the photo was me telemark skiing on Senja Island north of the Artic Circle in Norway last year. I was back ski touring there with my wife two weeks ago. Such beautiful mountains to climb, and then you can ski back to the beach!

I think that you have described the guitar perfectly! It's what I hear too.

I'll look out for your post. :D

Thanks Mike. I played the kick-offs followed by the instrumental breaks I arranged from two songs that I know well enough to sing by heart at parties, sessions, campfires etc. The first one is Diana Jones by Jonathan Byrd and the second is Midnight on the Stormy Deep (mostly stolen from various Doc Watson recordings).

I play everything from open chord shapes and use a capo a lot for pitching the singing key. My playing style is very simple - sort of the way Maybelle Carter or Woodie Guthrie or John Prine would accompany themselves with guitar.

I can understand that. If it wasn't for the harmonics and dynamics then every guitar would sound like a midi generated plain tone.

I like that sound you're getting for the type of music you're playing. I've been humming and hawing a bit about getting an archtop. I don't really get into flat picking stuff, but I think that sound - woody with short sustain (like a giant mandolin :)) suits that stuff just dandy, and makes me want to have a go. I've a self penned song that I'm looking to do something different on. Got a question for you, Robin. Is your Godin 5th just an acoustic? I've only seen one used (still for sale) without a P90 in it - a shallower body than I imagined - looks more like a semi acoustic body width. Seller says it was made in Canada. Would that be the type you have?

PS - anything I should look out for in a used 5th?

Cheers

https://i.postimg.cc/gkmPtHjB/Broster-Clark-14.jpg

Yes, I have the purely acoustic version. Steve DeRosa here on AGF is the font of all knowledge on these guitars as he has both he acoustic and pick-up fitted versions. He thinks that the acoustic version is better when played purely acoustically.

When buying, there are two models of the acoustic version. The very early ones had a glued on neck - I have heard of these joints failing. But most have a bolt on neck. It is easy to see the heads of the two bolts through the F holes - they look like the bolts from Ikea furniture!

Also, the factory fitted Tusq bridge works great with the pick-up versions but is disappointing on the acoustic version - it is quite brash acoustically. Steve pointed me towards buying an adjustable rosewood bridge. There are plenty quite cheap on Ebay. You will need to fit and shape one. Not difficult, as there are videos on YouTube showing how to fit an archtop guitar bridge, but it does take time - probably a whole afternoon.

The guitar doesn't come alive until you put medium gauge strings on it. And monel 13-56s (Martin MM13) seem to work the best. Plus they last forever.

They are quite thin bodied guitars but still seem to pack a punch. I get more than enough power to play mine just with a mic' at gigs. Here's a short clip of it in action at a one-off scratch band gig I did with a few friends just before Christmas:

Thanks, Robin. That information is very helpful indeed, and you looked like you were really enjoying yourself. As regards the depth, it looks slightly deeper on your photo and video (must just have been the angle of the pic I saw). I'm angling slowly towards taking a punt ... and digging up my flat pickin' plectrums. ... I've found another for sale: two to choose from ... :rolleyes:

I can pretty much guarantee that you are going to hate the guitar at first strum!!! Then you'll do a bit of work on it - and still hate it. Then gradually you'll start to find its voice and go...Mmmmm.....hang on a minute, there is something wonderful in this box somewhere....

And then you are going to love it! :D

I shall gird my loins in preparation. No gain without pain::D

I just hear unabashed honesty from both guitar and guitarist.

David

David, that's very humbling feedback. Thank you.

Lovely playing!

“Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” I’ve always loved this clip of Herbert von Karajan and Yehudi Menuhin demonstrating the difference in tone when bowing a string "open" vs. "fingerboard" in a rehearsal. The tone played by the orchestra is haunting:

https://www.instagram.com/before_reh...l/C3OP41LIX6X/

Of course, they’re playing the same instruments and not different ones, but the concept is similar. For certain styles of playing, one either wants a guitar with overtones, or one doesn’t. I can’t imagine a tune like this played on a Goodall: