#91
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I've never heard of a pre-war 000-15 either, I thought the 15 series just came in like 0 size guitars in the thirties.
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#92
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2) a single blind experiment is not worth much.
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"Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest." --Paul Simon |
#93
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Got that right. Nor, as much as we would like to think otherwise, is anecdotal "evidence".
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"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best." Henry Van Dyke "It is in the world of slow time that truth and art are found as one" Norman Maclean, |
#94
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I'll be going to guitar society this week and if either guy is there, I'll ask for the exact model. Those older guitars are still a far different sound/feel than any currently built all mahogany small bodied, 14 fret Martin I've played in the past few years. If some here are correct, and they actually sounded like they do now when they were new, and indeed have not aged/opened up, then Martin has made some serious mistakes in the past few decades and should go back to building instruments like the 50-90 year old Martin guitars I've been fortunate to play. |
#95
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I agree that blind tests are not useful. Some of the fallacy I see with most proposed blind testing of guitars is the assumption that guitars can be played or listened to blind and any useful or conclusive information would result. Coffee cuppers and wine tasters have a very methodical - and well defined ways - of tasting and grading coffee &/or wines. I've been roasting coffees as a serious hobby-ist for nearly a decade now, and have dabbled with some serious folks who regularly hold cuppings (for selecting beans and arriving at roasting levels for the beans they use in their own stores). They train their own tasting teams in-house, and teach them language to communicate their findings. It's very serious business, but none of the cuppers I know think of it as very scientific...merely useful for their own purposes. They are not interested in publishing results. And they rarely agree among themselves as to which is the best tasting coffee (they each have preferences), but nearly always agree as to which are the best quality of the beans they have sampled that day. With both wine and coffee tasting, very small quantities of wine or coffee sniffed, inhaled, tasted, swished, and then spit out, and extensive notes taken - nobody is blindfolded, nor is any aspect of the process hidden. And between each sample, the palate is cleansed with water and a moment is taken. Is it possible to cleanse the ears/brain between proposed guitar samplings? Do we have language to describe what we feel and hear? Could some be developed? (perhaps) It seems we players (some of us anyway) have some sort of personal need to empirically establish once-for-all scientific sounding things about guitar tone, and to prove that our personal opinion is the only one - or at least the best one... |
#96
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Ok folks, I finally got time to upload.
There are two files and Please read this first: Just a little history. Guitar comparison #2 involved comparing guitar (A) 2002 Taylor 815 to guitar (B) 2009 Taylor Custom Jumbo. Guitar comparison #3 is just the Taylor Custom Jumbo after playing it for two months. Whatever your ears hear, is yours. Both of these recordings were done with the same mic, same cord, same computer, same operating system done in the same room with the same humidity and temperature in the same location. The only significant variables that I am aware of is time and me. The first recording may seem a bit softer than the second. After the first recording I had a difficult time hearing it on basic computer speakers so I bumped the input level a bit on my sound blaster as I recorded this new one. This is not the "end all" by any means but to me, its better than trying to remember a sound that is in the past. Draw your own conclusions, form your own opinions as to whether my guitar is opening up or doing whatever. Thank http://www.4shared.com/file/10462393...parison_2.html http://www.4shared.com/file/11623663...parison_3.html
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Guitars- some of them 2000 855 2002 815ce 2007 Warwick corvette bass (Double Buck) 4 string 2009 Custom Coco/addi jumbo "Maranatha" 2010 412 Spring LTD Amps- some of them Peavey 100watt acoustic amp (very clean sounding) Roland JC-120 head with 4x12 matching cabinet Praise and Worship dude http://s25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...44369/Guitars/ |
#97
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It could be made much closer to a true double-blind test by using RECORDINGS. There'd still be the issue of having the guitarist play each piece exactly the same (so that there weren't other ways to tell one recording from another other than the guitar's response).
Still, even as proposed, it's better (scientifically speaking) than somebody simply claiming he has heard his guitar "open up". That's not even single-blind. I'm simply trying to address the issue raised by the OP. Or at least a subset of it. I think If one can't identify 10 guitar recordings (same passage and player, different guitars) after multiple years, then how can he possibly tell if his guitar has opened up? |
#98
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that dog won't hunt...
Wine and coffee tasting takes place in the here and now. A sip of this and that in a very short time span. IMO the analogy is flawed.
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#99
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There are certainly wine critics who will compare a mouthful of such-and-such wine as it tastes right now to a mouthful of some wine or another that they tasted in 1974. They are completely nuts if they expect anyone to consider such a comparison other than patent bushwah.
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Grabbed his jacket Put on his walking shoes Last seen, six feet under Singing the I've Wasted My Whole Life Blues ---Warren Malone "Whole Life Blues" |
#100
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How can a recording ever provide the tactile feedback of the pressure of the strings when squeezed together by the picking hand, or the resonance of a guitar against the chest, and the tactile feedback of the string tension under the fretting hand? Or how much resistance there is when strumming through the strings with the nail or plectrum? How can a recording replicate the feel of harmonics when struck? Or the liveliness (or lack of it) in the attack on the strings? How can any of these be divorced from the process and experience of playing a guitar? It would be like sampling coffee by only sniffing it after being brewed without being allowed to taste it. Playing a guitar is not just about hearing what a microphone hears, it is a multi-dimensional experience. |
#101
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Wasn't the proposed blind test of 30 guitars behind a sheet a here-n-now proposal? All analogy will be flawed in some respects, and my examples of coffee cupping were offered as a point of comparison and to illustrate the lack we have in the area 'sampling' guitars. A single dimension experiment (only hearing them without seeing or playing them as well) to identify guitars is flawed too. At least those fields have developed a testing framework and language to help communicate what is being experienced. All one has to do is read the posts here to realize no such language exists among guitarists (at least not that I'm aware of). |
#102
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And how could |
#103
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I remember with great specificity the sound and feel of my Martin D-28 that I played several hours per week for 17 years, I remember how it felt and played and sounded and resonated differently from the first Olson I played in 1986. I remember the experience of playing that first Olson in great detail too...and it affected me so deeply I sold the Martin and saved for several years and bought an Olson. I remember how that first Olson differed from the one I currently own. I remember how the Somogyi OM cutaway, Brazilian Rosewood/German Spruce, felt and played and sounded that I played at the Healdsburg show in 2005. I cannot explain how I remember these things, anymore than I can explain why I don't forget detailed chord progressions to songs I learned 45 years ago...that I have not played in years, nor how I can play songs with folks that I've only heard and never actually played before by just recalling what I've heard in the past. |
#104
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I'm not on board with the 30 guitar thing either. If Guitars, like people, change over time. How we remember them is in our heads. |
#105
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I also remember them in my hands, fingers, arms, chest, and any other part of me that comes into contact with a guitar as I play it. |