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Old 12-24-2016, 08:27 AM
rmsstrider rmsstrider is offline
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Default Can humidity have any affect on tone CF guitar

I have never owned a carbon fiber guitar. I am considering an Emerald X20. I know that changes in humidity affect my wooden guitars, and I am just curious if changes in humidity can affect the tone of carbon fiber. I realize that CF will not swell or shrink, but does the atmospheric pressure/changes have any influence?
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Old 12-24-2016, 08:36 AM
Puerto Player Puerto Player is offline
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I have an X20 and bought it because of humidity problems along the Mexican coast. If there is a difference between the tone of a very wet guitar vs. a dry/normally hydrated guitar I've never noticed it. Playing wise though, neck adjustments with the truss rod are almost weekly when humidity levels shift from 80% to 50%.

There may be tone differences, and I can see why, when wood is wet or dry, that wouldn't happen with CF though. You'll love the X20, it's a big sounding guitar with lot's of tone.
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Old 12-24-2016, 08:37 AM
Strumalot Strumalot is offline
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My CFs (all 4 of them) are kept in non-climate controlled areas. Temps can range from single digits to about 115 degrees and humidity ranges from "desert dry" to 100% fog. And sometimes the changes are rather rapid. If there have been any changes over the past 5 years of CF ownership, it hasn't been noticeable.

Oh yeah, they pretty much stay in tune, too. Even the nylons once the strings get stretched out!
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Old 12-24-2016, 11:31 AM
Earl49 Earl49 is offline
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IMO, if there is any change in tone, it is because of your comfort in those temperatures and humidity conditions. 80% RH sounds like a warm tropical day, and 50% RH is likely a cool night. The guitar doesn't care.

I've played my Rainsong from 105°F here in Idaho summers at festivals down to below freezing at late night camp fire jams in Alaska, and have never noticed a difference that I could perceive. Mine too are stored on wall hangers on exterior walls in rooms without specific major climate control. That is kinda the point of CF.....
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Old 12-24-2016, 02:25 PM
rmsstrider rmsstrider is offline
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I guess maybe I asked the question the wrong way. Given that a CF guitar is not affected by changes in humity, I thought it would interesting to learn if changes in humidity affect sound in general.maybe the strings are affected also. Does the sound traveling from the guitar to your ears change after passing through humid air vs dry air. Maybe I have too much time on my hands and should go back to practicing.
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Old 12-24-2016, 03:50 PM
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Rm;

That's an interesting question. I would think that humidity would change the way sound travels. The same might be true of altitude. I have never heard the question before and can only guess at what the answer might be. Given the general silence on the matter I suspect that any such effect would be minimal. And before I drive myself out of tune thinking about it, I'm going to take your advice and go practice.
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Old 12-24-2016, 03:59 PM
mbrohl mbrohl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rmsstrider01 View Post
I guess maybe I asked the question the wrong way. Given that a CF guitar is not affected by changes in humity, I thought it would interesting to learn if changes in humidity affect sound in general.maybe the strings are affected also. Does the sound traveling from the guitar to your ears change after passing through humid air vs dry air. Maybe I have too much time on my hands and should go back to practicing.
I highly doubt that there would be a perceptible difference to the human ear.
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Old 12-24-2016, 04:13 PM
email4eric email4eric is offline
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I would think that if there was a difference, we'd hear it when listening to any sound -- radio, tv, voices, singing, etc.
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Old 12-24-2016, 07:16 PM
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Email4;

And maybe we could, if we listened real carefully?
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Old 12-25-2016, 12:29 AM
Earl49 Earl49 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rmsstrider01 View Post
...it would be interesting to learn if changes in humidity affect sound in general.maybe the strings are affected also. Does the sound traveling from the guitar to your ears change after passing through humid air vs dry air.....
As someone who measures noise and vibration for a living, I've looked at these effects extensively. The speed of sound is 1129 fps at sea level and 68°F. That speed does not vary by more than ~3% going from 100°F down to -40°F, increasing slightly with denser air. High humidity makes air slightly less dense, so the speed slows down just a tiny bit - much less than 1%. So the effects of temperature and humidity on sound levels and their propagation are negligible until you are thousands of feet away from the source, winter or summer. At three feet between the guitar and your ear, any perceptible difference seem highly improbable.
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Old 12-25-2016, 07:49 AM
GuitarDoc GuitarDoc is offline
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Take it from me. The atmospheric conditions would affect your hearing perceptions to a greater degree than the guitar. The composite acoustic customer service told a story of an owner whose guitars sank with his boat. Upon recovering his wood guitars were mush. He had replace the hardware on his CA but reported as good as new. Can't get more humid than that.
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Old 12-25-2016, 10:56 AM
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Earl;

Thank you for the information. One aspect of the information seems counter-intuitive: I was surprised at the notion that "high humidity makes air less dense."
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Old 12-25-2016, 11:29 AM
Earl49 Earl49 is offline
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As a pilot I learned to be cautious of warm air and high humidity. Both make the air less dense. Wings and engines perform poorly then. To verify, I looked it up and sure enough according to my engineering textbooks, humid air is less dense -- by a tiny amount. Those big water vapor molecules occupy a lot of space compared to the molecules of nitrogen (79%) and oxygen (19%) in air.

Upon learning this detail of air density, I stopped keeping guitars in the basement, instead favoring upstairs for storage. If the basement is more humid that is due to moisture penetration from the foundation combined with a lack of circulation that interferes with the ability of humid air to rise. I cannot say that upstairs was radically better than the basement man-cave, but I worried a bit less.
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