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Old 06-25-2022, 04:54 PM
Alan Carruth Alan Carruth is offline
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130 Hz is high for the 'main air' pitch, but not unheard of. We call it an 'air' pitch but it's really the lower peak in a 'bass reflex couple' between the Helmholtz air resonance and the loudspeaker-like 'main top' resonance. Both are moving at both pitches. 180 Hz is a bit low for the 'top' pitch, but, again, not unheard of. To isolate them you can cover the sound hole with something fairly stiff, such as heavy card stock. This will enable you to find the 'top' (and 'back') pitches without the influence of the air pressure changes in the box. The pitches will be different in this 'uncoupled' condition, of course.

The Helmholtz frequency is largely set by the size and location of the sound hole. Isolating that involves loading the box so that it can't move; one researcher buried guitars in sand with only the sound hole open. The 'assembled' 'main air' pitch will be lower than the isolated Helmholtz frequency, and the 'top' pitch higher with the coupling than without. If the 'main back' pitch is close to the 'top' pitch that gets into the act too, and usually drops the 'air' pitch some due to the added mass.

All of this assumes that the issue is with the fundamental of the note, which may not be the case. Try recording the actual played note and looking at the spectrum. I've seen cases where the real 'wolf' was on one of the partials of the string. The tell-tale here is that that partial will be split: there will be two peaks in the spectrum. This happens when the top is moving enough so that the end of the string is not actually stationary when it's moving 'vertically' with respect to the plane of the top, but it is when it's moving 'horizontally'. Since there is normally motion in both directions the string actually produces two pitches at the same time, and the buzz is the difference frequency between them. If the problem is at, say, the second partial, then that peak, and probably the fourth partial peak, will be split.

These things can be hard to track down, in part because you can have more than one problem at or near the same pitch, and they effect each other. You can take some comfort in the thought that these things are much more common on better' instruments. Once you figure out where the problem is it's often reasonably easy to fix it, but hunting wolves can be hard work.
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