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  #16  
Old 06-23-2020, 02:03 PM
redir redir is offline
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I had always wondered about this ever since I started building. I think IIRC Sloan's book was braced dead flat but every other book I have seen they put an arch in the top and mostly they mention for reasons of changes in humidity.

But it seems like it has to do something to the tone too. If you think about a top and the 'loud speaker' mode where the top is pumping up and down and then think about holding an arched plate. It would be harder to push the top down then it would be to push it up.

I started building them dead flat a few years back. I would make sure to brace when the shop and wood were acclimated at 35%RH. String tension puts an arch in the top eventually, immediate really, anyway but they definitely sounded different. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. It's not that they sound better or worse, just different.

If I could try to put it in words I'd say that the bass response was less piano like and more muddy. Muddy sounds like a bad word but it's really not.

One physical observation I made on the true flat tops is that, you know like when you strum a chord and you feel the top in the lower bout with your fingers and it changes the tone of the chord? Well with the true flat tops the change was dramatic leading me to believe that the flat tops are more free to vibrate.

But again to be clear, these are not 'better' guitars just different.
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  #17  
Old 06-24-2020, 09:26 AM
mercy mercy is offline
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If one is not better than the other, "just different", then it would seem to be best to build with an arch as it is safer.
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  #18  
Old 06-24-2020, 10:20 AM
redir redir is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mercy View Post
If one is not better than the other, "just different", then it would seem to be best to build with an arch as it is safer.
And that is probably why it's generally accepted to do so. I had given it a bit more thought too and to try to describe it in another way, the true flat top instruments sound like they are older vintage instruments. That's kind of what I mean by the muddy bass should probably have used the term 'warmth' but it's hard to use English to describe the tone of the guitar.

I've still yet settled on a building style. While I thought I settled on building flat I've gone back to arching too. My small parlor guitars are dead flat though.
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