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  #31  
Old 10-21-2018, 07:25 PM
Zandit75 Zandit75 is offline
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Originally Posted by joeld View Post
That's great you built your own guitar, Zandit75 from Planet Penguin! I'd love to do that someday as well.

I think an additional factor is how back & side wood 'reflects' sound, even if it is not flexing itself. My hunch is Brazilian reflects higher frequencies back out the sound hole, which is why it tends to have that 'sparkle' and sounds a bit brighter than say, Indian Rosewood. And gives the tone a hint of reverb.
Thanks for that Joel, and I highly recommend you getting into a course, it was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done! If you're interested, check out the thread - https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=415297

Interesting theory regarding the reflection of sound, you may be onto something there. Hopefully someone better versed in that can contribute.
Reflection of sound was not discussed at the course.
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  #32  
Old 10-21-2018, 09:28 PM
Guitarplayer_PR Guitarplayer_PR is offline
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Originally Posted by Zandit75 View Post
95-97% of the sound is generated from the top, with the back and sides barely making any contribution.

Not at all in my experience. If that was true, an Ovation would pretty much like other guitars, but they don't. My Taylors (or any other guitar) would sound very much alike, but they don't.
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  #33  
Old 10-21-2018, 09:55 PM
Zandit75 Zandit75 is offline
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Originally Posted by Guitarplayer_PR View Post
Not at all in my experience. If that was true, an Ovation would pretty much like other guitars, but they don't. My Taylors (or any other guitar) would sound very much alike, but they don't.
Which raises even more questions, why do your guitars all sound different?
Is it the thickness of the top, or the bracing material used?
Are your tops different species also?
Are they braced exactly the same?

No two guitars are ever built 100% the same, regardless if they come from a major factory like Martin or Taylor, or from a high end, low number per year builder.
Take two Taylors of the same model, and play them back to back, and you will no doubt like one better than the other, even though they may come from the same batch of guitars, using the same batch of timber.

Skilled luthiers can take the charts shown earlier, and twist them around to some degree producing certain preferred aspects of other timbers.

How much of the sound differences are what you've talked yourself into hearing is there?

It's a slippery slope. Sorry for derailing the original topic though!
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  #34  
Old 10-21-2018, 10:59 PM
Guitarplayer_PR Guitarplayer_PR is offline
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Originally Posted by Zandit75 View Post
Which raises even more questions, why do your guitars all sound different?
Is it the thickness of the top, or the bracing material used?
Are your tops different species also?
Are they braced exactly the same?

No two guitars are ever built 100% the same, regardless if they come from a major factory like Martin or Taylor, or from a high end, low number per year builder.
Take two Taylors of the same model, and play them back to back, and you will no doubt like one better than the other, even though they may come from the same batch of guitars, using the same batch of timber.

Skilled luthiers can take the charts shown earlier, and twist them around to some degree producing certain preferred aspects of other timbers.

How much of the sound differences are what you've talked yourself into hearing is there?

It's a slippery slope. Sorry for derailing the original topic though!
For starters, my guitars have different sizes, so they're supposed to sound different right out of the gate, but even if that's true, when a guitar sounds woody with a tonewood widely recognized as woody sounding and another guitar having a tonewood with a supposedly different tone sounding like a different tonewood (with both having the same TOP wood), you know the back and sides do play a part of the overall sound of the guitar.


My DN3 sounds lo-fi and woody, my 414ce sounds midrange-y and hi-fi, and that difference is not supposed to come just from the body shape.
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  #35  
Old 10-22-2018, 01:13 AM
Zandit75 Zandit75 is offline
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Originally Posted by Guitarplayer_PR View Post
My DN3 sounds lo-fi and woody, my 414ce sounds midrange-y and hi-fi, and that difference is not supposed to come just from the body shape.
I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but a dread is always going to be more bass orientated that a smaller grand auditorium, which would be exactly why you're experiencing what you are between the two guitars. It's exactly what those guitars are designed to do.
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  #36  
Old 10-22-2018, 06:25 AM
Guitarplayer_PR Guitarplayer_PR is offline
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Originally Posted by Zandit75 View Post
I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but a dread is always going to be more bass orientated that a smaller grand auditorium, which would be exactly why you're experiencing what you are between the two guitars. It's exactly what those guitars are designed to do.


Please, read again
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  #37  
Old 10-22-2018, 01:12 PM
Shades of Blue Shades of Blue is offline
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I think an "interchangeable" guitar would be a cool concept. I know it might not be the most practical thing in the world (or most tuneful), but I think a guitar where the top, back, and sides could be changed out would be cool. I don't know how it would be done, but I'm sure the pieces could all snap together somehow. Just a neat thought...
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  #38  
Old 10-22-2018, 02:04 PM
Johan Madsen Johan Madsen is offline
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Originally Posted by Zandit75 View Post
I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here no doubt, but after just finishing my own build, I wonder how much of this question is actually relevant.

I'm happy to be corrected, however when doing my build, the design we used was very close to the Martin OM in all aspects, and the back and sides were made very stiff so as to make them pretty much dead. 95-97% of the sound is generated from the top, with the back and sides barely making any contribution.

Now, if the entire sound box was made from the one timber, then we could certainly be looking at a meaningful discussion.

Please educate me otherwise, I'm just going off what was told to us in the course.

Additionally, if there is an active back built into the design, it opens up a wholly different discussion!
I know that many think the way you do, but I personnaly have to disagree. Back and sides matter more than many may expect IMO. Every maple guitars I have played (doesn't matter which size, shape, or top wood) sounded clear and focused. I've never heard a maple b and s guitar having overwhelming bass, in a way rosewood may have, scooped mids or excessive overtones. When I bought my Furch OM 32 SM (sitka/hog) I spent more than an hour comparing it with an OM 35 SR (same everything except rosewood back and sides, binding and aesthetical details). Both guitars definitely sounded the way you may expect a mahogany and rosewood back and sides guitar to sound.
Rosewood: stronger bass register, scooped mids, metallic trebles, much overtones content etc
Mahogany: dryer sounding, woodier, more mids, more balance, less overtones...
In my experience back and sides definitely matters
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  #39  
Old 10-22-2018, 02:42 PM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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Default Back & Sides tonewoods

I believe that the favoured tonewoods for European gut strung guitars were mostly mahogany or rosewood backs and sides through most of the 19th century, and Martin followed that tradition.

However, another US based innovator in guitar design, Gibson, chose maple out of preference although often substituted plain ol' birch, presumably when supplies of maple ran low.

To this day maple is the favoured B&S tonewood for acoustic archtop guitars and mandolins.

Further, the favoured tonewood on flamenco guitars is cypress. I once had a replica Gibson L-1 (flat-top) replica built by a British ex-pat living in Spain. He used European spruce (the local stuff) and cyprus for the back and sides and it was/is a very impressive combination.
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  #40  
Old 10-22-2018, 03:08 PM
merlin666 merlin666 is offline
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Originally Posted by Brucebubs View Post
ummm, all these.

This graph really needs some explanation of the convex and concave versus flat solid and dotted lines. I'm not sure if this intuitive, e.g. does it mean that rosewood has "scooped" mids, whereas ovangokol has emphasized mids and others are just "flat" across the indicated frequencies?
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  #41  
Old 10-22-2018, 06:13 PM
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Wolfram Wolfram is offline
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Originally Posted by Brucebubs View Post
ummm, all these.

This is a Taylor Guitars diagram. And for Taylors, I think it is accurate. But, it relates to how the woods work in the thicknesses that Taylor uses, and with the way Taylor designs and builds their guitars.

It is by no means universal. For example, I own four macassar ebony guitars, all of which have a fabulous bass extension, and have played one of Kent Hamblin's guitars with a maple back and sides that had the deepest bass of anything I've ever played that wasn't a Somogyi.

There are characteristics inherent in the wood, but the most important thing is how it is utilised by the builder.

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  #42  
Old 10-22-2018, 09:09 PM
Paddy1951 Paddy1951 is offline
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I would like to see those same comparisons with actual frequency (hertz) responses shown. For instance, what frequencies are missing with walnut? More important, will you be able to notice it?
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  #43  
Old 10-23-2018, 04:31 AM
cuthbert cuthbert is offline
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Originally Posted by Guitarplayer_PR View Post
Not at all in my experience. If that was true, an Ovation would pretty much like other guitars, but they don't. My Taylors (or any other guitar) would sound very much alike, but they don't.
The sound of my K1111 is remarkably punchy but quite similar to a pre-war Martin as it was the benchmark for the Ovation project (Kaman used to be a pre-war bluegrass guitarist and played Martin before becoming an aerospace engineer), having said that Ovation is an interesting case as due to the bowl shape they could change the sound just by changing the bracing, and they were successful as an X braced Balladeer is closer to a Martin than to a Legend (who had the A bracing), 12 frets are pretty different too, Elites of course are even more divergent.

Here you can find all the patterns they used:

http://www.ovationtribute.com/Ovatio...20Bracing.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johan Madsen View Post
I know that many think the way you do, but I personnaly have to disagree. Back and sides matter more than many may expect IMO. Every maple guitars I have played (doesn't matter which size, shape, or top wood) sounded clear and focused. I've never heard a maple b and s guitar having overwhelming bass, in a way rosewood may have, scooped mids or excessive overtones. When I bought my Furch OM 32 SM (sitka/hog) I spent more than an hour comparing it with an OM 35 SR (same everything except rosewood back and sides, binding and aesthetical details). Both guitars definitely sounded the way you may expect a mahogany and rosewood back and sides guitar to sound.
Rosewood: stronger bass register, scooped mids, metallic trebles, much overtones content etc
Mahogany: dryer sounding, woodier, more mids, more balance, less overtones...
In my experience back and sides definitely matters
Again my mahogany SJ has a powerful bass, much more than many other rosewood guitars I tried. The fact that back and sides play a marginal role (5%) in comparison to top, bracing and box shape is not my invention but was proved by Torres in the XIXth century.

For those who don't know Torres and his famous cardboard guitar, here there is a link:

http://www.guitarsbydavidlaplante.co...d%20guitar.htm

And yes, Torres made the original guitar to prove other luthiers that the material for sides and back wasn't that important.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
I believe that the favoured tonewoods for European gut strung guitars were mostly mahogany or rosewood backs and sides through most of the 19th century, and Martin followed that tradition.

However, another US based innovator in guitar design, Gibson, chose maple out of preference although often substituted plain ol' birch, presumably when supplies of maple ran low.

To this day maple is the favoured B&S tonewood for acoustic archtop guitars and mandolins.

Further, the favoured tonewood on flamenco guitars is cypress. I once had a replica Gibson L-1 (flat-top) replica built by a British ex-pat living in Spain. He used European spruce (the local stuff) and cyprus for the back and sides and it was/is a very impressive combination.
The use of maple is common in Gibson because Gibson was the first guy to make mandolins inspired by violins, and bowed instruments always had flamed maple for sides and back...Torres also used cypress as it was a Spanish timber, relatively cheap for him to get. Mahogany and rosewood became popular because definitely more attractive.
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Last edited by cuthbert; 10-23-2018 at 04:47 AM.
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  #44  
Old 10-23-2018, 05:36 AM
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play a d18 and then a d28 and tell me the b/s doesnt make a difference. If its just a little bit of difference it sure sounds different.
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  #45  
Old 10-23-2018, 06:27 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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play a d18 and then a d28 and tell me the b/s doesnt make a difference. If its just a little bit of difference it sure sounds different.
OK , here's my version :

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