Written and spoken descriptions

[Silly Moustache]

This is my pet peeve. I've never heard it used here in the UK, but it is common n American marketing descriptions , unusally by dealers.

The mental image is a neck dripping in dairy product and it is a disgusting image.

Marketing terminology is famously ridiculously "Don't sell the sausage sell the sizzle" type things.

This reached impressive heights of ridiculousness when a British TV channel ran a series of a professional wine taster, , essentially drinking differnt wines with various celebrities and the described the tastes.

Usually wines (even on the labels of industrially produced product) will mention various fruits "A hint of raspberry in the after taste" and such like.

We were staying with a couple in Texas and the lady , who was an excellent cook and tried hard to make us meals that were not all about beef.

She would open a bottle then use these marketing descriptions to describe, not the taste, but what she thought were the contents - "Try this one - it has raspberries in it!"

I'm afraid that marketing terminology has taken over the guitar making sector as well now. All this "re-imagined", Golden Era , mystic and such tommy rot.

I suppose they have to think up such terms to re-sell us the same old stuff.

[Mr. Jelly]

They are code words in my opinion. Like in politics only of guitar description. A person can understand them in a fashion. They are often used to be taken in a positive manner by describing an aspect of questionable qualities. I do not ignore them but try to discern what the hidden meaning of what they are saying.


Punchy = high amount of note separation and not much compression

[chippygreen]

I too am sometimes confused by written descriptions of sound, and totally agree with everyone who wrote that “good” sound is quite subjective.

But what I am less sure of is that it is not possible or worthwhile for a writer to try to express with precision and authenticity what the author is hearing. To have as objective a description as possible of a subjective experience, if you will.

This seems to me to be one of the points of writing, or literature - to communicate our human experience with each other - and through that communication find commonality with some, and an appreciation for differences with others (just as this thread is doing).

Btw when I hear the phrase bell like or piano like (I am guilty of using that descriptor though I similarly had no idea what it meant the first time I read it) I take that to mean several things, but one of the attributes I infer is that the trebles are rounded (as opposed to thin). By rounded I mean that they seem to observably swell and fade, rather than present as flatter more lifeless notes (think synth vs piano). That roundness can then be further broken down into words that are arguably more measurable but less accessible, such as the attack of the notes, duration of the sustain, and the manner in which the note fades - the gradient at which it rolls off when measured by time.

Concepts like woody, earthy, etc can in my mind similarly be decomposed into underlying attributes, as can descriptions of complexity, fundamental vs overtone and so forth. I do believe descriptions are highly dependent on what music you are playing but where on the fingerboard the music is being played. Qualities observed at the 3rd fret change at the 12th fret. I had a guitar that had wonderful bloom - the notes opened up and filled the room - in the first 5 frets. But at the 10th-14th fret that quality was lost (and it was duller than other guitars for the same passage of music).

On that last point, trying to describe attributes of a given individual guitar to me is often a very difficult task. I always find it easier to compare one guitar to another, because you can A/B musical phrases and evaluate subtle things like feel and sensitivity, responsiveness of strings to light touch, overhead and compression when played hard, more fairly on a relative basis.

As I like to say about colleges, there is no best guitar, only the best guitar for you. I find the process of trying to describe in relative terms why this guitar works better for me than another something I enjoy analytically, and I don’t mind writing about it if someone asks my opinion.

[chippygreen]

Originally Posted by chippygreen

I too am sometimes confused by written descriptions of sound, and totally agree with everyone who wrote that “good” sound is quite subjective.

But what I am less sure of is that it is not possible or worthwhile for a writer to try to express with precision and authenticity what the author is hearing. To have as objective a description as possible of a subjective experience, if you will.

This seems to me to be one of the points of writing, or literature - to communicate our human experience with each other - and through that communication find commonality with some, and an appreciation for differences with others (just as this thread is doing).

Btw when I hear the phrase bell like or piano like (I am guilty of using that descriptor though I similarly had no idea what it meant the first time I read it) I take that to mean several things, but one of the attributes I infer is that the trebles are rounded (as opposed to thin). By rounded I mean that they seem to observably swell and fade, rather than present as flatter more lifeless notes (think synth vs piano). That roundness can then be further broken down into words that are arguably more measurable but less accessible, such as the attack of the notes, duration of the sustain, and the manner in which the note fades - the gradient at which it rolls off when measured by time.

Concepts like woody, earthy, etc can in my mind similarly be decomposed into underlying attributes, as can descriptions of complexity, fundamental vs overtone and so forth. I do believe descriptions are highly dependent on what music you are playing but where on the fingerboard the music is being played. Qualities observed at the 3rd fret change at the 12th fret. I had a guitar that had wonderful bloom - the notes opened up and filled the room - in the first 5 frets. But at the 10th-14th fret that quality was lost (and it was duller than other guitars for the same passage of music).

On that last point, trying to describe attributes of a given individual guitar to me is often a very difficult task. I always find it easier to compare one guitar to another, because you can A/B musical phrases and evaluate subtle things like feel and sensitivity, responsiveness of strings to light touch, overhead and compression when played hard, more fairly on a relative basis.

As I like to say about colleges, there is no best guitar, only the best guitar for you. I find the process of trying to describe in relative terms why this guitar works better for me than another something I enjoy analytically, and I don’t mind writing about it if someone asks my opinion.

Btw I have no idea what reverb means in acoustic guitar. I have not figured that out. To me that is a dial on a Marshall amp.

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Goodallboy

On top of attempting to understand what they mean and convert it to something understandable, you’re still reading (at best) what someone else is hearing.

Yes.....as compared to what??

"Best guitar I've ever played - (and my other guitar is a Stella by Harmony)

[TomB'sox]

Well my post will be contrary to many. I do feel I can hear the reverb on some of my guitars more than others. Maybe it is a combination of all the factors like sustain, overtones, harmonics, I don't know, but some of my guitars have this quality and some of them don't. There is a difference.

What words we assign to these differences is all a matter of choice. People use the word reverb because we all have a sense of what that word means, it may not be technically accurate as Tico points out, but we know what it means.

This is a forum about guitars and we talk about how guitars sound with our written word. I guess we could say my new Kostal sound's good, or great, or OK, or excellent. (I don't have a new Kostal BTW). We could then discuss what those words mean.

I remember a thread we had about modern vs. vintage sound which lasted 3-4 pages and when reading each post, I concluded no one knew what those words mean either as by the time the thread concluded characteristics or what people thought for each of those terms had been used equally among both groups. Doesn't mean the thread was not informative, it was just ambiguous .

[ripdotcom]

I agree , its over the top and too artsy. There is a limit to sound description and it can be done in a much simpler way. When I got a 000-28EC, I really explored these sounds and the clapton has no shortage of sound tucked away inside but all this crazy talk .... give me a break, I would love to see a Q&A after somebody goes off the deep end on some fantasy description of a guitar , im afraid if you asked most of them to elaborate on what they meant by "swishy undaunted melodic ovenundertones with a crisp mid lead off to a finishing segue into silence" I think they would have to leave before embarrassing themselves. "better get that cappuccino with the maple leaf design in the foam to go sir. " I want some real reasons, wood, scalloping, thickness, finish, not some fairy tale story of the magic guitar.

[Steadfastly]

Woody and Tinny.

[golfreggie]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

This is my pet peeve. I've never heard it used here in the UK, but it is common n American marketing descriptions , unusally by dealers.

The mental image is a neck dripping in dairy product and it is a disgusting image.

Marketing terminology is famously ridiculously "Don't sell the sausage sell the sizzle" type things.

This reached impressive heights of ridiculousness when a British TV channel ran a series of a professional wine taster, , essentially drinking differnt wines with various celebrities and the described the tastes.

Usually wines (even on the labels of industrially produced product) will mention various fruits "A hint of raspberry in the after taste" and such like.

We were staying with a couple in Texas and the lady , who was an excellent cook and tried hard to make us meals that were not all about beef.

She would open a bottle then use these marketing descriptions to describe, not the taste, but what she thought were the contents - "Try this one - it has raspberries in it!"

I'm afraid that marketing terminology has taken over the guitar making sector as well now. All this "re-imagined", Golden Era , mystic and such tommy rot.

I suppose they have to think up such terms to re-sell us the same old stuff.

Love reading how you put things,

[KalamazooGuy]

Play with enough people and “cuts through the mix” makes more sense. I have played bass in a couple bands where my tone was perfect at home alone and even with the band, but on the recording I didn’t hear the bass or my buddies said they couldn’t here me. The scooped EQ sounds better alone but I learned I gotta push up the mids to be heard, at least on bass.

In most live settings, not everyone can shine through in their frequency spectrum. Some guitars though are better than others to “cut through the mix.”

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

This is my pet peeve. I've never heard it used here in the UK, but it is common n American marketing descriptions , unusally by dealers.

The mental image is a neck dripping in dairy product and it is a disgusting image.

Perhaps that's because the English don't refrigerate their butter and it conjures up a gooey mess in your mind .

As you can probably tell from some of the things I've written I'm not keen on marketing here. IMO a lot of what gets put into advertisement is borderline unethical, but yet legal. And that could take us on another tangential journey, so I'll stop here.

[Mr. Jelly]

I enjoy and utilize peoples written descriptions of guitar tone. But, I need a bunch from different people to get a good idea of what they are trying to explain. Some are so outside the others or use opposite descriptors that I throw them out. Peoples personalities come through their descriptions and are taken into account. Peoples regular guitar taste comes through also. Flat pickers and dread people describe smaller guitars differently than people that play smaller guitars. And the other way around. An experienced guitar describer can be a little to PC to accept what they say at face value. A negative description is almost more useful than others and may sell me on a guitar rather than run me off. If someone explained an aspect of a guitars tone that they didn't like it may give me more confidence in the guitar if it's an aspect I am looking for. Peoples use of language may be the most important tool to understanding the person and their beliefs.

[Ozzy the dog]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

"Plays like butter"

This is my pet peeve. I've never heard it used here in the UK, but it is common n American marketing descriptions , unusally by dealers.

The mental image is a neck dripping in dairy product and it is a disgusting image.

Originally Posted by vindibona1

Perhaps that's because the English don't refrigerate their butter and it conjures up a gooey mess in your mind .

Psssssst! ... we do refrigerate butter you know ....

... But when dealers start churning out descriptions like this it all starts to sound a bit 'Cheesy'.

[fazool]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

...Punchy = high amount of note separation and not much compression

This is interesting. Below Imbler showed how his mental image of a phrase was very different than what was intended.

Similarly, I have a different mental image from the term "punchy" - I've always thought of it as a bit loud, quick attack and quick decay. The note "hits" hard and quick and goes away. Very quick attack with high volume.

Funny how these words are trying to evoke a feeling and they are very much non-universally interpreted.

Originally Posted by Imbler

Hmm, for me, I've always mentally translated "cuts through the mix" as harsh or shrill,....I'm sure the image I have isn't the one they were trying to convey, because my mental image is a pretty negative one.

[Golffishny]

Ozzy has it right. Each player will draw different characteristics out of a guitar. I don't like the feel of butter on my fingers. Maybe smooth as silk would be better.