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#1
05-27-2023, 05:42 AM
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Tailpiece material and sound
Why do branded archtop guitars, for example Gibson, have a metal tailpiece and modern guitars such as Benedetto and later have it in ebony? Is it just an aesthetic issue or does the material affect the sound?
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#2
06-04-2023, 03:52 PM
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Theoretically the wood might absorb some overtones and sound softer, but I doubt the difference could be reliably detected in a blind listening test.
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#3
06-05-2023, 12:43 PM
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Quote:
There are also a bunch of "wood-look" and "some of each" tailpieces. For example, Eastman archtops have a metal structure with a simply lovely piece of wood screwed to the top. This has a profound sonic effect, causing the operator to sound exactly like {insert name here} except when they don't. James D'Aquisto started out with D'Angelico-like metal tailpieces. By the 1980s he used a metal hinge attached to a wooden top.  That's more-or-less what wound up on the Fender D'Aquisto guitars too. Hope this is more than no help.
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"{T]echnique becomes the enemy. The thing that was keeping me from doing something new was how comfortable I'd gotten doing something I already know how to do." -- William Gibson Last edited by Sam Sherry; 06-05-2023 at 12:51 PM.
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#4
06-06-2023, 02:14 PM
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I presume this is similar in archtop guitars, but the consensus among double bass luthiers seems to be that the most important factors in how a tailpiece affects the tone are the overall mass, the length and the ability to flex at the hinge point, more so than any other properties of the material. And comparing a metal Gibson style tailpiece to something like a Benedetto with the violin style tailgut, each of those factors is different so it might be hard to say wood absolutely has one sound and metal another.
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#5
06-08-2023, 11:53 AM
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Since I can't delete this I'll just walk it back.
No point in being contentious.
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"{T]echnique becomes the enemy. The thing that was keeping me from doing something new was how comfortable I'd gotten doing something I already know how to do." -- William Gibson Last edited by Sam Sherry; 06-08-2023 at 11:58 AM.
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#6
06-09-2023, 03:27 AM
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Quote:
People who want a Gibson or a Guild, etc want what they're used to seeing. The big difference would be weight, but other than that it's a crap shoot. Perhaps you should go to Rudy's shop in New York. He'll most likely have some early D'Aquisto guitars that are basically D'Angelico clones, and some later ones where he started using the ebony tailpiece with violin style 'tailgut' mounting system. I'll bet that, aurally, it's a meaningless difference in the scheme of things. HE
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