#1
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Educate me on bracing.
Hey guys, some questions have come across my brain over the last couple of days about an acoustic guitars bracing.
What exactly does bracing do? what's the whole idea of it? Is it to help hold the pieces of the instrument together or is it to help it resonate to its full potential etc.? |
#2
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Both.
(could not post it unless it was at least 10 charaters)
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#3
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I've read that it delineates/shapes the sound, otherwise the sound is unleashed/messy.
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#4
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In theory you could make a guitar top with no bracing at all and it would work OK. The problem is that it would have to be pretty thick in order to hold up for any length of time under the load of the neck at one end, and the bridge in the middle. Since there is not much horsepower in a plucked string you need to get the weight down if you want to have good treble response and volume. Bracing is a way to stiffen the top up without adding too much weight.
Bracing does alter the sound, though, and often not for the better. Many luthiers feel that 'the sound is in the top', and that the best bracing does the job of reinforcing the stiffness without getting in the way of sound production from the top. There are a few 'standard' patterns that have been worked out to do this reasonably well, and they tend to concentrate wood between the bridge and the sound hole, where the stress causes the most problems. However, almost any reasonable pattern can be made to work in some sense. I'm very skeptical of the claims for 'magic' brace patterns, as I am also of the claims that small tweaks can produce major improvements in the sound. This seems to be one of those places where the idea is not so much to do something wonderful as it is to simply avoid doing too much that's wrong. |