V-bracing and Taylor's Marketing Machine... so NOT impressed.

[rick-slo]

If someone has the opportunity, tune the guitar carefully and then record and post a link to the recording
of ringing out open position chords (C,D,E,F,G,A,B -not necessarily in that order). I would like to hear the
intonation of those chords. The recordings I have seen on the internet so far are not very good in regards
to judging intonation.

[devellis]

This was fantastic. And disturbingly relevant to the topic that inspired it. The "Quilted Northern" video that FantasticMrFox posted was also pretty great.

[Picker2]

Originally Posted by mcduffnw

...which is that the new bracing pattern helps to cancel out inharmoic or wolf tones at the upper registers of the fingerboard.

OK, with 'wolf tones' I assume you refer to Hemholtz resonance, which is basically the tone created by standing waves inside the body? You can hear this when you blow over the sound hole - it's similar to blowing over an open bottle. The typical tone it produces is an A (110 Hz), and indeed, when it's too far off it sounds a little awkward. That's why guitars sometimes sound better when tuned a little sharper or flatter.

Would that be what Andy means? In that case the term 'intonation' is not a smart choice. Poor intonation, in my vocabulary, means that your notes go sharp (or flat) the more you go up the neck. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

EDIT
No, Andy meant intonation in the traditional sense. In one of the videos you saw players go way up the neck and shouting out in utter euforia that the chords sounded still in tune, thanks to the V-bracing. That's intonation as anyone uses the word, and if your bridge saddle is too high, or your frets are at the wrong places, your intonation is bad. No way v-bracing or any other bracing could fix that. The more I think about this, the more I consider it plain swindle. Please proof me wrong!

[eastcoast Chris]

If I was a nasty cynic I would think that they are changing things for the sake of changing things & to encourage owners to become unhappy with there present instrument & therefore increase sales.

[frankhond]

The problem with physics is that very quickly human language breaks down and you need to resort to a combination of precisely defined terminology and mathematical statements. Andy apparently tries to explain his perception of the physics inherent in his design, but in plain English. Those of us who work with math and engineering need to be a bit generous with our interpretation of Andys statements. He is not reinventing the law of acoustics. To me it sounds like the V bracing is claimed to reduce some aural ugliness that can happen due to the imperfections of guitar design. Whether this actually works, I can’t tell until I played one. It sure looks great visually though. About time someone changed up the good old x bracing - Greenfield and Lowden are already doing it to great effect, so why not Taylor.

[Picker2]

Originally Posted by frankhond

The problem with physics is that very quickly human language breaks down and you need to resort to a combination of precisely defined terminology and mathematical statements.

Not per se. The nice thing about (good) physicists is that they try to make complex things as simple as possible. Marketeers do the opposite, they make simple things as complex as possible.

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by dodge

I'd be interested in the opinion of some of the luthiers on the forum. Hopefully they'll chime in at some point.

Hi dodge...

On another one of these Taylor V Class threads here on the AGF, one of our esteemed forum luthiers did...via a back channel of sorts...chime in after seeing and playing them at NAMM.

He said that to him, they had a flatter response, very balanced, good but not world beating volume, and that he was overall not impressed, and thought that the marketing hype was over the top.

duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by Goat Whiskey Picks

I think I'm with him on the chaos of tones thing because I've heard it myself in some guitars. Especially when strummed. I think where he whent off track was using the term intonation. I'm interested to play one but what I think we're going to hear is a very clean and well-balanced guitar. Now the question is how pleasing that will be. Looking forward to playing one to see.

" I think where he went off track was using the term intonation. "

Yes... and no. IMO he used the word "intonation" in a very generic way without explaining what he meant. It served him no purpose to provide an explanation as the claim was great marketing.

What we have to recognize is that there is general fundamental intonation and intonation of the harmonics which are not always in tune with the fundamentals. What makes vintage Martins sound like vintage Martins is that some of the overtones are NOT in tune with the fundamentals. When that happens there are fewer resultant harmonics. As an example of "chaos" I hear a lot of that going on with the classic Martin D28, which I believe Martin is trying to relieve with their forward shifted bracing in the 2017 D28.

The upper end of Taylor's line is a great illustration of how Taylor has brought fundamentals and overtones closely in line with each other compared to other brands. Their more expensive models are often misconstrued as simply being "bright", but are perceived as such because of extended resultant harmonics. [In most cases their upper end models have extended bass projection as well.] I have to presume that the V-Class bracing has tapped into more of that. The resultant harmonics of course will result in the additional perception of projection. The "chaos" that I think Andy Powers is alluding to are those errant overtones that don't contribute to the overall gestalt of the sound.

[Picker2]

Originally Posted by printer2

It would be interesting if someone did a spectrum analyses of the top as well as Chladni patterns.

I fully agree. I would even carry it further. If I were Bob Taylor, I would hire a few physicists and let them perform finite element simulations of bracing designs, and confront the simulations with actual spectral measurements. That's very straightforward to do, it would not require an Einstein, Bohr or Fraunhofer. But it would provide you with solid proof of your claims, and maybe even a couple of scientific publications. Now that would make a much better marketing story!

Originally Posted by printer2

Intonation? Maybe it makes it better.

I really don't see how, and there I think about the intonation story, the more it seems almost like swindle to me. It sure makes me lose my sympathy for the Taylor brand.

[fazool]

When an elastic member vibrates, it temporarily elongates. That elongation changes the frequency of its vibration.

So, *WHILE* vibrating at a pitch, the string changes its pitch.

The best example is tuning your guitar. When you strike a string very hard the string actually stretches a little and increases the tension and raises the pitch.

You can see this yourself with a tuner. The harder you strike the string the more sharp it goes.

The same with tall frets: as you press down harder you are stretching the strings more and making them go sharp.

As the sound board distorts it will induce similar effects.

So, I imagine that a stiffer soundboard reduces some of that effect.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Picker2

After a zillion posts about Taylor's new V-Class bracing in two or three other threads, I open a new thread in order to go deeper into one of Taylor's claims...

There is much that can be said related to the topic. In the interest of brevity, I'm not going to say most of it - I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

First, anyone can claim anything one wants. Claiming it doesn't make it "true". Science has methods for determining if claims are valid or not. Some people aren't particularly interested in the validity of a claim and simply want to believe in the absence of supporting evidence or even in contradiction to the evidence. This can be seen in many aspects of human behavior.

Second, even is science does show that a claim is valid, there is the question of whether or not humans can detect the result. Suppose, that the V bracing does improve intonation, does it do it sufficiently that people can hear the difference with an un-aided ear, or is it just something detectable by measuring instruments?

Third, the behaviour of a real-world guitar is a very complex object. Too complex, with too many variables, to fully and accurately model its behaviour. Typically, what scientists do in such situations is to simplify the real-world object so that a meaningful model can be constructed. If the real-world situation is overly simplified, the model created no longer has much relevance to the real-world object who's behaviour it is intended to model. Modeling the guitar as an equalizer might have some conceptual validity, but is too simple a model to really understand the real-world object and its behaviour.

Fourth, further to the above, in the 1960's, physicist Michael Kasha created a model of how the classical guitar works and, based upon that, stated that a classical guitar is designed all wrong. Based upon this models/physics understanding of the guitar, he redesigned many aspects of the classical guitar. History has shown that what he did had little lasting relevancy and few regarded his innovations as "improvements".

Fifth, intonation is mostly directly influenced by two factors. The first is an increase in string tension caused by stretching a string when the string is fretted. The second is inharmonicity. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics)

It is unlikely that the choice of bracing used on a guitar top or back has significant influence on how much string tension is increased due to fretting a string. (I'm not aware of any scientific research having been performed that links the two.) One could postulate that with the top not being rigid, some flexion of the top occurs in response to the string tension being increased by fretting. The effect would be small. One could postulate by changing the flexion of the top, one could have some effect on this behaviour. I think it unlikely to be audible, but one could postulate such a situation.

Whether or not the inharmonicity can be reduced by changing the top bracing is an interesting question. Maybe it can, but that would have to be shown, if a valid claim.

Last, in general, of the factory-built guitars out there, in my experience, Taylor's tend to play well in tune (i.e. have good intonation), better, in general, that many others. Many guitar players seem content with the poor intonation found on most guitars. Will improving the intonation by some small margin over the existing Taylor guitars be a major draw for the average guitar player who is content with the existing standard of poor intonation found on most guitars? Is the actual improvement relevant, or is it just the claim of improvement that matters to many buyers?

EDIT: as others' have pointed out, it might well be that he is using the term "intonation" to means whatever he wants it to mean.

Originally Posted by mrgraveline

I am not a physicist...

Let me just ask you this... Which is commonly regarded as having more pure tone and less “chaos” as Andy puts it... A long stringed grand piano or an upright with shorter strings.

As mrgraveline suggests, see the piano acoustics link above.

Originally Posted by dodge

I'd be interested in the opinion of some of the luthiers on the forum. Hopefully they'll chime in at some point.

The proof is in the pudding. What more can one say? If one plays one and finds that it is better is some way, it's an improvement. If one plays one and doesn't find it is better is some way, it is, at best, one person's opinion over another's, or, at worst, marketing hype.

If one just wants to believe, proof is irrelevant and what the marketing claims say is true, without question.

[rokdog49]

The most surprising thing in all of this...did Taylor Guitars with all the expertise and experience as well as tons of happy owners think this sales pitch would actually fly unchallenged?
Surely they realize there are a lot of very well-educated guitar players and builders out there who are the ones to dig into this stuff with both feet. Apparently they either didn't or don't care or it was intentional.

[Goat Mick]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

" I think where he went off track was using the term intonation. "

Yes... and no. IMO he used the word "intonation" in a very generic way without explaining what he meant. It served him no purpose to provide an explanation as the claim was great marketing.

The problem is that his audience, the guitar playing community, knows the term intonation means having each string plays the correct note on every fret without being sharp or flat and bracing can’t accomplish that. Bracing can accomplish accentuating or diminishing fundamental tones and overtones but it can’t make a guitar intonate correctly up and down the fretboard.

I’m a big fan of Taylor Guitars and have owned several including my 710 that I’ve loved for the 24 years that I’ve owned it. I will never part with it. I do want to play the V braced guitars and hear them for myself. But I still think Mr. Powers could have used a much better term and eliminated a lot of confusion.

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by Goat Whiskey Picks

The problem is that his audience, the guitar playing community, knows the term intonation means having each string plays the correct note on every fret without being sharp or flat and bracing can’t accomplish that. Bracing can accomplish accentuating or diminishing fundamental tones and overtones but it can’t make a guitar intonate correctly up and down the fretboard.

I’m a big fan of Taylor Guitars and have owned several including my 710 that I’ve loved for the 24 years that I’ve owned it. I will never part with it. I do want to play the V braced guitars and hear them for myself. But I still think Mr. Powers could have used a much better term and eliminated a lot of confusion.

Aren't you the least bit curious why a man with that level of expertise flubbed that portion? Maybe he was just caught up in the moment?

[Picker2]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

[I]
...The "chaos" that I think Andy Powers is alluding to are those errant overtones that don't contribute to the overall gestalt of the sound.

Thanks for your insights. I was thinking along the same lines at first, however, then I remembered the V-Class in Action video, where at 0:18 Danny raider says that "Every note is perfectly in tune, all the way up...". In fact, the whole video is about playing chords high up the neck and the 'magic' that appears. They clearly want to communicate that the V-bracing improves intonation problems up the neck. It's very misleading in the least.