bad acoustic guitar

bluecat

Thanks for that information Tannin, you're a wizard. Never looked at it quite that way before.

TheMadMick

Ultimately, the pick up argument is irrelevant. If the guitar sounds good and you can afford it, then buy - pick up or not. You can always buy / save up for a pick up if that is important. If you don't need one (for whichever reason), so  much the better.

Gomers

It really is a case of buying another guitar you prefer the sound of, if a guitar 'lacks tone', it will do so irrelevant of the string type and set up, IME lacking tone is down to how it's built.  Playabilty is also a must.

bertie

remind me,  did you get your mate ( s)  to play it and you listen ?   what was the outcome ?

maltingsaudio

Epiphone and their Gibson equivalents tend to be “heavily “ made in comparison with the other two mentioned so not surprised yours sounds dull in comparison. It should open up given time, but if that open sound is what your after look elsewhere. If it’s mainly bashing out chords then keep at it. 

My 2ps worth 

ICBM

Tannin said:

No you won't. (Sorry to be blunt.) 

Many makers in many different parts of the world include a pickup system in every guitar they make, and they do it because it saves them money.  Suppose it costs $100 USD to buy a pickup system at wholesale, say for a carton quantity of 20. Now let's do the sums.

A maker of any size doesn't buy 20 at a time, they buy hundreds at least, and would generally contract for thousands at a time. So instead of $100 USD, they are paying $65, if that. 

Now what about the cost to install it? Practically none - the routing and drilling is done by their CNC machines, it's just a few minutes for a worker to drop it in as they go along doing other tasks. Cost? a couple of dollars, but let's be generous and call it $5 USD.

Other pickup-related costs? zero. Total cost: $70 USD. But much less than that for for makers who are serious about pickups - they are not buying in third-party designs, they have their own system, designed in-house, and this not only brings their costs down even further, in many cases it also results in a better quality pickup. (This certainly applies to Maton and Cole Clark, both famous for their pickup quality, and probably also to Takamine (who claim to have a great pickup system, though I don't know that for myself; probably not to Taylor who's "Expression System" seems to be regarded as just OK, nothing special.) So these makers are likely paying a good deal less than $70 USD per unit, maybe half that much.

Now let's look at the benefits.

(1) Increased sales, because for every buyer that walks away because for some misguided reason he or she does not want a pickup, there are three or four who (often for equally misguided reasons) do want the pickup and will tend to buy Brand X instead of Brand Y if Brand X has a pickup. 

(2) Massively reduced inventory and overhead costs. Simply by fitting a pickup as standard, you have slashed your minimum stock levels by nearly half. Instead of needing to have (say) 1000 guitars in your warehouse to meet demand from retailers, you now only need 500 or 600. The retailer saves money too, because there is less chance of them not having the model someone wants to buy in stock if they don't have to buggerise about with both pickup and non-pickup guitars. 

(3) Increased variety on the shelf ( = extra sales) because the retailer can have (e.g.) both a cutaway model and a non-cutaway model, or two different colours, or two different wood combinations. 

(4) Lower manufacturing costs. Because every model is the same, you don't have to keep stopping and re-starting the line to make pickup and non-pickup models. You have fewer mix-ups, fewer mistakes, less management time wasted.

(5) Even lower buy prices for components because you have much better bargaining power with your suppliers when you can say "we will be fitting your pickup to every single guitar we make". That's a powerful bargaining incentive. Compare with   "We will be fitting your (optional) pickup to some of our guitars, we don't really know how many but say 70%") If you have ever worked in sales, you know that the "70%" number can't be trusted, so you do your sums on your sell price assuming less than 50%, 'coz you don't want to go backwards on the deal. But 100% is 100% and you can confidently quote a very sharp price.

So what do all these saving add up to? Something like $200 USD is a reasonable guess. Certainly more than it costs to buggerise about with optional pickups.

These are the economic lessons the Japanese car industry taught the whole world in the 1970s and 1980s. Firms like Toyota and Honda figured out that it was cheaper to simply put a radio in every car than it was to penny-pinch and buggerise about. And customers loved it. Then they did the same thing with electric windows, and alloy wheels, and CD players, and so on and on. The established American and European and Australian manufacturers took a caning in the market before, little by little, they got the message. These days, every car made has a huge list of standard equipment and you can be 100% certain that Ford and VW don't do it because they love their customers. They do it because, all things considered, it is cheaper.

Sorry, I disagree with almost all that except for the bits about economic benefits *to the manufacturer*. (Not the buyer.) An electro-acoustic still costs more than an equivalent pure acoustic even now - hence, unless you actually *need* the onboard electronics for use on stage, it's worse value for money and you're still better off buying one without, since if your budget is limited it means you can buy a better guitar.

Bearing in mind we are almost always talking about complex systems with onboard preamps - you really need to just avoid these unless you need the functionality for hands-on control, since they add potential unreliability (I have a lot of experience of this as a repairer), inevitable obsolescence, and in some people's opinion actually affect the acoustic tone of the guitar for the worse. And not least, an ugly plastic box in the side of the guitar. A simple pickup and jack, even with an active buffer and a battery holder on the inside, not so much.

I don't even think they sound that good. Ironically, the most natural amplified acoustic sound you can get now is in some ways the least natural in terms of technology - a plain undersaddle transducer driving digital modelling which effectively gives studio-quality mic'ed sounds, so you're not actually hearing the sound of the guitar at all really. As it happens I've just removed a quite highly regarded pickup/mic system from a guitar and replaced it with a plain UST and an offboard modelling preamp - it sounds better amplified, and I can replace the offboard unit at any time the technology improves further.

So, no I would not buy an electro-acoustic given the choice, even though manufacturers would like me to.

Dave_Mc

dazzer22 said:

the guitar is a Epiphone DR-500MCE Masterbilt  it feels well built ,  but  to clear up what i mean by a bad sound,   to my ears it sounds dull and flat  - lacks tone  , the other two guitar was a Crafter D-7 which sounded great  and Alvarez which sounded great too ,  

LOL guess how many of those I've tried? I'll leave the suggestions to the people who've actually tried them, lol.

dazzer22

maltingsaudio said:

Epiphone and their Gibson equivalents tend to be “heavily “ made in comparison with the other two mentioned so not surprised yours sounds dull in comparison. It should open up given time, but if that open sound is what your after look elsewhere. If it’s mainly bashing out chords then keep at it. 

My 2ps worth 

Are you saying it will sound better after a few years ? I do strum chords a lot i know if i sell it i would be selling it for a big loss as with most things you buy new .   the sound feels lower in volume  like i said the other guitars sound louder and brighter,  

BillDL

If you think about the bridge slot and saddle on an acoustic guitar with an under-saddle piezo strip or cable, the saddle has to be very slightly looser in the slot than on an acoustic with the same kind of saddle but without a piezo transducer under it.  The reason for this is that you need the base of the saddle to be making good contact with the piezo element, and if it is too tight in the slot it may not be doing that.  A slot that grips the saddle just tightly enough that you can lift the guitar by holding the saddle, but not so tight that you have to pull it out with pliers, is going to transfer much more of the vibrations through the bridge and top than a saddle that needs to be be slightly looser.  Depending on the thickness of the bridge itself and the thickness of the piezo element, the saddle can often lean forward very slightly as it is usually sitting much higher in the slot with less of it down into the slot.  This position can cause loss of tone.

A good example was an early 80s Yamaha acoustic that I fitted with a Shadow piezo unit a couple of years after I had bought it new.  It was the type that has a high enough output not to need a preamp, and had individual hard saddles set into a narrow metal box profile with the piezo element sandwiched permanently in between them.  I had to widen the saddle slot very slightly to accommodate it.  One of the saddles became a bit dodgy so a while back I removed it, shaved down the original hard "urea" plastic saddle, and put it back into the guitar on top of a fairly standard under-saddle piezo strip (using one of those integrated end-pin preamps).  The saddle leaned very slightly forward and the resultant unamplified tone was dull and uninspiring.  I have other electro-acoustics anyway, so I removed it, made a new bone saddle that fits tightly, and the improvement in tone was immediate and startling.  You definitely get better quality of unamplified sound with a properly fitted hard saddle (Bone / Tusq) making good contact with the wood in the slot than from a looser fitting saddle with a piezo strip under it.

drofluf

@BillDL makes a very good point. I’ve just restrung my son’s guitar that has a Piezo and a correspondingly loose saddle. Whilst restringing the saddle slipped up and forward, the downward force from the strings held it in place but tone (and intonation) suffered. 

Tannin

Not that good a point, actually. It is perfectly possible to have a best-of-breed pickup system and a tight-fitting saddle. Maton do that as routine. Probably many others do too. (Interestingly, Cole Clark don't - and most (but not all) people would agree that, all else being equal, Matons have a better acoustic sound than Cole Clarks. But I doubt that's down to saddle fit - they are very different guitars, designed to do different things.)

maltingsaudio

dazzer22 said:

maltingsaudio said:

Epiphone and their Gibson equivalents tend to be “heavily “ made in comparison with the other two mentioned so not surprised yours sounds dull in comparison. It should open up given time, but if that open sound is what your after look elsewhere. If it’s mainly bashing out chords then keep at it. 

My 2ps worth 

Are you saying it will sound better after a few years ? I do strum chords a lot i know if i sell it i would be selling it for a big loss as with most things you buy new .   the sound feels lower in volume  like i said the other guitars sound louder and brighter,  

Yes it will sound better after a few years of playing. Another thing that has just flipped into my head is what weight plectrum do you use? You may get more out of it now by going up a couple of weights on your pick to really get the air moving from your guitar. N b this will take a bit of time to get used to and adjust your technique to the heavier pick but will be worth it. I always use a .70 mm pick for my acoustic stuff anything under .50 sounds awful to me on my guitar.

bertie

maltingsaudio said:

dazzer22 said:

maltingsaudio said:

Epiphone and their Gibson equivalents tend to be “heavily “ made in comparison with the other two mentioned so not surprised yours sounds dull in comparison. It should open up given time, but if that open sound is what your after look elsewhere. If it’s mainly bashing out chords then keep at it. 

My 2ps worth 

Are you saying it will sound better after a few years ? I do strum chords a lot i know if i sell it i would be selling it for a big loss as with most things you buy new .   the sound feels lower in volume  like i said the other guitars sound louder and brighter,  

Yes it will sound better after a few years of playing.

and being all solid, you need to play it regularly as well,  helps keep the wood opened 

guitarjack66

bertie said:

maltingsaudio said:

dazzer22 said:

maltingsaudio said:

Epiphone and their Gibson equivalents tend to be “heavily “ made in comparison with the other two mentioned so not surprised yours sounds dull in comparison. It should open up given time, but if that open sound is what your after look elsewhere. If it’s mainly bashing out chords then keep at it. 

My 2ps worth 

Are you saying it will sound better after a few years ? I do strum chords a lot i know if i sell it i would be selling it for a big loss as with most things you buy new .   the sound feels lower in volume  like i said the other guitars sound louder and brighter,  

Yes it will sound better after a few years of playing.

and being all solid, you need to play it regularly as well,  helps keep the wood opened 

What would happen to a solid wood acoustic that wasnt played for a while as opposed to 'opening up?' Dull? Flat? Lifeless? etc.

bertie

guitarjack66 said:

What would happen to a solid wood acoustic that wasnt played for a while as opposed to 'opening up?' Dull? Flat? Lifeless? etc.

yep,    I had my Brook in its case, unplayed for over 12 months -  it was markedly "unexciting" when I played it again and was in the motions of selling it - it was then I was told/learned  that you have to " keep em played"  - which I did / do    -  difference is very tangible. 

I think now if I had to store one, or have to leave one "unplayed"  Id invest in one of those "opening up" machine/device thingys (struggling to remember WTF they're called    )   they sit on the soundboard and pass a frequency to it to simulate being played so to speak

BillDL

bertie said:

I think now if I had to store one, or have to leave one "unplayed"  Id invest in one of those "opening up" machine/device thingys (struggling to remember WTF they're called    )   they sit on the soundboard and pass a frequency to it to simulate being played so to speak

I wonder whether a recording of my shrill-piched ex-wife whining somewhere in the region of open high E would work as a soundboard "opening up" method if I played it back in a continuous loop through headphones and stuck the phones to the soundboard with double-sided tape, or whether it would need something more "harmonious"?

Tannin

bertie said:

yep,    I had my Brook in its case, unplayed for over 12 months -  it was markedly "unexciting" when I played it again and was in the motions of selling it - it was then I was told/learned  that you have to " keep em played"  - which I did / do    -  difference is very tangible. 

Yep. I've seen the same too many times now to doubt it. I'd add that it seems to vary from one guitar to another. Some seem to go "tight" after quite a short time unplayed, others seem happy enough to go a month or two with little deterioration. And  it seems to take a different amount of playing to bring different "tight" instruments back into full voice.  

Now all of this is terribly subjective. What I'd really like to see is some clever person with a decent budget figuring out a way to put these phenomena on a solid scientific footing using double blind tensing and so on. But until a proper scientist comes along to nail it down, I'm comfortable to agree: (a) you have to play them enough to make them sound good, and (b) how much "enough" is varies from one guitar to another.

Mellish

@bertie ; that "thing" - do you mean a Tomerite? Not sure how it's spelled but I think that's what you mean  

bertie

Mellish said:

@bertie ; that "thing" - do you mean a Tomerite? Not sure how it's spelled but I think that's what you mean  

that's what I feed my tomato plants with.......................................
(and no, that's not a euphemism !!)

Mellish

Tonerite, actually _). It clips onto the strings and buzzes.