"Harmonic Content"....discuss

AliGorie

yeah, it’s (mostly) in the design & build, u’r right Lowdens acoustic design(s) (soundbox dimensions / bracing position etc) are harmonically rich.
Lowden S-35M all mahogany with plenty of overtones,



 

@ 2.20 in heres one that defies all the nonsense re R/wood Hog stereo types, a spruce / Mahogany that sounds thoroughly modern and has a great tone with a good balance of fundamental to overtones particularly for solo fingerpicking and it’s a 1931 00018 Martin - string choice and playing style have some influence on how it sounds though. It’s the basis of the modern’ steel string guitar - the ‘OM’ before they chopped the top to give access to the 14 fret to body, ’n squared the bottom to match.





other than John Greven I have great respect for these highly qualified guys (amongst others) who regularly debunk the  bull***t nonsense.
Alan Carruth
John Arnold
John Hall
can be found over on ’The Log Cabin’ forun
http://theunofficialmartinguitarforum.yuku.com/forums/6/The-Log-Cabin#.TgpOFIUmwao

also
Luthiers Forum
http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=10101&sid=636ed21ec502c0fbbb376678f2c61b0f

yeah  Mellowsun,
there is currently a trend for ’on steroids’  sustain + overtones which typically use 'lattice' (triple X brace) construction.
heres an example, the guys doing his best but the definition of the piece is getting lost with all the sustain and overtone content, interestingly when u hear these types of guitars being played it’s mainly ‘mood music’ pace and not to complicated - u’d need to be top notch on your damping technique to play  faster complicated music on this type of guitar or it would just come out a mess - wrong tool for the job.

The same has been talked about in the classical guitar world where raw power (volume / projection) has been the goal for some builders which has replaced the sweeter more traditional Spanish sounding instrument, some makers are now responding to ‘excesses of the new’.

Lewy

@AliGorie  Very useful video examples. Thanks!

No wonder my ear isn't really tuned into the whole overtone thing - I've never spent much time playing in a way that lets them emerge. Ragtime/Piedmont Blues with a lot of damping, bottleneck where really the overtones aren't coming from the guitar itself, and latterly bluegrass/flat picking where the notes don't hang around long enough for it to matter....

But I'm starting to toy with a bit more non-raggy fingerstyle - it will be fun to see what the guitars I have will do
in this regard...

ICBM

TimmyO said:

I recall years ago a brand (I'm *almost* certain it was Taylor) had a thing going on about how it mattered possibly more how you made it rather than what it was made from, and to make the point constructed an acoustic guitar from pallet wood (or something similarly 'trash' material) and carted it around various trade shows as part of the promo. It was, by all accounts, good.

It was Taylor. They're actually an interesting example, because their guitars *do* sound quite similar regardless of wood type. In my opinion they also sound rather characterless in general, so that is perhaps not surprising! I certainly don't think you can't make a *good* guitar out of almost any wood, but that isn't the same as saying all woods sound the same.

Anyone who plays a Martin D-18 and a D-28 and then says that the wood type makes no difference should probably have their hearing tested. (Yes, the fingerboard and bridge are also different woods on these, but some people would claim that makes even less difference.)

AliGorie

one final thing and I’m done with my ranting on this subject (my apologies).



loads of “guitar salesman” talk about u’r topic here - the kind of stuff that gets picked up and regurgitated over the www,  but u have to wait till 6.05 mins in - @ the end (so he doesn’t appear ill informed) to get to where he say’s precisely what we’ve agreed to above, the average viewer wont get beyond the first 2 or 3 minuets, damage done !.

Alan Carruth  

When I'm thinking of making a guitar to have a particular tone it's:
1)Size and shape,
2) top and bracing (it's a system, after all),
3) B&S wood.

All of this assumes that since I'm making it, it's going to sound like one of mine.

Oh, the sound clip is of this guitar - it’s a 12 fret 000 made by John Slobod (John is Circa Guitars)
It’s spruce and maple and maple is not supposed to sound like this according to what ya hear / read on the internet.

ICBM

AliGorie said:

ok - a little fun trial here, I've snatched this from the net, hope the guy don't mind and I'll put up the original after a bit.
It's a simple straight fingerpicked tune.
What do ya think this guitar is made of ?.

https://app.box.com/s/g18wpee0owwy0z3g4nt50bh09g9gk9yj

Damn, I forgot to reply to this before you posted the answer - yes, I guessed what it was, but that just sounds like being clever after the event now .

I completely agree about maple not sounding "how it's supposed to". It makes me seem much less clever if I say that my two 6-string acoustic guitars are both maple-bodied Gibsons . They actually sound quite different from each other, although they're totally different in every other respect than the wood and the maker - but both have what I think of as the 'maple tone'.

AliGorie

nice pair IC, always liked the curvy Gibsons - read somewhere G Lowden based his first (big ‘O’) model on the J200.
I have a maple ’n spruce trady ’Spanish’ nylon and it sounds sweet with a full bass - surprising.
 Forgot to say Stuart Ryan is a fine player and that guitar can hold it’s own in any company, is it a coincidence I also like the 00018 in the MS video ?, donno
ops - said I was finish with this thread - a lot going on in it  me bad.

barry2tone

On similar lines,  it galls me to hear (cheap) laptop speakers  distinguish between (say) a £4k 914ce Taylor - good woods and build - and the  lush  red sonic carpet preceding  luthier-built unobtanium,  and similar priced 1930's Martins. 

The 400-3,400hz range of telephony is  similar to  laptop speakers,   and standard guitar tuning  82 - 330 Hz .
So it's below bandwidth, along with male voice  bass frequencies .  
Each chap you talk to on the phone is distinguished  only by  interpreting overtones  of said chap.

So probably not (just)  the fundamentals that give the "character".

TheBigDipper

I recently bought a new Brook Taw with a Spruce top and Bubinga back & sides. I also tried one with the same top but Rosewood back & sides. Presumably everything about them was the same apart from the wood - apart from small differences in the build. They didn't sound the same.