One of my guitars plays beautifully fingerpicking, but doesn't cope well with being strummed unless I'm really, really gentle. Similarly, while it has a wonderfully responsive low end and middle, to my ear the plain strings are a bit harsh and shouty. It has a very thin, lightly braced Englemann Spruce top and I sometimes wonder if it isn't a bit too light for my (admittedly heavy-handed) right hand technique.
So it occurs to me that doing something to modestly increase the weight of the top (and thus make the system slightly less hair-trigger responsive) might give me a better tone - tame those treble notes a fraction without taking away too much of the wonderful rich bass.
Any thoughts?
Comments
The current pins are ebony. Not sure that I want to brighten the tone. The Martin Luxe pins sound interesting ... but at $230 AUD a set? Ouch! The correct answer is probably "Improve my technique and lean to play with a lighter touch".
(But if I'm looking for an excuse, I can always say that I could try the pins on several different guitars to get my money's worth.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUg1KmnblNE
best comparison is around 9.00 mins - not sure about volume but to my ears the "metal pins" sound much zingier/brighter on the lower strings, but "fuller" ? certainly not warm or mellow
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
@Mellish, I didn't know you could wear a bridge pin out! In 50 years of playing acoustics (admittedly with a 25-year hardly-any-playing holiday in the middle) I've broken one or two and lost a couple, but never worn one out. In reality, the expense is a small fraction of what a decent guitar costs. I'll investigate a bit further when the household wakes up.
Dubbgh .... someone hand me my pipe and slippers and wipe the drool off my chin, I'm officially past it.
I went to 9:00 and thought "that is indeed a noticeable difference" until I realised it was actually 2 different guitars Pete was playing. On that basis I'm unable to attribute the differences in sound, although fairly significant, to the pins alone.
Every time someone comes on here looking for advice on acoustics, the default answer is always "try before you buy" on account of the differences between each piece, even of "identical" spec. Therefore the tonal differences between those two sound samples could be down to multiple factors, bridge pins included.
Ahem ... Did anyone notice the actual numbers? 89.7 v 90.3 (unit not mentioned but presumably dBA). 0.5 dBA. That's a much smaller difference than an average person can hear when listening carefully for it, let alone actually notice, and smaller even than what most trained musicians can hear. The conventional wisdom is that at typical levels an average person will notice 6 dBA and can hear 3dBA if paying careful attention. A trained ear is said to be abut twice as good. But at any sensible volume (e.g., the sort of volume an acoustic guitar achieves), no-one can hear 0.5 dBA. (Not even a trained musician.(
In short, the volume change claim is hogwash. Put it in the same circular file you used for Taylor's hilarious "better intonation because V-brace" claim.
So (a) It doesn't make any detectable difference to volume, and (b) I don't care about volume anyway.
That leaves tone - which I do care about, and which it does make a difference to. Yes @Bertie, different guitars, but we can hear a difference between the before-pin and after-pin sounds on the same guitar. (At least I reckon I can.) The question is this: what will that subtle change to a brighter, more attacking sound on a factory Martin strummed with a 1mm plectrum equate to when applied to my hand-built Mineur when fingerpicked? Will it sound better? Or worse? Or stay the same? I really don't know.
I might go silly tonight and order a few different sets of end pins to try out - ebony, bone, and those Martin things. Or I might not. The sensible thing to do is borrow the ebony pins out of my Cole Clark Angel next time I'm doing a few string changes and, if I like the sound, buy some like that. But I'm not very good at sensible.
The conclusion I came to is that brass pins do definitely sound different, slightly brighter and 'zingier' - not in a nice way, for me - but the other types are indistinguishable.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
10dB was twice the volume
6dB was approx 1.5 x volume
3 dB was 1.25 x volume
that’s probably a simplification of what was told me, and that was probably simplification
So 0.5dB is probably about 10% louder on the log scale.
I would guess one could sense / hear that ?
Human ears are incredibly sensitive to frequency, and quite insensitive to volume.
Meanwhile, I have ordered a set of ebony bridge pins, which I don't need but it's good to have some spares, and they were $13, so say £6 - so who cares? And a set of brass bridge pins for $42 (about £20) just for the sake of trying them out.
Now I am about to order strings from a different supplier, and while they have the you-beaut Martin pins ther for $245 (which is too much for my blood), it turns out they also have a set of them in a not-so-popular colour for $169 AUD (£92). Should I get a set? Or forget about it?
(Answers in 10 words or less on a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.)
That being said, tone is subjective. Plus one example from one player on one instrument does not a truth make!