Lunch Report : 2013-09-17

Thought I'd file a quick report. Here we go.

Lunch
It was four tacos from Carl's Jr. Since I heard Spanish being spoken in the kitchen, I'm thinking the tacos were authentic (actually, no I'm not).

Second Shift
Better overall than first shift IMO. Never have to set an alarm.

G&L
Mahogany bodies. They're awesome for bass. Who has a mahogany bodied G&L (guitar or bass) and what is your impression of what that wood does to the sound?

-Brock

Early report Brock. Lunch is unknown but will happen for sure.

No alarm on second shift is true but I worked a couple of weeks on third shift way back. It was brutal. I could not sleep and was a zombie most of the time. The stretch from 2 to 5 AM was brutal. The hours on my current job are awesome. My boss ain't bad either . She hasn't even threatened to fire me once, however she has tried to train me multiple times but given up!

I have two EQ Mah Asats. I hear more of a difference unplugged than plugged in. Unplugged they are warm and sweet. Not quite the edge that a swamp ash has. I also find the Pine body to be very resonant and sweet unplugged. I have to admit that I don't hear a lot of differences between woods but my ears wouldn't win a hearing contest to save my life but Ii love the light weight of the Mahogany guitars that I have. Thanks for jumping in today Brock--You Rock!!!-- Darwin

...ack double post.

Last edited by Elwood on Tue Sep 17, 2013 9:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

G&L
what is your impression of what that wood does to the sound?

-Brock

At higher SPL's , the wood/body design has more to add to the amplified sound than at bedroom levels.
I don't hear that considered much in the endless internet banter about what wood sounds good.
8 12"'s can drive a guitar body into resonance and I'm know maple reacts (sounds) a whole lot different than mahogany at that point.



It's the whole quantum thing...different rules for different situations. If you like the sound unplugged, mike it , but don't expect a humbucker to reproduce the sound without filtering ( or any transducer for that matter).

I love looking at beautiful wood when I open my eyes on occasion . That's in the equation that affects sound, but it would be hard to explain that to someone who is comfortable with the opinion that only density and water content matter .
I think people would rather argue than search for the continuously unfolding answer(s) to life ,the universe, and everything.

Hype doesn't help with the science of wood in guitars at all...I blame them

** Lunch
Beef shawarma, love the stuff. Its kinda spicy though, I'll pay for that later.

** Second Shift? (is this a question about night shifts? or swing shift?)
Right after the Navy I worked night shifts in a local emergency room, 7pm-7am, so I could go to school during the day. I loved it, lots of crazy stuff in the ER at night and when it was quiet I could study a little bit.

** Wood
I'm curious why higher SPLs would cause more wood effect? Or were you being sarcastic? 8x12 vibrating the body wood

In electric guitars I don't think wood has as dramatic an effect on tone as is popular believed. I consider these parameters more important: 1. amp 2. technique 3. pickups 4. effects 5. strings 6. bridge 7. nut 8. body wood.

There are lots of examples on-line where people compare things even down to fingerboard material but I've never heard a substantial difference. I have heard a famous guitar builder explain how these differences are "super important and way huge." Then they did a great A/B to compare like a $3k or $4k guitar to a $1.5k G&L (that was picked off the wall, it was not to deride the G&L) and I must say it pretty much convinced me I never need a $4k. Or that the woods really mattered.

Acoustic guitars I think bracing is probably the biggest factor (given the same dimensions). I do think the top & sides matters and strings probably more significant than electric. A little bit difference in nut + bridge but fingerboard doesn't make much difference. I will say the same builder as above had a $5k acoustic that made the most beautiful sounds ever...

In fact it has never made sense to me how people say maple v rosewood v ebony fingerboards have different sounds. The string frets on the metal. Doesn't make sense to me.

I'm curious why higher SPLs would cause more wood effect? Or were you being sarcastic? 8x12 vibrating the body wood

Not being sarcastic,
my thinking is, at low spls the body is absorbing energy, once the body begins vibrating from the speaker output,
it is also adding energy .
How well the components are coupled to the wood (bridge type,screws,saddles,finger pressure,probably even fingertip density)
should be considered when asking" how (much) body wood affects timbre over time...er tone."
I just used the 8-12 example since many of the tones we chase were made with full stacks.

Like the treble boosters, might not be the thing for bedroom players, but it might be just the thing to counter 40 feet of cable on a stage.( I'm thinking old tech, before modern buffers and cables,etc)...so back to the whole hype thing, just because jimmy page used one, doesn't mean that when you get one it's gonna sound anything like your favorite Zep LP. There are folks that will happily sell you one or ten until you know better.

So I'd put forward the question " How does your guitar sound bloom from body resonance when you get past 4 on head ? "
...and "Can you hear the wood's influence when playing at home or in the studio? if not, do you know why? "
but.... no matter whats going on, if it makes you smile... then just keep playing

I'm curious why higher SPLs would cause more wood effect? Or were you being sarcastic? 8x12 vibrating the body wood

Not being sarcastic,
my thinking is, at low spls the body is absorbing energy, once the body begins vibrating from the speaker output,
it is also adding energy .

For solid-body guitars this effect of external pressure should be basically zero, because the wood is an incompressible material. It would take a massive amount of pressure (sound) to affect the wood from the outside.

If it was changing with sound though... Sound radiates as a series of sinusoidal pressure waves, so the body wood could only add energy based on the superposition of those sine waves. It would only contribute when it was being vibrated in the same frequency and phase with the external sound. Out of phase it would actually be subtractive.

Then there is a massive amount of damping that occurs because the wood is solid and in contact with a players body. You can hear this damping by playing a note on a guitar without touching it (except to fret it) and holding it against your body. If you do this unplugged you can see how the guitar resonates longer when undamped.

anyways /lunch

Everything in my room vibrates ...if you can feel a body's vibrations being dampened by your body...with a single string driving it...don't you think a few speakers would do that...but more? The body will be receiving energy from the air at many points, each being a point of radiation, combining into a comb filtered complex wave then shaking the pickups and the strings and your fingers,etc. It's not as if the body is driven from one point. Some wooods will be driven with lower freq.s, others at high freq....a sandwiched Les Paul will be more complex in it's response than a one piece body, and most likely respond to a higher freq since now we have two separate pieces with stiff glue between them.
There will always be addition and subtraction/phase relationships rarely line up.... that is like trying to say computer results are just 1's and 0's...which they are, but so much more.

To apply any of this good stuff is only relevant once you can identify when it comes into play.

What SPL and Freq does it take to drive a wimpy boxed bridge and unpotted pup into squealing ? I'm always amazed at how sound waves permeate matter.

I'm curious why higher SPLs would cause more wood effect? Or were you being sarcastic? 8x12 vibrating the body wood

Not being sarcastic,
my thinking is, at low spls the body is absorbing energy, once the body begins vibrating from the speaker output,
it is also adding energy .

For solid-body guitars this effect of external pressure should be basically zero, because the wood is an incompressible material. It would take a massive amount of pressure (sound) to affect the wood from the outside.

If it was changing with sound though... Sound radiates as a series of sinusoidal pressure waves, so the body wood could only add energy based on the superposition of those sine waves. It would only contribute when it was being vibrated in the same frequency and phase with the external sound. Out of phase it would actually be subtractive.

Then there is a massive amount of damping that occurs because the wood is solid and in contact with a players body. You can hear this damping by playing a note on a guitar without touching it (except to fret it) and holding it against your body. If you do this unplugged you can see how the guitar resonates longer when undamped.

anyways /lunch

i don't think wood qualifies as an incompressible material.

I own a 1982 Mahogany S-500. Yeah baby the ultimate >IMO. I think in a shoot out it's sound cannot be beaten.
I also own a full mahogany bodied Santa Cruz acoustic, I know Brazilian rosewood is the bees knees. But Mahagony is certainly not a poor relative.
I love Mahogany.
It's 8am in Australia, I just completed a 50km bike ride . No lunch but I had breakfast cereal and yoghurt and about to have a coffee.\
Anthony

I just went against the grain (so to speak) about body woods in another thread. I have several 'hogs, and the ones that I have run A/B against the same model in a different wood sound tend to have a much darker sound. Specifically, I'm thinking of 'hog vs. swamp ash on L-1Ks, a 'hog L-2K vs. an ash ASAT Bass, and 'hog vs. swamp ash F-100s. I can't back this up with objective data, but to me the 'hogs sound like they are running through a very good lowpass filter. The higher order harmonics just don't seem to be there with the 'hogs to the same degree they are with ash. As a disclaimer, the newest 'hog in this comparison is from '81. I have no idea how they would stack up against the type of mahogany G&L is using now, but I suspect the density of the old bodies would cause them to attenuate the highs much more than the new ones.

I've never had the chance to A/B my mahogany '82 S-500 against swamp ash, but I can say that it's the only G&L I could run through my Jazz Chorus without needing a compressor to clean up the sound and prevent brittleness.

I find maple to be just the opposite. It sounds to me like my maple basses are running through a bandpass filter set for upper mids, and my maple guitars are running through highpass filters. I'm not sure how they stack up against the current G&L "soft maple" offerings, but the Leo-era maple-bodied guitars are very bright to my ears.

Ken

I forgot to mention fretboards. I agree that they are not likely to have an effect on guitar or bass tone. Wood is compressible, but compared to fingertips I think we can say that it's relatively incompressible. If a player is convinced that one wood is better than another for fretboards, he's probably likely to do something or another to compensate for the perceived difference. I can easily see that compensation having an effect on tone, but that would vary from player to player.

I find it ironic that guitar players go on about fingerboard wood (probably inspired by Fender or Gibson marketing copywriters, IMHO), while there isn't much discussion about it among fretless bass players or upright players - the guys and girls who will be in contact with wood rather than fret wire. The big concern with fretless fingerboards is how well they will hold up to string wear. Ebony is the standard, and low-end instruments often get "ebonized" maple (especially budget uprights). Rosewood saturated with epoxy also shows up in attempts at the "Jaco sound". I think most fretless players would say that tone is going to come from the choice of strings and fingering technique.

Ken

i don't think wood qualifies as an incompressible material.

Here is what I'm thinking...

Can you "compress" it with a garbage truck, sure. But I would say its incompressible in the context of this problem.

Relative to a fluid dynamics problem wood is pretty much incompressible. http://www.conradfp.com/pdf/ch4-Mechani ... f-Wood.pdf

For a free standing instrument I think the amount of sound energy that will enter the wood depends on three things:

1. the speed of sound in air
2. the speed of sound in the wood
3. the angle that the sound strikes the wood at

These contribute to the critical angle which determines how much sound energy is absorbed versus reflected. I think that when attached to a shock absorber (e.g. my gut) very little of the absorbed energy can contribute a significant amount to the motion of a string above the magnetic field.

Mechanically decoupling a solid from a sound source is the #1 way that people sound isolate. A guitar hanging from our neck, while still in the same room, is pretty well mechanically decoupled from the sound source.

Or am I missing Elwood's original point? Or something else?

[
Mechanically decoupling a solid from a sound source is the #1 way that people sound isolate. A guitar hanging from our neck, while still in the same room, is pretty well mechanically decoupled from the sound source.

Or am I missing Elwood's original point? Or something else?

Air

in a vacuum ,there would be decoupling.

[
Mechanically decoupling a solid from a sound source is the #1 way that people sound isolate. A guitar hanging from our neck, while still in the same room, is pretty well mechanically decoupled from the sound source.

Or am I missing Elwood's original point? Or something else?

Air

in a vacuum ,there would be decoupling.

lol

There's no such thing as an incompressible material; it's just a question of degree.

Wood is strongest in compression, much weaker in tension. It is God's first reinforced plastic.

A guitar neck under string force is like a beam being bent: it's inner radius is being compressed (shortened), while its outer is being stretched.
The fingerboard is the part that is in compression, and the neck would bend very much more without it. You bet the rigidity of the fingerboard is a factor in the behaviour of a guitar.

There's lots of confusion going around, about the "hardness" of fingerboard woods.
Hardness is a measure of how well a material resists denting, usually tested by pressing a ball-bearing shaped object against the surface.

This tells us very little about what we want to know, which is the rigidity, or Young's Modulus, of the material. This is the measure of how much it will compress (or stretch) when subjected to a force. This is what decides the fingerboard's considerable contribution to neck stiffness.
There is another factor, and that is how much "damping" the structure causes; i.e. how much of the string's energy it wastes by turning energy into heat (a tiny but real quantity of it) when it is bent back and forth. But of course we are trying to design a structure that won't bend too much anyhow; the "damping" effect is real, but much less significant than rigidity.

Rigid woods for fingerboards make stronger, stiffer necks, which offer bolder, more detailed tone and longer sustain. Tuning stability is less vulnerable to forces from the hand too.
Some rigid woods are springier (less damped) than others, but this really is a relatively minor difference.

You're mixing the effective force in the statement I made. Is the wood being compressed by sound waves? No. With regard to the original statement by Elwood, that elevated SPL affects tone, wood is not being compressed by the pressure changes associated with sound.

I still don't think there is much at all to fingerboards contributing to tone. I say this because:

1. the string frets on the metal

2. The important physical properties, like Youngs modulus between woods are not significant, especially when compared to the same parameters for the metal frets. Here is modulus of elasticity in kg/sq.mm
ebony 1007.
maple 800-1200
rosewood 1182
nickel 2039

There is a huge difference between the metal and wood, but not much difference between the woods.

3. I think the biggest factor is that it is fretted. That is why I think 'hands' affect tone more than fingerboard material. In fact you can even make notes go sharp by over squeezing, right? The point is the tension and effective length of the string. Not what the anchor points are set in.

4. If you take the total mass of the guitar wood, even just the neck, the fingerboard is a small part of that. I don't see how it can be the dominate factor in its stiffness, but I'm no wood smith either..

make sense?

This stuff is very interesting to me.. I'm thinking of how to empirically measure these effects in wood. Hook up an o-scope to the output and analyze the frequency spectrum?

I suspect a lot of the debate on fretboard woods came from people believing one of the big guitar manufacturers' marketing hype. I may have been living under a rock for a while, but the first bit of "debate" I ever noticed was in some of the big chain stores' catalogs: "this guitar's rosewood board will give you the warm tone of your favorite blues god", "this pointy guitar's hard maple board will let you shred like your favorite rock star", etc. More likely, the corporate purchasing department got a good deal on some rosewood (or maple, or whatever) that wasn't fit for furniture building, and the marketing folks came up with a way make the consumers want to pay a little extra for it to drive up the profit margin. Just like the claims that basswood, poplar and whatever is currently being clear-cut in Asia are premium tone woods. Buy cheap, and make the consumer think it's the best thing ever.

Just my jaded two cents' worth...

Ken

I was merely trying to help clarify the engineering reality of what is going on with regard to the fingerboard, and the mechanical properties of the material it's made from.

I was most definitely not wanting to get drawn into the "what's better, maple or rosewood?" sort of marketing-driven uncertainty-airing debates that seem to be everywhere. Ken is quite right about this.

Fingers has done us a favour here by showing some typical Young's modulus figures. These do show a narrow range of differences, although there are several different breeds of Ebony and Rosewood in modern use, and the figures are not as clear-cut as might appear.

But the argument that the fret's own rigidity, which is of course massively higher, somehow makes all these comparisons irrelevant, is false. The fret's rigidity is a natural consequence of its suitability for use; strong mounting, taking shaping / bending / dressing / resisting wear.
But the fret is entirely dependant, for the solidity of its location in physical space, upon the material into which it is mounted, i.e. the neck. Which is the composite structure of (usually) maple or mahogany shaft, with fingerboard added so as to function both as the mounting substrate for the frets and also in mechanical "strut" function in the structure.

Try mounting that nice rigid fret in a bendy plastic fingerboard, and see if the fret's rigidity makes the fingerboard factor irrelevant...

To bring these points together, I would say that the wideness of the variety of woods now in use, that are covered by our traditional descriptions of Maple, Rosewood or Ebony, is more significant in luthiery than the differences between the traditional ideal varieties, which were really very similar. Incidentally, I actually suspect Maple of being slightly less rigid, on average, than the other two usual suspects. And I've often found it more middy, and less glassy!

But the fret is entirely dependant, for the solidity of its location in physical space, upon the material into which it is mounted, i.e. the neck. Which is the composite structure of (usually) maple or mahogany shaft, with fingerboard added so as to function both as the mounting substrate for the frets and also in mechanical "strut" function in the structure.

Good stuff Nick,
...and then there's Semie Moseley's Mosrite Brass Rail

Last edited by Elwood on Thu Sep 19, 2013 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Incidentally, I actually suspect Maple of being slightly less rigid, on average, than the other two usual suspects. And I've often found it more middy, and less glassy!

after a little reflection , I'd put my Modulus neck as sounding the most glassy.
It has an audible difference even over the Moses neck (the moses neck has a more chambered design).

I always wanted to build a monochord or lap steel using a nice slice of black granite (marble is too muddy...LOL )
It would be interesting to build the same using a hard rubber slab.

But the argument that the fret's own rigidity, which is of course massively higher, somehow makes all these comparisons irrelevant, is false. The fret's rigidity is a natural consequence of its suitability for use; strong mounting, taking shaping / bending / dressing / resisting wear.

Try mounting that nice rigid fret in a bendy plastic fingerboard, and see if the fret's rigidity makes the fingerboard factor irrelevant...

Ok, from the top - no wood is adding new frequencies to those on the string. Because the YM of the fretwire is so much higher than the wood energy can not be going into the wire from the wood. The energy exchange is all from the wire into the wood. I was not saying you can stick the fretwire in rubber and expect no difference. I thought you would get that, poorly explained on my part.

So I'm not saying the fingerboard is irrelevant, I'm saying I don't think these typical species make a difference. And I don't think it would be tone that changes, maybe sustain. Sure if the fretwire is mounted in silly putty the string energy will be absorbed more quickly. You will lose higher energy frequencies sooner. Are those audible frequencies?

Fingers has done us a favour here by showing some typical Young's modulus figures. These do show a narrow range of differences, although there are several different breeds of Ebony and Rosewood in modern use, and the figures are not as clear-cut as might appear.

The YM of several two commonly species of Ebony -

African Ebony 1000
Indian Ebony 1200

Sugar Maple (the Rock Maple) 1290

... So the old African ebony, generally regarded as the stiffest, "brightest" wood is, on average, less stiff than the a nice bright maple neck.

And Brazilian rosewood runs in the 1200s.. I've run out of energy to keep looking up these figures. But we could keep looking, and keep finding they are just not that different. Is there a better parameter?

For overall stiffness I don't think these differences are enough.

Aren't pretty much all fingerboards laminated on? I think the process of lamination adds way more stiffness than the difference between any of the typical types of wood.

I have heard good players a/b the same guitars (different fretboards) through the same signal chain. I sure can't hear any difference.

But I can feel a difference in my fingers between them all, and certainly looks gotta factor in to Anyways, good discussion.

not all fingerboards are laminated on. there are a lot of one piece necks.

not all fingerboards are laminated on. there are a lot of one piece necks.

Where? When I look for them I see that a one-piece neck still needs its fingerboard.

If the fingerboard is not laminated on I suppose it couldn't have a truss rod?

not all fingerboards are laminated on. there are a lot of one piece necks.

Where? When I look for them I see that a one-piece neck still needs its fingerboard.

If the fingerboard is not laminated on I suppose it couldn't have a truss rod?

How about every maple board G&L built between 1980 and the late 2000s? The truss rods were routed from the rear on the '80-'82 skunk stripe necks, and after that they were sandwiched in the bi-cut necks:









I didn't feel like taking new photos of the sides of necks, but if you zoom on the headstock shots you can see there is no change in grain from laminated boards.

Ken

I didn't feel like taking new photos of the sides of necks, but if you zoom on the headstock shots you can see there is no change in grain from laminated boards.

Ken

Thanks Ken.

I'm curious do they drill from where the TR comes out on the headstock through to the skunk stripe?

In this case then the commonly held assertion that maple fingerboards are brighter than rosewood seems debunked. A neck with a laminated rosewood fb should always be stiffer than a one-piece maple neck.

I'm curious do they drill from where the TR comes out on the headstock through to the skunk stripe?

I'm not sure what the construction sequence was.

Ken

Ken, are you sure they didn't laminate a fb on? I'm reading the description of how they currently do it -> http://www.glguitars.com/features/neck.asp

Our latest construction methodology uses a one piece neck blank with the truss rod installed underneath the fingerboard. In the case of an all-maple neck, a layer of the maple neck blank is sliced off, and this slice becomes the fingerboard, ensuring a consistent appearance of a solid, one-piece maple neck.

Makes it sound like it is a goal to have it look like the grain is uninterrupted.

But I understand the older method was different. It just seems like it would have been much more work to manage two distinct assembly methods.

Would the assembly have been like this: http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-de ... -neck.html

At any rate, if we're following the reasoning of the campers here who think fingerboard material changes tone then this type of construction should no doubt make the maple, 1-piece neck less rigid.

It should then absorb higher frequencies more quickly, resulting in a 'warmer' sound and less sustain. I think the traditionalists cite rosewood as being the warmer of the two. http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/faq-old.php3#Q15

Seems contrary to the line of reasoning about the rigidity of the neck, as a function of fingerboard material, affecting tone.

G&L has been through three distinct neck building methods. The earliest ones - like my '80 L-1000 in the pictures above - had a one-piece neck that was routed from behind for the truss rod and got a skunk stripe in the routed channel. That changed in '82 with the bi-cut neck. Blanks were cut lengthwise, truss rod slots were routed, and halves were glued back together with the grain orientation rotated. The method you quoted refers to current production. The change happened sometime in the late 2000s. I can't cite the date, as I stick with older G&Ls.

I don't have good enough lighting available at the moment to get adequate pictures, but I did just look closely at my '83 SC-2 with the aid of a Mag Light. I can absolutely see the bi-cut joint in the maple fingerboard. It's slightly off-center, maybe a millimeter closer to the G than the D. I can also see the grain on the headstock continue onto the fretboard with no interruption. If there is a saw kerf, it is much thinner than a razor blade.

I just checked the '82 S-500 also. I have no doubt that the board and neck are one piece. The grain figuring in the neck has no interruption as it reached the corner/edge of the board.

Now that the S-500 is out, it would be a shame not to give it some serious playing time . I'll check back later...

Ken

G&L has been through three distinct neck building methods. The earliest ones - like my '80 L-1000 in the pictures above - had a one-piece neck that was routed from behind for the truss rod and got a skunk stripe in the routed channel. That changed in '82 with the bi-cut neck. Blanks were cut lengthwise, truss rod slots were routed, and halves were glued back together with the grain orientation rotated. The method you quoted refers to current production. The change happened sometime in the late 2000s. I can't cite the date, as I stick with older G&Ls.

I don't have good enough lighting available at the moment to get adequate pictures, but I did just look closely at my '83 SC-2 with the aid of a Mag Light. I can absolutely see the bi-cut joint in the maple fingerboard. It's slightly off-center, maybe a millimeter closer to the G than the D. I can also see the grain on the headstock continue onto the fretboard with no interruption. If there is a saw kerf, it is much thinner than a razor blade.

I just checked the '82 S-500 also. I have no doubt that the board and neck are one piece. The grain figuring in the neck has no interruption as it reached the corner/edge of the board.

Now that the S-500 is out, it would be a shame not to give it some serious playing time . I'll check back later...

Ken

Cool, thanks for looking and the description.

and if you don't have time to play all those you can send any of them my way