Official Luthiers Forum!

What are your thoughts on tap tuning?....I have found that the best sound I can get is when I place my fingers between the finger braces on the base side.....The sound on the treble side, between the finger braces is very dull.....I like the base side sound....should I leave it at that and glue on the top.....Larry

I like the DVD from smartflicks, google it, $10 bucks to rent, but I would buy it if you had the $ ...by John Mayes. He goes over tap tuning pretty good.

 

 

Do you have any recordings of it?

Larry-
You will get lots of different opinions on this!
For one interesting point of view on tap tuning, check out Bill Cumpiano's website- Cumpiano on tap tuning
Alan Carruth has contributed a wealth of info on guitar acoustics here at the OLF and at the MIMF- search the archives.

Cheers
John

Another Cumpiano page...
Tap Tuning

Larry I will second the recommendation for John Mayes DVD, specifically "Advanced Voicing."  I would also recommend purchasing the DVD in as much as you will want to revisit it often.  Good stuff!

Seems to me that what Johns Mayes and Mr Cumpiano teach are on two different wave lengths....Mayes looks of the bell like tone and Cumpiano tries  to quelch the bell like tone....I am sure both guys end up having great sounding guitars....My first guitars were not tap tuned...The top was thicknessed to 1/8" and the bracing was copied from the plans to almost the exact  specifications....The guitars came out with a very pleasing sound.....I have three guitars on the bench now which I have tap tuned to what I thought is the right sound....It will be interesting to see the difference.....Larry

Larry-
Like I said, you'll get a variety of opinions.

Just to keep a bit of 'balance', I'll add that I was very disappointed in the Mayes videos- particularly the 'Advanced Voicing' video which had only a few 'tap' sounds recorded via the camera's built-in mic, so were distinctly 'lo-fi'. If you've never built a guitar, the Mayes videos give a good description of one way of building one.
As you point out, you can make good-sounding instruments by building to spec (like Martin does- see Kevin Gallagher's very interesting post in another thread here) or by various tapping regimes, or by....

Cheers
John

Carving braces and tap tuning a top is the single most enjoyable and rewarding aspect of guitar building IMHO.  It is what I look forward to the most and I can spend many hours doing this.  And I am still learning too.

It's amazing to me how we can glue down the X-brace and begin to shape and reduce it following some basic engineering concepts that preserve adequate strength, eliminate excess mass, and produce tone that we may also shape as we would wish.  It's like playing Michaelangelo and removing the excess to permit the tone within to escape.  

It's also a very near immediate gratification thing too with results that we can hear with very little effort once we understand what we are doing and follow a methodology that gets us to where we want to go.

It's very true that you can shape braces as per a plan and thickness a top to a spec and end up with a great sounding guitar.  But it's also true that you can optimize the top to be superior in many respects and shape the sound to a specific need of the player.

Much of what I do came from John Mayes DVD "Advanced Voicing" and the rest came from making tops including tops that were never intended to be installed on guitars.  I would recommend creating some practice tops, following a conventional design, and learning to hear and "feel" the differences that your actions will produce.

Although I disagree with my pal John A. about the Mayes videos I greatly respect his point of view mostly because he is way older than I am.......

Anyway consider making some practice tops, following a decent plan that will mimic say a Martin design, and just spending time flexing the tops, taping them, removing wood, taping again, etc.  It is very rewarding to take a "thud" and turn it into a beautiful, sustaining ring.

   I am  tooling up to build my first guitar on my own ,,  about tap tuning I have read...  cumpiano seems to call it a fools endeavor...  I have John Mayes video,,and  have found very interesting the way he goes about loosening a top, he also shares how he uses different woods and thicknesses to  reach a desired playablitiy and timbre   goal ... i am not at the point to actualy try it But I will be soon  !  ... john seems to be seeking  clear tap tones with no specific target tones, which no doubt works for him.  roger siminoff employs a method  which  he tunes various parts of the guitar to specific tones ,however, he only touches   lightly in his publications, which exact tunings  will reach what results.   Alan Carruth  has done extensive research on  free plate tuning , and unselfishly  shares many of his findings with us fledgling upstarts on this sight !  Jody

Hey Jody......While being far from a fledgling ( some tail feathers missing and can't seem to fly as high as I used to).....I have been bitten by the bug and loving it.....seems like tap tuning is a "grey area" which one has to experiment with, over a period of time , and come to your own conclusions......when a customer picks up a guitar and it sounds good to him.....Thats the bottom line......This  forum is a treasure trove of good people and  information....Larry

I took a course from Sergei deJonge last spring, and one day the students asked him about tap tuning. (He doesn't give much importance to it). He recounted the experience of builders in a past class: One student built a good-looking guitar which 'rang like a bell' when tapped-all agreed it should be something special. Another built a guitar which basically gave a dull 'thud' when tapped- nobody had much expectation it would sound good when strung up. Of course, the results were the opposite of expectations. The 'thud' guitar sounded great in the end.
I guess the thing is to keep some records while building, then string 'em up and see what happens.

Cheers
John

   My use of fledgling was more a a metaphor  for our lack of experience not  age...I look at it like , starting at the ripe young age of 50... I dont have 20 years to spend building guitars  and learning trial and error.I am gleaning all the experience I can from those experienced builders willing to share what they will.I want to get into this proffesionaly , hopefully full time within five yours.  Tap tuning  realy falls into the realm of voicing .. your  master  builders can take woods and  knowingly build,shape, and assemble  to a pre-determined timber . they all use some sort of "tuning"  be it  simply the feel of the  wood. ie  flex ,weight,and  stiffness( even cumpiano). a casual  tapping to a pleasant tone ,,, or a more scientifc apporach of tuning some or all of the parts to exact tones/ notes or modes/nodes. some tune before asembly, some tune  during and some tune afterowrds.I at least want to start out with that as a goal.. however long it takes, with that in mind I will hopefully have a strong base to start  with .  Jody

Lab1 wrote:
"Seems to me that what Johns Mayes and Mr Cumpiano teach are on two different wave lengths....Mayes looks of the bell like tone and Cumpiano tries to quelch the bell like tone...."

Yup, and that's the big problem with reading about tap tuning; it's so hard to describe a sound or a feel.

Any guitar top or back has a bunch of different resonant modes, and these have active areas and innactive node lines in different places. When you hold it you tend to quench any resonance that does not have a node line where you're holding. When you tap you're activating mostly those resonances that are most active at the tapping place. When you listen you tend to hear the ones that are strongest where your ear is. So where you hold the plate, where and how you tap it, and where you listen will all effect what you will hear, and small changes can have large effects. Add to that the difficulty of desctribing tone, and the diferent ways people perceive the same thing, and it's no wonder the written descriptions are confusing.

The best way to learn this stuff is to go study with somebody who is good at it. They will teach you exactly where to hold and tap, and tell you when it's right. Then you can see and hear and feel for yourself, and get your senses calibrated.

I like the 'Chladni pattern' method because it is realively easy to keep records and communicate. I just went through Mark Blanchard's talk and slide show that he gave at the last H'burg do, thast he was kind enough to send along to me. He does some stuff that is a bit different from what I do, but I understood immediately what he was getting at and why it works for him. I've never been able to make head or tail of any of the articles on 'tap tuning' I've read.