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The SJ Oak/Engelmann that I recently finished has a lot of bass. For fingerstyle, it is no big deal as the player can easily control that. For strumming, it is a bit more difficult to control.
I know that bass is harder to get than treble, and that some strive to get more bass out of their guitars.
Is it possible to build with too much bass?
Has anyone had a customer complain about that?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

I dont know that I have ever heard anybody complain about too much bass in a guitar....especially in the bluegrass circles. If you have found a way to get bass in a guitar and feel like it is too much, then change your customer base over to the bluegrass crowd, they love it!

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Reguards,

Ken H

Change string gauge? I find that helps.

My first-built guitar (d***dn***t had an overpowering booming bass that was unbelievable to hear, and after changing string gauge (lighter gauge I found worked), and a bit of playing, things settled after a year, although the bass is still present.

Steve,
Is this a post Somogyi guitar? If so, what you are experiencing may be that the thinner top will produce more bass especially if you have lightened / loosened up your braces in conjunction with going to a thinner more flexible top [than you have used previously.]

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Tim,
Yes too all the questions, and my first double side.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

[QUOTE=SteveS]The SJ Oak/Engelmann that I recently finished has a lot of bass. For fingerstyle, it is no big deal as the player can easily control that. For strumming, it is a bit more difficult to control.
I know that bass is harder to get than treble, and that some strive to get more bass out of their guitars.
Is it possible to build with too much bass?
Has anyone had a customer complain about that?

[/QUOTE]

*stretches* yeah this is the reason why i was interested in your top. perfect for a baroque lute because of the bass that can be had. its gonna be hard if not impossible to alter it, but you might be able to tame it. i for one, like guitars that have alot of bass, especially if you are tuning to D or other tunings. i have seperate guitars set to different tunings, so i dont have to keep retuning. what string guage are you using?

MEB

Hi Steve,

My last guitar(post-Somogyi)has a huge bass as well, especially for a 000 size.... it's alive, so complex and resonant, it's really quite compelling. Everyone who has played it LOVES the bass, the interesting thing about the guitar is that it is still balanced, everything about the guitar has come alive...I doubt you will get too many complaints about the bass on that guitar, especially from it's new owner who happens to love the bass on my latest which I believe will be in the same league as yours!

Greg

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

I really just wanted this to be a general question, not specific to this guitar.

Has anyone built a guitar and the client said, this is too much bass. Is that possible?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Yep, it's possible to have too much bass, ESPECIALLY for pro musicians who do a lot of studio work. Excessive bass (boominess) is very hard to control and to record in the studio. Martins are some of the most difficult (dreds) to record. On the other hand you will see a lot of Taylors in the studios of Nashville.

Bluegrss folks like that strong thumpy bass. Chet style players like a good strong bass. Folks who play rhythym like lots of bass. Lead players like a guitar that will cut through the rhythm plyaers, and these guitars are generally more focused and balanced. It's all about understanding what your customer wanst and needs and then delivering it. You have the tools (from Ervin) to control your building, Steve. Do you remember the "Light bulb" analogy of mine? ;)

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Yes I think you can have too much bass. I like my guitars to be very balanced across the board.

In the EMI recording studios in London, the engineers have a mahogany/Euro Lowden for visiting musicians to use for recording.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I agree for recording and stage work, you can have too much bass.
What about playing unplugged, no recording, no amplifying. I can imagine some musicians not wanting a lot of bass.
But for the rest of the population, those of us that love bass, is it possible to build a guitar with too much bass? Does anyone here know of a guitar that had too much bass, that was poorly balanced that way?
I can imagine a guitar like that, but I'm not sure one could be made. Can it, has it been?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

My guitars tend to be heavy on bass, Probably as some have pointed out, because I go thin on the top, sand the edges and tend to go light on the braces as well. In fact, one of my builds is so bassy it is distracting. I was thinking of trying to glue up an extra brace on the soundboard, below the bridge plate on the bass side to see if I could get some highs out of it. Any ideas on this? WIll it work? Seems like if I dampen the soundboard in this area I will bring out some mids and highs.

I am starting to think that perhaps the perception of big bass, or boominess, that some refer to in heavier braced steel string tops is actually due to a lack of bass. Consider this:

-It takes more power to produce a lower frequency sound.

-Every note is not just the fundamental, but also every harmonic above it.

-At the same volume, we hear higher frequency sounds as louder than their lower frequency neighbors.

-Our brains are quite adept at extrapolating and focusing on bass given a selection of sounds. For example, if you play a 2nd inversion chord, say an A major at E2,A3,C#3, your brain still hears the implied root at A2. If you play A3 C#3 E3, the brain focuses in on the A3 more so than the other notes.

-We're dealing with a finite amount of energy, the energy from our hands moving through the strings and into this complex system.

So when you pluck a string, what happens?

If the top can move easily at the frequency that the string wants to move, then the top will produce that note and use up a larger proportion of the system's energy to produce it. In effect after the fundamental takes its energy from the system there will be less energy to produce any harmonics.

If the top can't move very well at the frequency of the string, perhaps because the top's too stiff, the same amount of energy still moves into the top, but since the bass note takes much less energy out of the system there's more left over to produce the harmonics of the fundamental, sounds which we hear as relatively louder than the fundamental, and yet still our brains focus on the fundamental in this soup of notes.

In short, because we hear these higher frequencies as louder than the fundamental and they are produced more readily than the fundamental (relatively speaking), then the picture of sound our brain creates might seem louder than it would be if the soundboard were able to move more easily at the bass frequencies.

In the end, though, I think as we progress our ear evolves and we can tell the difference... We hear a louder but muddier, brasher chord on the overbraced top where we can appreciate the more pure tones a well-tuned top can produce. Of course, the tone one prefers is completely subjective.

Lex,

I have read your comment 3 times and it makes more sense to me every time I read it. As Hesh would say, this is an idea I can wrap my brain around.  As for going as far as to say you are correct, I dunno. I'll admit that it makes sense though.

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Reguards,

Ken H

[QUOTE=lex_luthier] I am starting to think that perhaps the perception of big bass, or boominess, that some refer to in heavier braced steel string tops is actually due to a lack of bass. ..........[/QUOTE]
Yes, I like your thinking and your entire post. That's what I'm thinking also. I'm thinking too much bass might not really be possible, except for recording purposes, but maybe that's the fault of the mics, not the guitar. Personal preference for the conventional sound might be holding us all back from some great instruments.
But, what do I know. I'm just a beginner at building. I have been playing for 30+ years and I have never played a guitar with too much bottom end. I have played many that did not have enough.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

[QUOTE=rich altieri] My guitars tend to be heavy on bass, Probably as some have pointed out, because I go thin on the top, sand the edges and tend to go light on the braces as well. In fact, one of my builds is so bassy it is distracting. I was thinking of trying to glue up an extra brace on the soundboard, below the bridge plate on the bass side to see if I could get some highs out of it......[/QUOTE] OK- We have someone with too much bass. Wow.
Stiffen up the top by adding a brace and it should reduce bass. I don't think it will add any highs, but it should change the balance of highs to lows.
I don't think it matters at all what side you but it on.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.