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Hey, a guy I was chatting with at work today about guitars mentioned he like a dark sounding guitar tone. Got me thinking what would go into making a dark sound.

Any suggestions on getting such a sound?

Design obviously but I have only play a dred and an OM. What do you would be the best size/design?

Also woods, I picked up a King Billy pine top that I thought had a really dark tone. What would generally be considered a top and B&S wood with dark tones?

Build/bracing/tuning. I would think a kind of loose top that accentuates the bass to mid response but again, any suggestions?

Dom

Bass and mid range seems to be part of it, but it's really hard to put objective quantities to a subjective term like 'dark'. Everybody uses the words differently.

That said, here's what I'd try to do.

1) Set it up with the 'main air' and 'main top' modes a little on the low side. Not too much: I'd go for the 'main air' around F# or maybe F, and the 'main top' about an octave higher.
2) Tune the back a semitone higher than the top. These first three aim to get as much power as possible into those lower two resonances, and give broad peaks in the spectrum.
3) Build a 12 fret, and leave the neck deep. This can put the lowest body mode (often called the 'neck mode') up as high as the 'main air' resonance in pitch. If you get that, the two will couple, and you get a particularly dark bass tone.
4) Use a low-damping wood like cedar or redwood for the top. This helps it to put out high end sound. It seems like a paradox, but your ear takes all of the sound that comes in right after a pluck and assigns it to the fundamental frequency. Having more overtones seems to give a 'darker' or 'richer' sound.
5) For the back; a dense, low damping wood, for the some of the same reasons. BRW, Osage Orange, or a good set of Indian come to my mind, although there are others.

Do not make the soundhole too small: that cuts down on the power in the 'main air' resonance. You need both a low pitch and a lot of power there. Move the hole a little bit up toward the neck if you want to, as that will drop the pitch and preserve the power.

Whatever you do, try to stay within the range of 'normal' practice if you want to preserve a 'guitar' sound. The exisiting designs have been very well worked out over many years, and yield a nicely balanced instrument if carefully made. All you're trying to do is shift the emphasis a little, and it does'nt take much. A lot of small changes, each of which moves you alittle way in the desired direction, is generally the best way to go.

Whoops! Forgot one!

Make the body a _little_ deeper. This also tends to broaden out the 'main air' peak. Making it too deep will tend to make it lower, though, so watch it.

I used a suite of 'luthier tricks' like that a few years ago when a customer wanted a Red spruce/ IRW 12-fret 000 for slack key playing. He wanted a 'soft and sweet' sound, and for me, Red spruce has always been the 'Ethyl Merman' of top woods: forward and even brash sometimes. I think I moved the soundhole up about 1/4", made the body about 1/4" deeper, and paid real close attention to the way the back related to the top when it was together. It came out fine.

Play with the lights off....


A nice combination for me is cedar and a real good set of mahogany.
Yeah, what can I say? Mahogany. Right Colin?!
Rosewoods also can be good for the "dark" sound, but I tend to like the top to be more in control when going for "dark", and I find that mahogany seems to do that for me. I also gravitate toward SJ sized guitars for that sound as well...something slightly bigger and more deep than an OM.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

My experience is much less than Alan or Don's but since I'm such a big fan of dark guitars I'll speak up too.

I would say Rosewood, Cedar or Redwood, deeper body, larger soundhole - but all in moderation - pick 2 or 3 and make small adjustments.

Also, don't forget picks and strings - they make a huge difference. I find a lot of people have been using the same strings and picks for years and would be well served to keep trying out new options every year or two as a persons ears mature and tastes change.

_________________
David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

Cedar/Rosewood SJ, open the X an 1/8" on each side.

It needs to be said too---player's touch can make anything sound dark or
bright.

Thanks everyone. Plenty of suggestions there. Too many to try at once in fact and know what is doing what. I will let you know how i go when I come to make one.
Cheers
Dom

Hey Alan, most of what you said went over my head but I am keen to learn. Can you point my towards good books or dvds to learn the art of tuning tops.

Hey Hesh, I use dropped tunings on my electrics and drop D on my acoustic but never really thought to step it down. How far do you think you could take a good guitar before its tone was muddied?
I also seem to recall from one of your posts that you did a top tuning course somewhere. Have got any suggestions for good references?

Cheers
Dom

I once built a koa dread with a WRC top that everyone who played it described as dark. These were mostly professional musicians, bluegrass folks, and they wanted something brighter.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Humm dark sounding???????????

My opinion is that Throatieness (no such word but I will use it anyway) comes from the depth of chamber to volume of chamber ratio of the body.

Woodiness: The tonewood combinations and or looser bracing gives a woody sound

To me, as our frind Hesh pointed out; Darkness is in notes played and the attack used. you can get a dark feel by tuning down, playing in minor scale, pick techniques and so forth. Look at Tracy Chapman a lot of her music has a dark tone. But it is the combamations of notes and attack not the guitar she plays.

Maybe using an ebony saddle instead of bone and using wood pins would slant away from bright.

_________________
"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Dominic:

There are not many references to 'free plate tuning' the way I do it, except for the articles I wrote for 'American Lutherie' some time ago. I think they're out in BRB4. At any rate, what I call 'dark' tone has less to do with the way the top is tuned when off the guitar, and more to do with the way all of the parts work together when it's assembled.

'Dark' is, of course, a subjective term, and I'll note that that's probably one reason why you're getting such a range of advice on how to get it. I might not use mahogany if I was trying to make what I think of as a 'dark' sounding guitar, but it gives Don what he's looking for, and he's no dummy.

A good refernce on acoustics to start with is Jansson's 'Acoustics for Violin and Guitar Makers', which you can download free from:
http://www.speech.kth.se/music/acviguit4/

Get part1.pdf through part9.pdf. They will also give you a link to a free sound recording and analysis program, 'Wavesurfer'. That should get you started.

RE the mahogany/rosewood issue:

Other things being equal (chuckles here), a mahogany guitar has a quicker rise time, especially in the bass, while a rosewood guitar has longer sustain. Mahogany also has higher damping than rosewood, so notes both rise and fall faster. I think that even if the spectral peaks were the same (which they aren't) , longer sustain is heard as a "darker" tone, and the more percussive fast rise time is heard as brighter.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks again to everyone for the help. Hesh maybe I recall you talking about the dvd. Anyway, it sounds like a good start. And Alan I will check out the link. I have the BRBooks and have probably read your articles. Just need a good framework to help me get a handle on it all.
Darkness in sound is subjective, but I think it can come from the several places. The tune can be dark because of the choice of notes. It can be played with darkness in attack as mentioned. But sounds can be dark like they say that a del Gesus violin is said to be dark compared with a strad.

I like Howard’s point about sustain, and MichaelP’s description of throatiness. I think of it in terms presence or closeness. A bright sound is heard closed but quickly passes. A dark sound, like throatiness, seems to come from further away and is sustained and powerful like an echo in a cave, hollow and resonant.
Cheers
Dom

[QUOTE=drwhite] Also, don't forget picks and strings - they make a huge difference. I find a lot of people have been using the same strings and picks for years and would be well served to keep trying out new options every year or two as a persons ears mature and tastes change.[/QUOTE]

I reckon Dave's on the money with this, I tried a few buffalo horn picks a while back. The feel and flex was about right, the thumb nail test was fine with a good loud click, but no doubt about it, when it came to playing the tone of the guitar was much softer and...well...darker than my usual stiff plastic job. I would never use a buffalo horn nut or bridge on a guitar, if you want that kind of tone, just shove a pillow in the soundhole. I also found flat-wound strings sound a little darker.

Cheers

Kim