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So many times you hear that the Top wood makes the biggest impact on the sound, Well so may be, BUT after listening to this video clip, I get confused.
I know the Top wood is of major importance to the tone. But would it really be such a drastic change as shown in this video below. ? if we "lets say"- took a sitka top vs a adi vs a redwood top, with the same back/sides. Compared to for example a back/sides with Macassar or maple or EIR, with the same top.
what makes the biggest changes in the sound "if they were all braced the same etc,". Would changing a top show as big a tonal difference.

Also, does anyone have any comparison in sound, between Michael Paine´s SJ "plan", regular back bracing vs star "X" bracing. I am not sure on what back bracing I will choose. so help is needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUSEJR6wG74&feature=related

Lars

Thank You!

The back and sides make a huge tonal contribution in determining the tone, balance and harmonic content that
a guitar exhibits. The top determines the entire set of dynamic characteristics and a very large part of the tone, but
you can't count the back and sides out and just consider them a support structure for the top.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

To my ears, the Sapele was the best sounding. I would suppose that it is the least expensive also?

Maybe I have cheap ears?

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Reguards,

Ken H

Thanks for posting that. As for uniformity of build, Taylor has to be about as consistent as anyone. I think it's safe to say that Taylor builds their tops and braces to dimension rather than deflection so the stiffness of the top and brace wood may be different between guitars but I still think it's a valid comparison.

I wish they played one with BRW.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

I would wager you could hear just as much or more difference between three different Taylor guitars using the same back and side woods, whether they be 314, 414, 814, etc. Just because these guitars use different woods for the backs and sides doesn't mean those woods account solely for the difference in their tones. Even if this guy had carefully measured the stiffness, weight, and dampening of each of the tops and all the brace wood used and they were all equal in every respect, just a couple inches or a couple degrees off in the mic placement could potentially have a major impact on the tone.

I'm not saying that the wood chosen for the back and side of a guitar doesn't make a major impact on tone, but to imply that you can make a prediction of the tone of a guitar only given the particular species for the back and sides as this video does seems just plain wrong to me.

lars,

i've only built 8 guitars, so make sure you take that in to account. when i built my first guitar i decided to go with englemann (it has a reputation for sounding rounder, less edgy, than sitka) and ei rosewood (a reputation for a nice bass response and for being easy to bend). that first guitar turned out to sound great and was obviously a good enough experience to keep me building.

all that said, though, my hunch is that a first time builder could really overthink all the variables, permutations, and combinations. pick any of the common top woods, and back and sides that are easily bent (don't start with something like ziricote for example), and you're going to be excited by what you build. as far as x bracing or ladder bracing the back goes, my own feelings are that this really starts to get into nuance - likely amounting to sound differences that are beyond perception to the average listener and maybe even to the average player. however your first guitar ends up sounding will probably have very little to do with a decision like that. x brace it if you feel adventurous, ladder brace it if you want to limit the variables on your first build.

again, remember this is just my humble opinion. good luck as you start building.

phil

Some people will have good ears for this, some less, and some not good at all. Just like vision and smell.

I 'like' Indian Rosewood, but when Ive played and recorded it, it was too thin for my style, or too new??? Who knows.

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

I dont think we were hearing 'pure " tone , there was some amplification , and possibly some effects, or at least some sustain. I think in a live setting the differences would be more subtle, noticable , but more subtle.actualy its almost decptive how they did that . I heard one of their koa guitars, live unamplified, it was o.k. but it didnt sound nearly as lively as this " test"
it is my understanding taylor does not voice their tops, it would be interesting to hear three of the same model, side by side.since all of their braces are identical dimensions , the differences would be in the stiffness of the tops and braces . Jody

thanks for all your answers. But I still feel the question stands ! Is the top more important for the tone, or the back/sides ?
I agree that the recording sounds "to me" like it has some compression on it, or just over gained. But as all 3 recordings sound like they were recorded the same way, with about the same distances to the mic and position, it clearly shows that the back and sides makes a major impact on the sound of the guitars. Sure, the top wood for the specific guitar will be different, "stiffness etc" but that would "to me" be a more of a nuances matter.
I always though that the topwood helt most of the "tone" and back/sides, more support and nuances to the tone. After this video I am thinking its the other way, the B/S gives the "tone" and the top give the nuances of the tone. ??

So again - if we "lets say"- took a sitka top vs a adi vs a redwood top, with the same back/sides, same bracing, same stiffness etc.
Compared to for example a back/sides with Macassar or maple or EIR,
What makes the biggest changes in the sound "if they were all braced the same etc,". Top or B/S ? Would changing a top show as big a tonal difference as shown on the Video ?.

Lars


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUSEJR6wG74&feature=related

Lars,

Well I would think that to test your hypothesis you would have to make say three or four guitars with the same back/sides wood and bracing but with different tops - say spruce, cedar, mahogany. koa - and then compare their sounds. If you are right there will only be minor differences.

It's a bit like saying what contributes most to the taste in a dish - the meat or the herbs/seasonings/spices? Cook a beef dish with very different seasonings and the taste alters. Cook the same seasonings with different meats and the taste alters again.

My own personal view is that most of the "tone" comes from the maker. That is if you take a group of instruments made by the same maker but using very different woods, the signature tone of the builder will be the most common link with various subtleties and nuances.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Think about it this way: The only part of the guitar that the string is driving directly that is reasonably effective at producing sound is the top. MAYBE a little energy sneaks in from the neck, although I'm skeptical. But whatever the back and sides do to make sound, they have to get the great majority of the energy out of the top first. So what the top does is most important.

Building to dimension as Taylor, or any manufacturer must, will only get you to a certain level of consistency. Any species of wood shows enough variation within itself in properties, and overlaps so many other species, that you're simply talking about averages. If you compared a hundred koa guitars with a hundred rosewood ones, you'd probably find some difference on the average, but it would not be too hard to find a few guitars of either wood that would be impossible to tell from the other.

Even matching wood at the level of cutting pieces from the same boards, and then working carefully to dimension, won't guarantee 'identical' sounding guitars. You can get close, you might even get lucky and hit it just right once in a while, but you can also end up with instruments that are clearly different, although similar.

This is one of the reasons that 'scientific' lutherie is so hard to do: it's almost impossible to isolate variables!If we really could make 'matched' guitars easily then studies of things like wood varieties and 'playing in' would be pretty simple. As it is we just have to keep on keeping on as best we can.

Lars my friend I agree with Al - the energy or engine of a guitar is the top. This is not to say that many other things don't come into play to compliment or inhibit the energy/sound coming from the top. But if you have to pick one thing, as I believe you are asking, IMHO the top is where it all starts.

On another note I love your avatar photo but I am also very glad that your name is not Hannibal Lector.......

Hesh, the Avatar is me and my little angel of a son Jonathan. .. and I am happy to, that I am not H - lector hahaha.

Ok, well I agree and understand what your all saying, but I am also looking at it this way , I am a carpenter, and have built a few music studios. One drum-room had walls covered with plain wood, this room as a guitar was recorded in it, sounded , well, woody ! another room sounded damped, cause of its walls were covered with damping material. Now, the sound did not "start" from the walls, allthough the walls colored the sound by its type. Is it fair to say that the top "and builder" gives the guitar its caracter, and the B/S its foundation - its walls.

Oh, I Just read what Kevin Gallagher wrote : "you can't count the back and sides out and just consider them a support structure for the top". So I guess i am wrong in this to hmm haha.
Dave I understand you like food .

Lars.

When the "theory" of how guitars work doesn't jibe with results, which do you trust? Maybe those recordings are doctored but they sure match my experience of the effect of different back/side woods. I built with wenge for the first time recently and I had built the same model with IRW just before it. In spite of having never built with wenge before, the guitar sounded exactly as I expected based on the tap tone of the wenge. Compared to the IRW one, the wenge has more brilliance on the trebles, more articulation between notes, and more sustain.

Surely we are capable of fooling ourselves with preconceptions but one of the jobs of a builder is to learn to listen objectively. I'm constantly working on that because I don't have the natural gift of good ears that some folks do. But I have found that, deluded as I may be, the contribution of the back/side wood is far from subtle.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Interesting! I’m going to add something similar to this thread but do so knowing I am a dolt at this stuff. While in Hawaii recently I stopped in to visit Mike Chock of Hana Lima ‘Ia where I took my building school. I told him of my future plans to build a ukulele with a top that can be removed. The plan would allow me to try different bracing, thickness, bridges, bridge patch, wood, and deflection on the same instrument. The goal would be a better understanding of how to produce a consistently better than average sound. We discussed it for a while and he thought it was a great idea. The idea actually came from a class demonstration about sound where he removes the back of an instrument. Anyway, future to me means anytime from now till never. My problem as always is no time, skill, tools, or space.

Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Lars, I think your last post makes a great comparison. The way geometry and treatment in a studio is carefully designed because of its direct role in creating the acoustic space of a room via amplitude and reflection.

I usually compare it all to color, saying that the top is like the hue of a color, and the back and sides are the value.

http://char.txa.cornell.edu/language/el ... /color.htm

Here's a thought to ponder....

We all know that Ervin Somogyi is well known for his theories and practices of pushing the limits with a guitar top to achieve the best tone/volume/sustain etc. that is possible from a given top/instrument. But he is also known by a good many to be hoarding and using as much Brazilian Rosewood as he can get his hands on. It would seem obvious to me that Mr. Somogyi has some insights into the role of back and side woods if he has such a keen interest in a specific species of wood for the back and sides also.
Like I said....something to ponder.

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"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."

Don, with all due respect, maybe Somogyi is starting with one of many relatively similar sounding tonewoods because it helps to keep the final price of the instrument close to $25K.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

what my ears hear from that video is a very similar high frequency response on all 3 models....its the bass and mids that differ...

having been a player for over 30 years I've never subscribed to the concept that its all in the top and has very little to do with the sides/backs...NEVER...

all the BRW guitars I've played had a very unique tonal response unlike any other RW...deeper across the whole spectrum...EIR tends to sound brighter and more pronounced (which I dislike when compared to BRW)...maple totally lacks in the low end when compared to any other woods I've played...myrtle which is often compared to maple is far mellower and much more well rounded in its spectrum....

the body of a guitar is for all effective purposes a box...all the components are attached and its totally obvious to me that the vibration of the sound engine (the top) is affected by the sides and back (which are part of the box)...

there is no doubt the top is probably the most important factor in the performance of the box, but to me a major part of the overall tonality is the back/side effect...

I'm sure some mathematician could pull out some fourier analysis and prove it, but really one doesn't need n-dimensional math to get a number, rather just think of it as a very complex wave form whose 'value' depends upon all variables...

I agree guys and would add that limiting oneself to fewer "core" woods would in my way of thinking contribute greatly to efforts to optimize.

I have commented before on my impressions of two Somogyi guitars that I played last year at HGF. In both cases after the initial, strong, clear note was heard I also heard very soon after the back kick in not unlike a turbo charged car also with the turbo lag. It was very clear to me that although Ervin is perhaps best known among builders for his top voicing classes he is also tricking out the backs too IMHO. Clearly Ervin's approach to building is from a system perspective.

Hmmm....no, I don't think that's necessarily the case, although I would agree that it probably factors strongly into the equation. I think a lot of folks who have used a number of different woods and then built with Brazilian will tell you the same thing...there's just something *special* about the tone/coloration that Brazilian offers that very few other woods can match. Certainly Madrose and Amazon Rosewood come awfully close, but even if Brazilian were still plentiful and there was an abundant supply, I think Mr. Somogyi would still mainly use Brazilian. If it were abundant and reasonably priced, I wouldn't use anything else unless it were mahogany or an acacia (Koa, Tas Blackwood). To me, it's that good.

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"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."

No one has said much about how the strings affect the sound yet. In my limited experience, by far the biggest contribution to the tone of a guitar is string choice - much more than wood choice to my untrained ears.

Were the strings on each guitar in the comparison video the same type, size, batch, and had they been on all three guitars for exactly the same time, with the same amount of playing on each guitar? I wonder......

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Lars, I think maybe the answer to your question is , basicly , and sometimes most subtly , every thing you do can have an effect on the tone of the guitar in different ways .. lining materials, bridge plate , bridge, fret wire , etc etc,,Tops can be manipulated to offer more treble or base . I think the contribution of the back and side woods , would be better described as a quality of sound . rosewoods seem to offer a wider,fuller more abundant (in overtones) spectrum of sound .mahogany seeems to offer a narrower more concise range, which many consider to be a more "balanced " spectrum. where the rosewood sounds stronger to many people played unplugged , the mahogany it seems, sounds better to many that wish to record the guitar.
it takes many, many, builds to master the various combinations of subtle tone adjusting that is available. if you were asking this question to determine a choice of tonewood for your back and sides for your first build , I would reccomend walnut. its spectrum of sound falls somewhere between rosewoods and mahogany, it is relatively inexpensive, relativly easy to work , and an awesome sounding guitar can be made from it . Jody

all 3 of those guitars were Taylors....all current Taylors come with Elixer strings of the same gauge when shipped...I think it is a fair assumption they were all equipped with said strings...I can vouch for the fact that Elixers retain their sound for a long time (I actually hate them)...

your point is very good as I've found changing gauges and brands of strings to create a desired effect is a great way to get a 'new' sound when recording...the only 'rule' I have is that I use John Pearse medium lights for playing live...other than that the sky is the limit...

all things being held equal, guitars of different tonewoods will sound different when they are equipped with the same strings

IMHO the wood specie selected for back and sides is the first variable to consider how to tune the back. To me, the structure of the back makes a lot more difference than say choosing between braz and madrose. That said, there may be some golden ears around that can pick the braz one in the speculative blind test between 2 otherwise similar guitars. I do not believe I could.