Official Luthiers Forum!

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to tell myself that wanting to
jump back into an acoustic build was just my desire to spend money on a
toy I'd lose interest in. But the more I tell myself I'm learning from past
mistakes, the more I think I won't abandon this one and am seriously
considering another build.    

My question is about back/sides and tone as I think this project out
before I submit it to myself for a final approval :)

At school we had this Kawai concert grand piano (the 9ft kind). Every not
was so independent and separate from the others. It was a tremendous
piano for the classical choral pieces it accompanied. You could play a
chord and hear every note independent of the others. It would've been
the equivalent of a fingerstylist's dream guitar.

My favorite piano is a six foot steinway grand. Play a chord and all the
notes melt together. I wouldn't call it a more mellow sound because it's
brighter; the notes just tend to meld into one another more.

Does that distinction make sense? Attack of the player certainly effects
the brilliance of the notes, but overall the steinway has less separation. I
feel somewhat certain about this, because all the chords in my little bag
of tricks are dense, bulbous sounding things (like Bb F G# C C#) and
either piano really effects their character.

Does this all make sense? I hope. I don't know how to describe it without
sound clips. Ribbon mic vs. small condensor if that makes it any easier.

Aesthetically, I love ziricote. Brad Goodman just sent me a piece for my
amp project that makes me love it even more. Which side of things does
ziricote lend itself to? Are there other "pretty" rosewoods if ziricote
definitely isn't the right way to go? I've always loved the look of
madagascar, but the stuff I've seen lately seems rather plain compared
the the cuts I've seen on cataloges (Like the stuff Mattia got from Spain,
and Brock used once).      

I know the default answer is going to kind of be, "You can make a wood
do anything if you build it that way," but I'm really asking about the
natural character of the species.

HI James

In my experience Ziricote produces a very Bright sounding guitar, purhaps overly bright. It lacks the richness of rosewood.

Ziricote is an ebony and has a nasty tendancy to crack, both whilst bending and on the completed guitar.

For Rosewood

Madagascan as you say can show really nice figure, Cocobolo is another one that can be stunning, but there are some difficulties in handling it, Kingwood is another option for Rosewood that can have great figure, East Indian can be found that displays some wilder grain than normal, and of course Brazilian can be Pretty.

Thanks Russell. That's very dissappointing, but very helpful :) I have
some cocobolo now.

Can you think of other tonewoods that aren't necessarily dalbergias that
lend themselves to what I described above?

A little trick on bending African crackwood (Ziricote) is to flood the sides with thin CA a day or two before bending.

[QUOTE=MichaelP] A little trick on bending African crackwood (Ziricote) is to flood the sides with thin CA a day or two before bending.[/QUOTE]

That's MEXICAN crackwood. Tsk tsk.

James

The two that spring imediately to mind are Cuban Mahogany and Bubinga, Black Limba might be an option, I have not used it but it looks stunning and I'm told the tone is close to a Mahogany, one that I like, but that is not particularily figured is a Pearwood.

Hope this helps a little

I had a comback but could be conciderd polittical so I will Just set here and smile and grin setting on my sack of seeds

Can you name the song and artist> MichaelP38887.6219907407

As far as I can tell, the attributes of the back and side wood that have the most bearing on tone aqre the density and damping factor. Density is easy. Damping is related to how long the thing 'rings' when it's tapped. All of the rosewoods have fairly high density and low damping, so if you're looking for a substitute, that's what to look for.

I'll note that, in some ways, density and damping can be traded off, one for the other. I made a guitar of persimmon wood, which has fairly high damping, and it sounded very 'rosewoody', I think because the density was also high. Bubinga is another wood like that.

Osage Orange is right up there with BRW in terms of both density and damping; it's practically a drop-in replacement. You've gotta love the color, though.

If this is your first I'd stay away from the 'fancy' wood. What's wrong with Indian rosewood?

Michael,

That would be the New Lost City Ramblers doing "The Wildwood
Weed"

I've been meaning to learn that tune but have been short on Round-
Tuits recently!

Cheers,

Louis

_________________
- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

Right song but actually Jim Stafford made it a hit in the early 70'sMichaelP38887.6334953704

I love your description of the piano sounds. Because most of the piano keys have three strings you can hear them "melt together" if they are slightly out of tune from one another by a few cents. I liken the Kawai to a guitar with maple back and sides and the Steinway to a rosewood.

I built my son a guitar out of Ziricote that he picked out at Colonial Tonewoods because of its beauty. Ziricote is not an ebony but it pretends to be when working it although I had no trouble bending the sides. His guitar is articulate yet it does have a warmness about it - its sustain is incredible! I coupled the Ziricote with an Engelmann Spruce top.

With the second set of Ziricote I purchased from Colonial I plan to use a Western Red Cedar top and antcipate some beautiful sounds.

Thanks again, guys. This is really helpful for me.

Mark, did you find the ziricote to be bright? I'm glad the piano
description made sense! It was the only thing I could think of.

Russell, the cuban mahogany seems like an attractive choice to me. It has
more density than the standard stuff, right?

I'm going to go with my cocobolo. I already have it, it's attractive, and it's
machined. All good things!

James, my first guitar was a cedar/ziricote SJ. At first it was as some said, very bright. So bright, that I thought I really messed up the bracing etc. Then I played it constantly, and it is now one of the very best sounding guitars I know of. Part of what you're describing is also related to the top as well. But the reflectivity of ziricote makes for a very strong sound, that when couple with any wood can really have a lot of punch and volume. It may not be a true ebony (it's a cordia) but it does have a lot of similar characteristics. But it also has the beauty...more so than most any other wood in my book.

You can't go wrong with the cocobolo. Just one small bit of help...the thinner you go with the back, the better it's going to sound, and the more like BRW. That's also a good idea because it's pretty dense.

The other thing you're going to want to do is figure out which spruce or other topwood you want to use, and part of what will govern that is the application you plan on using the guitar for.

_________________
"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."

Thanks Don. There are some "new" spruces out there since I was last in
it. I'm trying to find out more about carpathian. I like red, but I'm not a
fan of sitka. I can't remember immediately, but I believe my cocobolo's .8
or .85. I took it thinner than normal for that very reason.

Gee, .80 is really thick! You can resaw two sets from that almost!

You're fine there, and it wouldn't even hurt to go a tad thinner. I know some folks who take it to .075".

_________________
"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."

I have used carpathian quite a bit. I like it. I don't know that it is any better or worse than any other type of spruce, it is all in how you work it.

But it is pretty stiff and white as white gets.

Again so much of this is in how you work the woods, if you know ziricote tends to be bright built your top to compensate for this and you can negate these factors. Don't take this as a critisism (because I did it too, but) I really think you can over analyze this stuff. Every piece of wood is different, at this point it seems like the best exercise is just to put the chisel on the wood and try to keep track of what is happening.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=Don Williams] Gee, .80 is really thick! You can resaw two sets from that almost!

You're fine there, and it wouldn't even hurt to go a tad thinner. I know some folks who take it to .075".

[/QUOTE]

or I have seen some as thin as .06"

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Hi James

I believe Cuban is denser (well some is there is much variation) Dave sent me some sound files a while back and I would have sworn I was listening to a rosewood guitar, it was made of Cuban.

On the Top if it is seperation you are after the carpathian might be a good choice.

Brock I take your point that each piece of wood is different, but to me there are clear distinctions between species in terms of the colour they add.

I see it this way, you choice your blend from the woods available, and then through whatever process you use, you find pieces within the species chosen to try to determine your result, of course the other elements come in to play to influence the final result, but these are all about your style as a maker and should be roughly predictable.

Last year I built two guitars with the objective of making one of them a fingerstyle guitar were every note had its own personality and chords sounded like 6 seperate notes singing together. The other guitar was for accompanying myself while singing and mostly playing chords. The sound I wanted here was a deep base and chords should sound well blended. The result was exactly like I hoped.

I didn't want to rely of just the tonewood to make these differences. I wanted every aspect of each guitar to move toward the goal. Here is what I did:

The fingerstyle guitar is a mahagony/redwood OM. I used a pyramid bridge to give me a wider string seperation. The redwood top was very stiff even after I planed it down to .12. I wanted bright so I left this stiff wood a little thick to add even more stiffness. I didn't want the guitar to be too shrill so I used scalloped braces. I believe that scalloped braces help to make the note blend a little better. I don't know why I think this, but I do.

The strummer guitar is a bubinga/engleman 0000(M) body. The 0000(M) isn't seen much any more and I think that that is a shame. It is 16" wide and otherwise looks like an OM from a distance. It is about as deep as an OM as well. I used the bubinga because it is what I had and I thought it was pretty. The engleman was not very stiff at all. I almost didn't use it. After I planned it down to .12 it seemed almost floppy. It was otherwize beautiful. I went ahead and build with it. This guitar has a standard Martin belly bridge. The braces are scallopped but I left them a bit tall because the top was so floppy.

Both guitars have maple bridge plates/ bone nut and saddle, and mahagony stacked heal necks.

The result was pretty close to my objective. The 0000 is one of the best sounding guitars I've heard. People who don't know I built it will spontaneously comment on how good it sounds. Chords blend together very well but there is enough seperation to make it playable as a fingerstyle guitar as well. The downside is that the thin engleman top does not have much headroom. Once you are playing the guitar a certain volume, strumming harder just makes the sound muddy. Fortunately, that happens when playing pretty loud and the guitar is usable in almost all playing situations execpt for accompanying a band of 6 or more. The main cavity resonance is F# which is just about perfect for a deep bass.

The OM is pretty bright. Each string has its own character and chords sound like 6 notes instead of a single chord. For fingerstyle it is wonderful. When I first strung it up I thought that it might be too bright and not have enough bass. The main resonace is all the way up at A. The low E and F notes tend to die off faster than I'd like. Most of the brightness problems have gone away once I started playing not stop for a few months. If I were doing it again, I would have trimmed down the braces some and perhaps thnned the top to .10.

My guess is, to answer your original question, is to have a stiff lightly braced top for good note seperation and have a less stiff top with stronger braces to get well blended chords. Making the volume of the body cavity bigger is also probably a factor.