New ideas for GJ guitar designs

Buco

So is the sound port completely independent from the rest of the design of the instrument?
In other words, port or not the rest stays the same?

That would be cool idea to entertain doing someday.
I always thought it's a nice feature on the Park guitar my buddy John has.
I could always hear my own guitar in the loud jams but sometimes during bar gigs the crowd can get so loud to the point of me playing completely relying on memory, can't hear a thing.

pdg

Those jams are probably the result of rhythm guitarists not caring that they're drowning out the leads.
Also, some makers put a large oval port on the lower bout near the waist -- look at Breedlove guitars.

crookedpinky

Hi Buco certainly in my Alex Bishop guitar the rest of the guitar is built just like a normal Selmer/Maccaferri.

wim

No. They sound a lot louder from behind the guitar, but I think you lose some power and volume projecting off the top.

Some guitars feel like they're quite quiet from the players point of view, then when you sit in the "line of fire" they sound like a cannon all of a sudden. The ones with the sound port are kind of like the opposite of that, though I'm just generalizing based on the 3 or 4 I've tried.

Buco

Looks like Bob H agrees with your statement.
Maybe no sound port on my guitar then.

That really surprised me a couple of years ago at DiJ when I played Michael's Selmer in a jam and was thinking to myself "wow it's really quiet" and then passed the guitar to someone else and realized it was positively the guitar with the most projection in the room.

crookedpinky

Here's an article from Mcknight Guitars on the effect of sound ports in acoustic guitars. I haven't done anything as scientific but my ears tell me that the effect of the sound port is exactly as described in the article.
http://www.mcknightguitars.com/soundports.html

Buco

So how involved is making a sound port is.
As easy as drilling an opening or...?

crookedpinky

Ha ha now your asking. There are a number of "how to's" on the internet, I put one into a Dell Arte Pigalle and I simply drilled a series of small holes inside a template and then filed it back until it was an oval shape. I then simply glued some reinforcement on the inside using a thin sheet of mahogany veneer.

Buco

Well you know, while I'm always up for a good experiment this is not the same as trying a new set of strings.
But as long as I'm fairly sure it isn't too detrimental to the projection I'd be willing to do it.

That said thought this whole sound pressure level stuff poses more questions than it gives clear answers for me.
That is when it comes to the perceivable volume and projection of the guitar sound.
I actually wanted to ask that question in a separate thread for a while.
Why?
Because according to the SPL meter, my Martin is as loud as my Ivanovski. Both from a couple of feet and 12 feet of distance.
Yet when you strum the two, there's no question which one is "louder", Ivanovski by far.
I don't know what gives and how do measure and define this loudness but it would seem it is much more subjective than measurable.

scot

Selmer-type construction - preloaded top, long scale, floating bridge and very light strings - will have a characteristic sound. That kind of construction will give a fast attack, plenty of amplitude and a fast decay; you hear more of each individual tone when you play a chord. Martin-type construction - x-brace, pin bridge, etc - gives a pretty fast attack but a longer decay. So you hear more of the "chord", sort of a sonic wash. The Selmer-type guitar will always sound punchier and thus louder. Then there is the logarithmic way an SPL meter measures decibels - SPL just measures the pressure of the sound wave, not sound. Mostly useful for measuring the overall offensiveness of someone's car stereo or for a cop to measure the noise level of your motorcycle

To return to the original post, I used D'Addario .012 phosphor bronze strings on my Favino for several years before Argentines were available in the USA. Never had a problem and they sounded just fine.

Guitar buyers tend to be pretty conservative about guitars, and for good reason. Most people don't buy very many top-end guitars in a lifetime, maybe only one or two. So when you spend all that money, you want to be certain that you get exactly what you want. Will's recent post about remaking his custom guitar tells the tale very well. It is usually wealthy collectors who have commissioned builders to experiment. I have tinkered with a lot of guitars over the years; I usually buy an inexpensive one to learn on. I'd cut a sound port in a Saga, but never in my Favino - a mod like a sound port might have a very different effect on an inexpensive factory guitar than on a fine guitar. All pretty complicated...

So - who here knows what the overall effect of changing the length/break angle of a string between the bridge and the tailpiece is; a longer vs a shorter tailpiece? It does something, I'm sure. But what?