What makes a guitar wet or dry?

tr3topflyer

Hi everyone,

While I'm not new to guitar, I'm new to gypsy jazz guitars. When I decided to get one, I did a lot of research. I figured out how much I needed to spend to get a good sounding, good quality guitar and decided on a Stringphonic Advanced, a decision I'm very happy I made. I don't have anything to compare this guitar to but it meets the needs of what I imagined I wanted from one of these guitars based on what I heard in recordings and saw on videos. I knew I didn't want anything that sounded like a banjo, thin and tinny. My Stringphonic is loud, full and rich. And the workmanship is very nice.

When I started looking for a guitar I heard about some guitars being too "wet" and I didn't' really understand what that meant. On a flat top guitar like my Huss and Dalton, sympathetic vibrations from other strings are what makes the guitar ring and sound open. But I've learned that on a gypsy jazz guitar, they do this so much, that it can actually become a problem. Especially because the technique dictates that the wrist angle away from the bridge allowing open strings to vibrate (maybe the left hand should be more responsible for muting strings). Using a different technique you could suppress some of that sympathetic ring by muting strings that weren't be played, sort of like you do on an electric guitar being played through a loud amp.

So what makes a GJ guitar sound wet or dry. My Stringphonic does have some of this wetness but I'm told that over time this will lessen. Why? What will change to make the guitar sound dryer? Someone suggested that as the lacquer finish cures and pulls down on the wood it will exhibit this "wetness" to a lesser extent. Is this true? What are the thoughts of the those of you who have experience with these guitars. Do the 80 year old Selmers sound wet? Is this something that becomes better with age? Thanks for opinions.

Chris

lukejazz

I can't say with much authority but there can be some sympathetic ringing of strings from behind the bridge to the tailpiece. I have a Michael Dunn Belleville and he actually made me a little mute to put back there if I wanted. I also have a Dupont MD50 and I don't notice it on that model. It's definitely more pronounced on my archtop guitars, but it's kind of part the sound for those instruments.

I kind of figure that's what people are talking about when they mention wet vs. dry but of course I could be wrong.

Luke

wim

I thought a guitar is described as "wet" sounding when a note has too many overtones, whereas a "dry" sounding guitar will have most energy in the fundamental note. Of course it is never going to have 100% of the energy in the fundamental, otherwise your guitar will sound like a flute (similar like a sine wave). But the point is that overtones in a dry guitar are simple and related to the underlying fundamental note, as opposed to putting energy in weird overtones.

For example, the sound of the really low bass notes on a piano are wet (too much mass and thickness on those strings creates ugly overtones, but the other way of decreasing pitch - using longer strings - would mean the piano would be too long)

I don't really know what contributes to wet sound in a guitar, but too thick lacquer (like Gitanes have) seems to be a common suspect

Lango-Django

Damn, and here I’ve been thinking that wet guitars have more “reverb” than dry ones.

Like the sound you hear when you put your ear directly against a playing guitar or piano.

Nobody yet has mentioned anything like that, so I guess I got that wrong…?

Will

tr3topflyer

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/111987#Comment_111987

Speaking of a strong fundamental, as soon as I got my Stringphonic I've been using a Tonerite on it and the biggest change I've seen has been that the fundamental has become much more pronounced. When I talk about "wet" I'm really referring to the sympathetic vibrations of other strings which create these sort of ghost tones.

Russell Letson

Some of the wet/dry description is rooted in the same kind of voicing that makes an archtop appropriate for big-band swing and less so for, say, Celtic fingerstyle: fast attack, short decay, and relative lack of the overtones that make, say, a Goodall flat-top sound "rich" or "full" or "sweet." If you've ever heard a Hot-Club-style band with flat-tops, the difference is hard to miss.

Lead players in particular favor that dry kind of voice--though if you push too far in that direction you do indeed get a thin, nasal, banjo-y tone that is not much like what you hear from many of Django's acoustic recordings.

To my ears, the best Maccaferri-style guitars manage to produce both the cut and projection needed for leads and the solid chunk (which has a substantial bass component) of rhythm backing, which is why I settled on a Michael Dunn Daphne. That guitar can do just about anything I need to do, including fingerstyle.