Why do Oval holes sometimes sound like Tin Cans ??

constantine

Yes I know, the thin raspy sound is the trademark Django sound. I have played many o-hole guitars and find so many of them to have a very thin sound. BUT, when I hear CD's from guys like Lagrene or S. Rosenberg, the recorded sound is awesome, not thin at all. Does anyone know why? Is it their guitars, pickups? Are all of the gypsy guitars under $3000 tin can sounding?

Stackabones

Isn't perspective important when considering tone?

I've always found that a guitar sounds a bit different when I play it versus hearing it played. Tone, volume, etc sounds different.

Bob Holo

You can 'fatten' a guitar's sound through good mic placement & EQ, but there are a whole bunch of reasons that oval hole guitars (factory and custom) can sound thin and tinny. If the soundboard is floppy and needs to be left thick (many factory guitars have thicker tops because the wood quality is variable and they want to make sure the thing stays in one piece and has some tone - if you really thin a floppy piece of wood the tone just goes away altogether)

But it's not just variable wood quality of factory guitars - the mass of the 4th brace (the one under the tailpiece - Django's has none... an extreme example of lightening this brace) the size of the hole relative to the size of the body cavity (which functions as a helmholz chamber) a bridge that is the wrong mass for the top or that is poorly fit, a neck that is not sufficiently rigid or that is overdamped and basically steals selectively from the guitar's vibration... those are just the major things that can contribute to a "small" sounding guitar. The various arc radii and profile of the braces, the tuning of the soundboard (if any was done at all) the interaction of the action height of the guitar and the neck angle and the string gauge producing the right amount of tension to load the soundboard without overloading it, the method with which the pliage was achieved (stressed or bent) and what that means to all of the variables above. All of these things and more.

Why do I know this? Well, because I happen to have a small voiced guitar... the second gypsy jazz guitar I ever bought... the brand is irrelevant because there are a lot of small voiced guitars out there of many makes and every factory is bound to produce a few I suppose. It cost me a fair bit of money and the store wouldn't take it back so I started trying to fix it... which was originally the thing that got me started in luthiery. I eventually gave up trying to fix it. Someday I'll just "retop" it when I have time as its problem isn't a simple fix.

django'spooltalent

There are many factors that could contribute to the tinny sound. How is your rest stroke, where are you picking? When playing my gitane, I like to use a thick pick, 4-5mm, for now I think that will improve the tinniess of the guitar, but I know stochelo uses a pretty thin 1.5 mm (i think), and still gets some nice tone, but his technique is there.

Good luck

djangology

I would say the sound is due to the fact that the strings are not strung in a "hardtail" fashion. Because of the archtop and tailpiece, there is a certain about of flexibility in the strings that results from it. This is my personal opinion on why the strings ring with a little bit of buzz (lower "quality" of the note).

You gain MUCH with these guitars in return for this problem with the note quality. In return you gain better ability to use vibrato in your solos and the extra bendiness gives the rest stroke technique a bit more syncopation/bounce to the picking strokes.

The gypsy rhythm and solo techniques are modeled after these guitars, especially the modern style of playing, and if using any other style of guitar the "gypsy techniques" wouldn't have nearly the same effect.

I know i am not very clear in the way I describe this, but it makes sense from my point of view, after playing this stuff for a few years.

nwilkins

I have just skimmed these posts so this may already have been mentioned, but the players themselves account for much of the tone of their instruments.

Case in point - Stochelo Rosenberg has a distinctive tone whether he's using a Favino, Selmer or Eimers. Sure the guitars sound a bit different, but his basic distinctive tone remains the same. The tone you can get from a guitar has a lot to do with technique. I remember hearing a Favino (now owned by Michael Horowitz) played by Don Vink who is a great Dutch guitarist - the guitar sounded fine. Then Nous'che Rosenberg played a few lines on it and the guitar sounded amazing. Same guitar, different player.

djangology

I agree exactly with the above statement (by nwilkins). Like I said before, the gypsy rhythm and solo techniques are modeled after these guitars and so no other style of guitar will perform as well using the gypsy jazz techniques. If a guitar sounds like a tin can to you, then you are playing it wrong.