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Old vs modern sound
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Armando
Posts: 302
Joined: May 27 2005
From: Zürich, Switzerland
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Old vs modern sound
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Hi guys I was rencently into the romantic guitar because i have decided to build a replica of a Panormo guitar. By listening to a number of guitars of the 1810 to 1850 period from french, italian, english and spanish makers i realized that many of those guitars have a box like tone close to what we know from the Ukulele today. When looking at the Panormo plans availlabe on the web i was surprised to see that they apparently had a top thickness of 2.5 to 2.3mm and about an equal thickness for the back. This came very much as a surprise to me because those guitars are smaller than the modern ones with a scale length of only about 630mm. So yes, a guitar of that size with such thick top and back will likely produce a box like sound with lot's of treble and little bass. In case of Panormo there is also a seven fan bracing system which seems to me to add to the overbuild. I know most luthiers will argue that all of that will depend on the stiffness of the material used and basically i agree, but according to my personal experience there is rarely any spruce around that floppy that a top thickness of 2.5mm would be justified. As much as i know, Torres worked with much thinner tops of <1.5mm on many of his guitars and they never had a box like sound. For the Panormos, not all of them have that either. Some of them are sounding very pleasing too. So, i'm wondering if the tops were made that thick on purpose ,becasue that box like sound was in fashion back then or if it was just done because of lack of knowing better. It's known that just around 1800 the guitar went from the 11 course to the 6string guitar, so a guitar with the nearly double amount of strings will need to have a stronger soundboard. Is it that they just forgot to adapt the thickness to 6 strings? We also know that excpet the spanish luthiers most other luthiers of the period used the ladder bracing as known from the luthe construction. This ofcourse resulted in a brighter tone of the guitar per say. The majority of guitars made by spanish luthiers of that period however do not have that box like sound probably because they worked with finer thicknesses and a floating fan bracing system. Anyone some insights on this?
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Date Dec. 23 2020 16:50:24
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Old vs modern sound (in reply to Armando)
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quote:
Ricardo - “Box like sound” is 100% subjective and means absolutely nothing. We can talk in terms of mids trebles and basses though quote:
Armando - “A specific sound is hard to describe with words and even more difficult to explain differencies in sound coloration and timbre. I think Stephen Faulk understood best what i mean.” But you have no way of knowing this for certain, precisely for the reason Ricardo is stating. Some descriptive words, like “bright”, “deep”, “resonant”, “harsh”, or “clear” can be fairly easily correlated to the tonal spectrum or a response characteristic, but words like “boxy”, “woody”, “lyrical” are pretty subjective and can mean wildly different things to different people. Maybe you and Stephen are outliers and the rest of the planet attributes “box-like” to an entirely different sonic characteristic. Or maybe not. The only way to know is to assign specific examples to the description. My point is, perhaps the use of vague terms is not going to be helpful when attempting to address what are often posed as highly specific questions about implementation. It appears that you may have a target sound that you’re trying to achieve. I have no idea what that is. It appears Stephen does. Will John or Scott? Who knows? It’ll depend on what their idea of “boxy” means. Maybe they won’t even want to get involved in a discussion based on vague terms. I used to have an old teacher from my electronics days who would say “if you want to be an engineer, you have to start to think like an engineer.” I think this also applies to guitar making. It’s OK to analyze and discuss, but at the end of the day, building a couple in each of the styles that you’re curious about is likely going to get you further. It’s a forest for the trees thing, sometimes having a laser like focus on a specific detail isn’t going to get the job done, but just throwing caution to the wind and doing the job might answer the question plus a few more bonus ones, to boot. You might be surprised at what is discovered, as some previously held assumptions may get challenged. Pen on paper is good, but sawdust on the floor is a pretty good teacher, too.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 27 2020 16:11:25
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ernandez R
Posts: 739
Joined: Mar. 25 2019
From: Alaska USA
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RE: Old vs modern sound (in reply to Armando)
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Sawdust on the floor! There is a dialogue I recall, from a Lary Nivin sci fi novel, could have been Ringworld but perhaps not. The discussion is some so called scientist but really just historien who do no real resurch, they just talk about what was written and make judgments according without gaining any experience. I might have been sixteen or so. I see a lot of that today in my aviation world, so much talk but few had walked the walk and I'm talking real world experience in person, not even going to mention web forums etc... I'm vary new to building, closed up my eleventh box just the other day, but I'm seeing directions I want to go: thinner here, thicker there, tossed ten new bridge blanks on the concreat last nigh discribing density and dampening to my minion and we graded them. Then he ruined them all. Ha ha haa, I made some comment of discust, tossed them in the trash and told him to make up another batch. Sawdust indeed! HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor. www.instagram.com/threeriversguitars
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 31 2020 4:23:17
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