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Guitar top tuning - what's the point?
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Gimar Yestra
Posts: 298
Joined: Jan. 19 2011
From: The Netherlands
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 RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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there definatly IS a purpose, It creates a guideline for the maker about the mass there is on the top. Im not saying a guitar tuned to G will be better or worse than F#, but if you go up to say A you know there is alot of mas son the top, so you will need more energy to make the top move, giving slower attack, longer sustain (this goes along with top thickness).
the thickness of the top says alot about HOW a guitar will react, there is a reason flamenco guitars are build with thinner tops: it takes less energy to make them react to string vibration. the tone comes faster, but also dies out faster, alot of awesome classical guitars ive seen were also build to +- F# pitch, but still reacted differently from proper flamenco guitars.
I've had the chance to inspect a Gerundino blanca, Eliasson negra and blanca, and a Conde blanca.
all 4 had top pitches around F# back pitched +- 1 full note higher
there is more to taptones than i have discovered, sofar its alot fo theories from my end.
I wouldnt pin down on just taptones for a good instrument, there are so much more factors that make a good instrument. But they do provide important information that can be usefull. Wether they work for you or not is a different thing, but I will be focusing more on the pitcha and taptones for my future builds.
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Date Nov. 19 2011 21:40:59
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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That is awesome that Romanillos calls bull on the tap tuning stuff and the brace shaving nonsence.
Basically you don't want the top and back to be close to one another in "tap tone" because you don't want them to vibrate in phase with each other. In other words the back is a half step to even two steps higher than the top so they don't cancel each other out by vibrating in phase to the same frequency created by the strings.
When the top and back vibrate in phase with each other it has the potential to make kinds of wave forms that "beat".
The bass strings can especially set up these beat patterns if the back and top get locked in phase. I have speculated the reason it happens is because if the back and top ring to the same basic frequency, they will have different lengths of sustain in that phase because they have different brace structures. Also because the back moves more passively than the top it has a different rate of sustain. As they move in and out of that phase at different rates of speed it creates the beating sound because they are close in phase but not close enough to move together.
I have thought about this in terms of tuning with harmonics; the harmonic on one string beats out of phase until they match. When phase shifting happens one vibrating body beats out of sync with the other until it gets in tune with the cycle of the other vibrating body. So keeping the back and top of the guitar apart at the core vibrating frequency should keep that cancelation beating from happening.
At least that is my idea about that. I could be wrong.
Tuning the top or the braces? I agree with Romanillos, it's much ado about nothing. Instead of tuning the braces, how about just getting it right before you close the guitar? I agree with him about the Hauser sound vs. the Santos /Ramirez Segovia played as well. The Hauser sound is more homogenized, velvety and charming because it's golden, but the bass lacks something the other has.
Top tuning and brace shaving are personal choices, personally I don't pay attention to that aspect of guitar making and I make better and better sounding guitars. I think the end segment with Somogyi is interesting because he says he wants a feel of freedom in the top so it can express the same looseness and tightness everywhere on the belly. I'm not interested in how he gets there, I'm only interested that he vocalizes this idea. In a sense he is talking about the same unspeakable information you learn internally an keep in you. All the weights and measures systems luthiers use to get in the zone are just place keeping devices, the real end game is thinning the top and bracing it according to your intuition, and your intuition is informed by your internalized past experience. As Romanillos said you have to have the guts to push as far the wood asks you to before it folds up on itself. It's just a game of how much risk you're willing to take. Some people spend all their time measuring everything and they usually don't understand the risk taking is the fun of building.
Applied to guitar making, I like what Michel Foucault once wrote about biography and why he disliked straight biography in favor a non linear study of a subject:
"Keeping records is the task of the police."
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Nov. 20 2011 2:44:35
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Andy Culpepper
Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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I know both ways of building because I was taught by someone who takes a very scientific/theoretical approach to building. He believes that if you get the right numbers for the top, the right numbers for the back, and all the other resonating modes are not on top of each other, that = a good guitar. And guess what, he makes FANTASTIC guitars full of soul, I mean he is really talented.
Personally, I have abandoned those techniques because I don't understand them, they were slowing me down, and I didn't see how they were helping me. My guitars have gotten better because I've trained my senses and my intuition. Most of my fine-tuning (and there needs to be a different word than tuning here because it's not about pitches), happens when the guitar is assembled before I glue the bridge on. And it's pretty much all in my thumbs, and to a lesser extent my ears now.
I've built guitars that had very flexible, thin, light tops that achieved a low resonance, and the way that kind of top feels and flexes has been filed away in my memory, so I know how far I can go even if I may not necessarily go that far on a particular guitar.
One of the things I love more than anything else about guitar making is that it truly is an expression of your personality, moreso than music in my case. Every builder does things differently according to what feels right, and that goes down to every detail of how you assemble the guitar and your working methods, all the way up to how you voice it. I do a lot of things differently than the way I learned, and sometimes I can't explain why, but I get so much joy out of doing things the way I want to. Gluing on a back center reinforcement in one piece and then notching out for the braces feels right. Hand planing a top and back to thickness feels right. Scraping a neck to adjust the shape instead of sanding feels right. You get my drift.
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Andy Culpepper, luthier
http://www.andyculpepper.com
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Date Nov. 20 2011 14:58:11
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HolyEvil
Posts: 1240
Joined: Nov. 6 2008
From: Sydney, Australia
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to Flamingrae)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Flamingrae
Read the post Evil - what we are saying is if it's part of your building make up, it is important, but you have choices and it's not the only route to go.
The thinner the top, the more it will favour lower register notes. Most makers
Hey Flam, I have read it and that's why I said it "doesn't really matter",
I think I might have phrased it wrongly, I think I should have said - it doens't matter if it's G# or F#, as long as it's not in sync with the back and it works with all the other parts of the guitar as per the experience of the maker.
it's just slightly long winded
So when you say lower register, do you mean bassier
F has more bass compared to A?
I don't have a real point, but other than my own education/knowledge.
Kinda like how knowing how a engine works don't make u a better driver, but it helps.
I like to find a more definite answer, like tuning to A would be more 'this this this', if it's more G# it's be more 'that that that'.. all things being equal of course. But I think there isn't such a clear cut answer..
The gist I'm getting is the it's not the pitch itself, A,G or F that is important, but how the soundboard feels under the fingers when combined with the braces, back, sides etc that matters. (and as Stephen said, as long as it's not the same pitch as the back)
its good to see the different luthiers pitch in on this.
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Date Nov. 20 2011 19:45:30
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to Armando)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Armando
Hi HolyEvil
Top tuning is in deed a topic with seven seals for me too. I belief that there is something to it, but to get to the right tuning is not just tuning the top to a certain frequency, it's rather having all parts of the guitar being worked in order that they work well together. My only teacher was José Romanillos and the quality of tone in his guitars convinced me, so i'm following his way of guitarmaking. When i took the course with him back in 2006, i was asking him about the whole thing of left brain lutherie and tuning stuff. He told me exactly what he tells in that video attached.
regards
Armando
You can hardly go wrong following Jose's advise but I have a slight disagreement with his sense of adjusting the sound to be more in tune with the final voicing of the instrument. Each builder has his own ideas how to do this but as Jose says, this was his opinion, not that every builder has the same opinion.
Jose says that all of the guitar comes into the arrangement of sound. I agree, but final tuning can be appropriate for the top only, to bring it into the over all majesty of an entire (one) unit, if the guitar needs it. Sometimes it is but a slight adjustment for the top to comply with this whole musical expression, where everything gels as a whole.
Now, Irvin is a little more adapted to modification of bracing, as he has been a steel strung guitar maker for many years. This allows him to see a bit clearer to use this concept for classical guitars, etc.
But I think they are both missing the point that we can micro adjust the fan bracing to be more perfectly in-line with the voicing, and articulation of left and right hand technique.
These final adjustments can be done based on accumulated knowledge, and of course, we learn this by experience. The truth is that we venture out and investigate these voicing techniques to see what we can do with them, to improve our work.
No builder today can tell me that these techniques don't work. I have enough long term experience and students that prove they do.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Nov. 21 2011 14:45:17
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
So for guitars tuned to F# instead of A (most guitars I have played are around A) it is really a different concept notching out the "normal" guitar frequency. I will say the Guitar I have that is around F# is also more bassy...but when I close mic it all I have to do is cut bass and keep it flat and it has ALWAYS sounded good.
The thing going on when tops are tuned to different main air resonances, (that is what that main note can be called, it has other technical names when you get into the science of acoustics) is that different part of the overtones series are being reinforced.
When the main air mode is lower around G or F# it does not excite the overtone series related to the A string as much. If the partials on the bass A are expressing them selves too much it can take over the guitar, and I have noticed as Ricardo has that guitars with higher main air modes are difficult to handle. They tend to have more overtone activity where you don't want it to be because it often competes with the fundamental tones. That is why you can roll the EQ back on the bass on a guitar with a lower main air resonance and get a good close mic sound. On a guitar with a lot of upper partial activity you have to cut out more through the frequency spectrum to settle it down because the mic is hearing all that overtone activity inside the body.
The A bass string is already one of the most powerful strings on the guitar, if not the most powerful so emphasizing the partial series related to that string seems like a bad idea. I've made one or two guitars with the top main air up there around A and I dislike them because they are busy, busy, busy with overtones. For a flamenco guitar too much of that in your face overtone activity is annoying.
That said, there is a difference between guitars which have little ability to get the overtones ringing and guitars which have good overtone support of the fundamental notes. Overtone activity is important because the upper partials ring in sympathy with the lower notes in the frequency rages our ears mainly hear and back them up to give them richness. But a guitar with overtones which are out of control much can be trouble.
The idea is to create ways the overtones can ring freely, but not step out and be noisy and confusing. That is why I think the higher main air resonance around A is not as much fun as one that is lower around G or F#.
However just because the main air is hitting around F# does not mean the guitar will be good. There are other factors to making flamencos work well like the idea Anders and the Spanish makers call pulsation. I learned about this but under the term 'string recovery tempo'. Anders said he thinks it is the same idea, just said another way. If one can get the main air resonance lower enough to not create an overtone confusion and get the top worked to give the right feeling under the right hand then that is the basis of getting that flamenco sound working.
Classical guitars, or guitars in which you want to emphasize the singing quality of the strings can afford to have slightly more overtone emphasis, while flamencos seem better with the overtones naturally rolled back a bit. It's a game of leaving enough overtone activity to make the guitar interesting, but not letting the upper partials create confusion against the fundamental notes. There is also a point at which the main air resonance of the top can be too low, like around E or lower and you may get a guitar that has too much slack in both the sound and the feel of the string recovery tempo. In other words a gutless guitar.
I'm not a theory wonk or an acoustic scientist so take what I say with a critical ear. But this is that way I think the main air resonance issue works in relation to the way the guitar performs under amplification and naturally.
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Date Nov. 21 2011 19:32:55
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HolyEvil
Posts: 1240
Joined: Nov. 6 2008
From: Sydney, Australia
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
The A bass string is already one of the most powerful strings on the guitar, if not the most powerful so emphasizing the partial series related to that string seems like a bad idea. I've made one or two guitars with the top main air up there around A and I dislike them because they are busy, busy, busy with overtones. For a flamenco guitar too much of that in your face overtone activity is annoying.
However just because the main air is hitting around F# does not mean the guitar will be good. There are other factors to making flamencos work well like the idea Anders and the Spanish makers call pulsation. I learned about this but under the term 'string recovery tempo'. Anders said he thinks it is the same idea, just said another way. If one can get the main air resonance lower enough to not create an overtone confusion and get the top worked to give the right feeling under the right hand then that is the basis of getting that flamenco sound working.
Classical guitars, or guitars in which you want to emphasize the singing quality of the strings can afford to have slightly more overtone emphasis, while flamencos seem better with the overtones naturally rolled back a bit. It's a game of leaving enough overtone activity to make the guitar interesting, but not letting the upper partials create confusion against the fundamental notes. There is also a point at which the main air resonance of the top can be too low, like around E or lower and you may get a guitar that has too much slack in both the sound and the feel of the string recovery tempo. In other words a gutless guitar.
did you aim for A or did it happen to end up at A, and did you change the note to something else?
these overtone you mention when the guitar is close to A comes from the A string yeah? Does it (the overtones from the A string) come up when you play eg a C note on the B string?
I'm just trying to milk all your minds.
When I had a lesson with a good guitarist last week, when he played my negra, he said he can (for a lack of a better discription) 'kinda of like hear inside the guitar' 'and it's not only the string he is hearing'.. would this be the overtones that you are talking about? That guitar is G# according to a repair guy.
So the tone of the top is somewhat related to this pulsation of the guitar, if I rem correctedly, a low pulsation guitar according to Anders would seem more like softer strings on the right hand even with higher tension strings. When you mention 'string recovery tempo' are you mentioning the SOUND of the note being played, or the TACTILE return of the string to the start position (where you struck the note)..
cheers Stephen..
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Date Nov. 21 2011 20:52:08
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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Holy
You really get mental with these theoretical questions. We can continue answering something which is very difficult to put in words and based on our answers, you can continue making your supermental questions. I doubt very much that you´ll learn much from that.
A guitar with a higher main frequency or resonance (like A) does in general have more overtones and the higher the note the more you notice it. Stephen wrote and I agree that to much emphasis on overtones is not specially flamenco. We want a pretty flat and dry reaction of the guitar. On the other, and again, I use Stephens words, we also want the guitar to be interesting, so we search for just the right amount of overtones. Just like a good cook serch for the right amount of a salt or whatever.
But working with frequencys or resonances are just one out of MANY important parts of creating tone AND playability and they interact, so its kinda impossible to answer all questions also because personal taste is different from builder to builder, from player to player from listener to listener etc.. There´s a lot diference between a Faustino Conde, A Reyes, A Anders Eliasson and a Francisco Barba. All of them making good flamenco guitars.
Another thing. It was rightly said that a higher note main frequency or air resonance means a higher mass in the soundboard. This if using the same bracing system means a higher pulsation, feel or whatever you prefer to name the bitch. So you make a softer bracing system and thus the guitar will produce a lower resonance/frequency. It might be F#. And you test it together with another F# guitar with a lower mass soundboard and a stiffer bracing and you´ll notice that the two guitars have different souls. They pruduce their tones in different ways and they act differently on the inputs you give them.
This leads to conlusion. You cannot separate one thing from another in instrument making. It all interacts and when you start asking to many questions on very specific subjects, you often get confused.
The art of building a good guitar is to be able to control all these parts of the guitar. The way you understand them is secondary.
I should start writing that book "making hollistic flamenco guitars" 
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Date Nov. 22 2011 8:24:50
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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quote:
So the tone of the top is somewhat related to this pulsation of the guitar, if I rem correctedly, a low pulsation guitar according to Anders would seem more like softer strings on the right hand even with higher tension strings. When you mention 'string recovery tempo' are you mentioning the SOUND of the note being played, or the TACTILE return of the string to the start position (where you struck the note)..
I think the average reader here is losing what you say. Perhaps in simpler terms would be asking too much?
However, the point must be made that the top is the closest common denominator, regarding balance, to the entire guitar as one whole unit. It's the basic part of the guitar that brings everything together, affording that we tune it right. Timber, pulsation, right and left hand technique are all guided by this principle.
It's a known fact that we should place the top and back at different key notes but this doesn't mean that all guitars should be subjected to the same semi tone or tone differences. Reyes's 2003 flamenco guitar, in my plan, had its top tuned to G-F# 4th string, and its back to B 2nd string. And for one reference for the Miguel Rodriguez plan. It was top tuned at F-F# 4th string with A 3rd string for the back.
It's prudent that all students build guitars after the master builders until they find a comfortable place for their own additions
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Nov. 22 2011 14:19:55
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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Holy,
I think many people have the impression that you can dial anything you want into a guitar, it's really not true. There is a great deal of luck that you get through sheer persistence. I read an interview with Daniel Friedrich the French maker, he said honestly in his work he makes a guitar every once in a while that despite his best efforts disappoints him.
Friedrich was one of the first makers to subject the building process to acoustical research and he learned many things. But he said much of guitar making is still a mystery. We all just do the best we can with what resources we have, some makers are more scientific than others, but I have even heard the most scientific makers say they can't figure everything out. The guitar is too complex to create a formula to make it work.
Some makers calculate the density vs. strength of the wood with math, others flex the top in their hands and get a reading on the same information from the wood. Some of the scientific makers claim the tactile flexers are not getting all the information because they can't put precise numbers to the data they collect by flexing the top. This does not mean one side is correct and the other side is wrong, it just means there are lots of ways of understanding the wood. I think what really happens is part logical and empirical; A basic knowledge of science can help. While on the other hand you can't rely totally on science because you have to at some point make decisions that are beyond what the science can tell you. In making flamenco guitars those who don't understand the tactile response issues like pulsation think you can make flamenco guitars totally by using numbers and weighing the parts. They miss the part about playing lots of guitars and trying to bend your mind around what makes the guitar have that feeling.
At some point a guitar maker just makes full commitment to making the instruments and through some daily contact with the materials and waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the wood, somehow the materials start talking to you. Whether the dialog happens intuitively or scientifically depends on the maker. It's through total commitment that these things happen and the knowledge just goes into you.
I have just written the preface to Anders' "Hollistic Guitar Building".
Now Holy be careful: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger!
(* high fives Anders, goes back to work * )
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Date Nov. 22 2011 18:21:55
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: Guitar top tuning - what's the p... (in reply to HolyEvil)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: HolyEvil
quote:
ORIGINAL: Tom Blackshear
Reyes's 2003 flamenco guitar, in my plan, had its top tuned to G-F# 4th string, and its back to B 2nd string. And for one reference for the Miguel Rodriguez plan. It was top tuned at F-F# 4th string with A 3rd string for the back.
I understand if the top is tuned to ONE note.. but how can it be tuned to G-F#? that's 1 1/2 tones range.
cheers
Perhaps the simplest way to explain this is that if you install the top at G tuning then you can relieve the top around the edges to lower the key a semi tone. But the trick is to bring the top between G and F# by the top responding about the same with both parts. Sort of like G with its sound flowing into F#, to where neither key is the dominate.
Also, the small wood inserts that Reyes put between the fan braces, lowed the key about a semi tone. I found this out when I built a replica of the top.
Also, you can adjust the fan braces to bring down the key, but this is not advised unless you have some fine-tuning experience to cope with it. So, with this information and technique/s you can fairly well hit the middle ground in tuning the top. Generally, most of my guitars are tuned before the top goes on, with the understanding that after the bridge is installed, the top key would be about the same as the tuned top, which was off the guitar.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Nov. 22 2011 20:48:03
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