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While the argument can be made that a reduction in lateral tauticity can soften Pulsación due to its relationship with liminal stiffness, the broader consensus is only Californians actually believe it.
I'd be more concerned about those black golpeadors. You can't see behind them. For all we know the darned things are spring loaded. It takes a very deft touch to manage a sprung golpe.
If he used that term the way some do, he seems to be under the biased illusion as many are that this is the case.
Classical guitarists rarely if ever examine neck angle and bridge height. Without that info we don't understand the ACTION, neither over the fingerboard, nor on the right hand. If we do golpe we can talk about the percussive response of the top, and sorry but that has nothing to do with ease of playing which is 100% ACTION. Lower it and it gets easy but loses volume/projection aka response. Raise it, it gets stiffer but louder, more responsive dynamically. It is a balance to achieve. Finally humidity can affect the response so the guitar once easy to play loses all its bright tone and makes you want to play harder, and the guitar feels "dead". It dries out and suddenly she is back to life. But the top is giving the equalization not ease or difficulty of playing notes with your fingers.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
I mean, pulcasion is not the first thing that comes to mind when one mentions lateral tautness…
My name is Igino Montoya, You gulped my classical, Prepare to die!
(I never watch these click-bait-ey videos)
HR
_____________________________
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.
I lost patience at 5 minutes in. Whenever classical guitar oriented fellows start talking about flamenco guitars my tendency is to tune out. They just never get it.
The string height dramatically effects this thing he calls ‘lateral stiffness’ it’s not stiffness in the top itself, it’s stiffness created by string tension created by action height. And the notion that someone selling guitars took that long to notice this phenomenon makes me wonder if it’s because they finally got over the flamenco guitar vs classical guitar schism and decided to play some flamenco guitars with an open mind.
Even though people say the schism is old fashioned it’s still very prevalent.
Every luthier and pro player in Spain is aware of the concept of “pulsaciòn”. It’s an obvious concept (Anders spoke about it in many occasions) and I really don’t get what’s the issue about it in this foro.
The video doesn’t take into account that a long scale often gives the perception of softer strings under your fingers in spite of the actual higher tension.
Classical guitarists rarely if ever examine neck angle and bridge height. Without that info we don't understand the ACTION, neither over the fingerboard, nor on the right hand. If we do golpe we can talk about the percussive response of the top, and sorry but that has nothing to do with ease of playing which is 100% ACTION.
Ricardo are you angry when you write action in all caps, or simply frustrated and want to emphasize a point?
But yes, classical guitars are so strange to me because they can have an action that’s anywhere between 8mm and 13mm above the top. With an average off the top gap of 9mm to 12mm - its common to see classicals with that wide of a spread of action. While we who strive to make a low action that’s 7.5 to 8.5 off the top at the saddle are very sensitive to the tightness of the strings. I’m feeling 1mm of action height up or down can make a significant shift in how the guitar feels in terms of string tension.
Adding that when I don’t have the constraint of building the flamenco action, my classical building action is a piece of cake. It’s easy because you can hit a wider target with the saddle height in order to get the action at the 12th fret you’re aiming for. Whereas a flamenco is a tighter tolerance job and takes finer adjustments to get the rasgueado to feel just right.
It’s just a vastly different set up and can see why classical players don’t obsess over it like flamenco players do.
I liked my answer best, followed by HR's, then Echi's observation that a long scale often gives the perception of softer strings...although that one made sense so loses a couple of points.
I left the video when he said a millimetre is a very tiny amount...sheesh....
I left the video when he said a millimetre is a very tiny amount...sheesh....
Interesting. That is the pretty much the only part which made sense to me, at least when it comes to scale length
Like who cares if a flamenco guitar is 65, 66, 67 or whatever. We play with Capo 99% of the time anyways. It makes it even easier to play if longer scale length and using Capo, it's not that cramped. And mind you, I have small hands. mm is only important vertically (distance between strings is much more important and there the 1 mm counts), not horizontal (I hope this doesn't end in WW4 over mm again lol)
The rest of the video was pretty much using some fancy words to sell a guitar with probably good action and setup, that's all. Letting some classical guitarists play classical pieces on a flamenco guitar and find it easier to play than their usual classical guitar. WOW lol what a surprise. like come on dude.
I agree with you. Especially with your observation about the use of a capo.
But he was saying it to marginalize differences in scale length in the service of making a sale. Saying the guitar "plays like butter" was the giveaway. You nailed that one, too.
P.S. guitar making people's noses get a little out of joint when it comes to things like people who are used to the imperial system implying a millimetre is some kind of microscopic unit of measure (but 1/32" isn't? Even though that's a smaller amount?). A difference of a millimetre in neck depth, for instance, makes a huge difference in feel. But, I get you, if he was saying it is a very small amount in relation to the total scale, he's not off, I agree with that, too. It's all relative.
I do think scale length can influence how a player will approach an instrument, however. For sure, in electric guitar I'll play a longer scale guitar a little differently when soloing, maybe make different choices in bends, positions, and setting up a lick. But it's more intuitive, not really conscious, it's also a less formalized setting than classical or flamenco playing.
And I've always wondered why it was such a big deal with flamenco, too, because of the capo, but I'm not good enough at flamenco playing for it to make much difference, either way, so I never trusted my judgement on that. I have relatively long fingers, too, so that might play into it, but if I suck at something at 660 I'm probably also going to suck at 650, so I don't blame the instrument, for sure, it's me. I don't find 660 hard to play.
Ricardo are you angry when you write action in all caps, or simply frustrated and want to emphasize a point?
Emphasize a point obviously, because I am always angry. See I can type this completely infuriated (from searching for Amalia damn video) with no caps whatsoever, easy!
I do think scale length can influence how a player will approach an instrument,
Meanwhile this dude is like hold my beer
Anyways, back to the initial question. I might have gotten this whole "pulsacion" thing wrong then if one guy says it is lateral top stiffness ,taughtness or whatever, a luthier says it is only action at 12th fret, another something different. I always though it is basically a word for "is the overall feel good and flamenco when you play it or not and can you connect with the instrument or not" or something like that, just like duende is for inspiration and all the other magic happening Maybe a primitive view.
Each guitar turns out just a bit different in it's entirety than the other. Even exact same brand, same action, same model, same strings, same wood type, same whatever. Probably very small details which on their own are maybe not noticible, add up and once an instrument is built and finished, they show in the final result.
In a way, that is also kind of interesting and makes the whole guitar searching more exciting and surprising.
In a general sense, it's varying a parameter of a system so it's not unreasonable to expect the system could respond differently to a similar stimulus. And the change in response might not be as predictable as one may hope. Beyond that, I can't answer concerning pulsación because at this point I'm not even sure I know what that means.
At any rate, I'm the guy who just coined the phrase "liminal stiffness" and implied golpeadors could be spring loaded. WTF? I believe we should pass this one on to ....
Cap'n FURIOUS! ......🧌 "Here he comes to save the dayyyyy...."
Does varying string tension affect what is meant by "pulsacion"?
Assuming you use the correct definition of that freaking word!!!
Simply put: if pulsación=action, then YES. if pulsación= magical unicorns, then NO.
Amalia translates it to string height over the fingerboard which is called "action" and the answer is YES, in the sense the strings of higher tensions versus lower tension (not by package listing necessarily but AFTER you have tuned them to the correct pitch, cuz that matters too), will FEEL similar to when you raise the bone saddle, even though you did not do that. To push the string down on the left hand will feel harder to do, just like when the strings are the same tension but you have lifted them up higher above the frets. And vice versa, a high action guitar can give the illusion of easier play by changing to a lighter tension set of strings. This ALSO LIKE ACTION, affects the volume...hard tension and higher action will give more bass response and seem like louder notes, or more dynamic range etc. Remember Carlos Montoya tuned his guitar way down and that makes the strings like rubber bands, super butter easy.
The issue for flamenco is we need the "snap" of a low-enough action trebles to do rasgueados that don't sound like mud, but have brilliance and percussion. It is a balance to discover on a specific guitar what is the best set of strings by experimentation, because we also need clear pitches that ring out for melody. I am sure there are cases of hybrid sets where the basses are hard tension and the trebles light and snappy, or vice versa. That is a bit easier than changing a saddle, but that is not too hard to do either, and the decision should be based on right hand as well...too low saddle and your picado will bang into the soundboard, too high and you will bleed on your guitar after some dance accompaniment.
If you want to use some other hazy definition of "pulsation" such as the "stiffness of the cross grain of the top" and the unicorn result of THAT physical reality affecting the subjective ease of play of your guitar (what your fingers do to strings), then NONE of the above of what I said matters, and we need to find a NEW definition of "action" and new definition of whatever the heck this paragraph is about, and put that word "pulsación" into the ground.
Anyways, back to the initial question. I might have gotten this whole "pulsacion" thing wrong then if one guy says it is lateral top stiffness ,taughtness or whatever, a luthier says it is only action at 12th fret, another something different. I always though it is basically a word for "is the overall feel good and flamenco when you play it or not and can you connect with the instrument or not" or something like that, just like duende is for inspiration and all the other magic happening Maybe a primitive view.
I was duped by Ander's description years ago and defended the idea that it was the action on the right hand or something stupid. The truth is everything you said above comes down to ACTION, and only that, and humidity and string brand/tension, scale length etc. all matter, UNTIL you raise or lower that saddle, and then it ALL changes suddenly. Well, humidity is tricky cuz a mute guitar will stay that way if it soaked up water until it dries...and this process can affect the neck which as you see is affecting the darn string height too all over again. So action+relative humidity=unicorn feelings. It comes down to translating the darn word.
We were talking about a guitar where the distance from the top to the low E was too high at the bridge, and how that made it less comfortable for him to play. For me, the only difference this makes is painful capirote, but otherwise nothing changes, I don't think.
Why do you think that dimension matters for the right hand other than capirote?
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Anyways, back to the initial question. I might have gotten this whole "pulsacion" thing wrong then if one guy says it is lateral top stiffness ,taughtness or whatever, a luthier says it is only action at 12th fret, another something different. I always though it is basically a word for "is the overall feel good and flamenco when you play it or not and can you connect with the instrument or not" or something like that, just like duende is for inspiration and all the other magic happening Maybe a primitive view.
I was duped by Ander's description years ago and defended the idea that it was the action on the right hand or something stupid. The truth is everything you said above comes down to ACTION, and only that, and humidity and string brand/tension, scale length etc. all matter, UNTIL you raise or lower that saddle, and then it ALL changes suddenly. Well, humidity is tricky cuz a mute guitar will stay that way if it soaked up water until it dries...and this process can affect the neck which as you see is affecting the darn string height too all over again. So action+relative humidity=unicorn feelings. It comes down to translating the darn word.
got it, yeah humidity specifically is a big big thing.
We were talking about a guitar where the distance from the top to the low E was too high at the bridge, and how that made it less comfortable for him to play. For me, the only difference this makes is painful capirote, but otherwise nothing changes, I don't think.
Why do you think that dimension matters for the right hand other than capirote?
You are in constant touch and connection with the soundboard in flamenco. Sometime you lay down tip of a finger below high E , sometimes you do Golpes, sometimes the strumming, sometimes you squeeze in the thumb on Bass E String, sometimes you lay your thumb on it and the soundboard at same time, then Capirote etc.
You need a certain comfortable distance to the soundboard for all this tp work comfortably and you and all your movements also get used to the distance. Then when you switch to a guitar with "high action" to soundboard you feel how bad it is. Ben woods probably just meant all that.
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Action is just the distance between strings and frets, while “pulsacion” refers to the comfort for the right hand + the speed of the sound production when the string is plucked and to set back. Amalia either doesn’t speak a good English or is just simplifying the concept because the action also affects the pulsacion.
I listened Tomatito himself speaking of the good pulsacion of a Conde guitar and he wasn’t referring to action. Here and there other luthiers in internet said the same thing or even speaks of the pulsacion the rebote etc.
The guy of Guitarsalon here speaks of lateral stiffness but it’s more about ratio stiffness/elasticity of the soundboard. Ricardo Sanchis Carpio once told me that he could make different guitars in the same way and yet they could come out with different pulsacion.
Action is just the distance between strings and frets, while “pulsacion” refers to the comfort for the right hand + the speed of the sound production when the string is plucked and to set back.
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly, but if you're suggesting that it's a combination of both what you hear as well as what you feel, then that lines up with how I've interpreted it. I'll go one further and also suggest that what you hear actually has an effect on what you feel. It's all about perception. Action, right hand comfort, sound quality are all inputs into the same complex system. If anything, trying to define "pulsación" is probably always going to lead to some degree of over-simplification, which might be one of the reasons we have so much difficulty with it.
I think another part of the difficulty that happens in these discussions really is just about language barriers and also consensus. In English I just call it "feel" and leave it at that.
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