estebanana -> RE: Harmonic bars (May 14 2016 3:22:22)
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quote:
I will say the bright clicking of nails on the strings and zipping of fretboard fingers across the strings are due to the very higher frequencies. When bass strings die brightness is lost and with it goes a lot of the string noises of a new set of strings. Old trebles however can have a bad overly bright sound when dying I think because they wear and lower action and slap the frets more. For sure when a set of strings is new and settled (not stretching) the guitars seem brighter due to the upper harmonics sparkling in tune with each other. I pretty much know what the other guitar makers here will say on stuff at this point, so I have hatched this novel plan to ask guitar players about how to build guitars. What you say confirms what I was thinking, that high frequency activity contributes to the amount of incidental sound made by the actual touching and application of hand and nail to string. High frequency is interesting because too much emphasis on it is annoying and too little is lackluster, or so it pretends to be. It can also be detrimental when the high frequency activity is not as you say sympathetic, but out of phase. When higher partials are out of whack with each other and over active extraneous noise accumulates. I think intonation has a lot do do with this, well intonated instruments and healthy round strings help keep the overtone series from being out of control. I'm not super fixated on extraneous noise from hands in strings for flamenco guitars, but too much is not good. But there is a link or relationship between string overtone generation, treble and projection that I am interested in for a "classical " format where less string noise has value. Both sales value and musical value. I get the reason people talk about power, but I think there are underlying things that are more important and power is a by-product of those things. It's fairly easy to build for raw power, but it is deceptive because power at the guitar or even articulation are instant gratification issues for me. We like guitars that speak right away, have fast articulation, blah blah blah, all the things that add up to easy to play and instantly gratifying. But does power you perceive at the guitar equate to power that is projection? I'm exploring the idea, again, that there are trades off between instant gratification under your ear at the guitar, and more difficult to play instruments that give a rarer quality. What do you think about guitars that do not sound BIG under your ear, but sound enormous 20-30 feet away? Not blown up sound, but penetrating sound, highly focused at long range. Yet under the ear not "explosive".
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