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RE: soundportparty in my patio
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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 RE: soundportparty in my patio (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson
quote:
What a port does is flatten the sound rather than improve this quality. If a guitar is loud enough for a noisy cafe then it is loud enough, and my guitars are loud enough as any player who has had the opportunity to play one will tell you.
I'm going to risk the wrath of Bob Ruck in saying that his ported guitars are not louder than mine, but what a player hears in my guitars is a sonorus quality of the Spanish idiom.
Brune has a guitar with ports that he experimented with. I played that guitar and thought it sounded like an inverted vacuum cleaner; loud and noisy but no real quality of sound. Sorry Richard :-) I love Richard's traditional guitars.
So, to post that somehow these ported guitars have a louder effect concerning projection, just isn't true. What they have is a fuller effect but they lose a lot in quality of sound. This is my department and I know what I'm talking about.
here we go again. You can of course talk about guitars you have tried, but what do you know about guitars you havent tried?
Nothing.
I´ve never tried any of your guitars, but if they are as loud as you are capable of bragging, of course, they wont need a soundport or anything else. They must be absolutely ravingly loud. So please go ahead and build your guitars the way you do. I´m not the one who´s going to tell you that you are not saying the truth. I will leave it to you to judge that I and others are not saying the truth ("just isn't true")
There's no reason to go there again but to analyze certain aspects of tone to see what the open ports accomplish. When I say that the ports flatten out tone to some degree, then that’s a given fact, not something that has to be proved again.
But when I refer to an opening of sound that will distort certain frequencies and tone, then this is a proved fact as well. It may give a fuller and louder sounding guitar up close, but the loudness quiets down in its projection and the fullness will over-ride some of the projection value due to a loss in higher frequency of the treble end.
The guitars I’ve heard improve bass output more than treble response, and the bass out-put is no stranger to problems with projection in concert halls.
So the situation in ports is mainly due to a pulsation factor promoting an atmospheric change rather than an actual excape of pure sound which is created by the top in its characteristic make-up.
Without allowing the top to transmit its character through its wood, we have a release of sound that by-passes this to some extent. And this distorts the true value of the top, which is the most important part of the guitar, to make known its duende.
I don't know how to make this more clear.
And one other thing I've noticed with real loud up-close guitars is that cantaors don't like it in their face that much.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Jul. 16 2009 8:49:17
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cathulu
Posts: 950
Joined: Dec. 15 2006
From: Vancouver, Canukistan
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RE: soundportparty in my patio (in reply to Ron.M)
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Well, I think it is good to understand the physics, so you know why you are doing something. That is the whole point, probably physics and science as a whole started with people trying to understand what is around them, the stars and music. Your location of frets is pure physics right there and not trial and error.
If you input X energy into the string, and assuming the amount absorbed by the guitar remains about the same, then the obvious impact of the soundport is a slight reduction in projected volume.
Will it be noticeable, not really. The ear is logarithmic. That is why we can hear a mosquito and then a car horn without our ears blown out. So a sound intensity has to decrease a lot before our ears will notice it.
PS as you age, you hear less treble, so maybe relying only on your ears is not a good thing? What do the luthiers think of that?
Physics can be your friend. It helps differentiate gobblygook. I notice Creation is making in roads. Look out my friends, we will soon be heading into an anti-science dark age. It happened before.
PS When I mean you, I don't mean Anders or anyone else for that matter - I want to play the ball if you please. I am talking to the amorphous internet you.
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Date Jul. 16 2009 11:33:21
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: soundportparty in my patio (in reply to Per Hallgren)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Per Hallgren
I'm not sure how to continue this thread, or if I should just drop it. Maybe you all prefer my silence since it was I who wrote the words "computer analysis". Sorry! My aim was only to comment things from my understanding, never to write things on people noses and certainly not to criticize Anders (who started this thread).
But I can comment on this. Maybe it will get someone to refill his popcorn bowl...  deterasa1, if you don't give a **** about theory, that is fine with me. When I am going to a concert I don't give a **** about the musical theory that lies behind the music I'm listening to. I just want to feel the music but I don't mock the musicians understanding of the theory since I understand that that is something they make use of in their profession to make music. The guitarmaker's profession is quite similar. The guitar players have really no use of the theoretical knowledge of the luthier, they just want good guitars. But why mock the knowledge and skill of the luthier or the musician?
To conclude (so I can go back to lurking mode...) Here we have a Danish luthier happy with his new guitars with soundports, and we have an american luthier disliking the sound from every guitar with a soundport he has heard, and we have a Swedish luthier (me) who usually don't use soundports but have found that they can improve some guitars of his. Use your common sense folks! Not all guitars are equal, not all luthiers have the same opinion about soundports, only the soundports on the right guitars should be made...
For those of us that don't use a knowledge of physics or electronic equipment to analyze our sound out-put, there is a need to develop the 5 senses. To me, this
is where art enters into building a musical instrument.
I realize that we use our senses with certain helps outside our own personal attributes but not as clearly as we see when we develop our own sense of tuning the sound with our strict personal attributes.
The issue here is the development of our inner senses to be able to distinguish between certain tonal differences. It’s not easy for some but less complicated for others.
Some builders take to it like a fish in water, and others need help outside their personal attributes. But whatever the case, builders learn their craft and make use of what they know by the standards they set for themselves in making the best guitar possible.
And I personally think there is room for all the experimenting that builders choose to do, but it is also right to discuss these issues in a forum that helps us to learn both sides or many sides of the topic at hand.
Per, you have the perfect right to give any input you care to, for the reading pleasure and information to this list.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Jul. 16 2009 13:46:20
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HemeolaMan
Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago
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RE: soundportparty in my patio (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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Both of you are correct.
I think that you build for a different audience though.
I would gather that Anders builds guitars that mostly players in small venues would use. I think a soundport in a club or bar or restaurant would be a handy thing. I have a guitar that i have two soundports in (hehe junk guitar + forstner bits) and I did some tests to evaluate the effects. When one whole is open the midrange seems to be somewhat clearer, this is at the expense of some bass. The richness is lessened and the sound less focused, great for rajeo. i think it takes out some of the overtones a bit which allows the notes to sound clear and crisp. Two open and the bass is very much lessened and the trebles seem more ambient. I think the lessening of the bass would work to enhance the guitar's cutting power in noisy environments.
This is not to say that anders guitars are not used in recording sessions or close miced in large venues. I think that this reduction of harmonics would be very handy in a recording situation, less to eq out, and definitely good in getting a more natural sound when mic'd on stage.
Not to mention that the player is really the one who the guitar is for, and more sound to the player can mean more enjoyment.
I have never played an anders, but i have played ported guitars.
ON the other hand, I have played a blackshear reyes, the one that chaconne bought.
This guitar is a canon. I swear to god it is the loudest d amn guitar I have heard. furthermore it has tone and cojones. It can villa lobos it can bach it can granados and it can romp and stomp with the flamencos. It really has a tremendously diverse and usable pallette of tones. It has magnificent projection and a real flamenco sound.
But, It also has a really classical sound too, depending on how it is played. I would say that these blackshear guitars are really the kind of instrument that someone, Like chaconne, would play in a concert hall at a recital or competition. Tom is more likely to have his guitars bought by classical players or players that play in larger venues because the market for flamenco guitars in america is by far less than the market elsewhere.
So, while tom's guitars are excellent and still will project, record and mic up well, his target market has slightly different demands.
Whats the issue here? you are both right. but one of you is making the findings seem as if they are intrinsically negative instead of a boon to the player and a good adaptation to a venue, and the other is slinging old dirt .
I respect both of you. You both make wonderful git boxes, and you both are very passionate about your ways of making. whats the big deal? there's more than one way to fret a passage.
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Date Jul. 16 2009 20:09:15
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Guest
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RE: soundportparty in my patio (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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quote:
Blah blah blah, I´m off this thread, so if anyone needs more info on the subject, please ask mister wiseguy. 
LOL, i liked that one...how could anyone ever recover from that (reminds me of back in grade 2)
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Date Jul. 16 2009 20:45:43
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