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Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
I suppose it must be something less common or you would not be asking the question ...it looks like it could be cedar ....but is that too ordinary .............??...so I might say rosewood , to be less ordinary............
Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
thanks for the second clip to try and define a wood by not seeing it .......... or listening to an android phone or using a reflection of the wood grain in your glasses ..........
Then I go back to Cedar or maybe one of the rarest woods in the world like ..........
St. Helena Gumwood This tree is located in the South Atlantic and is one of the fourteen threatened species on the planet
Thank you Wikipedia, you make me sound so apparently clever ...............
Posts: 271
Joined: Sep. 19 2011
From: Louisville KY
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
Being that I'm a blind man, I guess I can do a blind test about as well as most, and better than some.
I would go double or nothing on cedar... Also, (no I'm not being critical), pull that thing up to 440 next time... The true voice of the guitar don't come through, (assuming it has one)... Yeah, yeah, I know, a guitar won't stay on 440 for more than a minute when it is newly strung, plus the work that's been performed still has the instrument getting used to holding tension again...
Good topic!!! I love putting my ears on this even if/ when I'm wrong...
Also will you post the maker along with the true identity of the species?
Posts: 1108
Joined: Sep. 29 2009
From: Back in Boston
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
i am going to go with larch--the same type of wood on the so called la leone built by? not torres but alleged to have been built by torres.
shawn, do you use the software, jaws? several years ago i volunteered at the perkins school for the blind and the client i had used jaws. it was pretty cool to watch him go on line and navigate using the jaws software.
Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to Jeff Highland)
Ok so , so far we have the possibilities of .....
Ramin......(tropical hardwood tree species native to the peat swamp forests of Brunei ) Cedar St. Helena Gumwood ......... ( very rare,threatened species ) Port Orford Cedar Plywood The Larch Sprudar (north facing variety ,((and also apparently a level 85 warrior from World of Warcraft)
Posts: 401
Joined: Mar. 5 2010
From: Caves Beach Australia
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
I think the proficiency of your playing is making it hard to distinguish the true sound of the top wood. Could you just strum a few bars of kumbayah so we can more accurately evaluate it?
Posts: 271
Joined: Sep. 19 2011
From: Louisville KY
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to keith)
quote:
ORIGINAL: keith
shawn, do you use the software, jaws?
Hey Keith, yep I'm a Jaws user on Windows, and a Voiceover user on the iPhone and other Apple products. I have a friend who writes a lot of scripts and bla bla bla for screen readers. Man, and I thought the guitar was complicated...
Posts: 1827
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
The playing in your videos is pretty rough and short, so not really ideal for judging the guitars sound. The notes sound quite thin and boxy. But the guitar has some power and sustain at the same time. You didn't give an example of the trebles unfortunately, but i imagine they will sound thin and bottom out easily? The action sounds low. The guitars voice does resonate well when you played that big F chord. That part of the sound is working well and sounds good imo. I can also tell that the response is fast. It is probably easy and fun to play. Especially when playing rasgueados due to the fast response.
The top could be anything, laminated ply possibly? Or maybe spruce with laminated back and sides?I have heard cheap and old guitars with that sound, some made from ply and others with solid timbers . I remember a yamaha like that. It was actually a nice guitar to play.
Overall it sounds like a guitar that responds well to flamenco technique.I think you would need to be gentle to keep it from bottoming out. Especially when playing melodic stuff. Your really pushing it in the video. Some more light and shade in your playing would give me better idea.
I'd say the camera has added some brightness and compression to the sound. I imagine the sound is actually duller. I can tell by the sound of your chair sliding back and the mics sensitivity when you rest the camera down.
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
Sitka Spruce from Alaska... NOT from another US state or from Canada!!!!!!! Its not from mainland Alaska but from one of the Islands, but I´m not totally sure which one it is.
Posts: 1827
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under
RE: What is the top wood on this guitar? (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
This is for all those guys who post over processed guitar voices and then ask guitar makers how to get the sound....
You have to judge by sound alone, blind test.
Are you going to show how you can take a stiff, dull dead sounding guitar and make it sound like a springy rubbery one just by adding a bit of compression? Or take a guitar that doesn't resonate openly when you play the Bb on 3 in bulerias, and make it sound like it opens and resonates warmly and openly with some eq? Or make a guitar with a slow response sound like it's fast?
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or listening to an android phone or using a reflection of the wood grain in your glasses .......... 
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