Testing 3 Types of Guitar Wood In a Professional Recording Studio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ค. 2022
- The test we’ve all been waiting for… well, I have anyway.
Thanks so much to Hugo for lending me his time and studio to do this little test!
Which Spruce sounded the best to you? Do you have an instrument made with one of these woods? Did you expect them to sound like they did?
Instagram: @daisy_tempest
@tempestguitars
Facebook: @TempestGuitars
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The editing and sketch animations in this video were awesome!
Yes, my thoughts exactly. @DaisyTempest did you use some kind of software or was it done for you? Is that your hand?
My two scents worth:
The short glimpse I got in your video of the Sitka spruce you used tells me it was from a relatively fast growth, well nourished and protected tree. The range of musical quality for Sitka spruce is quite large depending on several factors.
The value goes up for musical quality when the tree is subject to prolonged difficulty while growing. The best sounding Sitka spruce comes from larger size (old and older) trees that grow at higher elevations, on north slopes or naturally shaded areas, rocky ground, subject to high winds, and little rainfall. Harvesting the tree during mid winter helps. Felling the tree also can make a huge difference in the total yield of good material; the best yield comes from helicopter felling, where the tree never falls at all. The next best felling is by taking sections from the top down, and letting them down by rope. Shocking the timber during felling by dropping the whole tree can over stress the fibers and cause shearing which dull the tone. Proper curing time and methods add value as well. The grain angle to the face of the instrument is one good way to tune the total frequency response. A slight gradation of grain angle will provide the widest frequency resonance; vertical for higher frequencies, and slightly angled for mid frequencies, and a bit more laid over for the lower frequencies. Placement of the grain angles in the face will 'tune' your instrument, all other factors being equal (thickness, finish, structural components, etc.)
Of course, these are subjective generalities in a highly specific and relative dance that makes creativity fun.
fascinating comment
Yes, making a conclusion from one example of one tree is perilous.
Great information
If people said mean things to the growing spruce would that count? Some examples: "your scent is like a pine forest" or "I wouldn't pay more than five cents to climb you!" (although that last snide comment may be construed differently pending what century it is delievered in). Note: if the growing sapling is located in a land that does not speak English, the snide comments would be translated into the common vernacular of the time and place.
To my ear, the Smokey Mountain Spruce had the nicest sound by far. It was very warm, rich, and resonant. I would love to hear the guitar made from that piece of Spruce!
I agree.
I agree as well
I do believe that the size, thickness, etc of each of the wood samples plays a huge part in the accuracy of a test like this... I did a bit of experimenting with tuning of marimbas (rosewood) and all things there being the same, it was indeed the dimensions of the samples that made all the difference. It would be interesting if, at some point, you had three more closely matched samples of different top woods, do repeat this test.
I wouldn't give up on the Sitka, because once it's been sized, planed and braced it will be a whole different animal I bet. The other two samples sure did have lovely overtones and sustain though.. I think the very nature of these kinds of tests is that they are inconclusive, but still very interesting and fun.
Keep up the great work and cool content!
Yes. But where it is held is very critical. Off the node half a mm and the sustain dies and pitch changes. We didn't see how she determined that location.
I'd be very interested to see these put into a full spectogram, very cool to see this
A wood sheet that has a clear note has a high q-value meaning it is very frequency selective. This would be bad for playing notes across the full range of a guitar. But once the sound board is braced and glued to the sides with a bridge stuck on top and place under tension by the strings, those tonal properties will be completely different. I have a carbon composite guitar (rain bird) that sounds great but has no wood involved in its construction. It might be good to compare a spectrogram of a piece of wood against a laser interferometry plot of the surface once the wood is part of a guitar
They should cut them all to the same dimension before really doing this test though.
What you hear with this ringing is a harmonic series in a 3D solid. What this means is that you're hearing a bunch of standing waves.
Very interesting video. Thanks for doing this and cheers to Hugo for sharing his studio and helping you out.
This is only the second video of yours that I’ve watched and I’m hooked. The wood history, awesome content.
Absolutely loved this one ! Often wondered how the different densities affected the tones. Keep the videos coming, love the annimations. Hope you're having a great day.
What a great video, thanks for the time and effort, - Cheers from Canada
I used Smokey mountains spruce with some Oregon state Myrtle wood back and sides and it sounded pretty good. Didn't play it for 3 years and came back to it and it had an amazing voice after it aged. Really ballsy bluesy fat tone. It's my favorite guitar atm.
The resonance from each board was beautiful .. the Smokey had a very pleasing musical ring, as did the moon. I too would be curious to see a spectrograph. Good work, Thank you.
Fascinating! Thank you for the insight.
Beautiful bell tone from that Smokey Spruce. I didn’t expect it to ring so much. I expected the Sitka to ring more than it did so that was a surprise as well. Neat video. Thanks!!
This is the first time I've seen tap tone test really explained! Great video!!!
Really enjoyable video! I was truly surprised by the tone of the Moon Spruce!
Great video Thankyou for sharing it. Do you find how the wood is cut makes a big difference? Such as flat sawn or quarter sawn. I'm learning how to use my little wood mill. I'm in northern Ontario Canada. God bless.
cool, awsome edit. luv u❤❤❤
watched your viedeos and liked them and what you are doing! very good!
Amazing! Loved it
I'm so glad appreciate all the information u give us I no nothing about wood I'm just a guitar player and music teacher so I do appreciate everything you take time to explain. Thank you
Awww. You two are adorable together. 🥰
Fun experiment. It would be super interesting to do a formal test, but even the informal one is great.
The Smokey had a clarity and smoothness to the tone that reminds me of my vintage Rogers bass drum (mahogany). My heart wants to hear Leo Kotke play a 12-string made from that.
The Moon seemed to have an extended spectrum from REALLY low to glassy highs. I feel like it would make for a spectacular guitar for live performance. It has so much crispness to the harmonics; I think it would sound crystal clear and not get muddled by the rest of the band, but have more than enough warmth and low end to still sound like an acoustic guitar through a system.
It would be interesting to see what those tracks of taps look like ran through a strobe tuner. I would be curious to know what frequency the tones are at.
This was SO Cool. Very Interesting. Thankyou.
Thank you, Daisy, for this interesting and enlightening piece. I also really want to record with Hugo. He seems like a really fun guy to be in the studio with!
He’s a true gem of a producer and human being! Thanks for the kind words :)
Great fun. It would be interesting to attach an audio driver to each board and play guitar sounds through it. Could compare recording to finished guitar and potentially develop a useful tone predictor and rating system, even suggesting what guitar style it would work best in, etc. A useful ear training tool too if it proved practical.
Great video, amazing drawing skills too!
This is great information. Thank you
Really interesting study. Enjoyed!
Hi, Miss D, that was fascinating. Thank you, for sharing that.
Wow. Thank youuu 🌺
That was fascinating, thank you.
Enjoyed this a lot. I learned a lot.
Hi Daisy,
I stumbled across your video’s recently and must say, it’s a breath of fresh air to see such a fine young lady involved and so passionate in our dying trade.
I just felt the need to comment on this video as many of your viewers were commenting on pitch. There are many characteristics to look for when selecting plate blanks, but as you know, frequency drops dramatically when thicknessing plates.
For the past 15 years, I have been tap tuning my plates and braces to notes in A440 using a 1969 mechanical Peterson strobe tuner. Modern tuners wont work due to the time it takes the signal to travel through a digital circuit and the lack of sustain of a tapped piece of wood. Since using this method, my guitars have become more consistent. The only luthier I’m aware of that used this method commercially, was Lloyd Loar, who built Gibson’s M5 mandolins in the 1930’s. Most of them now are locked away in vaults. Many believe the magic of his mandolins where due to the tap tuning at the time being in C 256, and the instruments tuned to todays concert pitch of A 440.
I also enjoyed your video on your then boyfriends guitar. Don’t put yourself down (as a non repairer). You did more than a satisfactory job and you know how to build them, but unfortunately, in this low price mass produced world, I think you will find to sustain a healthy living in this game, you will need to take on repair work. 90% of my work now is repair work referred by local guitar shops. If your nervous about it, acquire some old scrapper’s to practice on. Teddy Woodford in Canada has a great collection of video’s on youtube on his repair work. A top bloke with a great sense of humour. You will learn a lot from him.
I wish you well on your endeavors, and hope you stay passionate. As I always say, you keep learning until the day you die.
John Walker,
Johker Guitars.
Fascinating variation between the different timber samples. I wouldn't have expected such a difference, particularly between related species.
Something that I (as a non-musician) don't have a feel for - how much of that resonance will remain in the finished instrument, once all the bracing etc. has been applied? Are they particularly good tone woods because they impart such a strong resonance? Or is it because that strong resonance makes it easier to filter out through construction?
Thanks Daisy! I wonder how the plates would sound if they were planed down to the same thickness. But I trust your judgement that it isn't just the difference in thickness what we are hearing.
Cut to same dimension, then planed until the same weight would also be interesting.
You could set up the test in multiple ways, Same dimensions and planed to same stiffness (measured by force required to flex a set distance) is another.
Same here. The Smokey Mtn spruce piece was more than half-again as thick as the Moon spruce. The thicker piece would vibrate at a higher frequency, even if cut as the next slice from the same log. I was impressed by the wonderful bass note of the Moon spruce compared to the higher note of the Smokey Mtn spruce. I still don't know how to make a fair comparison based on those results. It's like comparing the tone of a violin G string to that of a viola C string.
It would be much fairer to compare samples of the same dimensions to assure that variations really represent the inherent differences in the qualities of the woods.
Would be interesting to then have the three made into guitars where everything else was done the same and see what difference they made then. It's one thing comparing the tap sound, another the guitar sound.
Even then, sampling just one example of each can be wildly mispresentative of the norm for that type. That being said, this was an interesting comparison, and lends itself to a more comprehensive comparison.
Agreed
And then give them a few years of playing so the wood "sets".
Just really interesting and enjoyable video thanks.
i’d be interested to see a comparison of the spectrometer readings of these recordings
I just love to watch you two talk nerdy woodworm stuff. ❤
hi there in my 52 years as a cabinet maker and the last 30 years as classic guitar maker in Holland, the slow growth wood is stronger and tighter, the tighter the rings the more tone you get. love your work and passion for what you do 👌👍
Hi! Very cool idea and comparison! The sound is really a lot different if listened with good headphones, and the Smokey has an amazing tone..
I think these sounds of the woodtone only give you a hint of how it will sound on a guitar. So it would be really cool to understand the capabilities of a piece of wood before putting it in a guitar. Do you think there could be a way to compare the sound of a piece of wood to the sound of a guitar made from that same wood in a "scientific way"? (Also to understand and to compare better the properties of all the woods and also to make the right pick while choosing the piece of wood)
Also if I may add, I think it would be cool to have a graphical visualization and comparison of the various spectrogram obtained by the recordings of the tones.
Interesting video, great job and thank you for sharing your knowledge! :D (and sorry for my english, it's not my native language)
I never knew it was possible to nerd out so much over wood, super interesting!
Alright, I'm only 4 minutes in, and I can already tell that this channel is going to be one of those very few that I check obsessively for new content. The story of that Smoky Mountain spruce tree! Just so amazingly well illustrated and explained! It's obvious that you know what you're doing, but with humility, and a genuine love of the subject matter. I absolutely love this kind of background information, especially when presented so insanely well! Back to the video...
This was really illuminating. After the Smokey Mountain the others sounded like ceiling board. And as a layperson I'd assume the thicker smaller piece would resonate less? So if it was the same dimensions the differences would be more pronounced?
I'd also like to see the spectrographs. Maybe if the files were dropped into iZotope RX or something similar.
I love this experiment. I’d love for you to mill all three tops to exactly the same dimensions and then do the experiment again. I think you’d get a truer result. Just my 2 cents ( or 2 pence).
Yes you're right. Otherwise we're comparing potatoes with carrots ;)
Actually, a truer test would be to build 3 guitars identically, with the different woods.
@@petedavis7970 I see what you mean. But you'd have 3 guitars with different necks, back, sides, bridges. In th end you would compare 3 GUITARS, and not 3 TOPS. So testing the individual raw tops (same dimensions) is more accurate.
The difference in the three woods is quite striking, much more variation than i would have thought . the first two woods sounded great with one being much more bassy. The third spruce sounded somewhat dead to me. very interesting .
Interesting video. Thank you! Cheers Dave
Quite interesting. The Sitka sounded dead so hopefully you were holding it at a node point, if not that would explain it's "deadness". Would not choose that one at all. BUT, the other two were quite interesting. I live in North Carolina in the smokies tho that did not influence what I heard. The Smokie wood sounded wonderful. Nice low end ring. Would be interesting to hear a comparison of the guitars that come out of the three. The Moon wood had a lovely higher ring which is why you heard it best when you were taping. Our ears hear best between 1k-3k probably because that is the range of the human voice that gives each of us a unique character. The voice of course starts around 200 to 400 hz, but that is not where the character lives. But here's why it would be interesting to hear the guitars that come from these. Tho I liked the Smokey one the best in a ring test, the Moon may well make the best recording guitar. And while it certainly depends on the function of the guitar in a given arrangement, ie, solo guitar or rhythm guitar in context with other instruments, generally speaking I record my guitars with light strings and a very light touch of boost somewhere around 4k, again depending on the situation. Why? It helps them be heard better in a thick mix since there is a lot of competition in the 500 hz region give or take a couple of hundred when there are several instruments and voices. That's where the "mud" lives lol!. So the Moon might well be the winner once all is said and done for guitars made to record in a mix, ie rhythm. The Smokie might fair better for someone who is just accompanying themselves with a guitar, or just recording a guitar performance solo so to speak. Of course, if you could keep that low end and enhance/balance out some hi's via bracing etc., that would be a guitar to die for! But I would love to hear them compared once again when you build the instruments from them. Also, the thickness of the Smokie would indeed create a lower tone as would the thinner Moon create a higher pitch. Of course, density also plays a part as well. So many factors. But I really did enjoy the video! I'm a new sub and have already watched all your vids. Anxiously awaiting the next vid! Your personality and humor not to mention your love for your craft is going to explode your channel. Stay wide eyed and ready to learn and you will go far at whatever you do. I'm 77 and still learning. Maybe one day I'll decide what I want to do when I grow up lol!
I used to pretty much dismiss the idea that species of spruce give that much of a radical change to tone, but here lately I found myself with three guitars of very close spec and setup. All three from the same maker, and three different tops. One is Adirondack, one is Torrified Sitka and the other is a VERY tight grained Engleman. All three have the same bone nut and saddle, bone pins and my same standard bridge pins… They guitars are the same body shape and scale length as well. The Adirondack top hands down has the cleanest note definition and most refined top end while the equally great Torrified top of Sitka has a much warmer rounded off sound with a lot of bass. The Engleman top sounds like I have a compressor engaged somewhere. Every note sustains and “blooms” as if it’s being compressed in a studio setting. Very unique guitars that do very different things when I play them.
Nice video. That Smokey Mountain spruce looks very promising but how will sound be as a guitar? I assume that this will be a relatively small instrument, as the width is only 318 mm (=2x 159mm) and what is the effect if you make the soundboard thinner? Does that raise the tone? Do you have plans to make a guitar out of it in the near future? It will be nice to see the result!
Very cool. I wish this could end with another wood species comparison, this time with finished guitars 🙏
What are your ideas on juniper as a sold neck and then body
In order for this to be a useful test, all the woods should be the identical dimensions and thickness. Otherwise, they will each ring and sustain at different pitches and lengths. The longest sustain, I would think, would be the most sought after quality as it shows the woods ability to conduct and transmit sound. The more dead the sustain, the less conductive the wood. You should be able to see this sustain in the computer wave patterns as to how long the waves continued and compare them to each. That said, to my ear the first one (Smokies Red Spruce) seemed to have the longest sustain.
Just watched this Video, the tone of the wood is created by the stiffness, size, and mass. the wood will then absorb certain frequencys this is the dampening effect, leaving the sound you hear.
The only way to compair the woods is to size them all the same, then the effect of the wood resonance and dampening will come through.
The resonance of the wood is determined by the youg's modulus, length, width, thickness and mass. Hope this helps.
It's a very nice experiment and a pleasure to watch. I would say that in order to be able to attribute sonic differences to different kinds of wood, you need to go "ceteris paribus" (all else equal) in your research setup.
Different thickness means different sound. Different size also means different sound.
Potentially these boards were cut in a different angle towards the grain and growth rings and that will change sound too.
Then these boards will behave differently when you hold them at different points relative to their shape and size.
If you want to make conclusive statements about the difference, all boards need to be the same thickness and size, grabbed/hung from the same coordinate at the same clamping force and then you need to tap the exact same coordinate.
To have statistically meaningful samples, you may need over 20 samples from different trees (per genus) and multiply that for different locations in the tree that the piece is taken from.
As to judging tone, we can divide humankind roughly into two categories: people that are inclined to focus on higher pitch versus people that focus on the lower pitch. A minority focuses consciously on both.
What makes sound, instruments, interesting is their over and undertones. When I play a central on a piano (no pedal) then that note is helped by the upper ~2 octaves where strings have no damper and through harmonic resonance, these can provide a layer or character. When I floor the sustain pedal and hit the same note, I get harmonic resonance from the lower octaves and this makes the central A (440Hz) warmer and louder, with the addition of "warmth" by the lower octaves. Altogether this results in complex wave-shapes where the 440Hz is the dominant, having been hit directly.
If we transpose this to a violin, then we see much less of the harmonic string resonance, but we do see amplification and coloration from the violin's box that adds to the lower octaves, as well as from the bridge that adds color to the higher octaves.
If you listen to human voices then you'll notice that one soprano has an extremely pure voice that immediately sounds bad when out of tune, when another soprano has more under and over tones. More complexity (layers, harmonic tones) can make more interesting. This is where some famous instruments get their reputation from: they add a balanced, well structured mix of harmonic under and over tones to what the player plays.
To go back to the video, the first sample was warm and might add more undertones, the second - that you called "bassy" - to my ear had more overtones, but still offered undertones. The third was really a problem. (Order of the first comparative test section that was non-blind.)
The summary is that we want real good warmth in a guitar that enables to relay deeper emotions. Without knowing what remains from this when bound and strung into a guitar body, I would argue that the first panel of wood had this quality. And it should relay higher frequencies without distortion. Warmer high-pitched coloration is OK, distortion is not. It seemed like the second panel had this quality - in my perception it was thin on the bass side. In a violin, the bridge has an important sonic role, not so much in the guitar, I guess. Therefor in a guitar it is all about the body and its interactions. Ideally, I would hope to find both the first and second panel qualities at the same time in one instrument in a balanced layering. And this is what historical instruments may do extremely well - the ones with price tags far exceeding 10K.
Thanks for an interesting comment, I wonder how much difference the age of the wood makes when thinned down to soundboard thickness(After normal drying)? My Sitka top Maton is nearly 30 years old and sounds to me better than when I bought it, keeping in mind that I am a better player now of course.
@@pinballrobbie - yes, it does make a difference and each would require a cohort in a change one variable at a time, ceteris paribus, approach. How the wood was cured between felling and processing and how old the wood is after that. I get the impression that guitars may become a bit rubbery after a couple decades of playing them, because of both aging effects. However there are very expensive unique today instruments that are 100 or 200 years old that have a really beautiful tone. If that's really all in "aging" - it could be "attribution" - remains to be seen. Double blind listening tests comparing a violin by Stradivarius with an excellent contemporary one indicates that random people have a hard time distinguishing them. But, hearing, recognizing voices, must be learned and this should drive selection of test persons in this "study". That learning takes "ages" - think about the 10,000 times or hours rule. I saw a concert pianist in a Steinway location test playing 5 Model D pianos - she was allowed to use one for a recording of some chamber music. She played all 5 and then said, pointing with her finger, "I played that one last year".
I’d be most interested to hear the woods once you’ve used them to make a guitar! Perhaps we can look forward to a follow up video?
I built two identical guitars both soundboard tops from the same board but bracing on one was X and the other was V and the difference was so far apart it was amazing they looked identical but sounded completely different.
How would you characterizer the different in the sound between the two bracing methods? I'm really interested!
@@rdouglas1965 also interested.
Would be interesting to know what you thought of the smokey and moon spruce when you applied your normal ear test. Presumably the mike test has convinced you but just wondering
Some years ago I visited the workshop of a luthier that has made one of my guitars. He had an interesting device that enabled me to hear the various sounds each type of wood made when it vibrated. The device was quite simple. A hammer was released from a fixed point so that it alway hit the wood that was tested with the same force. Thin sticks of various wood were attached to device and the gave a unique sound that could clearly be heard when hit by the tiny hammer. It gave you an idea with regards to the tone quality of each material. You only mention spruce but there are so many other materials that are used in guitar making. Rosewood, mahogany,cherry and Koa to mention a few. The use of some of these materials are now strictly regulated like Brazilian rosewood but East Indian rosewood are still quite common.
The luthier I mentioned earlier made a small series of telecaster like guitars all in different wood but otherwise identical. I think he even used the same pickups for the test. There you could clearly hear how different the sound were even on electric guitars. The sound test confirmed how different the resonance of each type of wood made to the tone. More that 100 years ago there was a violin maker here in Norway that made some unique sounding violins. A rumor started spreading that he soaked the violins in human blood and that there were some dark magic involved. This resulted that most of the violins were burned by their owners. The truth was that he made the violins from trees that had grown next to waterfalls and that this made the wood ionized.
I watched a video where a guy mounted strings and a pickup between two benches and then compared the soundwaves to those of a solid body electric guitar with the same strings and pickup and they were identical. His experiment revealed that the wood has no relevance in solid body electric guitars.
You can search TH-cam for: "Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar?"
This is a very nicely made video. You add entertainment and fun and engagement above and beyond the topic itself. You tell and present your subjects well. If you keep doing this, you are going to be quite successful, and will draw an audience at least somewhat beyond those really into this kind of subject matter.
I'm an example of that. I'm not a hard core guitar builder fan. I'm a player with a more than casual, but less than burning, interest in guitar construction; and someone with a bit of shop experience of various types who likes making things of all sorts. I'm more of a secondary or tertiary circle of potential audience type. You make this fun enough that I keep looking up more videos. That's very promising. I hope you do more of this, and I hope you are really successful, both at videos, and your luthier venture.
I’ve worked with sound boards. From your three samples, the Moon Spruce rang with an beautiful tone like a sound board should. The two others to my ears fell flat.
Great stuff, moisture content also effects wood massively dulling the sound hence humidity effecting quality acoustic guitars so much while seems to effect laminated acoustics a bit less. Really enjoyed the video cheers.
Cedar vs Spruce would be an interesting comparison, I chose a cedar top Breedlove over a spruce top Faith guitar based on sound (I'd like to think) not on sales pitch.
Fantastic video! I’m curious about the pitch of the moonspruce vs Smokey spruce. Mass can have a big difference on pitch. Larger mass = lower pitch. But then greater stiffness = higher pitch. I have to rewatch it and see the sizes again!! Anyway, super interesting - thanks for sharing!
Really enjoyed this video, just wondering if you have to match the resonant frequency of the front of the guitar to the back? I heard that’s what Gibson did with there I believe it was called a citation guitar? As a woodworker I found your video very interesting.
Great video. Would really like to see Daisy at the Martin or Gibson Montana factory commenting on their wood supply.
1. The dimensions have to be all the same to compare. If you change any dimension you will change the tap tone sound. 2. You should hold it at about 21.4 % of the length - to test the longitudinal. Changing where you hold it damps various nodes and will change the sound. Even with all three at the same measurement and held the same, the comparative sound does not tell you which will sound the best. It will give some indication about stiffness and how thin you can make that top. To really calculate what the tap tone means you need the size of the piece (length, width and thickness) the mass and then you need to know what frequency that tap tone is producing. You could do this with an oscilloscope, a computer program like Visual Analyzer - or you could play notes on a key board until you find the matching note or use a chromatic tuner. Then of course you need to have built many instruments and recorded the specs on the top ( and preferably the back, braces, neck etc.) so that you have a target that you know works well.
The thing I've been trying to go for as I get into this hobby is estimating the decay rate. You can actually see this decay in your daw.
It's also not necessarily appropriate to hold the piece of wood at the exact same spot. If wood was isotropic (i.e. same all the way through) then it would be fine to do this. But because it has grain, it is going to have different speeds of sound depending on what direction it's traveling in the wood, so different wood in principle should have slightly different grip points for the same shape.
So, to do this experiment again I'd mark the edge and tap and listen for the decay.
I found some hardware store quartersawn cedar for making a lyre that has a 5 second decay... cannnnoooot wait to hear the sound. Ordered some gut strings of varying gauge, calculated some relative frequencies assuming the same density.
Hello Daisy,
This was quite interesting…but in my opinion, to truly hear the differences in tone between the three Spruce soundboards, it would be necessary to dimension all samples to the same specifications…length, width and thickness. Just my humble opinion.
-joel
Great test Daisy. I really liked the Moon spruce for the low end. Most acoustics sound like ukelele's (hate them) so anything to enhance the bass is great for my tastes. Jim Lill did a series on the elusive electric guitar 'tone' that was quite impressive. I passed this video link on to him.
I used to work in a solid body electric guitar shop in the 1980s. The industry and its gurus debated what made the tone of a solid body electric guitar to the point of religious denominations with Holey Wars. I maintain that it has subtle differences, but Jim concludes that it is all in the electromagnetic pickups. Acoustics are a whole 'nother animal. cheers.
Excellent and sometimes funny presentation sister. Love from the Philippines ❤
Daisy this was really interesting, I’m trying to organise my thoughts on how to best approach the tonewood discussion for electric guitar (without being annihilated in my comments section!) and this was very helpful.
I think whatever you say will be debated - you can’t win on the internet! Whatever you decide I’m sure it’ll be the best way for you and that’s all that matters ❤️
Look up a video titled "Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar?" Super interesting (if you're into the subject) and well done.
Love your videos. Who's doing the drawing? It's awesome! Really adds to the story. How expensive is spruce? Just wondering why it's seldom used in solid body guitars 🤔
Daisy does her own illustrations.
Very cool video. It would be interesting to press a mechanical exciter against them and play some guitar music through it, and see how each of them responds!
Is stiffer better? Is stiffness and hardness the same thing? In my experience spruce is particularly soft and easy to bend. Why not favour hardwoods if stiff is a desirable quality.
You know; once in a blue moon I get a 'wild hare' to comment on one of these TH-cam videos, and this was one that got me. Mostly because of my background (I went to a US trade school to become a luthier, worked as a cabinetmaker in the USA, then lost my mind and went back to university, acquired an advanced degree in physics, and, to my regret, a diagnosis of an incurable brain disease immediately upon graduation). And yes, I may be an old guy, but I'm not immune to a 'cute' female either (which has already been commented on numerous times on this video, I see). I happen to be one who has an IMMENSE amount of 'theories' to call upon from all these sources, but I doubt you'll be one who needs them, other than to point you, Ms. Tempest, to Paul Seller's blogs and videos, and mainly to his main channel (available relatively cheaply over the internet) which is absolutely INVALUABLE for general woodworking, and luthiery is, at the end of the day, simply woodworking. Although, it IS a bit difficult to imagine that you haven't come across the man's name before, either. Just in case, here it is.
The best way to make a fair comparison would be to make sure all the specimens are the same thickness. Thicker pieces, like the Smokey Mountain wood, will have a higher-pitched tap tone; whereas the thinner the wood is, the lower the pitch will be. To try to deduce the actual response differences, like bass response, will be more accurate if the woods are exactly dimensioned, for consistency. That said, some specimens will immediately jump out at you, when they are truly superior. It's like you just can't hit a wrong note on those pieces; you don't have to search around for the node that you pinch it at. Sorting through a tall stack, it's always fun to find a set that rings like a temple bell, and knocks you back on your heels. Excellent video, as usual, Daisy. I'm a fan for life.
Hey Daisy, love your vids. Thought I'd weigh in here. "Tap Tone" Is a sonic velocity curve. Attack, release, sustain and decay. The "Q" is the peak, ping, or "fundamental". Damping sounds like a sock. When selecting tone wood for project I pay less attention to the hype and more to the sonic properties of each piece. Bossa Nova & Jazz = Fast attack, medium release, long sustain, complex decay.
Flamenco & Bluegrass = Fast attack, quick release, medium sustain, clean decay.
The tighter grain smoky mountain would make an awesome 000 guitar. I have a Taylor Swiss moon over Brazilian rosewood D type which is my best sounding guitar.
I would suggest the the samples need to be the same dimensions and also consider mass so thickness accordingly. I have Sitka Spruce that rings like a bell
Thanks for a scientific (-ish) test, there’s so much subjective stuff out there about tone woods, it’s awesome to learn about actual differences.
What I heard from the room mic during the tap-test was much better and more resonant than what I heard from the playback of the Neumann mic recording. #1 was very resonant, long-sustain, with more mid and high overtones than #2 which was very bass-centered, long sustained with fewer octave overtones, and #3, also bass-y with less sustain and fewer octave overtones.
During the playback from the Neumann recording, #2 and 3 both sounded like bass-thuds with no sustain, where #1 sounded pretty true to what I heard on the room-mic during the test.
The Swiss spruce had, through the crappy acoudtics of my mobile phone, the longest sustain and deepest ring.
It would be interesting to show a side-by-side visual comparison of the three acoustic spectra.
Interesting. My D-18 has a Sitka top and I love it.
One of your most interesting videos. I thought the Smokey Mountain spruce was amazing - and the Moon spruce pretty amazing as well. Martin guitars usually have Sitka spruce and they are lovely guitars - but I think boutique hand made guitars are so much better and a big part of that is the upgrade in sound board top wood.
The first one sounded great, I would make a small shelf out of the third one 👍
john and teds gnarly adventure ? this knowledge was known in the 1700 century, when stradivarius made the plates for his violins. tap tuning was one of the keys to the over all making of the plates or soundboard. he choose wood just above the treeline= a tighter grain. TEXAS A and M, has done a lot of research on how he made those violins. and maybe also the aging process of time help cure the wood for a great sounding instrument.
Tap test will give you a head start for resonance, unless you're wizard though I'm thinking the rest of the construction is going to play the bigger impact in the frequencies it resonates well at.
Speed of the wave changes with density. Junctions/joints and changes in materials, glue etc are all going to impact how the secondary waves move and rebound into each other around the instrument, unless you're using this wood for the nut or bridge sadles, it's not going to change the primary wave. That's where the type of instrument you're building might become more of a factor in the choice. Maybe you need a pickup, and you want that primary wave to be dominant and the soundbox not to resonate as much. Maybe you want the instrument to sing acoustically, your ear seems to find that easily. My understanding is though that you won't really want that resonance to have it's dominant frequency in the playing range or you'll get unwanted resonance making some notes sustain much more than others.
I have tried to capture tap tone resonance on audio, even in a recording studio. But, what comes out of the recording is very different from what I hear directly from my tops
Interesting comparison, as each piece had very different tonal qualities. I was surprised how little resonance and tone the Sitka had. This may be a good thing, as it may produce a more balanced sound in a guitar, or it could be a bad thing lacking resonance and sustain. The other two pieces could be "wolfy" around their resonant frequencies if not braced correctly. It would be interesting to hear these pieces in finished guitars. Thanks
What I noticed the most wasnt the tonal difference so much (all though each was very much different). It was the sustain the moon spruce produced vs the others. It rang for days. Of coarse hearing it over a computer with headphones on cant compare to in person. Nice comparison and I loved the background stories of each.
the nerdier the better!
Ship builders back in the day were just as nerdy as violin makers.
Trees grown in valleys, north sides of a slope, old growth, all effect the sound.
i’m looking in my timber framing book that has a lot of quantified properties of several species and i’m seeing a lot of similarities in sugar and black maple (two hard maples) and sweet and yellow birch. birch has an interlocked grain like elm though.
Beech is similar also to maple, with a compression parallel to the grain a little higher. beech doesn’t have that cross grain, but i wonder how it takes stain.
anyways…great video!
Interesting idea but I'd like to see you do a more scientific future video where you cut all 3 pieces of soundboard to the same lengths and widths and then run them through your thickness sander to create equal thicknesses of the boards.
The test you did could never give equal results because, as you know, when you thin down a soundboard, the tone changes and using a large board and comparing it to small board, will also not yield equal results.
A stiffness comparison would also be an interesting thing to do at same time as the tone test and can be quite easily set up using a deflection test, but the boards need to be dimensionally equal.
Great vid tho, and I've now subscribed :) So keep em coming.
Wildly unscientific and hugely entertaining comparison! 😃😃
Did you do the math to work out the nodal point of each slab to know where to hold? It seemed a little close to the end. In any case, the tonal difference was impressive. I liked the total harmonic palette of the Smokey Mtn. Since you have the recordings, it would be cool to compare the spectrograms in another video.
Also the different dimentions will not make it comparable. Dimentions will change the nodes dramaticly.
The red sruce piece had a much higher pitch resonant frequency than the other two when Daisy tapped them, and it sounded the most resonant to me, but that may be just because it's a higher frquency. But, in the blind test it didn't sound that way to me, so I need to listen to all the tests again
Have you played with Burr or other tight grain woods to see if none spruce has interesting tone ? Fascinating vid, thanks
So many factors at play… not to mention the age and moisture content… and we could go on endlessly. But I must say… I’m not entirely convinced tapping the wood and using that tone can translate directly to how well it makes strings, who have their own tones do better or worse at getting clearly,Loudly and accurately to one’s ears. Thank you for the video!
If you calculate the differences in the sample pieces using the cube rule of stiffness the Smoky is 3.8 times stiffer than the Moon and 4.16 times stiffer than the Sitka. It would be a cool test to bring the Smoky into the same range of thickness. Great video!
Andluth, did you calculate this just by using the thickness data?
@@woutmoerman711 Yes. It functions on the fact the stiffness in relation to thickness is a cubed function, to the power of 3. Lets use a table top for example. If I double its width ex. from 2 feet wide to four feet wide I have doubled its strength, 2x2=4. If the table is 2 inches thick and I double its thickness to 4 inches I have quadrupled its strength, 2x2x2=8.
I live across the mountains from the Smokies. Lotsa spruce in mountains here and definitely some peaks with higher elevations. Hmmm. May have to go for a hike and see what I find in old growth. Oh yeah I play guitar also.