What does this mean?

[Skyjerk]

Just a curiosity.

So I have my basic build complete on my latest 22 Magnum. Carved the neck last night.

Today I hang the guitar from my hand, if you can imagine my forefinger and thumb acting as a hanger, the guitar is hanging in my hand by the headstock. I'm not gripping it, its just hanging.
I put my ear close to the headstock and tapped on the back of the body and it rings like a tuning fork. Not the duration of a tuning fork, of course, but the note is clear and tight. Decay maybe 2 seconds, like the tap-tone of a fingerboard. If I sing that pitch into a tuner its nearly dead-on A 440.

So, I expect this means nothing more than its good wood with clean, tight joints, and nicely resonant. I still have to cut the control cavity so I expect the pitch will change once I do that, so the note is coincidental and irrelevant I think.

Maybe all guitars do this, I never tried before

So, the question is, once all cutting and carving and sanding are done, does whatever note it's ringing at that point affect how the guitar sounds when you play that particular note, whatever that note may be?

Does it kill that note? Does it enhance it? Does it do nothing whatsoever?

 

[jkes01]

I believe you will open a portal to the 5th dimension.







Maybe just the right combination of superior tone woods and impeccable craftsmanship.

Be interested to know how it plays compared to your other builds.

 

[charisjapan]

No idea.

But with luck, hollowing the cavity and adding hardware will give you a perfect Am chord.

As you said, good chance the guitar "rings" nicely because of your painstaking design and construction.

 

[C-Grin]

Soak it in water with plums and it will play the relative minor chord to your major all by itself

 

[ARandall]

Every material on earth has resonance. From a physical motion point of view you want to maximise this for every frequency, without then making 1 frequency at which you get a standing wave. This will give you maximum sustain for every note on the guitar.

But given the body and neck make a certain shape, you are guaranteed there will be one strongest note.....its just a natural part of physics. The more you fluke the right bits of wood being attached together the more this natural resonance will be strong. You could possibly destroy a good guitar by cutting the neck shape from the blank by starting the cut a few cm either way. You'll never know until every bit is assembled what the result will be, and you'll certainly never know what it could have been but for the other choices you might have made.
As long as you have a decent enough glue joins on the guitar, the rest is in 'the lap of the gods' so to speak.

 

[w666]

Tap tuning is an important concept in the construction of acoustic instruments. The same concepts apply to your electric guitar, however, some might argue that they are less important to the overall sound of the instrument. I dunno...

 

[fatdaddypreacher]

yes, thank you...even more to confuse and already confused old man.

 

[moreles]

As A Randall points out, everything resonates, and most things you tap will make a note. I get odd looks when I walk around tapping forged iron handrails, wooden banisters, drinking glasses... Some materials will absorb and disperse this energy quickly, and make no noise at all (tap a sweater) while others, like the bars on a marimba, will sound a strong, loud, bright tone. And there's everything in between. But this is where I shut up, because I haven't built enough guitars to have learned for myself, through experience. I encounter such wide-ranging and conflicting claims about what works that I simply modify known designs rather than building from theory. You'll read that loads of weight = sustain, and you'll read that balsa wood bodies have great sustain. This wood is bright; this wood is warm. Etc. I think it's probably true that there are tap tones to seek, and some to avoid, for guitar. And I do know that I like playing resonant electrics because they feel lively and responsive. But then there's Les with The Log. So why am I writing this comment? Beats me, other than to say if your guitar rings like a bell when tapped, I think that good!

 

[cmjohnson]

Paul Reed Smith talks about how every bit of the instrument subtracts from tone. Everything absorbs vibration. NOTHING increases vibration other than you cranking on the strings. But the key to maximizing tone and sustain is to pick materials that have the slowest rate of vibration subtraction. (Absorbtion) Even the nut material PRS uses makes a loud resonant CLINK when you drop one of their nut blanks on a hard surface. Of course PRS is right. From this rational perspective, the tonewood debate is ended and yes, tonewood is a thing, because EVERY piece of wood has specific vibrational properties.

I choose the components of my guitars to maximize tone and sustain within the constraints of my supplies stash and certain things that are defined limits. If I choose a specific top set, while it may not have the best tap tones, then I'm still going to use it, but I'll pick a more resonant neck blank and body blank to go along with it.

In general I want every piece of wood in the guitar to have a loud, clear, long sustaining tap tone, and the higher the pitch of that tap tone, the better. I want to keep the resonant frequency ranges up in the higher registers as much as possible so as to reduce wolf notes, especially in the lower registers.

When I've done this and taken it to extremes by using a Pernambuco neck blank, I ended up with a guitar that has very tight bass response, which was predictable, but it also has incredibly even tonal response across the whole fingerboard. Every note rings out about as well as any other. We've all encounter guitars where some notes ring and others just vanish as soon as you fret the note and play it, but this one does not do that at all. And that is what I believed I'd get by picking out woods with high, clear, and long tap tones.

 

[B. Howard]

According to Trevor Gore all guitars have a fundamental resonance that will lead to some phase cancellation depending on strength and frequency. He claims that G# is the best pitch to aim for as it is generally out of key.... I have always been a bit skeptical of his claims as applied to solid electric guitars even though he claims the principle is exactly the same. On an acoustic instrument I agree with the premise but have difficulty seeing it translate into something a magnetic pick up will decipher.

So since you have a clearly observable candidate here this could be interesting...... make note of the final frequency as exact as you can by tuning a string on a second guitar to match pitch and measuring on a tuner. When it is all done we look at the notes in proximity to the body frequency with some analyzing tools ( i can do if you cannot) and see what if any effect was had.

 

[Skyjerk]

According to Trevor Gore all guitars have a fundamental resonance that will lead to some phase cancellation depending on strength and frequency. He claims that G# is the best pitch to aim for as it is generally out of key.... I have always been a bit skeptical of his claims as applied to solid electric guitars even though he claims the principle is exactly the same. On an acoustic instrument I agree with the premise but have difficulty seeing it translate into something a magnetic pick up will decipher.

So since you have a clearly observable candidate here this could be interesting...... make note of the final frequency as exact as you can by tuning a string on a second guitar to match pitch and measuring on a tuner. When it is all done we look at the notes in proximity to the body frequency with some analyzing tools ( i can do if you cannot) and see what if any effect was had.

I'm game. We'll see where it leads

 

[charisjapan]

I'm game. We'll see where it leads

So what will you doo to flatten the guitar to Ab?

 

[Skyjerk]

So what will you doo to flatten the guitar to Ab?

Rolling pin

I wont be attempting to tune this guitar like an acoustic. The pitch will undoubtedly change when I cut the control cavity, I'm guessing removing wood will raise the pitch but I could be 100% wrong about that. If it does raise it, then G# is quite a distance to travel from A

 

[Freddy G]

removing material lowers pitch

 

[charisjapan]

Lead Ballast

Edit: Come to think of it, way too mundane. Can I suggest using 5.588mm (0.22") slugs of depleted uranium? Find 3-D C.G. ... probably somewhere between the pickups ... and add until you achieve G#/Ab.

Edit again: 'Course, you could be there after adding hardware!

 

[Skyjerk]

removing material lowers pitch

That being the case, I expect the amount of material I'll remove for the control cavity is gonna take it down more than a 1/2 step, so I'll miss the G# either way

 

[B. Howard]

I wouldn't put much effort into tuning as we still have no demonstration of effects good or bad......

 

[akwusmc]

That being the case, I expect the amount of material I'll remove for the control cavity is gonna take it down more than a 1/2 step, so I'll miss the G# either way

Might be an interesting exercise to quantify what the effects are of the different operations in building the guitar.

'I started with an A but after routing control cavities went down to an F but adding the bridge brought me up to A# and then cutting fret slots brought me back to within 3 tenths of A and then ...'

 

[rusdfh]

I have had P-Basses that appeared to suffer from sympathetic harmonics that were in the tap tone range ,they ate that note when played. I have never witnessed that happening on a guitar. The solution on the P-Bass by the way was a 4 inch c clamp on the head-stock. I would think in your case it probably will mean just another great guitar, if not a weight out of an old Titalist 7 iron would be the only correct fix.

 

[emoney]

You're hurting my head. Bigger hole will definitely lower pitch. Acoustic resonance be damned I always say.