Assessing A Guitar's Sound Quality
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By Charles Tauber.
This is a wonderful article written by Charles Tauber, a well respected luthier and contributor to the Acoustic Guitar Forum. I would highly suggest checking out his website. http://www.charlestauber.com/luthier/Home.html |
Many guitar players believe that assessing the quality of a guitar's sound is a nebulous feat of magic. It isn't, or doesn't have to be. There are specific, objective things the one can adjudicate that go a long way towards identifying what one likes - or one doesn't like - in the sound of a guitar. Doing so allows one to very quickly assess the quality - that is, whether or not one likes the sound - of a particular instrument.
Here are a few things for which you can listen.
First, play one note at a time and observe how quickly or slowly the sound decays. Assess whether or not specific notes decay differently - faster or slower - than others on that instrument. Do this for the entire range of the instrument from lowest string, open, to highest string, highest frets.
Second, play one note at a time and observe if any one - or more - notes are louder or quieter than others. Is the bass, for example, generally quieter or louder than the treble? Does one specific note sound quiet (or loud) while the note adjacent to it is different?
Third, play one note at a time and listen to the composition of that note. It consists of a fundamental tone and some overtones. How quickly does the fundamental die relative to the overtones? For example, if you play the bass, open E, can you hear the G# overtone - same pitch as the first string, 4th fret? Does the fundamental (E) decay faster than the overtones, such as the G#?
Fourth, play one pitch that can be obtained in multiple positions over the range of the instrument. Do they have similar duration, overtones, decay and timbre? For example, play the 12th fret E note on the 6th string. How does its duration, overtones, decay and timbre compare to playing the same pitch at the 7th fret on the A string and at the 2nd fret on the D string?
Fifth, does the instrument play in tune? At the first few frets? At the 12th fret? at all of the frets in-between? in the upper frets above the top? (There are a variety of ways to check that.)
Sixth, test the harmonics at 12th, 9th, 7th, 5th and 4th frets. How easy are they to sound? How strongly do they sound?
Then, one can begin to play multiple notes at the same time. Listen for the overtones, listen for the decay and what remains as the fundamentals die off. Listen to the overall timbre of the instrument and how the notes work with each other.
That's just a short list of (mostly) subjective things one can use in one's assessment. These are largely independent of the room, itself, (i.e. the store versus your home). Strings do enter into it - old strings can interfere with some aspects of the assessment.
With experience, one can often tell by simply plucking the bass E string, open, whether or not there is "enough there" to warrant further investigation/assessment. Often, one doesn't even need to take the guitar off of the store wall to do that preliminary assessment.
Here are a few things for which you can listen.
First, play one note at a time and observe how quickly or slowly the sound decays. Assess whether or not specific notes decay differently - faster or slower - than others on that instrument. Do this for the entire range of the instrument from lowest string, open, to highest string, highest frets.
Second, play one note at a time and observe if any one - or more - notes are louder or quieter than others. Is the bass, for example, generally quieter or louder than the treble? Does one specific note sound quiet (or loud) while the note adjacent to it is different?
Third, play one note at a time and listen to the composition of that note. It consists of a fundamental tone and some overtones. How quickly does the fundamental die relative to the overtones? For example, if you play the bass, open E, can you hear the G# overtone - same pitch as the first string, 4th fret? Does the fundamental (E) decay faster than the overtones, such as the G#?
Fourth, play one pitch that can be obtained in multiple positions over the range of the instrument. Do they have similar duration, overtones, decay and timbre? For example, play the 12th fret E note on the 6th string. How does its duration, overtones, decay and timbre compare to playing the same pitch at the 7th fret on the A string and at the 2nd fret on the D string?
Fifth, does the instrument play in tune? At the first few frets? At the 12th fret? at all of the frets in-between? in the upper frets above the top? (There are a variety of ways to check that.)
Sixth, test the harmonics at 12th, 9th, 7th, 5th and 4th frets. How easy are they to sound? How strongly do they sound?
Then, one can begin to play multiple notes at the same time. Listen for the overtones, listen for the decay and what remains as the fundamentals die off. Listen to the overall timbre of the instrument and how the notes work with each other.
That's just a short list of (mostly) subjective things one can use in one's assessment. These are largely independent of the room, itself, (i.e. the store versus your home). Strings do enter into it - old strings can interfere with some aspects of the assessment.
With experience, one can often tell by simply plucking the bass E string, open, whether or not there is "enough there" to warrant further investigation/assessment. Often, one doesn't even need to take the guitar off of the store wall to do that preliminary assessment.