So, I, uh... (NGD)

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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Embenny » Mon May 07, 2018 8:33 pm

Oh no I totally get what you're saying.

I kinda picture it as being analogous to their electrics. They emphasize midrange. Taylors are the Fenders with their sparkle, and Martins are just...I don't know, archtop electrics with their big bottom end? The analogy falls apart there a bit.

I'm just a "modern fingerstyle guitar" type of player when it comes to acoustics. I switched to luthier-built acoustics years ago and find Gibsons to "fight" me too much - I like the notes to leap out with a light touch, which is why I mostly play cedar and Engelmann spruce-topped lightly-built guitars, which just isn't what Gibson does (nor does it need to be).

All of that sounds horribly snobby, and it basically is, so ignore me. There are styles of playing that sound incredible on Gibson acoustics, mine just isn't one of them.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by oid » Mon May 07, 2018 10:05 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Mon May 07, 2018 7:55 pm
Yeah, I see people say that they feel they need high action to let the strings ring out and shit, I never know what they are talking about. I set my action as low as possible on every guitar I own, always have, and what I did was learn how to play with whatever touch is necessary to accommodate that.

This isn't me trying to toot my own horn here like I'm some great guitar player, but I can play with a lighter touch and low action. Other people can get that action up there and still do everything I can do and more. But me, I like it low.
After you get your setup taken care of go sit in at a barn dance, it will immediately make sense. Those bands are fairly impressive, fill a large acoustically dead space full of noisy people with more sound then one would expect possible, makes you sort of question amplification.

You are making me want a new guitar...

Time to browse reverb.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by sookwinder » Mon May 07, 2018 10:29 pm

For me it is that the design of the Martins tends to emphasise the fundamentals, which from what I gather is what "pickers" or people who play by themselves like, whereas Gibson designs have the harmonics a lot louder so there is far more of a "wash" of fundamentals and harmonics, which seems to work so well with rock/pop, ensemble music.

As far as set ups and actions. Early on in my somewhat limited acoustic guitar (self) education I learnt that many of the "set ups" that are described in the literature and on the interwebz are done for and by people who are just pickers. Their description of how high the strings should be IMO was/is ridiculous. In the end I realized they were just starting points and each acoustic needs to be considered on its own merit. I can set up an acoustic with a low to low/medium action that will allow full on strumming with no bad fretting/rattling or issues. It just takes time and an understanding of the instrument.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by oid » Mon May 07, 2018 11:00 pm

sookwinder wrote:
Mon May 07, 2018 10:29 pm
I can set up an acoustic with a low to low/medium action that will allow full on strumming with no bad fretting/rattling or issues. It just takes time and an understanding of the instrument.
If you can do that you have a very well paying career waiting for you! The issue is you also have to understand the player and their needs, their strum is not yours. It is really quite surprising how high of an action some people require to be buzz free, and how low of an action some can play buzz free.

The j45 in question looks like it will almost set itself up though, it is going to sound good.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by zhivago » Mon May 07, 2018 11:12 pm

On the subject of setups, one more thing to take into serious consideration is saddle height.

You need a good saddle break angle to begin with to get the top moving properly. Sometimes this can mean a neck reset to get good break angle, good top movement and comfortable action. Basically the guitar geometry has to be optimum to get the best experience.

The Martin I just got needs one (and probably a refret as well). It will transform the guitar, much like it did to my J50 a few years back. 8)
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Despot » Tue May 08, 2018 1:37 am

+1 on what Yannis and David said above.

I like my acoustics to have low action, but I also like the saddle break angle to be enough to get the top moving. My own J45 has had two neck resets (I believe) over the course of it's life. It has 'just enough' break angle and 'just enough' action to be perfect ... but over time that'll change as the top changes. The angles need to be right for an acoustic to be in that goldilocks zone for me.

I'm mainly an electric player - a friend who mostly plays acoustic guitar bemoans my set up as being "too bloody low" for him to be able to play and suggests that I "just man the f*** up and learn how to play with more tension/higher action". The difference is that I play ensemble stuff on acoustic and he plays mostly instrumental/solo stuff. You can obviously play either on either ... but I find that a little lower action makes it easier to go through chord changes and to chords higher up the neck. Also I like how it sounds.

Horses for courses - your set up only needs to be perfect for you ... and I've long ago figured out that whatever works ... works. If it works it's not bad.

Also - Larry ... nice. Very nice.

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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by zhivago » Tue May 08, 2018 3:40 am

Despot wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 1:37 am
+1 on what Yannis and David said above.

I like my acoustics to have low action, but I also like the saddle break angle to be enough to get the top moving. My own J45 has had two neck resets (I believe) over the course of it's life. It has 'just enough' break angle and 'just enough' action to be perfect ... but over time that'll change as the top changes. The angles need to be right for an acoustic to be in that goldilocks zone for me.

I'm mainly an electric player - a friend who mostly plays acoustic guitar bemoans my set up as being "too bloody low" for him to be able to play and suggests that I "just man the f*** up and learn how to play with more tension/higher action". The difference is that I play ensemble stuff on acoustic and he plays mostly instrumental/solo stuff. You can obviously play either on either ... but I find that a little lower action makes it easier to go through chord changes and to chords higher up the neck. Also I like how it sounds.

Horses for courses - your set up only needs to be perfect for you ... and I've long ago figured out that whatever works ... works. If it works it's not bad.

Also - Larry ... nice. Very nice.

^^^^
100000% this. I love playing both electric and acoustic...I'd go as far to say that I am almost 50-50 on each side. Over the years I just went with "medium-low-ish"* with my guitars...super-low just doesn't do it for me.

...and this is not because I strum or hit hard when I play. It is because when the moment calls for force on the string to pull out the note, and if the guitar is setup too low, then it frets out and there is nowhere to go.



*I appreciate this may make no sense at all, :fp: but what I mean is low, but with room to dig in if needed while still maintaining a pleasant playing experience, be it with a flatpack or fingerstyle (I play both styles on acoustic)
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Despot » Tue May 08, 2018 3:58 am

It's a matter of preference really. I mean ... I can pretty much play a guitar with any action. My very first guitar was a Washburn acoustic that had been repaired by my Dad following a headstock break - my uncle gave it to him and he gave it to me. That thing has action like a pedal steel ... but at the weekend when I was home in my folks place that was the guitar I played to play a bit with my Dad (who was using the Guild I bought him for his 60th). Was it pain free? Nope. Pleasant - not really to play, but enjoyable to be able to teach my old man a few songs.

As stupid as this sounds, I was fairly late to the game on setting up guitars. I would always set up intonation and then just leave the action whatever way it came to me from the shop or seller. A friend of mine who actually knew what he was doing was using an old Rickenbacker that I had and couldn't get over how terrible the action was - it wasn't that he couldn't play it, but he couldn't understand why I wouldn't try to improve it. I thought myself how to set up guitars on that 360 ... and after that became super picky. But it's still something that's random - what works in terms of set up on one guitar might not work on others - like I put .11s on my Jazzmaster, but .10s on the Telecaster. The JM has slightly higher action because it seems to suit it more than the other guitars set up for .11s.

Action and string gauge can make or break a guitar - and on acoustics add to that neck angle and saddle break angle. That ES345 I bought recently seemed a bit dead with the factory fitted .10s, but sang once I'd fitted .11s and dropped the action a good bit.

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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Larry Mal » Tue May 08, 2018 4:07 am

mbene085 wrote:
Mon May 07, 2018 8:33 pm

All of that sounds horribly snobby, and it basically is, so ignore me. There are styles of playing that sound incredible on Gibson acoustics, mine just isn't one of them.
No, not at all. Clearly I'm putting a new focus on acoustics these days and any kind of input is useful. Weird, despite playing acoustic my whole life and absolutely loving it, I have always just accepted whatever acoustic I've had as "the sound" and that was "my guitar". It helps that I always really liked my guitars, from my low level but still great playing and sounding D1, and then when I came to want something new I got what I think is a great and overlooked guitar with my old Taylor 410. And that 410 is so good that when I would consider other guitars in the store I would compare them to my 410 in my mind and conclude that there was no real advantage in buying a new guitar, and one day when I was just so loaded with cash and determined to get a new acoustic it turned out to be a Taylor 12 string.

That guitar is getting some work done to it soon and I'll post about it as I'm done with it. Nothing much except a bone saddle to replace the Tusq, Taylor makes one that costs a lot but claims to intonate each string as it should.

And now I'm trying to think of guitars in terms of what the microphone hears. It doesn't do me any good to have a super amazing sound that my ears find awesome if the microphone disagrees. There's where I feel this J-45 will shine.

That being said, though, while I am re-building my microphone collection and have a couple arriving later this week, my recording environment isn't strong or very changeable either, so it might take a while before I can get all this up and running. Still, as long as I've been auditioning acoustics, I've been trying to think of them in terms of what will record well.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by zhivago » Tue May 08, 2018 4:12 am

Despot wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 3:58 am
It's a matter of preference really. I mean ... I can pretty much play a guitar with any action. My very first guitar was a Washburn acoustic that had been repaired by my Dad following a headstock break - my uncle gave it to him and he gave it to me. That thing has action like a pedal steel ... but at the weekend when I was home in my folks place that was the guitar I played to play a bit with my Dad (who was using the Guild I bought him for his 60th). Was it pain free? Nope. Pleasant - not really to play, but enjoyable to be able to teach my old man a few songs.

As stupid as this sounds, I was fairly late to the game on setting up guitars. I would always set up intonation and then just leave the action whatever way it came to me from the shop or seller. A friend of mine who actually knew what he was doing was using an old Rickenbacker that I had and couldn't get over how terrible the action was - it wasn't that he couldn't play it, but he couldn't understand why I wouldn't try to improve it. I thought myself how to set up guitars on that 360 ... and after that became super picky. But it's still something that's random - what works in terms of set up on one guitar might not work on others - like I put .11s on my Jazzmaster, but .10s on the Telecaster. The JM has slightly higher action because it seems to suit it more than the other guitars set up for .11s.

Action and string gauge can make or break a guitar - and on acoustics add to that neck angle and saddle break angle. That ES345 I bought recently seemed a bit dead with the factory fitted .10s, but sang once I'd fitted .11s and dropped the action a good bit.

Great points Kev!

It really is all about style and preference...especially on an acoustic where it is such a natural instrument.

My breaking point with acoustics actually is fairly simple...maybe even painfully obvious...if I get under the string, bend up and every few times the string just slips away, then I think something needs adjusting. It could be as simple as lowering the saddle, if there is room...but, in my case lately, this is happening quite a bit on my 000-28, but not at all with my J50. It feels like combination of low saddle, high action and low frets.

So I booked my 000-28 for a neck re-set and a refret. When it comes back, I expect that it will just crush my J50 to pieces. Exciting times. I love shoot-outs like that! :D 8)
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Embenny » Tue May 08, 2018 4:34 am

Larry Mal wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 4:07 am
mbene085 wrote:
Mon May 07, 2018 8:33 pm

All of that sounds horribly snobby, and it basically is, so ignore me. There are styles of playing that sound incredible on Gibson acoustics, mine just isn't one of them.
No, not at all. Clearly I'm putting a new focus on acoustics these days and any kind of input is useful. Weird, despite playing acoustic my whole life and absolutely loving it, I have always just accepted whatever acoustic I've had as "the sound" and that was "my guitar". It helps that I always really liked my guitars, from my low level but still great playing and sounding D1, and then when I came to want something new I got what I think is a great and overlooked guitar with my old Taylor 410. And that 410 is so good that when I would consider other guitars in the store I would compare them to my 410 in my mind and conclude that there was no real advantage in buying a new guitar, and one day when I was just so loaded with cash and determined to get a new acoustic it turned out to be a Taylor 12 string.

That guitar is getting some work done to it soon and I'll post about it as I'm done with it. Nothing much except a bone saddle to replace the Tusq, Taylor makes one that costs a lot but claims to intonate each string as it should.

And now I'm trying to think of guitars in terms of what the microphone hears. It doesn't do me any good to have a super amazing sound that my ears find awesome if the microphone disagrees. There's where I feel this J-45 will shine.

That being said, though, while I am re-building my microphone collection and have a couple arriving later this week, my recording environment isn't strong or very changeable either, so it might take a while before I can get all this up and running. Still, as long as I've been auditioning acoustics, I've been trying to think of them in terms of what will record well.
Cool, was worried I sounded a bit like a douche.

I can get where you're coming from. For years, I also thought an acoustic didn't get any better than my Yairi WY-1 that I had picked up used. I kinda thought, "it's an acoustic, and it sounds like an acoustic, so that's that!" Then I played some Taylors - and some of them sounded even better, so I switched to that. Then I tried my first luthier-built guitar, a Webber Roundbody. I was blown away that a guitar made by a single guy (David Webber) with an apprentice in Vancouver could be the same price range as a Taylor. I ended up making a trip to his workshop while visiting family in Vancouver, and played about a dozen of his instruments.

That was it for me. I now have four Webbers and a Kronbauer 12-string. Also owned a Halcyon, a crazy-affordable Canadian luthier-made acoustic, though I made the mistake of asking for a Martin OM-style, which turned out like an amazing Martin OM - except I don't really like OMs.

I agree with you about focusing on what a microphone (or audience) hears. My Kronbauer was my first guitar with a sound port, a small secondary soundhole on the bass side upper bout, facing the player. It lets the luthier focus on building a guitar that projects forward very well, but then brings some of that volume and bass back to the player. It's surprisingly effective - that 12-string is a cannon in terms of forward projection, but has the fullest tone from the player's perspective of any 12-string I have ever played.

I've gone down the rabbit hole in terms of tonewoods, body shapes, builders, and construction methods when it comes to acoustics, so let me know if there's any info I can offer. Acoustics are still probably my "main thing" despite how much I love my Fenders.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Despot » Tue May 08, 2018 4:40 am

I've seen those sound ports on some seriously high end guitars before - it seems like a good idea to be fair. As much as I love playing my J45 I always love to hear others play it ... so that I can hear what it really sounds like. On the positive side mine is super loud ... so while I'm not hearing exactly what others do when I play it, I do get enough volume bounced back to make it a pretty pleasant experience. I have played other guitars that, as a player, sounded meh ... but then you stood in front of them when someone else played them and suddenly it all made sense.

I played a '64 J200 a while back - I love J200s and really wanted to love this one. It left me cold. But when someone else played it the sound was pretty great. As a player who predominantly plays alone that's not good enough for me though ... it's got to be engaging for me to play as well as for the squirrels in the oak trees outside.

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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Embenny » Tue May 08, 2018 5:13 am

Despot wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 4:40 am
I've seen those sound ports on some seriously high end guitars before - it seems like a good idea to be fair. As much as I love playing my J45 I always love to hear others play it ... so that I can hear what it really sounds like. On the positive side mine is super loud ... so while I'm not hearing exactly what others do when I play it, I do get enough volume bounced back to make it a pretty pleasant experience. I have played other guitars that, as a player, sounded meh ... but then you stood in front of them when someone else played them and suddenly it all made sense.

I played a '64 J200 a while back - I love J200s and really wanted to love this one. It left me cold. But when someone else played it the sound was pretty great. As a player who predominantly plays alone that's not good enough for me though ... it's got to be engaging for me to play as well as for the squirrels in the oak trees outside.
Yeah, it's been a real game-changer for me. I kinda wish my other nice guitars had one. It fixes the irony of an acoustic guitar sounding beautiful to everyone but the player.

The other thing I've done is played an acoustic while wearing a strap and walking up to a wall, about a foot away. The sound reflects off the wall and you get this fullness and brightness you're missing while the sound is projecting away from you.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Larry Mal » Tue May 08, 2018 5:49 am

mbene085 wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 4:34 am
Cool, was worried I sounded a bit like a douche.
No, not at all, in fact when I woke up this morning I assumed that I had been some kind of douche and had been lecturing someone who knew a whole lot about me on the subject.

Then I re-read what I had written, and was relieved to think that it wasn't that bad and that I didn't come across as a bigger douche than I usually do, anyway.
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Re: So, I, uh... (NGD)

Post by Despot » Tue May 08, 2018 6:14 am

You're about the least douche-like person I know on the interwebz Larry.
Rest easy.

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