Ears

Talk about musical instrument construction, setup and repair.

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blackalex1952
Blackwood
Posts: 776
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:36 pm
Location: North East Victoria

Ears

Post by blackalex1952 » Tue Feb 25, 2020 6:06 pm

I thought I'd start a thread on how we luthiers perceive tone, texture and musical performance using our ears.
I have found that ears have a limited short term memory! The ears tire easily as well when listening in the usual acoustic circumstances which require "fresh ears". That's why many famous acoustic engineers and producers spend a lot of time away from the production and tracking phases, to walk into the listening room in order to assess the progress and impact of their product.
Critical listening needs comparison.
As an example of this, a client turned up with a factory made Gibson LOO guitar, which he had paid nearly $6000 for. The
Visual Analyser taps that I did with this overbuilt piece of, I won't say what, were off the scale of what I thought reasonable: main top over 250Hz and body resonance around 125Hz. I tend to go for Top 190 thereabouts and body around 90Hy which I achieved. I have a current LOO style build going at the moment. On initially playing the customers LOO it had tons of sustain and not a lot of admittance, which tallies with the high VA readings, along with that Gibson "zingy" sound, due to lots of high mids coming from the stiff top. I got all caught up about my own LOO build, but it was unstrung at the time.
Well the Gibson came back the other day due to a guy in a music store doing some very shoddy work which I had to remedy. Be then my own LOO build was up and running. But it wasn't until I compared the two instruments side by side that I realised that my guitar was much louder, has more attack and dynamics, a much stronger tighter bass and the highs and mids had a magic which I like.
Lessons learned. Don't evaluate the sound of an instrument without a reference instrument on hand. Don't judge your own instruments without referencing in real time with a similar guitar which you are familiar with tonally. The volume and attack of a guitar can't be assessed without a known reference in real time as the ears tire quickly.
Factory guitars are overbuilt therefore acoustically a bit dead, which we all know. Finally, it's ok to charge more money for a hand build than most of us do. You just need an expensive factory made guitar on hand for a customer to hear in real time comparison with the hand built one you are selling. The customers ear will do the rest. PS: I'm putting my prices up! Cheers! Ross
"Everything I say on the topic is based solely upon inexperience and assumption!"

seeaxe
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Posts: 768
Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Auckland NZ

Re: Ears

Post by seeaxe » Sat Feb 29, 2020 12:51 pm

Where's our "like" button????
Richard

blackalex1952
Blackwood
Posts: 776
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:36 pm
Location: North East Victoria

Re: Ears

Post by blackalex1952 » Mon Mar 09, 2020 12:47 pm

Where's our "like" button????
You are a luthier....make your own "like button" and post a picture of it! Then we can either make our own take on like buttons or recycle yours...with full credits to you ! Cheers! Ross
"Everything I say on the topic is based solely upon inexperience and assumption!"

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kiwigeo
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Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 5:57 pm
Location: Adelaide, Sth Australia

Re: Ears

Post by kiwigeo » Mon Mar 09, 2020 6:05 pm

Not required...everyone likes everyone in here :mrgreen:
seeaxe wrote:
Sat Feb 29, 2020 12:51 pm
Where's our "like" button????
Martin

simonm
Blackwood
Posts: 176
Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:09 am

Re: Ears

Post by simonm » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:21 am

There is a Gibson place in the Grand old Optry shopping mall in Nashville, or was when I was there about a decade ago, hmm or maybe it was even a bit longer ago. Anyway, it was a great experience for me too. Among the things I tried was an SJ of some kind also for about $6k. compared to the only two steel strings I have done, both from StewMac kits, it was a dead as a doornail. I really couldn't believe that anyone would ever consider putting that much money down for such a guitar. It made me appreciate my own work more. :-)

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