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05-13-2010, 12:27 PM #1TommyD Guest
Has anybody ever tried to have a sound post placed under the bridge of an archtop guitar? I'm wondering what it would do for the sound, the resonance, and the sustain. Maybe under the G-string.
Any takers?
Tommy/
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05-13-2010 12:27 PM
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I had a PRS Archtop (now discontinued) for a few years. It was a 3" deep version of of their hollowbody. It was fully hollow with a large enough sound post to mount their stop tailpiece. It made for a pretty versatile guitar. More focused than say a 335, but with quite a bit more openness than a solid body.
It had the Baggs piezo system in it, and did a very nice job of emulating an acoustic. Some days I regret selling it. I am guessing that some of the forward thinking builders, Anderson and Greenfield come to mind, would have no qualms about using a soundpost. I assume you are talking about adding one after the fact, right. I am curious to hear about any other examples.
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I understand that most makers don't use them because they sound like crap on a hollowbody archtop. If it improved the sound, don't you think they would be more common? The technology is centuries old, it's not like it's a secret.
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I am totally talking out my ar$e here.
On a violin it transmits vibrations to the back. But look how you hold a violin. The back is free to resonate.
My belly (yes) is usually up against the back and it doesnt resonate so much (to the point of sometimes I sit with the guitar an inch away from me. Try it sometime and see if you notice the diff in tone)
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My turn for ar$e talk! Did you every hear a violin played pizzicato? Plink, plunk. Awful. Toneless. I think it's dangerous to compare guitars and violins unless you start bowing your guitar! Now the bow applies repeated vibration to the string and the violin's sound post helps to transmit that to the back of the instrument. Too different a scenario to expect it to carry over to a guitar.
Originally Posted by SamBooka
I'm aware of my L5's back vibrating, and it makes my belly vibrate too, or slosh around Homer-style. Sorry about the imagery.
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never mind imagery,ive just nearly choked on coffee and biscuits,BD you really will have to give us humour alerts(lol).
Cheers Tom
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There is huge soundpost in the aria pro Herb Ellis,never try to take it away,what will it do the guitar?Maybe collapsing?
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05-15-2010, 12:26 AM #8TommyD Guest
My idea is just to try a normal-diameter sound post - say a spruce dowel, about 3/8 to 7/16" in diameter, and try it under the G-string, which seems deader than the others on most guitars. For violins there is a special tool, a sort of pliers, that they use to position the sound post. Technicians move them around in violins, cellos, etc., until they get the resonance they want. Just a thought.
tommy/
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My Japanese ES175 has a soundpost under the bridge and the guitar sounds just fine to my ears. And it hardly has any problems feedbacking, as opposed to many 'real' 175s.
Why not give it a try an see what it does? Installation through the he brigde PU-gap is easy enough and you don't have to glue anything.
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05-15-2010, 11:21 AM #11TommyD GuestTerrific! Thanks a lot! (What did we ever do without the web?!) Originally Posted by bako
T/
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I know this is an old thread but I just could not find much info on this sound post issue on the web. I'm a luthier and guitar repair tech here in Tacoma WA and have been thinking about this for a while now.
Yesterday I decided to modify my Loar LH-500-N by removing the sound post. This guitar has a glued in sound post and it's more like a plank then a post. The post is made from mahogany and is shaped like a pillar. Wider at the top and bottom. Because the post is glued in it can not just be removed like a sound post used in the violin family. I didn't want to remove the top of the guitar to do this modification so I used a Japanese saw threw the F-Hole and cut about a 30mm chunk out of the center of the post. The post was in so tight that even with all string tension removed it was quite hard to get the saw threw the wood without the post pinching my blade. After making the two cuts I pulled the section out. I then tuned the guitar and had to adjust my string action about 1.8mm higher to account for the amount of lift the post was putting on the top. I played it and watched it all day making sure my action was stable. So far so good.
The first thing is the guitar just opened up in tone. The LH-500 sounds just okay acoustically from the factory. It is punchy but quite thin in tone with not a tun of volume. Once the sound post was removed I got some very nice tone and allot more volume. Where there was no roundness in tone in the lower tonal register of the guitar now sings and is sweet and mellow. The highs are much more pure and bell like and sustain has just about doubled. All good things thus far.
It has only been a day but I don't see any change in the structure. The top seems to be very stable without the sound post. Other then the initial drop from releasing the sound post there has been no movement and guitar plays and sounds great.
Amplification before sound post removal: This guitar has had some feedback issues in the past. No problems at low to medium volume levels. But in louder situations I would need to baffle the F-Holes to reduce feedback. The guitar would feed back on just about any "E" note.
Amplification after sound post removal: I have yet to use this guitar in a live situation after removing the sound post but I did plug it in in my living room. At low to medium volume the guitar does not feed back. At higher volume levels the feed back issues have changed. It's is much more alive and acoustic now that the sound post had been removed and feeds back on a much wider tonal range. Now rather then just having one hot spot of feedback, feedback is more tonally spread.
The pros to removing the sound post in the guitar are great. I used to only play this guitar amplified because the acoustic tone was so thin and weak to my ear. Having removed the sound post the guitar has a sweet, mellow round tone with good volume that now sounds like a real arch top. Not only a real arch top but a darn good arch top. It's like a new guitar for me.
I have tested the guitar with Thomastik BeBop 12-50 and D'ADdario Jazz Flats Med (kept the E and B on from the Thomastik set). Both sounded good but the Thomastik set is great and this is what I will keep. I'm not a huge flat wound player but it did sound good with flats as well.
So far the only con for me is amplification. I knew this was going to be an issue going into this project. When I perform I primarily play an amplified Selmer style (Busato build) guitar and amplification is a bear anyway so I'm used to overcoming feedback issues with acoustic guitars at louder volume levels. I'll just have to work a little harder now with the Loar. But it sounds so much better it will be worth it I think.
I understand why there was a sound post put in at the factory for this guitar but it would have been nice if they didn't glue it in. If for some reason I need to put a sound post back into the guitar I will put a removable on in and make one that is not so tight.
There is very little information on the web about the newer Loar guitars and they don't even offer the the LH-500 any more. The LH-700-VS and LH-600-VS look interesting but at this point I have not contacted Music Link to ask about sound posts in these models. I played the LH-280 the other day and for the price ($499) its a fun guitar. It does not have a sound post but nothing like my "new" LH-500.
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The practical folks over at Guild (pre-Fender) used small violin-style soundposts for years on a variety of their laminated electric archtop guitars. I had one a few years back and it sounded fine. It definitely prevented feedback, which I believe was its intent. Perhaps some of our Guild owners could comment?
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guild x500s had posts for a few years. The aria herb ellis also had a sound post
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I used an X500 with a sound post for a time; the post was more a very small maple plank than a violin-style post. It helped a lot with feedback as you'd expect; the issue for me was the extent to which it affected electric tone.I suspect ( compared to another non-post x500) that it did slightly affect the electric sound - intuitively it makes sense, as the top will vibrate much less with a post. Still a great sound, and a more practical instrument. Obviously, the acoustic sound was diminished by the post - but then, it's an electric guitar. Originally Posted by Hammertone
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There are some contemporary luthiers that offer different takes on the sound post ieda. Stephan Holst, Ribbecke, Victor Baker, Bryant Trenier, all come to mind. There is some discussion of this on MIMM under Archtop Builds threads as well. Michael Lewis and Alan Carruth both chime in as well as amateur builders.
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I have much the same experance with my Guild X-170, it has a sound post the width of the bridge, under the bridge. The acoustic sound is pretty thin but plugged in sounds great and has little feedback problems. As Franz stated it is an electric archtop.
Thanks John
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I suppose it is pretty well understood that a soundpost in a guitar is not expected to do the same thing as the post in a violin.
As mentioned there are plenty of opinions out there amongst builders. The most common use is to suppress feedback. I have found it to be a decent tool in the arsenal to attack resonant peaks as well.
I can see why a manufacturer would want to glue the "column" in. I have reset my share of violin soundposts, and I can only imagine the GC guy who works behind the "Luthier" table resetting archtop posts. Better to have them in there for good.
They are easy to remove and replace when there is a humbucker hole near the bridge. Far more tricky in an archtop with only f-holes. And a regular thrill in a violin with the canted ends on the post sitting against the interior carve on the top and back - AND sounding quite different depending on position and the tightness of the fit (not at all so sensitive on a guitar as far as I can tell).
And for a real thrill, have the violin owner/player want to watch and repeatedly test the set,...
Chris
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gretsch has also employed various methods of feedback control, one being the sound posts my 6118 has. they work alright-ish. i'm pleased with the tone. and while not an acoustic instrument at all, its unplugged sound is acceptable, in a banjo-y, gypsy-ish, rocking out on the couch kind of way.
they also have the famed trestle bracing and sometimes stick a waffle cut, grid like piece of wood on the back, too.
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What is MIMM? Originally Posted by jads57
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Just one man's experience here, but I had one of those Washburn oval-hole cutaway archtops (J4 Maybe? Like a Howard Roberts from the seventies) a few years ago, and created a sound post for it just as an experiment. That guitar had a couple of dead notes, and what the post did do for it was cure those, although it deadened the acoustic and--to my ears at least--the electric sound was sort of more "pinched," for lack of a better term. When I took the post back out, it opened back up, but the dead notes returned. Then a couple of years later, I had a Gibson Howard Roberts (the one with the oval hole, 1974) and tried the same experiment. Same experience--it deadened what acoustic sound that guitar had, but also "pinched" the electric sound--as if it narrowed the dynamic range.
Fast-forward to late last year. I had a custom archtop made with a spruce top and oval hole, and once again. . .same story. In all cases, I had ordered some spruce dowels made from old 40+-year-old spruce, and researched how to cut, shape, and fit them properly. So my vote is--you can probably guess my vote. But, as always, your mileage may vary.
On the other hand, I had one of the Ventura V-1007 guitars from 1981 (a sort of ES-175-inspired guitars) and it had the hourglass-shaped support under the bridge connecting to the back, and that guitar was a monster acoustically and electrically, and I sold it only because I don't like 24.75" scale lengths.
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I had a pre-Fender Guild X170 for many years, these had the post under the bridge, it's a good guitar for the price, but it's not in the same league as more expensive Guild models. Originally Posted by powerwagonjohn
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Guy, I would have to agree with you on that one!
Thanks John
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I put some dowel/posts into a Korean hollow ply guitar, first between back and brace and then between back and top (under bridge foot).
The brace post made the amplified and acoustic flatwound sound less resonant than the bridge foot placement, but there were no obvious dead spots anywhere on the fingerboard with both positions.
I settled for the brace to back post as I prefer the shorter, less resonant sound.
More 'Thunk!' than 'Twangg!'
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Chris, Originally Posted by PTChristopher2
Are you familiar at all with the Gretsch "trestle bracing"? Most Gretsches have only the parallel bracing- no connection of the top to the back, while fewer have the sound posts, while even fewer have the trestle braces.
http://www.gretschguitars.com/blog/g...estle-bracing/
Anyway, I have been wondering... would it be "alright" to remove the trestle part of the braces? Breaking the connection between the top and the back, essentially making the guitar into a non-trestle/non-post Gretsch? I know the easy answer is "buy another guitar", but I'm curious about the physics of it... could the "trestle parts" of the braces simply be cut out?
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