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Yeah I think, heavy downstroke, half acoustic half electric sound?
I like this sound a lot but it's hard to get it sometimes.
Flatwound strings might help.
Tone wide open?
Picking position important too?
Good luck on your thunkquest.
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04-22-2014 08:37 PM
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Yeah, I'm thinking you need the pickups as far away from the strings as possible for serious ddouche. Up closer would get you more into thunk or thownk territory. But then, I'm no thunk maven.
Originally Posted by Klatu
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Been experimenting: chunky flatwounds, thin pick (Fender medium), Gibson laminate archtop = thunk. Thunk isn't too sensitive to tone controls on amp or guitar--the smile on your face, however, IS tone control sensitive.
I'm sure thunk can be produced other ways (heck, Joe Pass played with his fingers), but this is an easy recipe for thunk.
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There is no doubt when you've thunked, not only do you hear thunk, you also feel thunk . . . that's been my experience.
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Thunk is the jazz guys "haunting mids."
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I thinking I am stating the obvious here, but having listen and seen Pat Martino somewhat he is just coming from a different direction with his jazz guitar playing/style. Very unquie and distinct. I think in a blindfold test he would be the only jazz guitarist that I could descern fairly easily. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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thunk has nothing to do with tone controls, amp settings, string types, pickup heights. It's more to do with the guitar's construction. Both the PM120 and 175 will thunk no matter what strings or amp or pickups or tone control settings you have. A strat will never thunk even running through an AI amp, RE cab, flatwounds, pickups all the way down and tone control at 0
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I guess I am a bit too obsessed with that "thunk" tone, so much I always need to comment if it is thunking or not when we (me and my wife) listen to some Galaxy Jazz master TV and some guitarist is playing.
As much as I like Wes or Kenny Burrell L5 tone I still prefer the boxier thunking bright tone of the laminated Gibson.
These days I am listening lot to René Thomas et son Quintette and he had a such great thunking tone with his ES 125 and CC pup, almost Farlow like!
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A whole thread dedicated to percussive tone, who'd a thunk it....
There's a few Benson pickers here, what's your take Benson picking for thunk, friend or foe?
BTW, I agree with the chap that hears it more as a "doonk"...
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The laminated spruce topped Gibson guitars thunk, too. Try a Barney Kessel sometime. It certainly thunks.
I haven't played the 60s Epiphone Broadway. Anybody have experience with this rather rare guitar?
A Norlin-era maple topped lam-guitar that I distinctly recall as having what we are now discussing as thunk is the Gibson Howard Roberts Custom. It makes sense, given that it is much like a 175.
The ES-330 is a very "thunky" guitar, which distinguishes it from the sound of its semi-acoustic brethren in the Gibson lineup. (I cannot ever recall my 335 or anyone else's "thunk-ing.")
Here's a question...what is the "thunkiest" guitar you have played? IIRC...that is, if my memory hasn't been affected by time, I believe that a Norlin-era ES-175TN guitar that I played for about an hour in a Washington, D.C. music store (and should have purchased) had just gobs of thunk. That was with factory strings. I would have been using Fender medium picks back in the mid-70s. IIRC the amplifier I was plugged into was a Fender Twin Reverb at low volume. I would have set the tone stack in the middle, no bright switch, reverb off or on one--my standard test the guitar platform at MI stores back in the day.
That was a VERY happy guitar, by the way, volute and all. If you ever get the chance...
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Is the "thunk" only a property of the tone when plugged in? I am asking because my Epi Regent despite not being really an acoustic Archtop gives me somehow a nice "doink" when I play it unplugged...
I sometime wonder if the recordings of the time would not also have caught the acoustic guitar tone (and pick sound) contributing to the extreme "DOINNK" on some TF albums for instance.
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Funny you should say that, was thinking along similar lines. A while back I had inner ear phones wedged tightly in my ears but not active, and the cord was touching my Les Paul by accident while I was playing unplugged. It acted like a "stethoscope", I was digging the tone, especially on the lower strings. Like I was hearing what the guitar (and not the pickups) really sounded like. A woody "doink" ? .... Originally Posted by vinlander
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Yeah...24.75" scale Gibson guitars of laminated construction have a "Gibson-ey" acoustic response on the 5th and 6th strings that I believe most people could identify--unplugged.
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This is the tone that I associated with jazz guitar for years. It's a great tone and I agree with Jack that my Eastman 810CE doesn't get it. I also can't help but think a big part of this tone is the recording studio back then with expensive mics, gorgeous tube preamps, analog board, and a big old 2" tape recorder. But this song also rules because of a great ensemble.
But I like the tone that my Eastman does get and I like the tone of this Painter more now than the old "thunk."
I'm listening to guys like Martin Taylor who have a more full spectrum to their tone.
Last edited by DRS; 08-16-2014 at 02:32 PM.
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And this is why we own multiple guitars, no? Man, TF's guitar sounds great. (His swing ain't too bad, either.) Painter's archtop guitar sounds quite good, to my ear. It's a beauty, too.
Been a Martin Taylor fan for ages and ages. I liked his tone best, though, when he was playing the Barker, back in the late 70s and early 80s with Stefane Grapelli.
For that bop sound, I guess I wouldn't mind owning a good old ES-350, full-depth, full-scale. (TF's prototype is essentially that.) For the pretty stuff, though, I would want a carved guitar--probably an L5C or Super 400C with a DeArmond.
Right now, I have the 350 covered via a Matsumoku-made Super-V copy. It's just a great guitar. I'm working on the carved situation. I've had a 16" carved pre-war Gibson L50 forever, but I really want a 17" or 18" guitar. (On the '38 L50 that I have, both the top and back are hand carved. It even points this out in the '37 Catalog.) I used to have a DeArmond FHC for the L50, but I gave it to my best friend to put on his '37 L7.
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I also notice somewhat of a raw sound from the amplifier. The best examples don't have reverb/echol and seem not the have the highest fidelity amp tone. You hear the hollowness of the guitar, but it isn't so refined -- fabulous.
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This thread has gotten me thinking over the past two days. I have two 175s, a 2006 regular production and a 2013 Historic '59 Reissue. Acoustically, the 2006 has a full sound with a big bottom end. It is a heavier guitar, but could almost hang with a steel string acoustic. Plugged in, it sounds closer to the Martin Simpson example above than the Joe Pass. The 2013 has a much deader sound acoustically, but gets a plugged-in sound with that thunk sound that you guys are talking about -- much closer to the Joe Pass tone.
It calls into question a whole range of criticisms that I read about over and over again about this or that 175 sounding dead acoustically or the new ones not sounding as full and dynamic as the old ones or new ones being boat anchors. Perhaps that distinction is overstated and the actual 175 sound that we have grown to know and love is a dead sounding plywood guitar with flatwounds.
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I am not sure I correctly get what is thunk, is this thunk?
(thunk or not, it is fantastic)
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Not too thunky to my ears, but I love it. Originally Posted by Gabor
Thunk isn't the only good tone, it's just a classic one. Thunk is one of those sounds that works great for playing bop style jazz, and probably not much else!
I think the easiest way to describe thunk is to listen to "The Swinging Guitar of Tal Farlow." That's the sound. It's very specifically about attack and decay. And yeah, it's very much the sound of heavy flatwounds on a Gibson laminated archtop.
EDIT: I listened to the whole tune as I was typing this, and at the end, Bobby sounded a bit more thunky! Overall though, that guitar sounds like it has much more sustain than a thunkbox.
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Thx for clarification.
Regarding sustain, amongst many things I love in Bobby Broom's playing, how bravely dry his sound. I mean almost nothing reverb. (I know you refer sustain as mainly the attribute of the instrument itself)
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11-15-2021, 04:04 PM #121Dutchbopper Guest
[QUOTE=Gabor;1158241]I am not sure I correctly get what is thunk, is this thunk? /QUOTE]
No. That's not thunk. This is:
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Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
Seems to me Chet Atkins got a lot of thunk from his thumbpick, no matter what guitar...
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“I thunk, therefore, I am.”
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[QUOTE=Dutchbopper;1158267]
Souds cool, Listening this example, I notice the character of kinda damped sound which is lack of reverb, both natural and electric. Also there is a feel of a bit lack of harmonics. I guess the latter may come by the picking position too, near the neck. Also may or may not be the material of the pick, sounds pretty unlikely.. but nylon tends to sound similar Originally Posted by Gabor
I had an interesting experience of the lack of sustain and the lack of instruments natural reverb when I damped/muted the strings between the bridge and tailpice on my EXL. I did this, because the overtone harmonics coming from there were so loud and so out of tune, The out of tune feel was successfully eliminated, but as a side effect the acoustic tone went dead. Well, it was half dead anyway because of the big amount of the poly finish, but the effect was still drastic. I did not do a recorded A/B test, so evaluate the pure amped sound, but I think I heard the difference in the amplified sound too.Last edited by Gabor; 11-16-2021 at 09:36 AM.
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