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Does anyone target a specific Helmholtz resonance?
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Author:  JasonM [ Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Does anyone target a specific Helmholtz resonance?

Just built two identical dreadnaughts, one birch/sitka, one coco/sitka, to evaluate the difference in back/side woods. Although I was going for identical, I got the body depths slightly different, resulting in an F# Helmholtz resonance in one and an F in the other. Just hummed into the soundhole until I activated the prominent resonance, and held a guitar tuner up to it to see what note it was. Is there a correlation between Helmholtz resonance and wolf notes? For example if I am building a bluegrass guitar that will be played a lot in G, would I want to stay away from G for a Helmholtz resonance, or go for G so the instrument lights up more with a G chord?

Author:  David R White [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 7:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone target a specific Helmholtz resonance?

I believe the problem in tone related to the main air resonance is the big elephant in the room that noone talks about. It's a problem in every guitar. I think you want to stay away from an area that is played a lot so I wouldn't want to end up at A or G, I try to get to F# or F.

This is affected by many things other than body depth so don't assume that's what caused your difference.

Author:  Alan Carruth [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone target a specific Helmholtz resonance?

As Dave says, the 'main air' resonance will effect the notes that are close in pitch to it. If it's exactly on a played pitch, that note can be problematic in a few ways. For one thing, the guitar will tend to suck all the energy out of the string and dump it in the room, so you end up with a note that's twice as powerful for half as long. Since our ears are not good at detecting even fairly large changes in power output, we don't notice that, but the sustain issue sure jumps out.

Believe it or not, a very strong 'main air' resonance can effect intonation. This is because the air pushes on the top, which moves a lot, and the resulting motion of the bridge can cause the string to think it's longer or shorter than it's supposed to be. The notes just below the 'main air' pitch will tend to be a little sharp, and the ones above it a tad flat. When the 'main air' pitch matches a note exactly that pitch can be fuzzy or buzzy, as the string tries to decide how long it really is. If the 'main air' pitch is just above the pitch of the open A string the result is that you tend to leave the string a little slacker than it should be, since it's sounding sharp. The A# is shifted flat by the top motion, though, and since you've already left the string a little slack, it's even flatter. The notes get a little closer to the right pitch as you go up, but they never really catch up to where they're supposed to be. The tuner says the open string is right, but the guitar sounds awful.

BTW, you'll note that I keep reffering to the 'main ar' resonace, rather than the 'Helmholtz'. It's a small point of usage, but meaninful to us acoustics geeks. Technically, you only get a real Helmholtz resonance in a box with rigid walls. Helmholtz himself used glass spheres, and some people say that's the only 'real' Helmholtz resonator. I woudn't go that far, but you do need 'rigid' walls, at least. To see the 'real' Helmholtz resonance on a guitar, you need to do something like what Rossing did, and bury the thing in sand with just the soundhole open. On a guitar the top (at least) interacts with the air pressure changes inside; compared with a rigid box, the Helmholtz-type resonance on a real guitar will be lower in pitch. We generally call this mode the 'main air' resonance.

This gives you a way to 'fudge' things on your pair; you can make the walls of the box with the higher 'main air' pitch a little less rigid. Usually the best way to do this is to reduce the stiffness of the back. Backs are often a lot stiffer and heavier than they need to be, and it won't hurt to shave some wood off a brace or two. The top, OTOH, is under a lot of stress, and it's too easy to take off one shaving too many and compromise the strength. Besides, it's easier to get at back braces.... :D

Author:  Joe Sabin [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone target a specific Helmholtz resonance?

The size of the sound hole affects this as well, as does apparently the length of the opening's neck, which in this case would be very short. I think you can alter the resonance pitch fairly easily by slightly modifying the size of the hole. I'm not sure one could go from F to F# as I've not tried it, but that is one way to tune that pitch.

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