Official Luthiers Forum!

At the GFA convention this past week there was a luthiers showcase
presentation were two experienced & very good guitarists played
guitars submitted by the attending luthiers .

They each played for approximately 90 seconds .
Two totaly different tecniques & musical pieces.

It became very obvious in this really great music hall the difference between Spruce & Cedar as we heard the guitars played.
You could hear a distinct difference because of the pieces played & the technique of the players.

Spruce had more direct sweet highs with a controled bass.
Cedar had a loud sweet rich bass with highs that sometimes lacked sustain.
But not always !
Some spruce guitars seemed muted a bit-they were probably new.

Some cedar guitars had to many overtones that clouded the music with overtones.
Some spruce ones lacked volume.
A simple view of course.

But I talked with as many makers as possible after the session and we all agreed we could HEAR the difference between the two in that situation.

Gary Lees & Dave LaPlants spruce topped guitars were sweet!!
great highs ,nice separation of notes .

Some the big guns guitars were a bit disappointing

Maybe David & Gary can add to this post what they thought.

It was a real eye opener for sure with nylon strung guitars .

Mike

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Mike Collins

I observed as well that Cedar topped guitars seem to have a volume edge
(in the bass especially) while the Spruce topped ones were in most cases the sweeter sounding most noticably in the trebles.

What was apparent as well was the varying taste and perceptions of the listeners. I got diametrically opposed reads on the bass of my guitar from two of the note takers which certainly reinforces the notion of tone being a subjective matter.

It was as last year, a very interesting exercise.

Mike, I agree completely, the differences between the spruce and cedar guitars I've made are just as you describe.

I would add, that I think cedar makes a better first-impression-sound because of the extra volume and rich bass, but with time, the clarity of spruce becomes my personal choice.

"I would add, that I think cedar makes a better first-impression-sound because of the extra volume and rich bass, but with time, the clarity of spruce becomes my personal choice."

Indeed Marc, guitars as with people, the loudest one in any room is rarely the most interesting or the most beautiful.

All well said, imo. -Carey

It's been a while, but that fits with what I've heard in the classical 'shootouts' at the GAL conventions as well.

Interestingly, I've got a Red spruce top in my stash that has _exactly_ the same density, and stiffness along and across the grain, as a Western Red Cedar top I've got. Obviously, this is a relatively light piece of Red spruce, and relatively dense piece of cedar. The only real measureable difference is in the damping factor: the cedar has much lower damping. At some point these two will become a 'matched pair', when I think I have things enough under control, and then we'll be able to compare them directly.

Sounds like an excellent experiment Al- looking forward to the results, as time permits. But.. otoh, that Red Spruce top sounds real nice, and I could sure, uh, use.. -Carey

Ok, this may be a stupid question. If spruce has richer, sweeter highs, and cedar has richer and sweeter lows...Would a guitar with a top made of cedar on the bass side and spruce on the treble side be the ultimate guitar (except that for aesthetic reasons it might be hard to sell)?

I suspect the answer will be a "it's not quite as simple", but I'm really curious...

Christian

Christian;
Is there a bass & treble side to a top?

Many books & authors that have built a few guitars have led us to believe that there is .

But there is not such a beast!!

The top responds to string movement (pull);the bracing ,thickness,stiffness (across & parallel)to the top grain
along with body size(air cavity)-height of strings from the top -
stiffness of sides & back -all contribute to the overall tone & loudness of a guitar-rather it be nylon or steel strung.

There are many myths in the world of instrument making.
Make a copy from a plan or get help from a good guitarmaking teacher like Alan Carruth .
This will provide a foundation for you to build from .

Mike

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Mike Collins

There is a classical builder that builds multi piced tops with Cedar in the center, and Spruce in the wings of the top - or vice-versa! I can't recall his name.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Andrea Tacchi, the very fine Italian classical maker, has done something like
this. Might check guitarsint.com for some of his work.

Myself, I'll take Spruce, please..

Christian:
If you've got a faster connection than my dial-up, go to:
http://www.speech.kth.se/music/acviguit4
and download part1.pdf throug part9.pdf.

These are the nine chapters of Eric Jansson's 'Acoustics for Violin and Guitar Makers', 4th edition, and it's free! This will give you a pretty god start in understanding how the guitar really works, and some ide of what might be important. There's LOTS to learn beyond this, of course, but it's a good start.

Awesome, thanks so much for the info... I thought it would be worth to ask my stupid question
I've only built two guitars so far and mainly focused on the woodworking aspect of it, just using standard measurements from the plans I got. I want to focus more on the "sonic" aspets in the future, so this info is really most welcome.

thanks again, Christian

Like Mike and David, I thought the listening session was extremely interesting and entertaining. I agree with their observations on the general character of cedar vs. spruce even in light of the 39 different designs represented. I’ll also note that the state-of-the-art Hockett Recital Hall was extremely lively, and to my ears did a surprising job at leveling the playing field in terms of perceived volume. I recall last year’s listening session at the San Francisco GFA where there was a pronounced gradation in the volume from one instrument to another. Still, this year I found myself feeling, as did Mike and David, that the cedar guitars all had huge bass responses with less projection in the trebles. The spruce guitars had better balance and trebles that could cut to the back of the room, as was typified by David’s wonderful guitar. One exception was Mike’s cedar guitar which defied conventional wisdom and managed to couple a huge bass-end with well-defined trebles. Way to go Mike!

Another observation I made during the listening session is that the tone quality of the double top guitars is gradually sounding more like traditional, solid top guitars. There is work left to done in this area, but of the perhaps five double top guitars that were played, I didn’t overtly detect the sound quality that I associate with a Dammann, which is what I think of as the archetypal double top sound. I was also encouraged by the fact that of the handful of people that had nice words to say about my double top guitar (Spruce outside/Nomex/Cedar), not one realized it was double top.

I can’t wait for next year’s Showcase at the Austin GFA!

Garys guitar was as close to perfect in balance between bass & treble and very clean sounding.
I've heard 1000s of guitars -but Garys hit the mark as close to perfect as I've ever experienced.
Davids had that Torres sound ;which is very traditional & loved by many .
Sweet trebles !!Rich basses !

In this era of double tops and cabon fiber Davids Torres inspired guitar was a great sounding one!


I was very suprised that some of the guitars by famous makers
fell short in this great hall.

Mike

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Mike Collins

Wow, I wish I would have been there to listen.......

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......