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Friends,

It makes me curious what most makers of classical guitars tune tops to? Why is f# the best?

Eugenio

This question requires quite a long reply...but to keep it short, I do not think F# is best. It is however a mode to which many old Spanish guitars might end up to, from two reasons: they are lightly build, ...and they are very old. Age seems to lighten up the spruce. All this all around lightness and lightening make for a flexible guitar top and that account for low resonances.

The normal range (not just for a "master" guitar but for any decent fan braced guitar) is F# to G#. I've obtained all 3 points on my builds and a couple were somewhere in between G# and G when fresh. I've made two down to F# and I think they might have too nice a bass for such a young build. The tighter ones have more cutting stronger treble, less ample bass, but I believe a few years of play-in will bring up the bass. What if the looser guitars will loose focus 5 years down the road? Or maybe they just getting only better? Unfortunately I am not building for long enough yet to tell

There are more issues: the F# resonance alters the quality of the 8th-10th frets A string, and it is more annoying than when the 10-11-12th are. You also have issues with the F# on the D string, another well used spot.

I feel that in the end the looser lighter ones are sweeter and more refined, but I do not advice forcing them to be like this, let the time do it. If you don't have patience with spruce, don't force or hate it, use cedar, this works for both luthiers and players

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Build log

I would like to clarify a couple of issues:
The presented video clip is originally a teaser clip of the Gourmet Guitars DVD series, which does not
show the whole statement of Benno Streu. Unfortunately the complete
interview footage was lost for a while. For that reason it was
impossible to restore the "edited" teaser clip to the full content at time being. After
finding the original tapes I have reviewed the whole 2 hours footage.
It will be released in parts on my blog site (unedited) and in full
eventually in a DVD boxed set together with about 10 hours of
Romanillos footage and other builders.
Back to the topic (I am not taking sides in the discussion - I just
want to give the full statement):
In the complete interview Benno Streu states that the specific "note"
of tuning is less his concern, as long as it is lower than the modern
G# or G. He says: "It's not about the F#!" Benno Streu had probably examined more old
guitars than we can imagine during his life. In general most of the old Torres, Santos, Ramirez and even Hausers are as low as F# or even way lower! (You can read some of the numbers in Stefano Grondonas book)
There are different opinions of how to get the low tuning. Some people say it is done by making thinner tops and lighter braces. Some argue that it is unknown what the tuning actually originally was. They claim that the process of aging lowers the tuning quite a bit.
Streu also mentions that he is concerned about the fact that there is always a pay-off for the
diskant (the higher notes on the guitar). There obviously is a point when you start loosing a significant amount of treble when you gain too much bass response. (Excuse my terms, I am not a builder. I hope y'all understand what I am saying...
In the video Streu holds Leona in his hands because we shot the interview as a part of a Torres feature.
I have had Leona in my hands several times and the tuning of this
guitar is around F#. Wulfin Lieske (who is NOT the owner, but regularly performs with Leona) does not use standard 440 tuning on the
old guitars, since he believes that they should be tuned correctly to
the tuning of the time period they were made in A=336Hz if I remember correctly).
I also have a chart of the exact thicknesses of the top and the back
of Leona. The top is at some points 1.1mm thin, average is about
1.3mm-1.4mm, at one points it is 2.0mm. Back is about 2.5mm in
average, but it also varies.
Streu gives a very explicit explanation how Torres did the braces on several guitars. They are extremely light but NEVER scalloped.
Some people saw a genius in Benno Streu, others thought of him as
controversial, especially since he was an engineer and not a luthier /
guitar maker. We shot the interview about one year before he passed
away at an age of 80+. At points Streu seems to be opinionated. Yes - old men tend to be opinionated. I have heard probably as many opinionated guitar building statements as there are old guitar
makers. I've met a bunch - trust me!
I think the Streu footage is a valid source
of information on the quest to find out why some of Torres, Santos,
Hauser (etc) guitars - at some point - were chosen as "the one" by
some of the biggest players of their times. There will never be an
absolute in "the best" because sound is always a matter of taste. But
at least there is a validity of sources of people who did research or
built some of the most highly respected instruments.
One thing is for sure: Streu's knowledge and opinions (even if some of
them might be controversial) are definitely a source of information
that can't be neglected. And they add to the never-ending discussion.

Cheers
Holger

Holger,

Thanks a lot for the reply! The data regarding Leona thickness is important, I plan to try a similar build at some point.

336Hz sounds kind of too low. Perhaps he is actually using 415?

Other than this, thanks for gathering and sharing all your wonderful material.

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Build log

Sorry, 336 is definitely a typo. I wasn't fully awake when I wrote my post. Need that Italian Espresso LOL.
I meant to write A=436, but I looked up the CD liner notes of Wulfin's Classical Guitar CD's to make sure. And I was obviously wrong.
Wulfin states that he tunes to A=430, which supposedly used to be the standard tuning of this time period.

I do have copies of letters Streu wrote to a German collector/player about an old Torres which had lost it's voice (lost the stiffness in the top, I assume) due to high string tension (modern strings and A=440).

I assume it is a problem of our digital age that people (due to their listening habits) expect generally more high-end (in music, CD's, guitars etc) which is hard to achieve if you stick with Torres, Santos and Hauser. On the contrary you loose the charm and warmth of the "old" sound. But then - I guess there is no right or wrong.

I am working on a clip about "Torres secret bridge" as I am answering your post. It just takes some time since I have to translate and write subtitles....

Stay tuned.
Thanks for the moral support!

Holger

430 is just one of the standards. There were many 435 was one of the more common pitches in the 19th century..

One problem here is that the pitch you normally 'hear' when you tap on the bridge is the 'main air' resonant mode. This is because of a trick of 'masking': your ear assigns all of the enegy in the sound to the fundamental pitch if the upper partials are anywhere near 'harmonic', even if those partials are stronger. Often this _is_ as low as F#, on the low E string. Many people _do_ refer to this as the 'pitch of the guitar'. It can range anywhere from F to about A on 'better' guitars: I usually find the ones below F to be 'tubby' and the ones higher than A to be 'brash', but that's only my opinion.

From the context I gather that Benno was refering to the 'main top' resonant mode, but it's hard to be sure. It's also entirely possible that different posters in this thread are referring to different things, and may be talking to cross purposes.

This is an interesting, and potentially educational, discussion, but let's make sure we're all on the same page.

Alan, I need to review the footage. It's been four years that we shot the interview. I recall that he talked about exactly the differences which you are addressing. As soon, as I can say something "exact" I will post it.

Regards,
Holger