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I have a gypsy jazz guitar. Sitka spruce top 1/8", maple neck, rosewood fret board, pau ferro back and sides. Appears to be X brace under the soundboard. it has a zero fret. The bridge looks like maple.

The guitar sounds muffled. Even with a very bright set of strings. Any suggestions? Would an ebony bridge make any difference?

thanks for any ideas.

Unfortunately what you have is only a superficial approximation of a real selmer macafferi gypsy jazz guitar.
X braced guitars with tailpieces and floating bridges do not tend to work well.
Replacing the bridge with an ebony one may actually dampen the highs more.
Just save your money towards an eventual purchase of a better guitar,

You could always make several bridges of different woods and weights, try them all out and take notes. I would be interesting to see what the effects are. If you do this, report back with your results. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Jeff, basically discarding a guitar that cost $2000 is not really an option. Do you have any reasonable suggestions to help brighten this guitar, other than throw it away and purchase another?


Bryan, I will give the various bridge woods a try - its worth the effort. thanks

Jazz, if you are going to do it, do it up right. Try as many combinations as you dare. If you do enough, you may start to see trends like, the lighter the bridge is the brighter the tone, or this wood tends to always sound warmer that that. . . You cold even experiment with lighter woods capped with a harder wood that will take the string wear. I wouldn't exclude woods that don't match aesthetically, first find the tone you want and an idea of how it got there, then worry about making one look nice.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Jazz,

It appears that it is strung with classical strings? Is it possible that the design, x-bracing, maple neck with truss rod, etc. was to accomodate steel strings and the nylon strings are not sufficient to drive the box. Just a thought.

Danny R. Little

Hey Danny, thanks for looking. The strings are actually D'Adario Gypsy Jazz strings (steel). I have these on a couple of other macaferri type guitars and they are considered a bright string. I also tried Argentine Gypsy jazz strings. Also considered bright. Same effect - muffled highs, somewhat dead. I sure hope I can bring it out with a different bridge.

Burn it, it's firewood!
Just kidding.
I have no useful advice for this.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

You might want to try John Pearse 610LM Silk Phos Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings - Medium.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

I've built a Selmer guitar and it does not have dull sound, but it is is the ladder braced, original style.

Yours has a number of significant departures from the Selmer original, so that makes it difficult to pin down the source of your problem. X bracing and a large round soundhole are the two obvious departures. That being said, many x braced guitars with large round soundholes sound perfectly fine.

Selmers are typically strung with light gauge strings. Perhaps yours with X bracing is more in line with a typical X braced guitar that is expecting heavier strings?

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

jazz,
what you've got there looks very much like a hand made, one of a kind thing. if that's the case, and you're not happy with it, another good option would be to involve your builder in helping to find a solution.
if your builder was aiming to create for you a variation on the selmer theme that still sounds selmer, then some (maybe all?) of this problem should be his/hers.
just saying,
phil

They all sound dull in my opinion. But just last month I helped a customer buy a Gitane. Granted these are not one off hand made guitars like yours but none the less it took him 4 tries to get the one that sounded best. They all came in needing a set up and some bridge work to sound and play the best. Make sure that bridge conforms perfectly to the arch of the top. That is an odd looking Gypsy Jazz guitar with the large sound hole and I've never seen one with X-Bracing and I suspect that may be the issue. The ladder bracing used on these guitars is very light too. Like Phil said if you had that built for you then maybe you can get it changed. Good thing is you can reach your hand into the sound box on that one.

I don't think that they, Selmer guitars, sound dull. Yes, they do sound different from an X braced guitar. I wouldn't consider Gitanes as the best example of the type. I do agree that set up is very important, as is bridge fit.

Does the bridge on the guitar in question here sit on two little "feet" or is it solid all along the bottom. The Selmer bridge is shaped so that the two feet are located directly over the braces. If your bridge does not directly drive the braces this could be contributing to your sense of it being dull. The Selmer bridge is also hollowed out underneath, right up into the bridge itself, to lower the mass.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Okay, I'll ask what is probably a silly question, but. . . Have you looked inside the box? I have heard (perhaps urban legend) of a guitar sounding off only to find out that the bridge gluing caul was still in there. I'm not saying this is the particular issue, but are all the braces still attached, does everything look right inside?

My guess would be that the lighter the bridge, the more sparkle you will get. Douglas brings up a good point. If you are still planning on trying bridges, try one that is relieved underneath that bears only on the X legs.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Just to put it in perspective, I do have a Macaferri guitar that has traditional bracing, with the exact same strings (purchased at the same time). So comparing the two guitars, the new one is definetly a "thunker". Its not strings or playing style. (I play just as bad on both, one is just "brighter" bad playing!)

OK, the bridge: The bridge is maple. Originally the bridge did stand on two feet, but in order to lower the action, it was brought down to a flat plane. It thunked before and after (i.e. no change). I then tried the bridge from my other macaferri guitar. It has two feet, with a slot underneath. No change - it is still muffled.

I will get out the mirror and actually start to check all the bracing, as well to see where the bracing aligns with the bridge.

There is a buzz (not a fret buzz) when playing certain notes. Perhaps this is a crack or a bad glue joint in the guitar.

Thanks to all for the help!

Jazz, it seems to me that it must be over-braced. The easiest thing to try would be some heavier strings, maybe they would generate enough power to get the top moving.

Brace shaving would be the next step to get it singing. You've got to get the bracing light enough that the top sings, but leave enough strength in the right places to maintain structural integrity. A fine line indeed. I would work on the lower ends of the x braces and the tone bars, generally try to lighten up the bracing around the perimeter of the lower bout, see if you can get the top vibrating. Luckily you've got a large soundhole to work with.

I know, this is risky and controversial, but if it doesn't sing what you've got is just an expensive GSO. (guitar shaped object)

Best of luck,
Joe

Hi gang, just wanted to report back. I took the guitar to my buddy who is a very experienced luthier. He had prior success in sparkling up "thunkers" before by using eityher a fret wire under the bridge or using a bone saddle. We figured the easiest option was to start with a bone saddle and see how it sounds. Well it now sounds just great - wheew!!

Thanks for all the help.

I have built a bunch of these things now.. I wanted to put my 2 cents in even though its a little late... Argentine 10s will offer good sparkle. I have found that even on the over built guitars, the heavier strings do not "drive the soundboard better - do not brighten things up at all. It goes the other way.. just kills the high end.

The lighter the bridge the brighter it gets but the thinner the tone gets.

You rarely (never) want to shave braces like you would on a martin guitar. That will kill the tone on these types of guitars - certainly kill the high end on the guitar. The bracing is tall and thin. The brace ends do not taper to nothing, like it does on a folk guitar. If they do, you kill the tone and the guitar.. and it gets all weird and weak - just awful.

Messing with the height of the tailpiece (by shimming it) can have a profound affect on the sound - because it changes the downforce on the bridge. 1mm+ can make a noticeable difference. Or conversely putting a taller bridge on...

These guitars are funky and weird, but if you judge them by only what a Gitane sounds like, you're missing something pretty cool, or at the very least... interesting.

Regards, Pete