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To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...
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Author:  Chris Pile [ Sun Oct 18, 2020 11:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...

Looks just dandy. Sand out nicely, hit it with a bit of wax or Howard Feed'n'Wax and you'll be good to go. OR - finish it with super glue, then buff out. Maybe even TruOil? I'd have to try all methods and see what yields most pleasing result.

Author:  Alain Lambert [ Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...

Last winter, I tested a new bracing on a Ukulele. Once finished, I did not like the sound of it. Difficult to describe, but I would say dry, harsh. It had bone nut and saddle.
I was resigned to reopen it and change the bracing.
This conversation got me thinking about changing the bone nut/saddle for African Black Wood.
So yesterday, I made a recording of a strum, made a new nut and saddle and installed them and made a new recording.
I could see a difference! And the sound is better. To make sure, I reinstalled the bone nut/saddle and recorded a new strum, I got similar results.
The first graph attached is the spectrum of Bone (green) and ABW (yellow). There is not much difference in the frequency spectrum , except the tuning of one of the strum was slightly off. (this make it easier to see both curves)
The second graph is a comparison of the 2 wave graphs. First when I saw a difference, I assumed it could be caused by the different color. So I made them both the same color and changed the background to black.
The Bone graph is more "porcupine" the ABW is like more "structured". I am not sure where to go from here, but I will leave the ABW on!.

Author:  Alain Lambert [ Tue Oct 27, 2020 12:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...

Here is the Wave graph. Top is Bone

Author:  fumblefinger [ Tue Oct 27, 2020 12:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...

That is VERY cool Alain. Thank you!

Author:  Freeman [ Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...

Alain, I have had occasion to use your software in a similar fashion. I have been asked lately to make some changes to a couple of guitars - I often record a guitar before and after a change to see if I can detect the difference but in these cases I also ran a spectrum analysis on it. Recently a young lady brought her classical guitar to me and asked if I would replace the "plastic" (Melamine) nut and saddle with bone. Along with some audio clips I ran analysis on a few notes before and after.

I usually do single notes rather than chords or strums or songs. If I listen to two A2 notes for example can hear a difference - more complexity or brighter or longer sustain or any of those things we talk about. Then can I see it in the spectrum - a different mix of partials or certain partials stronger or ....

Anyway, here are two graphs of the open A string and two of the open E string. I chose those because both the nut and saddle would be in play and they pretty much cover several octaves. I also like the fact that the E4 is a partial of A2 - should I expect other E's to show up in the mix. On each pair of graphs the top one is the "plastic " nut, the lower one is the bone.

Attachment:
Classical - A.jpg


Attachment:
Classical - E.jpg


The difference are subtle as you would expect, and a lot depends on how the notes are plucked, room acoustics, yadda yadda. My little experiments are not at all rigid, it would fail as even a high school science project, but it does give me a little more information about the guitars that I am working on.

I want to formally thank Alain for making this software available - I'm not sure yet what its telling me but I'm having fun.

Author:  Pmaj7 [ Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: To Dye Bone Nut Material Black...

Alain Lambert wrote:
Here is the Wave graph. Top is Bone
Glad the ABW worked for you!

Pat

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