Official Luthiers Forum!

Plus 1 to what Eric is conveying here. Tone is VERY subjective and Chris you could also add a plethora of other choices to the list such as the age of the listener...., venue, strings, RH that the instrument has been in most recently, fret wire and how well the frets are installed, nut material etc. The list goes on and on. There was a time when the neck joint choice may have been on this list.

In our very busy business there is a drill that we likely have to do every day and it goes like this:

Customer: Will this pup sound "better" than the pups that are in the stinkin thing?

Us: My friend tone is so very subjective we won't get into that at all. What you hear and what we might hear may be different. We are happy to provide the services required to install your choice of pups but will take a pass on any opinion in respect to ....... tone.......

I get that the survey is fun and don't at all want to be a buzz kill here but I can't complete this survey because everything on the list and more is important to tone and it all interplays as well making the system that we call a guitar.

Here's another thought. The builder..... A six A... Adi top in the hands of someone who has not learned how to do no harm and successfully brace the thing is not going to be more important to "t*ne....." than the builder, perhaps, perhaps not.

My point here that tone is way to subjective to isolate one contributing factor/element over others and proclaim that it's more important is what a number of us here are trying to convey. To me as offered there is no proper order for the choices provided.

By the way long ago in another land I was on the first day of a new job and in the "assimilation.... session" (visions of the Borg..) the question was asked what's "job 1" here?

A few people answered "making money.." and were wrong.

Turns out that job 1 for this corporation was shielding the corporation from liability. Job 2 was making money... No one got the answer correct likely by design. This survey took me back several decades to this memory.

I'll just repeat the comment I put on the poll here:

Players hand is sort of an outlier. It's not related to the construction of the guitar as are all the other options. Since I have seen amazingly good players make amazingly bad guitars sound good I put it at top.

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I was happy to see that my fellow luthiers put more emphases on neck wood as I have for a longtime thought that had more to do with tone then what is commonly thought.

I put more emphasis on body shape and size then most though. We can probably make a cedar top sound like a spruce one and vise versa but I don't think we can make a parlor sound like a jumbo.

[quote="jfmckenna"]I'll just repeat the comment I put on the poll here:

Players hand is sort of an outlier. It's not related to the construction of the guitar as are all the other options. Since I have seen amazingly good players make amazingly bad guitars sound good I put it at top.

Exactly! I put the player on top immediately without hesitation.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Without question me too!

Followed by set-up

I view such a poll as highly subjective and arbitrary -- I have heard ladder braced L00's that sound fabulous for what they are -- but they are not Dolphin braced Lowden "O" --- and they can both have great yet totally different tone. Pinning down a certain element (more, most, best chance) when the factorial cause and effect construction combinations are astronomical, seems a bit futile.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Is the player really affecting the tone OF the guitar? Or is it more that they are selecting the tones they want to hear from the range of tones the guitar is capable of creating?

For example, a banjo has a very different set of tones from a guitar, maybe some even overlap, but a guitar can't produce all the tones of a banjo and vice versa.... no matter how good the player. If you accept that, I'm going out on a limb to say that the banjo has certain tones affected by the top and not by the players skill.

Extrapolating that to a guitar, certain pieces of wood (purposefully not saying "Species") have certain tonal qualities that are natural to that piece of wood and maybe a good player can extract similar tones from another guitar but I'd bet there are qualities of an individual top that would be impossible to extract from another guitar. I'm thinking harmonics/overtones.

I'm wondering if the question is a more accurate question if changed to "what most affects the range of tones a guitar is able to produce?".

You betcha the player can impact tone in a huge and very noticeable way. This is one of the key things, there are a number of them, that makes the greats the greats.

There is a reason why Robert Johnson could pick-up an instrument that was not much more than an entry level G*bson back in the day and likely with action high enough to slice hard boiled eggs and sound as fantastic as he did. He had talent and knew how to use his hands to milk every ounce of tone out of his ax.

I'll offer an analogy: We have a Crapsman 155 piece tools set and two broken cars. It could be that if the work was done by you or I that the repair may not be as good or long lasting as if it was done by a highly skilled mechanic. Both the mechanic and us had the same tools in this example or in this example I am speaking of the same guitar. If it comes to pass that the mechanic does a better job than you or I would this is the skill of the craftsman or in this case the player.

Players are hugely responsible for what we hear and as such tone too.

I'll add ever see and hear a terrible player with a $10K Martin? I have and it still sounds terrible.....

He didn't specify good or bad. Can't "tone" simply be described as the sound attributes of the guitar? Is it warm or bright? Rich harmonic content or dry? Is the bass snappy and present or dull and muddy?

And for the record, I'm not arguing, I'm genuinely interested. This topic of what affects tone is something I give tons of thought to, though it generally centers around electric guitars for me.

I may not be explaining my thoughts clearly.

I am not debating that the skill of a player has a difference in the range of tones he can extract, but the instrument HAS to be capable of producing the tones. A great player can not extract tones that the guitar is not capable of.

There seems to be a lot of hangup on the word "tone" here that IMHO isn't really in the spirit of the question. For me, the question was what has the most pronounced influence on tone without value judgements. I'm reading the word "tone" as "timbre," the question then is (in my mind) which variable will effect the sound of an instrument more if it were to be changed. Assuming it was possible to keep everything else equal. Would doubling the mass of the bridge change the timbre more than say magically turning a rosewood back into a mahogany back. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Another example

Ovation haters will tell us how crappy those guitars sound --- how do we explain how incredibly musical they are when played by Glen Campbell or Adrian Legg? And those darn things are not even made of wood.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

That's the way I look at it too and why I see the player as an outlier as it/he/she has nothing to do with the construction of the instrument. It's sort of like those complex physics questions on your physics 101 pop quiz at the University where they ask you do disregard wind resistance or something like that. All things being relative to the other which one of the rest of those options in the poll make the biggest difference in tone whether it's good or bad.

I'd argue that you're focused on the wrong item. The guitar is analogous to the car IMHO, not the tools. Neither the mechanic nor you and I are going to make the VW beetle do 195mph on the highway. Maybe he can tune it better so it gets better mpg, runs smoother... and maybe does go a little faster, but unless you change the components, or the design, it is what it is.

Even if you want to focus on the tools... in your example are you describing the ability/capability of the tool or the limitations of the mechanic? The design of the TOOL is to be able to turn a nut, not that it will fix your car on it's own. The design of a guitar makes a "tone", not that it will play music on it's own.

Part of a musician's job is to be able to recognize and work with or compensate for what's lacking in an instrument, just as a good mechanic can fix your car to the best of his abilities regardless whether the tools are crap or top notch, as long as the job doesn't exceed the capability of the tool.

Maybe we're confusing Tone with music? (Back to the "Define Tone" comment).

I would think it would be safe to say that for any individual note that Robert Johnson could pluck out of a piece of crap guitar, any one of us could extract that exact note/tone given time and practice, but I don't think anyone is going to pull the same tones consistently out of a plastic KMart guitar that they could out of a Martin. If they could, then every luthier is wasting their time, no?

Tone:
It's the difference between when Dad says "Come on over here buddy" and "Dammit Boy!"
Other examples are when Mom uses your middle name.

The exact definition is hard to pin down, but you know it when you hear it.

"Bone Tone" a term even used by Bob Taylor when he comments that its the player that extracts the tonal essence out of any given guitar.

Perhaps the question should have been "what elements have the most bearing in shaping the final sound emitted from an acoustic guitar?"

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I think you are fundamentally changing Hesh's analogy. If you change the guitar to be that car rather than the tools the mechanic isn't really the player at least not in the same way. The mechanic then becomes more like the luthier/set up guy. S/he can only improve the function of the instrument so much without drastically reworking the car/instrument*. In this scenario it is better to consider the driver the player. That VW bug may not be able to do 195 but I bet a racecar driver could get it around a road coarse much faster than I could. Along the same line, you could put me in a Ferrari and I most of the available speed would be lost on me on that same course. I'd get around faster than I would in the VW but I would be leaving a good deal of its potential on the table.

*Even though I am agreeing with Hesh, I'm sure he will take issue with down playing the positive effects a good set-up will have. I don't meant to disregard that. My intention was to say that set-up will only get you so far if the box is built like a tank.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Yeah, I realized that and I tried to get back on track with:

"Even if you want to focus on the tools... in your example are you describing the ability/capability of the tool or the limitations of the mechanic? The design of the TOOL is to be able to turn a nut, not that it will fix your car on it's own. The design of a guitar makes a "tone", not that it will play music on it's own."

But I failed again... lol

I see it like this... there are street drummers that make an empty 5 gallon drywall compound pail sound pretty dang impressive. That in no way implies that the tonal capabilities of a 5 gallon pail is on par to a professional drum set. The player in no way affects the tone the instrument. He just chooses what to present to the audience.

Thanks Bryan and you do understand my analogy where as you said the player is the driver.

I can also agree that set-up is super important since I did over 500 of them last year..... If you read our web site reviews page folks seem to like our set-ups and other work.

One of the reasons for our success and this is not at all intended to be as the Car Talk guys said a "shameless promotion..." is we don't make promises that can't be kept and that means not committing or even commenting on subjective subject matter. This is why I am bringing up our success - it's relative to the posture of not commenting on things as subjective as tone.

We know a LOT of small builders and a week does not go by that one is not in our shop. Something that we have heard before are the war stories that some builders go through or IMO actually create for themselves AND their commission clients by making claims and promises for a future instrument before the thing is a reality and can be interrogated and evaluated....

Nearly always the discord stems from a client being unhappy with the tone that resulted from the commission that they at times pay big bucks for. Needless to say the client is also comparing a brand new stinkin guitar to what they know which may be an older seasoned stinkin guitar.

Anyway making claims or drawing conclusions about causation of this or that tonally speaking is simply not a wise thing to do for anyone including ourselves without strictly gathered data and a decent scientific approach.

As a life long audiophile others who speak audio speak too will get this. How many times have we read that speaker A and speaker B may have the same frequency response? Yet when we listen to them more often than not we find the data offered to be in error.... With speakers we can endeavor to have two different speakers that spec out exactly the same. Will they sound the same - not in my experience....

This reluctancy to comment and commit on tone is not unusual by the way. You will hear many Pro Luthiers do the very same thing and that's reflected here with some of the working in the trade folks also having issues with proclaiming that there is one and ONLY one most important "holy grail" to understanding and receiving that great tone.

So what the heck is great tone anyway... I may like lots of bass and others may hate it so there is even the aspect here of what's good tone to whom.....

Now I am actually trying to stifle myself in this thread and not participate because as mentioned I don't want to be a buzz kill, I know and like Chris and Lance, and I prefer to be a positive sort. I recognized after I posted yesterday that the wind was not blowing in the direction of my "opinion..." until I read Eric's multiple posts all of which are excellent and I could not agree more. Eric works in the trade and has for a long time. He builds and repairs, sound familiar? He also either makes his living from Lutherie or at least has a commercial operation.

Eric's comments are what you will find from the folks that we know and hang with because tone is TOO subjective to ever attempt to definitively define one element or another as "most important" to what results. The factors never end and most of the guitar world debated for over a decade about bolt-on vs. dovetail necks if you recall too. The debate was about the resulting tone of either neck joint....

I don't disagree at all that all the choices provided in the survey are valid and even important but defining one as the end all to be all over all others when we are speaking of something that is ultimately the sum of it's parts, ALL of the parts... seems short sided. If you are commercial it can bite you in the arse one day when it's perceived that you promised and failed to deliver....

You are right that I do have a hang-up over the use of the word tone in respect to defining what's more important and what's not. Very true and with very good reason(s) too. When I provide advise I want to my advice to be correct and accurate or you won't see me flapping my jaws.

One more thing: My TJ quotation in my signature also implies that things such as what kind of person one is can impact tone one way or the other. Should we put that one on the list too?

It's interesting that my own choices were pretty much counter to the way the poll seems to be shaping up. I tend to think about body size and shape first when I'm trying to build a certain sound, and go from there, for example. Nothing you can do will make a size 1 sound like a Dread, and vice versa.

As for 'tone', I agree with the folks who say that it should not be seen as a value judgement in this context, but rather as synonymous in some way with 'timbre'. It's simply a question of what the variables are that determine the final sound. All the things on the list have some bearing, usually in a fairly complicated way; affecting more than one aspect of the final sound. Looked at that way, the ranking should place things higher on the list that have a larger influence on the things they touch, or the touch a lot of aspects of the sound.

And here I thought " tone" was the name of that round twirly thing with the numbers on it.

Wow. For a poll that I took to be a fun little exercise, it seems as though a lot of overthought has gone into the ensuing conversation.

I agree with Chris who started the poll. None of us would argue that the choice of fingerboard material is as important as sound board choice, or body size/shape. So take it from there . . . and have some fun, or don't.

But I'm starting to feel like the discussion about how impossible this poll is should be taken to another thread, where it doesn't squash the fun that Chris was initiating.

Wow. For a poll that I took to be a fun little exercise, it seems as though a lot of overthought has gone into the ensuing conversation.

I agree with Chris who started the poll. None of us would argue that the choice of fingerboard material is as important as sound board choice, or body size/shape. So take it from there . . . and have some fun, or don't.

But I'm starting to feel like the discussion about how impossible this poll is should be taken to another thread, where it doesn't squash the fun that Chris was initiating.

A couple of years ago Michael Johnson asked me to look at a hand made guitar someone gave him. It was nice but I was unimpressed when I played it. I would have said "dead and boxy"

Then he played it. You know the rest. It sounded GREAT.

That was my ahha moment.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

OMG, not the Middle Name!!!
AAaaaaarrrrrrrrgh...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."