posted 12-19-2003 11:07 AM               

I'm curious, though, is there any tonal effect?

posted 12-19-2003 11:19 AM            

I ripped off this:

"You mentioned something earlier about shaping the tops so that the players get more of the sound of the instrument. Have you tried other methods such as enlarging the soundhole?

Well, I think both the size and shape of the soundhole will affect the sound and will affect the note. You can make a note with your mouth, open and round and then you increase the size of your mouth a little or decrease it and it affects the note. So, there’s no question in my mind that the size and shape of the soundhole affects the way the sound is coming out. What I think I was saying—and perhaps I didn’t say it clearly—is that a tremendous amount of the sound is coming off the entire instrument, not just out of the soundhole. It’s coming off the instrument itself. It’s radiating from the top, sides and back, so changing the soundhole is going to affect the sound, but it’s going to be a smaller part of the effect. Now I think that if you take a regular dreadnought and increase the size of the soundhole—which is what happened to Clarence White’s guitar that Tony [Rice] now has and with the Santa Cruz Guitar Company’s Tony Rice model and the Clarence White model and all of those others on that pattern—I do think that there’s openness to the sound immediately, an open bark to the sound that is caused by that large soundhole. I’m making flatpickers happy with a 4-inch soundhole, so I haven’t made one yet with a larger soundhole, but it definitely has an effect. The placement of the soundhole has a big effect. Quite honestly, I don’t think that the right spot was chosen for the soundhole, which is right in the middle of the acoustic I-beam. [Laughter] How did they get from F-holes to a soundhole in the middle of the plate? I don’t know, but it’s obvious that we have figured out how to make it work and it works great."

posted 12-19-2003 02:10 PM            

Making the sound hole smaller raises the bass. Making it larger lowers the bass.

I am probably dead wrong on my interpretation but for discussion what if you fwd the bracing on a large dread like the HD-28 LSV Martin, or other models mentioned above giving it I suppose more bass response.

Then you enlarge the sound hole to balance things out to a point so its not TOO bassy. But the overall sound and projection is increased because more sound is ejecting, reflecting or whatever out of the guitar front.

That is where I am at understanding this with my feeble mind. I am sure I might get my head taken off for twisting the facts but I am willing to learn if that is wrong.

So I think on a smaller body guitar if you have a small sound hole you get more bass. True ? False ?

We also talked about the tapering of the back having the effect of squeezing the end of a water hose and crimping it and causing increased projection. Same with a guitar.

So fwd bracing, tapered back and a strategic sound hole can make a monster. And after hearing Martin and SCGCs versions of these I am a believer. Some of the most HUGE sounding guitars I have ever heard and they are Bluegrass cannons to say it mildly.

Hope that starts discussion and no wars...

posted 12-19-2003 03:01 PM            

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Originally posted by boomchick:
Little Brother,
Or if you really want something different you build one like my cousin did about 2 years ago. A L-00 repro with an enlarged soundhole, it seemed to give it slightly more volume on the treble side without loosing the bass response. A really sweet fingerpicker it is.

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posted 12-20-2003 01:10 PM               

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Making the sound hole smaller raises the bass. Making it larger lowers the bass.

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If this was true, Selmer guitars like this

. . .would be all bass, and they’re definitely not. Likewise, look at archtops. There are lots of guitars with larger and smaller soundholes, and the above description doesn’t really explain much that I have seen.

Few people understand that the reason Clarence’s old D-28 had the large soundhole had nothing to do with sound production. He played with a stainless pick (or sometimes in a pinch a 50 cent piece) and chewed the wood badly, as you might expect. Eventually, to make it look less motley, he or someone at his behest removed all the wood inside the purfling ring. That guitar never sounded that good to begin with, and in fact he preferred a D-18, especially after he ran over the D-28 with his car and had a bad repair done to it, which included a shorter-scale (Gibson) fingerboard hanging down into the soundhole. In other words, it was an accident. People seem to think that by replicating the accident, they’ll get Clarence’s tone. And on top of that, there’s a lot of folklore about what the oversized soundhole actually does.

To understand some of this, you need to discern what the guitar sounds like to a player versus what it sounds like to someone across the room. It’s always very different. So sweeping generalities like "Making the sound hole smaller raises the bass. Making it larger lowers the bass" begs the real question: to whom? Soundhole size would have an effect on the player, but across the room? I really don’t think so.

posted 12-20-2003 01:55 PM               

With this particular guitar, the larger soundhole, combined with the light mahogany interior, really lights up the inside in a nice way. (I usually have a little extra time on my hands while I'm playing my cowboy tunes)

-this guitar has a rich, effortless, bass. I think it's special.

posted 12-21-2003 09:51 AM            

Your story was interesting but I heard it differently from someone who repaired that very guitar and more of his guitars during his career. I heard some facts differently but I am repeating from someone with a legendary reputation for 30-35 years in repairing and even more years building. So I assume he is telling me the truth.

The Clarence white guitar had a chewed up sound hole at somepoint before he got it I thought and someone roughly carved out the soundhole to clean up the edges very crudely. I was also told the guitar sounded great but had nothing to do with the sound hole.

I guess the sound hole enlarged became a collector thing or player request but models began coming out with it.

I also know that your knowledge far exceeds mine but I also know that changing the soundhole does change the guitar sound regardless of the fact that a Selmer guitar may be an exception.

As you know more than I do everything in a guitars construction can be countered with some other modification to accent or cancel out the other.

I am assuming you were just making a point that a small sound hole doesn't always mean more bass. But I am assuming there are many other factors coming into play that make that true.

If I bought a D-18 and carved another inch out of the soundhole the sound would change no ? How would it likely change ?

I have also seen custom builders take a guitar back and change the soundhole and then send it back. What were they doing by enlarging it ?

I am gathering from this lesson that things are not always cast in stone. Again, I am just a player and not a luthier. This is just fun guitar talk.

Thx
LB

quote:

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Originally posted by epaul:
I have a SCGC 12fretD with the enlarged soundhole. I love the larger soundhole for one very basic reason: I love to look inside my guitars. I love the look of unfinished wood and clean white braces.

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LOL, I know what you mean. My new SCGC has that. Makes you want to toss in nickels and dimes and make wishes like a wishing well

I like being able to just stick my head in the sound hole and look around.

posted 12-21-2003 12:32 PM               

OK, so what does this have to do with the price of milk or Elixir strings? Only that size of soundhole is but one means of controlling overall response of the guitar, Paul's Selmer example (sorry Paul, that's a red herring...it assumes all other factors are the same which they are not in Petit Bouche and Grand Bouche models) not withstanding. This ain't luthier voodoo or smoke and mirrors, it's physics. Do a Google search for Helmholz resonator...which is one of the things an acoustic guitar body is. Given a constant air volume, smaller opening = lower resonant frequency, larger opening = higher resonant frequency. Of course not only is the frequency changing, but so is the "Q", so in opening up the soundhole, you may or may not increase the output at the new resonant frequency. It's interactive, and not subject to blithe comments nor generalizations not based in physics. This is one of the few areas of lutherie which is actually pretty easy to measure and even test on a very low tech basis...as per the sliding cardboard test.

It's easy to lower the fundamental top plate resonance while simultaneously raising the air resonance while building a guitar. And those guitars which have both top and air resonance closely coupled will have a big "whump" at some bass frequency...typical dreadnaught Bluegrass boom chick sound.

So if you open up the soundhole, the air resonance will go up. The guitar could become more even in response while getting slightly quieter in the very low end. Will you like it? Who knows...

posted 12-23-2003 09:33 PM               

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Originally posted by LittleBrother:
I heard it differently. . .The Clarence white guitar had a chewed up sound hole at some point before he got it and someone roughly carved out the soundhole to clean up the edges very crudely. I was also told the guitar sounded great but had nothing to do with the sound hole.

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I saw Clarence play that guitar over a span of several years and watched the soundhole going going gone. I confess it was somewhat chewed even the first time I saw it, but it was more chewed each time I saw the Colonels. Finally it was missing the last time I saw it in 1966 or so. As you know, it had a major accident and ended up having a massive number of repairs, a non-original (shorter) fingerboard sticking out into the soundhole, and after that, it wasn’t much of a guitar. Last time I saw Clarence playing, he was playing the celebrated D-18 he supposed preferred all along.

quote:

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I also know that changing the soundhole does change the guitar sound regardless of the fact that a Selmer guitar may be an exception.

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