Why do some guitars feel more dynamic than others?

darthed1981

Cirrus said:

darthed1981 said:

Your third paragraph there is dangerously close to the sort of pseudoscientific babble you'd find in a review of £10,000 per metre speaker cable.

On this, by the way - Psychoacoustics isn't pseudoscientific babble. It only sounds like it to you because you don't know enough, and presumably don't have the self awareness to realise it.

Oh OK that's it, handbags at dawn bro...

darthed1981

Offset said:

Blimey, it was a fairly innocuous OP... 

Those are the ones you have to watch... the toys flying out of prams can have sharp edges.

Roland

OK boys, let’s calm down shall we? This is an important topic!

There is plenty of evidence that individuals see, hear, and feel things differently. There’s also evidence that people interpret what they see, hear, feel differently based on there experience. Yes, there’s also psychological factors too. So just because something works for you doesn’t mean the other guy is an idiot, and vice versa.

Cirrus

.

darthed1981

Cirrus said:

darthed1981 said:

Offset said:

Blimey, it was a fairly innocuous OP... 

Those are the ones you have to watch... the toys flying out of prams can have sharp edges.

See this is a real shame.

You said something I think was stupid, notwithstanding that it was also an attempt to undermine the premise of the discussion and belittle me for asking the question. I told you why I thought it was stupid, and now you're resorting to this.

Ironically it'd have been less offensive if I'd just said "your post is dumb" but because I explained WHY it was dumb, now we need to go through a stupid ritual of you going "ooh offended are we?" etc etc because it's easier for you than just admitting that you don't know and your reply contributed nothing.

You didn't have to be offensive AT ALL.  That's the point.  You seem offended by two things you have mentioned...

1.  I'm trying to undermine your thread.
2.  I'm trying to belittle you.

I was doing neither, whatever you may have inferred.  You also said earlier that I said you were delusional, I didn't.

All I've tried to do since is basically treat your reply as a bit of an over-reaction with good humour and not just make personal comments in reply.

You didn't like my post... not the first time someone hasn't liked something I've said, not the last, but definitely one of the more extreme reactions I've got... YMMV but there it is.

Cirrus

I honestly thought the shitting in his skull thing was funny to be fair   I was replying to the points you made in your OP, so it's not like I wasn't engaging with what you wrote in favour of a personal attack.

The reason I was offended is that it's a reasonable question about something I've noticed, and your first reply did seem to crap on the idea altogether. I like to learn things and by posting I was hoping someone might furnish me with some info. I also admit that it is a pet hate of mine when people on forums rubbish an idea without really seeming to understand it, and that's what I saw in your first post because those examples just aren't actually relevant (IMO!) to guitar construction at all. It absolutely did annoy me.

But I suspect we've agreed in the past, and I suspect we'll agree again in the future. I apologise that it was such an on the nose attack on what you said, I should have been less confrontational in disagreeing with you.

darthed1981

Cirrus said:

But I suspect we've agreed in the past, and I suspect we'll agree again in the future. I apologise that it was such an on the nose attack on what you said, I should have been less confrontational in disagreeing with you.

I also apologise for any offense I caused by my first post.

May peace be resumed

guitarjack66

rlw said:

Flanging_Fred said:

It’s entirely down to species of animal used to make the hide glue used for the neck joint. 

For instance the Dutch Toggenburg goat will produce glue that adds 1.32dB in the 834kHz range whereas American Brown Swiss cow glue reduces your haunting mids by 0.3dB and adds more top end sparkle.

Bollocks

No,the animals hide.

Snags

Well, this got boring fast. 

At least I still look like a fanny. 

BigPaulie

bertie said:

darthed1981 said:

A cynic might argue that given we can manufacture motors with a tolerance measured in atoms, build massive skyscrapers and bridges, land on the moon, perform micro-surgery on the hearts of premature babies etc, the concept that there is some kind of un-measurable quality element that cannot be either measured or accurately reproduced in mass production, but is sensed accurately by humans capable of confirmation bias or whose living is based on selling guitars strains credibility...

Ah fuck it who cares.

You do you chaps.

cos thems made of wood,  and even we, have no control how 1 piece is to another

Yet people will swear blind that there are consistent tonal characteristics of each wood species when used to make electric guitars.

PrecisionGuided

Nut and saddles.
Does every string ring clear and clean with a bright attack and long, natural sustain - or do some strings sound like rubber bands or banjos?
Clean cut nuts and a sharply defined witness point on the saddle make a big, big difference.

Also are all the screws and tuners tight?... neck well seated in the pocket?
Some bits of wood are better than others - particularly necks.

Twenty years of ageing and playing helps too. 

bertie

BigPaulie said:

Yet people will swear blind that there are consistent tonal characteristics of each wood species when used to make electric guitars.

for sure,   but sharing characteristics doesnt make them exactly the same. 

 Small variations, even in wood from the same tree, could/can/might be different. 

roberty

darthed1981 said:

Cirrus said:

darthed1981 said:

A cynic might argue that given we can manufacture motors with a tolerance measured in atoms, build massive skyscrapers and bridges, land on the moon, perform micro-surgery on the hearts of premature babies etc, the concept that there is some kind of un-measurable quality element that cannot be either measured or accurately reproduced in mass production, but is sensed accurately by humans capable of confirmation bias or whose living is based on selling guitars strains credibility...

Ah fuck it who cares.

You do you chaps.

If the cynic argued that, they'd be stupid..

Firstly no one is measuring a guitar build to the tolerance of atoms and spending a sizeable chunk of the GDP of an entire nation to build a guitar that's absolutely perfect in its performance, so it's a stupid comparison.

Secondly since human hearing is a psychoacoustic phenomena where our perception of sound level is a confluence of frequency response, weighted average signal levels over short windows of time, and not just a flat measure of peak or RMS signal level, further contextualised by what's going on around it sonically, it's actually not easy at all to analyse a waveform and categorically say that a human will hear it as being slightly louder or quieter.

I'm just asking a simple question about something that anyone can easily check out and experience just from playing a few guitars, and the cynic apparently would respond by shitting inside their own skull.

Touched a nerve there did we?

Your third paragraph there is dangerously close to the sort of pseudoscientific babble you'd find in a review of £10,000 per metre speaker cable.

The idea of this forum is to discuss things, starting to throw insults around if people take the opposite side of the discussion is infantile at best.  If you are only interested in people agreeing with you - just talk into a mirror.

"You do you chaps" was a bit condescending. I think that's why he reacted the way he did

roberty

I've sort come around to the viewpoint that as long as it stays in tune and the pickup is in the ballpark for the genre no one is really going to notice the rest. Everything extra is mostly for the player

I have an SG faded which is about as resonant as a plate of noodles. But through the amp this translates to a strong transient and lots of expressive character

Or that could just be in my head

roberty

The fact alone that there is weight variation between guitars of the same model is evidence enough that they are not identical, despite tight CNC tolerances

stickyfiddle

roberty said:

I've sort come around to the viewpoint that as long as it stays in tune and the pickup is in the ballpark for the genre no one is really going to notice the rest. Everything extra is mostly for the player

I have an SG faded which is about as resonant as a plate of noodles. But through the amp this translates to a strong transient and lots of expressive character

Or that could just be in my head

Lots of SGs are like that. Mine is really muted acoustically but it's a snappy dynamic little bugger when plugged in. 

roberty

stickyfiddle said:

roberty said:

I've sort come around to the viewpoint that as long as it stays in tune and the pickup is in the ballpark for the genre no one is really going to notice the rest. Everything extra is mostly for the player

I have an SG faded which is about as resonant as a plate of noodles. But through the amp this translates to a strong transient and lots of expressive character

Or that could just be in my head

Lots of SGs are like that. Mine is really muted acoustically but it's a snappy dynamic little bugger when plugged in. 

I have an oldish Standard which is full and fat feeling/sounding. Quite a contrast despite being the same size and shape

I traded SG Classics with (I think) @benecol, a few years ago. The one he gave me was objectively better than the one I gave him. It was definitely in the wood because both were set up well. We swapped back because it really wasn't a fair trade, and I'm not a prick 

TTBZ

stickyfiddle said:

roberty said:

I've sort come around to the viewpoint that as long as it stays in tune and the pickup is in the ballpark for the genre no one is really going to notice the rest. Everything extra is mostly for the player

I have an SG faded which is about as resonant as a plate of noodles. But through the amp this translates to a strong transient and lots of expressive character

Or that could just be in my head

Lots of SGs are like that. Mine is really muted acoustically but it's a snappy dynamic little bugger when plugged in. 

Whereas mine is the opposite to both of yours, so maybe there's something in my theory after all I've tried so many different bridge pickups in mine and it often feels a bit flat/one dimensional compared to other guitars. Yet unplugged it's very loud and resonant. Weirdly every neck pickup I've had sounds pretty good. Kind of considering trying a hot P90 in the bridge again since they naturally have more dynamics and depth to them. 

roberty

@TTBZ could it be to do with the angle of the bridge pickup? If the neck angle is steep on an SG the bridge pickup can end up miles away from the strings. You can correct the angle by stuffing foam under the back end of the pickup. Fiddly but doable

TTBZ

Yeah I'm going to try that next time I change the strings. I already have it pretty high but it might need to go further and more level with the strings. I really should have kept the Warpig in the bridge though.