I 'm on my fifth build, and bought my sixth on EBay - the one on EBay just kicks my ass as for vibrancy and sustain! I'm ready to retire from building and just start buying! But I love building and creating thing's!
Should the sound board be glued to the neck in a neck through design? Or should there be at least a small gap between the two?
Scarfed neck or step down?
Bridge / nut material used?
If I have a magnetic pickup working in conjunction with a piezo - bronze wound - or nickle wound strings?
Any help would be great guy's!
Chris Carlson
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Just finished revamping my fret less "Rat Rod" CBG and tore out the piezo disc's (2) and put a piezo rod under the bridge! And that little guitar just "SPRANG" to life!!! It was enough to give me shivers down my spine and make me cry!
Thanks for all your help everyone!
Just keep messin around with them and you will get what you want, disc's are tuff to get good sound from you got to try moving them and different way to insulate them.
Don't expect to much from a box, bottom line is there is very little air to move and wood surface to make a lot of sound. Just keep trying to get the most you can with trial and error that's what were all doing. Look at building your own boxes that are bigger then most cigar boxes that way you pick the size and thickness of you box.
There's no magic, but I've got a couple of observations. I've built both methods, of leaving a clear gap between the underside of the top, or having full contact between the neckstick and the underside of the top - both are equally valid and will work fine. However, some boxes work better than others, so that part is always down to chance and or experience, and some 'free floating' tops will need bracing, like a regular acoustic guitar. One thing I do know, is that glueing the neck into the body is not necessary - I never do this, mainly because it means doing any modification during the build (to alter the action for example) or or making repairs (to the electrics) after the guitar is finished is virtually impossible. The sustain and tone will not be any better for glueing - I say this after now getting well into over 500 builds, and every one of them has the neck fixed by just 2 or 4 screws. Recently a few people have remarked on how much sustain my guitars have...making a decent Les Paul sound pretty weak in that department, so I know my approach works. What is perhaps more important is a neck that combines rigidity and resonance, so it needs to have enough mass and thickness to give you this. Also, the gauge and tension of the strings is vital - too loose and they just flop around, too tight and they can just become too resistant to vibrating freely. And the nut and bride are also areas which can inhibit string vibration and transfer of sound to the structure of the guitar - they material needs to be hard, any string slots accurately cut, and also very important, they need to have full and even contact with the guitar to ensure no energy is lost through a sloppy fit or uneven contact.
So there are a lot of areas where things can go wrong for you..getting just one of them a little bit off can adversely affect the sound of the guitar, and getting them all right isn't always easy.
I think John said it all! John mentioned nut and bridges. Be sure the intonation is spot on. Even a fraction off can sometimes make a great guitar sound "out of tune" even if your guitar is tuned up. I have found some of my bridges had to be moved back a tad to achieved this. In other words, the length from the 12th fret to the bridge is a hair longer than the length from the nut to the 12th fret. That is just my experience.
on another thread , quite a few builders that have done both " glue down" , and "space under the neck " examples have stated they see very little difference, but if any at all , the glued one was better .
but i have seen others say the opposite.
i think its more the sum of the whole thing .. if you get alot right on a solid built guitar, the whole thing will act as a resonator even up the neck .
then again making the body act like a drum will reso well too .
trial and error on your own skill level and materials you can get should determine your answer for you .
studying another good sounding guitar may save you some time also .
it may be a mix of ingredients not one magic fix too ;-)
ps .. mag pups should use steel / nickle strings . bronze will work but sound muddy .
Well I'm only on my third build so any advice I can offer is a little suspect but here goes. The sound board needs to vibrate to make or amplify sound so for acoustic builds you want some space between the neck and sound board. On guitars with electric pickups it's not as important as the pickup transfers string vibration to a electric signal. I didn't have much luck with using a piezo with my first build but it sounds fine acoustically so I've switched over to electric pickups as that's the sound I'm looking for. Don't give up on builds as you learn from mistakes and for me that's the fun!
I've built 24+ guitars and tried many methods, glueing to the lid was not as effective for me, it created all sorts of problems as did tone and volume controls...scarfed joints offered little advantage, step down and keep the whole thing straight, through neck though is the way to go, no gaps, magnetic pickup or piezo one or the other, they don't work well together, ordinary electric guitar strings are fine - keep it simple! - don't give up after 5 builds..., unless you buy one of mine! (-;
Replies
Thanks for all your help everyone!
image.jpg
Just keep messin around with them and you will get what you want, disc's are tuff to get good sound from you got to try moving them and different way to insulate them.
Don't expect to much from a box, bottom line is there is very little air to move and wood surface to make a lot of sound. Just keep trying to get the most you can with trial and error that's what were all doing. Look at building your own boxes that are bigger then most cigar boxes that way you pick the size and thickness of you box.
There's no magic, but I've got a couple of observations. I've built both methods, of leaving a clear gap between the underside of the top, or having full contact between the neckstick and the underside of the top - both are equally valid and will work fine. However, some boxes work better than others, so that part is always down to chance and or experience, and some 'free floating' tops will need bracing, like a regular acoustic guitar. One thing I do know, is that glueing the neck into the body is not necessary - I never do this, mainly because it means doing any modification during the build (to alter the action for example) or or making repairs (to the electrics) after the guitar is finished is virtually impossible. The sustain and tone will not be any better for glueing - I say this after now getting well into over 500 builds, and every one of them has the neck fixed by just 2 or 4 screws. Recently a few people have remarked on how much sustain my guitars have...making a decent Les Paul sound pretty weak in that department, so I know my approach works. What is perhaps more important is a neck that combines rigidity and resonance, so it needs to have enough mass and thickness to give you this. Also, the gauge and tension of the strings is vital - too loose and they just flop around, too tight and they can just become too resistant to vibrating freely. And the nut and bride are also areas which can inhibit string vibration and transfer of sound to the structure of the guitar - they material needs to be hard, any string slots accurately cut, and also very important, they need to have full and even contact with the guitar to ensure no energy is lost through a sloppy fit or uneven contact.
So there are a lot of areas where things can go wrong for you..getting just one of them a little bit off can adversely affect the sound of the guitar, and getting them all right isn't always easy.
I think John said it all! John mentioned nut and bridges. Be sure the intonation is spot on. Even a fraction off can sometimes make a great guitar sound "out of tune" even if your guitar is tuned up. I have found some of my bridges had to be moved back a tad to achieved this. In other words, the length from the 12th fret to the bridge is a hair longer than the length from the nut to the 12th fret. That is just my experience.
on another thread , quite a few builders that have done both " glue down" , and "space under the neck " examples have stated they see very little difference, but if any at all , the glued one was better .
but i have seen others say the opposite.
i think its more the sum of the whole thing .. if you get alot right on a solid built guitar, the whole thing will act as a resonator even up the neck .
then again making the body act like a drum will reso well too .
trial and error on your own skill level and materials you can get should determine your answer for you .
studying another good sounding guitar may save you some time also .
it may be a mix of ingredients not one magic fix too ;-)
ps .. mag pups should use steel / nickle strings . bronze will work but sound muddy .
If you do a recess like this, it will allow the box lid to vibrate freely.
Well I'm only on my third build so any advice I can offer is a little suspect but here goes. The sound board needs to vibrate to make or amplify sound so for acoustic builds you want some space between the neck and sound board. On guitars with electric pickups it's not as important as the pickup transfers string vibration to a electric signal. I didn't have much luck with using a piezo with my first build but it sounds fine acoustically so I've switched over to electric pickups as that's the sound I'm looking for. Don't give up on builds as you learn from mistakes and for me that's the fun!
I've built 24+ guitars and tried many methods, glueing to the lid was not as effective for me, it created all sorts of problems as did tone and volume controls...scarfed joints offered little advantage, step down and keep the whole thing straight, through neck though is the way to go, no gaps, magnetic pickup or piezo one or the other, they don't work well together, ordinary electric guitar strings are fine - keep it simple! - don't give up after 5 builds..., unless you buy one of mine! (-;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121121699306?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&am...
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