Sustain

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neverfoundthetime
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:20 am

Maybe some of you remember I mentioned a Swiss violin maker who has developed a method of treating wood to give better sustain and sound. Michael Rhonheimer from Baden, just down the road here, used fungus to treat the wood and managed to create a violin with a sustain judged to be better than a Stadivari (done in blind tests). I'm sure this is something could well make it's way into the building of guitars in the future. I think I will give him a call and find out if he's been in contact with guitar makers yet.
I will add an info link about it here from Swiss EMPA (Materials Science and Technology)... but its all in German.
http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/*/76854/---/l=1


dennisg
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:43 am

Good idea. I've always felt there wasn't enough fungus on my Taylor.


wiley
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:37 am



wrench
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:42 am

neverfoundthetime wrote:
Maybe some of you remember I mentioned a Swiss violin maker who has developed a method of treating wood to give better sustain and sound. Michael Rhonheimer from Baden, just down the road here, used fungus to treat the wood and managed to create a violin with a sustain judged to be better than a Stadivari (done in blind tests). I'm sure this is something could well make it's way into the building of guitars in the future. I think I will give him a call and find out if he's been in contact with guitar makers yet.
I will add an info link about it here from Swiss EMPA (Materials Science and Technology)... but its all in German.
http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/*/76854/---/l=1
I remember that subject, Chris. That was a very important discovery. That came up in a discussion on what "aging" means to a guitar top. Remember Dennis made a comment where Bob Taylor said something about new spruce was "stringy", where aged spruce was not? Also, the developer of the Rainsong, a fellow named Decker, who holds some acoustic patents and a very impressive resume', said instrumentation is all but useless on musical instruments . With the studies I did over the last few months, I agree with Mr. Taylor, and Dr. Decker not so much, at least on his instrument claim.

Okay, back to the fungus. While the fungal violin did win the competition, and while it was noted the sustain was superior, I think sustain is only partially a function of the wood, with the remaining elements of sustain being mostly the match of the body woods, and the quality of its build. So, the success of this violin, can be attributed to not only the wood, but the violin builder as well. But I agree with you that it would be VERY interesting to hear what Jim Olson, Ed Claxton, Richard Hoover, or Bob Taylor could do with a slab of this fungus-treated material.

I really would like to see a microscopic cross-section of that fungal spruce though........


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neverfoundthetime
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:50 am

Good idea. I've always felt there wasn't enough fungus on my Taylor.DennisG
Yeah, sounds crazy at first but it’s a process developed by wood treatment specialist Prof. Dr. Francis Schwarze from the Swiss Materials and Research Institute. The reason Antonio Stradivari’s violins sounded so good was because of the quality of the wood used which grew during what is referred to as the mini ice-age between 1645 and 1715 in middle Europe with its long and hard winters followed by cool short summers. This caused the trees of the south Alps to grow slower but more uniformly with thin year rings producing wood with less density, perfect for producing great sound in violins. Rhonheimer/Schwarz use the Xylaria longipes fungus to hollow out the wood’s density evenly without changing the stiffness and strength to get the same sound-carrying qualities of the Stradivaris. It also ages the wood giving it a better appearance.

It could well solve Taylor’s dwindling Rosewood problem.

Edit: @Dan, I'll see if I can find some specs on how the structure of the wood looks... interesting stuff!


willem
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:43 pm

All intresting here for so far i understand,,and sustain following this..

For so far i understand there is a fungus that make the wood better for a instrument??


below is something funny and in a way also intresting,,we want to build our own guitar is'nt it??
I know they tryed years ago to build guitars out of bamboo,,can't find nothing about it
and is not the way they build the bas in the vid..



smips65
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Sat Apr 10, 2010 5:49 am

dennisg wrote:
Good idea. I've always felt there wasn't enough fungus on my Taylor.
Image




I'll throw a wrench in the works here...
I know, I know, this is an acoustic forum, but thought this would be an interesting detour...

On electric guitars with stop bars, there's a group of people that swear this works better...

It's called top-wrapping the strings, and I'm in the camp that agrees that it adds to the sustain on most electric guitars. I do this with solid, and semi-hollow guitars.

Image


wrench
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Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:09 am

smips65 wrote:
dennisg wrote:
Good idea. I've always felt there wasn't enough fungus on my Taylor.




I'll throw a wrench in the works here...
I know, I know, this is an acoustic forum, but thought this would be an interesting detour...

On electric guitars with stop bars, there's a group of people that swear this works better...

It's called top-wrapping the strings, and I'm in the camp that agrees that it adds to the sustain on most electric guitars. I do this with solid, and semi-hollow guitars.

Image
That's interesting. How much of a difference in sustain do you observe?

If this is for real, then perhaps we might look at the sustain of an acoustic archtop.


dennisg
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Sat Apr 10, 2010 11:40 am

Wrench,

Is that your Hewlett-Packard spectrum analyzer I hear warming up in the background?


smips65
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Sat Apr 10, 2010 1:36 pm

wrench wrote:
smips65 wrote:
dennisg wrote:
Good idea. I've always felt there wasn't enough fungus on my Taylor.




I'll throw a wrench in the works here...
I know, I know, this is an acoustic forum, but thought this would be an interesting detour...

On electric guitars with stop bars, there's a group of people that swear this works better...

It's called top-wrapping the strings, and I'm in the camp that agrees that it adds to the sustain on most electric guitars. I do this with solid, and semi-hollow guitars.

Image
That's interesting. How much of a difference in sustain do you observe?

If this is for real, then perhaps we might look at the sustain of an acoustic archtop.[/quote]

Image

Completely different animal
, I have a full body archtop, but has the rosewood "floating" bridge, so angle of strings, and tension are mute on these models.



The thinking on stop bars for example is the fact that there are only 2 bolts screwed into the body of the guitar, so more string surface connection to the bar = more sustain.


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