Sustain

tovo
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:28 pm

As most know because I have talked so much about it, I recently bought a Larrivee OMV-09. I am so thrilled with it. Best thing to come out of Canada since Maple Syrup.

The thing I have noticed the most is what incredible sustain it has. Seriously it feels like I can pluck a high E, put down the guitar, go and make some coffee and it will still be ringing when I return.

So I was wondering, what are the key factors involved in the amount of sustain a guitar will produce? I assume the wood (This is Indian Rosewood) what else?

(Yeah...I know I could google it and answer my own question...just thought it might be worth a discussion)


TGMatt
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:42 pm

Hey Tony great question , I am assuming that a number of factors beyond the obvious..

One is Strings...one also would be how clean you play, how well you have the chord near the correct place , probably a lot more..

Looking forward to the minds here letting us novices understand


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Music Junkie
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:14 pm

Tony:

The wood is a huge part. Indian Rosewood is very dense, and can bounce back the vibrations rather than absorb them. Take a softer wood, and it will absorb the vibrations more and cut short the duration. In electric guitars, the solid bodies have much more sustain than the hollow bodies, and the denser woods more than the softer woods.

As a comparison, we test for rock hardness in our industry with sound vibrations. The faster the sound travels from point A to point B, the denser the rock (and the more expensive to remove....$$$).

J


haoli25
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:20 pm

Tony, when your guitar has excellent 'sustain' or resonance is usually a sign of all of the various woods working perfectly together. That can vary quite a bit between guitars of the same model.
A good friend of mine had a Martin that also had excellent resonance. Unfortunately, he had to have his luthier change out the neck after an accident. Same wood type, same everything, but that clean 'sustain' was lost forever.

Bill


wrench
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:36 pm

Tony,

You can Google this and get a lot subjective and qualitative stuff. No science. I spent a lot of time over the last several months with Audacity and and a flat 30hz-30khz microphone doing acoustic analysis on guitars. I have science - and lots of it, but I'll keep this real short.

The sustain period of the sound a guitar makes is going to be a function of how strong the fundamental sound was, to what extent the body resonates that sound, and what factors are present to dampen the sound. There are many of them, and I won't go into a lot of detail here, but on your Larrivee OMV-09, I'm pretty certain of the following:

1. The body shape has a frequency response of about 30hz to 20,000hz, allowing the body to produce higher order resonances many times the fundamental frequency. This partially accounts for a ringing effect during the sustain.

2. The natural frequencies and damping characteristics of the materials. Larrivee did a good job matching woods and their shapes such that they are not absorbing sound from each other.

3. A guitar is a complex spring-mass system, and potential weaknesses occur in that system at every joint through which energy moves from one piece to the next. My experiments show that sustain and clarity are both heavily affected by the string-saddle-bridge-breakangle-bridgeplate system.

So, the answer to your question is good design, good wood selection, good assembly, and good attention to detail in the setup of the bridge area, all resulting in the efficient transfer and resonance of a sound, with the optimally isolated mode of decay.


tovo
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:59 pm

Some great information in the responses, thank you all for taking the time. Always something to learn.


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Music Junkie
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:59 pm

@ Wrench:

Outstanding explanation, thanks for passing it on. Amazing how little (and I do mean little) tweaks or differences can change the tone so drastically. Delicate balance in this instrument we all love (and sometimes hate.. ;) ).

J


Hydroman52
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Thu Apr 08, 2010 10:26 pm

And, not only how clean you play, as Matt says, but also how clean your strings are and how old and worn. I'm sure that Dennis will second that one. Nothing worse than grungy strings to deaden your playing.


AndyT
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 2:31 am

Ok, So what would the idea guitar be made of? Lets design one that is not limited to wood. Metal, plastics, ... whatever would be best for the sound, sustain...


wrench
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Fri Apr 09, 2010 8:50 am

AndyT wrote:
Ok, So what would the idea guitar be made of? Lets design one that is not limited to wood. Metal, plastics, ... whatever would be best for the sound, sustain...
That's an interesting trail too, Andy. Martin uses some high-pressure laminates in the fingerboards, nuts, saddles, and bridges of their low end models. They even use it in the sides and backs of some models, but I don't know of any major manufacturer using laminates for a soundboard. A couple of months ago, I took a trip to listen to a Rainsong (I think they're based in Hawaii). This guitar is made of carbon-fiber, and has a price tag on par with Gibson-Martin-Taylor, etc. It didn't sound good to me.

I thought it would be possible to engineer a plastic top with perfect acoustic qualities, but if it exists, I couldn't find it. I guess a synthetic guitar top is like a robot - an arguably superior body, but just has no soul.


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