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myth-busting: Resonance is not synonymous with Vibration

#161
Killed_by_Death said:
People think vibrates well = resonation, that's the myth.
Some resonance is unavoidable, but no one wants to build an electric instrument that resonates a lot or they're just adding dead-spots.
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That's exactly what hollowbody basses are designed to do - resonate and as a consequence add character to the sound. Yes they have a lot less sustain than solidbody basses, but that's not a bad thing at all. Sir Paul rather liked it. Me too. My double bass has lousy sustain, but I would never trade one bit of that tone for more sustain.

Arguing about resonance, sustain and tone is fruitless. What one person likes another hates. What you dislike about resonance is the very thing others search for.
 
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#162
chadds said:
Why does a 50's 60's sound, generalizing here, sound so "vibrant" compared to a new P off the wall at GC?
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  1. People listen with their preconceptions and want to believe it to be true.
  2. Pickups were often wound weaker so less magnetic pull on the strings
  3. Wood that has dried out is stiffer (but more brittle, but few try to snap their 1963 PB in half).
  4. I've heard great new instruments and some stinkers of old ones.
On 4, I have instruments older now than the holy-grail pre-CBS instruments when I started playing. I like them, but they aren't noticeably 'more vibrant' than newer ones I have. And these are high-quality Japanese-made instruments.

For conclusions you need single-blind tests and enough repeats to satisfy the great god Imhotep (Egyptian god of statistics)
 
#164
Turnaround said:
That's exactly what hollowbody basses are designed to do - resonate and as a consequence add character to the sound. Yes they have a lot less sustain than solidbody basses, but that's not a bad thing at all. Sir Paul rather liked it.
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Macca said the decision for getting the Hofner was that it was relatively cheap and also light to play on multiple-set gigs. He swapped to other basses when The Beatles weren't touring and he had lots of money, and the resurgence in his use of the Hofner probably has a lot to do with nostalgia (his and fans) and marketing rather than utility.
 
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#166
Turnaround said:
Arguing about resonance, sustain and tone is fruitless.
Click to expand...

I'm not actually arguing whether a person likes it not. Personally I'd never own a hollowbody, because they're difficult to work on, if you need to fish the parts in the F-holes.
My point was that Resonates isn't the correct term & if 22 people 'get it', then my task here is done.

Now, if those people will just go out into the world & when they hear or read someone comment 'resonates well', they correct that person, we'll have accomplished something :smug:
 
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#167
micguy said:
Science does involve belief - we're never really completely certain about anything - that's a big part of Science. As I said a few posts before, Newton was "right" for about 250 years, until we got a better idea.
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I would say it's more trust than belief. And Newton is still right in the right frame of reference and scale and provided you understand it's all a model with appropriate areas on applicability, like the liquid drop model of the nucleus.
 
#168
Killed_by_Death said:
I'm not actually arguing whether a person likes it not. Personally I'd never own a hollowbody, because they're difficult to work on, if you need to fish the parts in the F-holes.
My point was that Resonates isn't the correct term & if 22 people 'get it', then my task here is done.

Now, if those people will just go out into the world & when they hear or read someone comment 'resonates well', they correct that person, we'll have accomplished something :smug:
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I'm still not getting your point. What's to correct if someone says their bass resonates well? That means it is responding to vibration in a way they like.
 
#169
Killed_by_Death said:
I'm not actually arguing whether a person likes it not. Personally I'd never own a hollowbody, because they're difficult to work on, if you need to fish the parts in the F-holes.
My point was that Resonates isn't the correct term & if 22 people 'get it', then my task here is done.

Now, if those people will just go out into the world & when they hear or read someone comment 'resonates well', they correct that person, we'll have accomplished something :smug:
Click to expand...

I once had a fretted, fairly shallow ABG which got the early hollow bodied sound without need to mess around with f-holes once I found a magnetic pickup that worked with it. And it was transfer of energy that gave it that sound.
 
#172
Turnaround said:
it is responding to vibration in a way they like
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I think we will just have to not get each other on this one.
Sure it's vibrating in a pleasing way, but is it really resonating?
If it were resonating a LOT, which is implied, the output would be dimmed (if amplified).
solid-body electric instrument
 
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#173
micguy said:
Science does involve belief - we're never really completely certain about anything - that's a big part of Science. As I said a few posts before, Newton was "right" for about 250 years, until we got a better idea. One of the worst modern day sentences I've heard is "The science is settled". Anyone who truly knows Science understands that Science is never settled - with convincing evidence of a better, more correct, or more complete idea about how things work, a true scientist will change his or her beliefs.
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That is true, but it’s not about belief. The best available explanation is the best available explanation.
Belief is investment. I’m not invested in
coyote1 said:
On my guitar, it kinda functions as both. The fundamental of the C fades far more quickly than do other notes, but a high harmonic comes ringing out as the fundamental dies. It’s weird.

In any event I will try a few different fixes until I come up with something... or if it doesn’t work or creates other issues (such as neck dive) I’ll just live with the odd note. It’s noticeable to me when playing, but in chords it’s not that noticeable and in melodies it’s not that noticeable if I don’t linger on C.
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update: I took off the strings and re-situated the bridge. Now, only middle C has the issue. C3 and C5 are much better. I also tapped the guitar body when the strings were off, and it clearly emits a C note.
 
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#174
-Asdfgh- said:
Macca said the decision for getting the Hofner was that it was relatively cheap and also light to play on multiple-set gigs. He swapped to other basses when The Beatles weren't touring and he had lots of money, and the resurgence in his use of the Hofner probably has a lot to do with nostalgia (his and fans) and marketing rather than utility.
Click to expand...
I'm fairly sure he moved away from his Höfner because it wasn't intonating, not because he didn't like its tone. He went back to Höfner after he got its intonation fixed. The Ric bridge was, at that time, much better.
 
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#176
-Asdfgh- said:
From the point of view of what can be amplified by the pickups, resonance is also subtractive, as are all vibrations going into the body for practical purposes. Movement of the pickups due to the body vibrating the pickups relative to the strings is tiny compared to the signal from the strings moving. The sound you hear acoustically (unless you jam your ear against the body) is the strings.

As an example, I was working with a shamisen player. A shamisen is a form of banjo and has a hollow wooden body. I thought using an acoustic guitar contact mic would be useful as a more unobtrusive way to amplify it, but the signal was essentially zero. So I gave up on that idea but also, for comparison, tried it on a solid body bass. Also no signal. In other words the acoustic sound from the body of a solid body guitar is also essentially zero. It does vibrate (you can jam your ear against it) so some energy is subtracted into the body. Thus we can conclude that the body is subtractive too. However, tests from using different materials for bodies shows it doesn't subtract much (hence the issue of a contact mic not working).

The thing is people may be right - a guitar or bass that sounds good acoustically will sound better amplified, but for entirely the wrong reasoning based on the presumption that a solid bodied instrument works in the same way to an acoustic one.
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I’m going be contrary but I used to mic my Telebass unplugged.

The strings vibrating are picked hugely by the pickups. The second pulse which is traveling imperceptibly but measurably fast is the effect that the string vibration going through the whole of the physicality of the bass and supporting or diminishing the first pulse is the bodies effect now picked up again by the pickups.
 
#180
chadds said:
The second pulse which is traveling imperceptibly but measurably fast is the effect that the string vibration going through the whole of the physicality of the bass and supporting or diminishing the first pulse is the bodies effect now picked up again by the pickups.
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It can only diminish it, not support it, as the vibrations of the body are unlikely to vibrate the string again in phase with significant energy. And if it is imperceptible, I won't worry about it as I won't hear it.
 
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