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I feel high now.
But yeah, never been a huge fan of soundports...I mean, they can be pretty "cute" upon first listen but ultimately always feel distracting to me, especially at jams
I'm not totally sure you can hear that sort of a difference with them tbh. They are a part of the sound of the guitar. Meaning that the guitar sounds a certain way, you might not like it overall but the sound port is only a part of the total sound of the guitar.
I'm not opposed to them but I just don't think they make a guitar sound "soundporty" or not.
I'd be interested to hear @pdg 's experience here. If I'm not mistaken, his guitars have many soundholes that you can cover or plug to alter the tone. Seems I've also seen some soundports with covers that slide open or closed so that you could "A/B" them in a sense. It it is just airflow changes and if the sides are really negligible for sound production, then have the ability to open and close a sound port would seem to give that flexibility and choice.
It's easy to A/B the soundport, you just tape it or have someone cover it while you're playing...am I missing something? One thing that's peculiar about it is that the sound still feels like it's coming from the top, I don't hear sound coming from the soundport, it's only more of it and it's more direct to the player.
My guitars don't have a "soundport" on the side particularly for the player. They just have four little oval soundholes instead of one. But, yes, when you plug one or two of them, the total soundhole area decreases, and the "breathing mode" goes down. At the lowest, it sounds a little more "jumbo" sound; next is more"dreadnought" sound, then maybe OM (?), then finally more crisp like archtop/selmerish (I wish it really did create thes sounds, like a modeler!). Also, the sound, to the player at least, is different depending which particular soundhole(s) is/are closed.
I also notice a more open or easy breathing sound when there's more soundhole area (but maybe less punchy), as if the air can pump out and in with less friction.
Breedlove makes (or made) a guitar with a soundport that you can close with a rubber stopper.
I've thought about trying to do some sort of sliding trap door when I decided to punch a whole in my guitar. It's a good thing I didn't put in time and effort because it would stay open all the time.
@pdg your EQ soundholes are one of the coolest designs I've seen on a guitar. Effective too, I remember at least 3 distinct tones.
I sort of conflated 2 things in my last post. Was thinking of the effect of opening or closing the soundport with the effect pdg describes for his soundholes (not on the sides). I figured the physics would have some similarity but I may be mistaken and I didn't really read the treatise that paulmcevoy referenced on the actual science.
After I posted, I tried to find the guitar I had seen with the closeable sound port for the player. I think it was one of the Blue Guitars and is referenced in this attached article, where the author took advice from the original luthier (Linda Manzer) to create his own guitar, which he said the owner leaves open all the time because of the preferred sound (kinda like what Buco says above).
Can you post a picture of your guitar? I think I know what guitar it is. Was it at DiJ?
Also Fappy this year? Hell yeah!
I tried one at DiJ. It's one of the most comfortable guitars I've played, it was set up just about perfectly, so easy to play. And I was surprised at how usable opening/closing various small holes was to get different sound out of it. Some of the top players asked to play it out of curiosity but then would spend an hour jamming on it, they couldn't put it down. It has plenty of projection too.
I found a few videos of one of Tom Bills models with uncut top, just a soundport. He seems to be a complete convert to the concept of soundport. The guitar without any openings in the top is an odd look though. I like the idea behind it but getting used to the aesthetics would be a process. They do sound big though.
I'm not totally sure you can hear that sort of a difference with them tbh.
Well I certainly did lol. Granted, I've never actually owned one either so it could be something that I wouldn't notice after playing on one for a week or two.