Soundclips of your guitar

django'spooltalent · July 2007

Hi guys,

Although I know that you can't capture the true acoustic tone of your instrument due to a myriad of variables including recording situations and equipment, and none the less the player, I'm still interested in how your guitar sounds.

I was hoping we could have a place to post a picture of your guitar and how it sounds (as acoustic as possible so maybe a mic recording, but anything would be good?). In addition, the make model and year of your guitar would be appreciated.

Djam on,

Best Regards,

Daniel

Bob Holo · July 2007

Some time ago I recorded three of my guitars for just this purpose - IE; "What do they sound like from out front?" This is just me and an MP3 recorder in my kitchen from about 3 feet away with a pair of Behringer measurement mics in an XY configuration. They were recorded back to back with no adjustment in the recording equipment or post processing on the signals.

1.) 194x Busato
14 Fret Petit Bouche in (laminated) Mahogany & European Sycamore with unknown four-piece top - likely Oregon Pine: Dark, mellow and powerful with strong reverb and low sustain. Setup very high to get a clear fat tone with very little string noise.

2.) 2006 Holo
14 Fret Petit Bouche with secondary soundhole in (solid) Bolivian Rosewood with a two-piece Sitka Spruce top: Bright, percussive and cutting tone with moderate reverb. Setup a little lower to increase string noise and accent the percussive nature of the rhythm chop.

3.) 2006 Park
14 Fret Petit Bouche with secondary soundhole in (solid) European Maple & European (German?) two-piece spruce top: Well focused and midrange prominent with good harmonic content. Moderate setup - maybe a little on the low side for a mostly clear tone with a little string noise when you 'lean into it'

Keep in mind that these guitars were built and setup with different voicing goals. The tone & power differences are to some degree indicative of the goal of the luthier who built them and the design & wood & build choices stemming from that design goal. So, the Busato uses a laminated back, thicker top of midrange prominent wood and it's 60 years old - so you're getting a big warm voice with moderate snap and low-sustain. This guitar was undoubtedly built to have a big fat warm attack, and it does. The Holo was built of a particularly hard rosewood with a stiff thin 15 year old top of a wood known for its powerful trebles and low harmonic content so it is very percussive and loud with a lot of high-end. This guitar was built to have a very powerful cutting tone for jamming & busking "getting heard above the crowd" and it does. The Park is made of hard European Maple with a top of medium thickness made of wood known for its tonal balance and good harmonics and so it has a very refined midrange with moderate sustain and good even harmonics. This guitar was built to have a very prominent & refined midrange bark and it does. So - a lot of it has to do with the goal for the instrument.

So - as people submit recordings and you compare them, if they're factory guitars - you'll probably get a valid comparison from guitar to guitar... if they're hand-built; there's the additional factor of "what goal did the customer ask the luthier to hit?" For instance, of my new batch I'm building from three different topwoods, four different backwoods & two different bracing patterns to meet different goals because not all players want the big bright percussive voice you hear in this recording. "Different Strokes for Different Folks". Ted's new Favino is a good example of this. It doesn't sound like his old Favino because he didn't want it to... so comparing their tones would reveal more about Ted's preferences than"the sound of a Favino"... at any rate... you get the point.

My apologies for my playing ability - I'm a lot better with a plane than a plectrum, but you'll get a feel for the sound of these three instruments which are very different animals, each of which represents a particular voicing goal within the Gypsy Jazz genre.

chappie · July 2007

That Busato sounds fantastic.
Charlie

badjazz · July 2007

Not GJ guitars, but some here may be interested in hearing the difference between a reissue 16" x-braced Gibson 1934 L-5 that was built in 2004 compared with a 1936 Gibson L5 that is 17" and x-braced.

Sorry for the performances, I was trying to read the music and did these a while back just like this to hear how the guitars sound out front.

Larssen · July 2007

Hi,
I've recorded some soundclips of two of my guitars, a Eimers and a Gitane. I used a mic to record into my Mac and haven't added any effects, eq or volume-changes. Both the mic and my technique may not give a 100% right impression of how the guitar sounds

The first clip is of my Eimers model Quatre, built in June 2006 and is a Favino-style guitar. This has in my opinion a well balanced sound with a lot of midrange. Its not a loud guitar and you might hear that in the recording compared to the dg-300. This guitar is great for rhythm but I find it more difficult to play lead on it because of the lower volume it produces.

The second clip is of my Gitane dg-300. This guitar has a lot more bass and treble and 10 times the volume. That makes this guitar easier to play lead on (for me anyway) but somehow more difficult to play rhythm.

Both guitars are stringed with Galli silk and steel strings.

Christian

asd123321 · July 2007

Both that Eimer and the 300 sound somewhat mellow where the clip of Joscho Stephan playing a Cigano sounds right

Dr. Hall · July 2007

Here's my Gitane DG-320, with a blend of K&K piezo and a clip-on Audio Technica mic, recorded with Cubase software. Sounds a bit darker on the computer and car stereo speakers than it does live.
-Stefan

Bob Holo · July 2007

**edit**

alright - that was just too bad of an edit - had to fix it... here is the Oslo Trio live in a cafe in Walla Walla Washington with a little live 'tape hiss & mic grunge' thrown in and some decent ambience matching, and a few midrange & lowend room cues thrown in... sheesh... it only took me a couple minutes to do - might as well do it right

edited (A lot of what we hear on recordings is the recording engineer - here's our Norwegian friend's two instruments in a Paris cafe... I didn't get the ambience quite right - just a bit of fun - but the two wav files overlapped well for a couple of seconds toward the end of the song )

If I played like that I'd do more recording!