Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Madsakre on December 03, 2010, 08:02:31 AM
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Hey guys i was wondering how i could make my bc rich mockingbird louder unplugged :P
The guitar almost sounds muffled when its unplugged which i think affects the plugged tone too much. Especially when i wanna do pinched harmonics.
The guitar should be pretty resonant on paper. Tune o matic bridge. Neck through, Mahogany body with spalted maple top.
Im gonna put new strings on as step one.
what else can i do? :)
-Mads
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new strings is a definate step one. Make sure the nut is nicely cut, the bridge posts are solid, truss rod set up nicely and the frets are not choking. You may also want to change the way you string through the tailpiece to see if it makes a difference
try adding a clamp or something heavy to the headstock to see if its worth investing in a fat finger.
if general set-up doesnt do it there isnt too much else you can do on a neck through. i was wondering about the spalted maple - but i think its thin enough to not be an issue on these bc-rich's
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+1 to what Wez says
There are a few things that I find can make a difference to my ears
The well cut nut and well cut saddles on the tunamatic.
I do like Tonepro bridges but dont think that they make a HUGE difference, although I think my preference for using an aluminium tailpiece and locking it down with the tonepros locking tailpiece studs does do something groovy
Finally I believe that the Earvana Compensated tuning nut adds a lot to the zing I get on my guitars - harmonic content is way improved. I was so impressed by it I now import them in large quantities and fit them to all the guitars I make
Here is the easier to fit and less intrusive Shelf Nut version
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/felineguitars/earvana/EARVANA-SHELF-NUT--WEB.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/felineguitars/earvana/earvanagibsonshelf.jpg)
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I do like Tonepro bridges but dont think that they make a HUGE difference, although I think my preference for using an aluminium tailpiece and locking it down with the tonepros locking tailpiece studs does do something groovy
I was going to mention an aluminium tailpiece - it will certainly change the acoustic tone, quite noticeably, but it's not always "better" than a regular tailpiece. Quite cheap just to try as an experiment though, see what you think.
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I do like Tonepro bridges but dont think that they make a HUGE difference, although I think my preference for using an aluminium tailpiece and locking it down with the tonepros locking tailpiece studs does do something groovy
I was going to mention an aluminium tailpiece - it will certainly change the acoustic tone, quite noticeably, but it's not always "better" than a regular tailpiece. Quite cheap just to try as an experiment though, see what you think.
+1
It did a lot to my SG, especially as I paired it with locking steel studs (tailpiece and studs both from Faber). You can look up the parts under http://www.tokaiguitar.de/produkte.php?kategorie=2-2
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I've got a Faber wraparound bridge and locking studs - good concept, but I don't think they're particularly well made.
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I've got a Faber wraparound bridge and locking studs - good concept, but I don't think they're particularly well made.
Hmm, no issues with my parts here. But I just threw them in, everything fit perfectly and sounded great. So I didn't look very closely at how well they were manufactured.
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Slightly off topic but has anyone else noticed that if you play a guitar and by accident the body rests against the arm of a chair the guitar sounds slightly thicker? Didn't seem to translate through an amp though :/
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That's because the furniture is resonating with the guitar. If you want to try it with an amp then try taking the wheels off your cab/combo (if you have them) or putting you amp on a resonant surface. This is the reason why you sometimes see 8x10 cabs stacked horizontally, to resonate the stage more and get bigger low end response.
I'm very interested in those Earvana nuts though. I assume they can take any string gauge?
Paddy
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I'm very interested in those Earvana nuts though. I assume they can take any string gauge?
Yes - pretty much .
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Pretty much? Do they work with any tuning?
Paddy
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I've got a Faber wraparound bridge and locking studs - good concept, but I don't think they're particularly well made.
Hmm, no issues with my parts here. But I just threw them in, everything fit perfectly and sounded great. So I didn't look very closely at how well they were manufactured.
They work fine, but I thought they'd be specially made parts - instead they're just modified standard parts.
The studs are regular studs with the lower flange(?) ground off, which is OK, but as for the bridge, it's just a regular tailpiece with a chunk routed out of the top, so the cutaway part is unplated aluminium. The top edges are razor-sharp too. :x
(http://www.tokaiguitar.de/content_images/img_0789large.jpg)
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Not new strings?
Oh dear.
Do that, then see what its like.
New strings > all else.
Consider gauge as well. If the strings are very slack then high frequency overtones can get overwhelmed by the low frequency energy in a wide oscilation. You might want to tightnen it up somewhat.
Not all tunomatics are created equal. Whats on there now?
And theres a lot of leeway in a setup to affect the sound of a guitar. Flatter neck, lower action *tends* to brighten things up (it may not though; guitars are all different in this regard and I spend a lot of time tweaking action and relief in tiny increments to find the combinations that allow the guitar to resonate in the way most pleasing to me). Dont expect a night and day change though.
Nuts are a big deal, but remember that that only strongly affects the sound of open strings.
On that note, stainless steel frets are often reported as brighter sounding (and sometimes as making no difference).
Pickups being too close to strings can affect the strings resonance as well. If they're really close to the strings, like 2mm, back them off. Especially the neck.
But it may just be the guitar. If its mahogany through neck then they can be very dark (through neck promotes more dominant LF modes in the guitars resonance, and add to that the mahogany, plus the likelyhood that the mahogany isnt very good mahogany and you have a very dark guitar indeed),
The final thing I'd bear in mind is, that spalted top may just be killing the guitar, or exacerbating the problem. Its very pretty, but its an acoustic nightmare. All the little black lines are breaks in the woods grain caused by fungal infection of the wood, and the wood has basically no structural strength, its just mush, and mush is what it can do to a guitars sound. If the top is more than a veneer then it *might* be the problem (or adding to it).
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The final thing I'd bear in mind is, that spalted top may just be killing the guitar, or exacerbating the problem. Its very pretty, but its an acoustic nightmare. All the little black lines are breaks in the woods grain caused by fungal infection of the wood, and the wood has basically no structural strength, its just mush, and mush is what it can do to a guitars sound. If the top is more than a veneer then it *might* be the problem (or adding to it).
I mentioned that earlier - but i dont think its much more than a veneer on this.
(http://www.swampdogsmusicandmore.com/images/MBSPM2.jpg)
how they managed to cut it into a veneer i dont know - i imagine it was stabilised first.
Spalted maple can be fine - but i generally dont trust it being used on factory guitars - when i use it myself i have spent weeks stabilising it properly . definately not a wood to use in any kind of thickness - especially the cheap examples most factories are using. that veneer on the guitar above is very low grade - hardly worth bothering with, and that seems to be the case with a lot of spalt i see being used
sometimes it looks so good its worth the extra effort
(http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/web/bVeteranFull.png)
even so i have never used it over 5mm thick and always with the bridge mounted firmly to the wood underneath.
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Hey guys i was wondering how i could make my bc rich mockingbird louder unplugged :P
The guitar almost sounds muffled when its unplugged which i think affects the plugged tone too much. Especially when i wanna do pinched harmonics.
The guitar should be pretty resonant on paper. Tune o matic bridge. Neck through, Mahogany body with spalted maple top.
Neck-thru guitars tend to sound a bit "closed" and not very resonant unplugged. Now that doesn't necessarily mean they sound bad plugged, and FWIW I don't have any trouble with pinched harmonics on my neck-thru Vox Custom 24, quite on the contrary.
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So.. I did a couple of things.
I ajusted the bridge. i hoistened half a turn on the screws.
And new strings on.
D'adddario 13-56. Its tuned to b..
Now it sounds good again :D
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Still love the look of that Veteran, Wez :D
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Pretty much? Do they work with any tuning?
Paddy
That's a very BROAD question - they work on every popular tuning I have tried
I didn't say EVERY in case someone found an exception to the rule - Eg -tuning down so low that only Whales can hear it
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Slightly off topic but has anyone else noticed that if you play a guitar and by accident the body rests against the arm of a chair the guitar sounds slightly thicker? Didn't seem to translate through an amp though :/
Put the headstock against the speaker cab and it will!
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To improve the acoustic tone of an electric guitar: raise the action and use heavier strings.