Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: choucas09 on October 21, 2011, 11:59:07 AM
-
Got a freebee to the Fender Custom Shop show in Bath last week. Mike Eldred, head of FCS, said many interesting things including the fact that in all of his dealings with famous guitarists ordering customs not one of them ever mentioned weight in their requests.
-
Maybe because they know they're not going to get a boat anchor from the CS?
-
Well I played about 30 CS and MB guitars at the show and they varied from superlight to fairly heavy. His point was that concern over weight is a modern phenomena and seems to exist amongst the general public only.
-
Right - interesting then! Mind you, Fenders are usually OK. I'd be interested to see if Gibson have the same experience?
-
I would too though I suspect that LP's being a heavy guitar there is probably going to be more concern there.
-
Mike Eldred, head of FCS, said many interesting things including the fact that in all of his dealings with famous guitarists ordering customs not one of them ever mentioned weight in their requests.
His point was that concern over weight is a modern phenomena and seems to exist amongst the general public only.
I can't see why that should be the case, though - surely pros and rock stars must have personal preferences as well?
It may be partly because some older players grew up in the age when they thought "heavy = good". So now if they get a custom guitar, whether it's light or heavy, they never think it's too heavy?
Mark Hopkin from Guitars4You told me Paul Reed Smith thinks players shouldn't pre-judge guitars based on weight, that it doesn't really tell you anything about what the guitar's going to sound like. Obviously he's right, but I think he's missing the point that it's a comfort thing. If a guitar weighs 10lbs I really don't care if it's the best-sounding guitar in the world, I don't want it hanging round my neck cutting off blood circulation and crushing my spine..... :|
-
^ +1
I don't care how good it sounds, if i have to go to the hospital after playing it for 10 minutes, that takes the shine off it a little.
Plus in my experience there's a sort of a goldilocks weight for guitars where they sound awesome.
-
Plus in my experience there's a sort of a goldilocks weight for guitars where they sound awesome.
Yeah, depending on the type of guitar of course. For example, I wouldn't expect a decent SG to ever be more than 7lbs, or an LP Jr to be more than 7.5, or thereabouts. Strats and Teles somewhere between 7 and 8 (although I'd prefer lighter).
Les Pauls.... I'm prepared to accept they're very unlikely to be less than 8lbs unless they're chambered. But I still look out for light ones!
-
yeah. I've never actually weighed them, but that sounds about right. :)
-
Sorry guys, but I disagree. I've played too many guitars that go against the accepted grain to have any general opinions as to what a guitar should be like. For example you hear a lot about the merits of body resonance, well some of my guitars have got it in spades, but my JJ retro has precious little, but with the BK's I've put in it it'll go up against anything I've got and anything you've got. No offence intended it's just true.
-
Sorry guys, but I disagree. I've played too many guitars that go against the accepted grain to have any general opinions as to what a guitar should be like. For example you hear a lot about the merits of body resonance, well some of my guitars have got it in spades, but my JJ retro has precious little, but with the BK's I've put in it it'll go up against anything I've got and anything you've got. No offence intended it's just true.
This can be true - I think the "lack of resonance" thing applies more to heavier guitars, they can be acoustically quite "dead" but sound great amplified. And some guitars can be almost too resonant, as if all those vibrations in the body somehow dissipate the energy from the strings so there's no sustain.
But I think a guitar which is both lightweight and "inert" will never sound good.
I'm sure you're right, of course you can't predict a guitar's sound based simply on its weight. I know a good Yamaha SG sounds awesome, I would love one but they're simply too heavy for me. As I said before, it's a comfort thing.
I also believe that the guitars we as individuals like the best aren't necessarily "great" guitars. Something about them just feels "right", but to someone else there may be nothing special about them at all.
-
Mike Eldred, head of FCS, said many interesting things including the fact that in all of his dealings with famous guitarists ordering customs not one of them ever mentioned weight in their requests.
His point was that concern over weight is a modern phenomena and seems to exist amongst the general public only.
I can't see why that should be the case, though - surely pros and rock stars must have personal preferences as well?
It may be partly because some older players grew up in the age when they thought "heavy = good". So now if they get a custom guitar, whether it's light or heavy, they never think it's too heavy?
Mark Hopkin from Guitars4You told me Paul Reed Smith thinks players shouldn't pre-judge guitars based on weight, that it doesn't really tell you anything about what the guitar's going to sound like. Obviously he's right, but I think he's missing the point that it's a comfort thing. If a guitar weighs 10lbs I really don't care if it's the best-sounding guitar in the world, I don't want it hanging round my neck cutting off blood circulation and crushing my spine..... :|
Ahem ..... I fall into the "older" guitarist category and I can never remember weight being a major factor when choosing a guitar up until the last 10 years or so - if you were looking for a Les Paul you accepted it was going to be heavy - if you were looking for an SG you knew it was going to be lighter, so I would tend to agree with Mike Eldred.
-
Ahem ..... I fall into the "older" guitarist category and I can never remember weight being a major factor when choosing a guitar up until the last 10 years or so - if you were looking for a Les Paul you accepted it was going to be heavy - if you were looking for an SG you knew it was going to be lighter, so I would tend to agree with Mike Eldred.
I'm old too. OK, I'm not a "proper" guitarist, I'm rubbish and I've never been in a band, but weight has always been an issue for me - maybe in the past I'd only think about it in retrospect, when I'd buy a guitar and find it too heavy, then get rid of it. Now I think about it in advance.
Gotta be honest, this is one of those "I can't understand why we're disagreeing" topics for me. :?
If you wanted, let's say, an LP and found two which looked, played and sounded identical - but one was 8lbs and one was 11lbs - would you not pick the lighter one (or the heavier one, if thats your preference)?
We're talking about something which costs 100s or 1,000s of pounds, something made of wood so no two are ever exactly alike. We all have personal preferences in terms of sound and looks - so why is it (apparently) so weird to have a preference in terms of weight?
-
If I can have the choise, I prefer a lightweight guitar. It's one of the reasons why I like Gretsch guitars.
My DeArmond has the weight of a small moon but I can forgive it because of it's great tone.
-
I think probably the main reason that weight is now a factor in choosing a guitar is that there is much more choice available. Back in the 60/70/80s there were fewer guitars available and guitarists were happy to get any good name guitar irespective of weight. If you consider how many thousands of guitars that have been added to the 'pool' since then (certainly many more than have been scr@pped) guitarists can pretty much get what they want today.
-
I'd agree on the comfort thing with guitar weight - I'm playing my Vee all the time now, its just SO nice to have a lighter guitar on stage and to me able to throw it around a bit, can't do that with my Les Paul. They both sound awesome in their own ways, but its solely the weight that has me playing my Vee mostly these days.
-
i agree that a lighter guitar is good, but they can be too light too. i picked up one of the new chambered Les Paul's recently and it just felt wrong! almost insubstantial. i'm sure i'd get used to it, it was just disconcerting. my explorer is surprisingly light, and that makes me happy :)
-
Mr Eldred spoke about weight in terms of resonant frequencies. The heavier the body the higher the frequency. He also said the biggest contributer to tone was the neck. He said, as a general rule, that to balance a guitar he'd select the neck thus. If a guitar had say a light swamp ash body with it's low resonant frequency he'd put a quarter sawn neck on it as q/s is dense and it's frequency is high. Conversely on a heavier body he'd use flat sawn or riffed (or is it rift?, I'd never heard the term) sawn as it being lower density has the lower r/f. This was all news to me and very interesting.
-
Ahem ..... I fall into the "older" guitarist category and I can never remember weight being a major factor when choosing a guitar up until the last 10 years or so - if you were looking for a Les Paul you accepted it was going to be heavy - if you were looking for an SG you knew it was going to be lighter, so I would tend to agree with Mike Eldred.
I'm old too. OK, I'm not a "proper" guitarist, I'm rubbish and I've never been in a band, but weight has always been an issue for me - maybe in the past I'd only think about it in retrospect, when I'd buy a guitar and find it too heavy, then get rid of it. Now I think about it in advance.
Gotta be honest, this is one of those "I can't understand why we're disagreeing" topics for me. :?
Just reread your post Philly - I wasn't disagreeing with you :?. I was agreeing with Mike Eldred that weight never used to be a deal breaker until (relatively) modern times. As I mentioned above there was not the choice available in 'non-modern' times - if you managed to find a decent Les Paul or Strat you grabbed it without bothering to put it on the scales.
-
Mr Eldred spoke about weight in terms of resonant frequencies. The heavier the body the higher the frequency. He also said the biggest contributer to tone was the neck. He said, as a general rule, that to balance a guitar he'd select the neck thus. If a guitar had say a light swamp ash body with it's low resonant frequency he'd put a quarter sawn neck on it as q/s is dense and it's frequency is high. Conversely on a heavier body he'd use flat sawn or riffed (or is it rift?, I'd never heard the term) sawn as it being lower density has the lower r/f. This was all news to me and very interesting.
Now that is interesting - I'll try to remember some of that. :)
(It is rift sawn by the way)
-
I'm so glad I went. He spoke for an hour or more, was full of insights and is a very engaging character. He also introduced the latest masterbuilder Dale Wilson (not Winton so no orange MB's). He did this great thing. He passed an undressed Tele neck round the audience and did a fret dress right in front of us while Mike spoke then passed it round again. Needless to say it was immaculate.
Mike asked the question "who had the first relic?" Everyone thought it was Keef, but no. Don Was (Was Not Was) was he and had a bass guitar done.
-
Mr Eldred spoke about weight in terms of resonant frequencies. The heavier the body the higher the frequency.
pretty much agree with that - as a general guideline
He also said the biggest contributer to tone was the neck.
i agree with that in some situations - certainly on strats with trem bridges the neck can make more of a difference than the bod... matching body and neck in some way is definitely a good idea.
If a guitar had say a light swamp ash body with it's low resonant frequency he'd put a quarter sawn neck on it as q/s is dense and it's frequency is high. Conversely on a heavier body he'd use flat sawn or riffed (or is it rift?, I'd never heard the term) sawn as it being lower density has the lower r/f. This was all news to me and very interesting.
this may have lost something in the translation - i agree with quartersawn giving a higher resonant frequency over flat sawn (i generally try to avoid rift sawn)... but the density does not change between quartered and flat - the stiffness does.
quartered, flat and rift refers to the grain orientation in the plank, if you take a perfectly flat sawn piece of wood (lets say a 4x4" piece)and turn it 90 degrees it is now effectively quartersawn - from that 4x4" length of maple i could choose to saw 4xflatsawn, or 4xquartersawn fender neck blanks... but clearly the wood density wont be affected by the way i saw the wood
now flatsawn is plenty stiff enough for maple with quarter being only really noticeably stiffer on thin necks... but that change in stiffness will affect the resonant frequency as much as a change in density can (i.e. between two bits of maple from different trees)
-
I thought with QS the rings being vertical you got more ring to the softer wood ratio.
-
I thought with QS the rings being vertical you got more ring to the softer wood ratio.
does that work??
even if it does it would be no more than the variation in seasonal growth between different parts of the same tree, let alone different trees.
and it would only work in a useful way if you were assumed every fender neck blank had a specific number of grain lines per inch.
plus maple is a wood with rather consistent density between the winter grain lines and softer summer wood, at least compared to most others
the factors that affect the density of wood are largely environmental, the nutrients it absorbs and the length of its growing season. short growing seasons with give less summer wood and be denser. this will make more of a difference to its final weight/density than the way its sawn
-
yeah yeah, pseudo science etc etc.
but everyone knows you need a really heavy les paul with brass hardware to get the toanez
-
but everyone knows you need a really heavy les paul with brass hardware to get the toanez
:lol:
Or maybe an Alembic.
(http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/images/tigerbody.jpg)
-
http://albertobolocanmusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/maple-neck-wood.html
-
I like quartersawn necks as they are quicker to respond IMO and I find the tone a little more defined to my ears.
-
http://albertobolocanmusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/maple-neck-wood.html
yes, i have seen that - similar info on the musikraft website, which is used generally for sales purposes. is it odd that they don't mention the one major downside to a quartersawn maple neck - it doesnt hold a screw as well as flatsawn... that is quite an important point for fender style necks. just because its on the internet it doesn't make it true
we know quartersawn/flatsawn refers to the way its cut - there is no standard saying lower trunk wood should be cut quartered whilst higher up the trunk should be cut flat ??? infact what almost all saw mills do is slices straight through the tree producing a mix of quartered and flat, from the same part of the tree. its the easiest and most economical way to slice a tree - selection is the key
Quarter sawn and flat sawn woods are cut with a different grain orientation and come from different areas of the tree.
so yeah, i would say that is balony. if you look at the later diagrams on how to saw these you will notice it says nothing about using certain areas of the tree for certain cuts
This greatly affects the internal strength of both and subsequently, the quarter sawn neck tends to be a tighter grain and allot stronger and more stable than the flat sawn.
why is it tighter grain? even in the pics used both pieces of wood have areas of tight grain and wider grain. and the distance between grain lines is not that different. that is is on a picture used to illustrate the differences
so yeah, i can definitely agree with stiffer, i can definitely agree with tonal differences - but the only reason for extra density is that maybe it can have extra grain lines ... but that will obviously vary massively between trees anyway. . density will affect tone, but why does turning it 90 degrees make it denser???
so yeah, not trying to be an arse about this, but i would have liked to hear it from the horses mouth and hear Eldreds justification for maple being denser when its turned 90 degrees.
-
http://albertobolocanmusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/maple-neck-wood.html
yes, i have seen that - similar info on the musikraft website, which is used generally for sales purposes. is it odd that they don't mention the one major downside to a quartersawn maple neck - it doesnt hold a screw as well as flatsawn... that is quite an important point for fender style necks.
Being a worrier, I read that and started panicking.... not that I actually have any quartersawn necks, as far as I know. :roll:
Something I normally do with Fender necks is to run a drop of superglue into the screw holes - not to "fill" them, obviously, but to harden the "threads" the screws have already cut so they don't get stripped so easily. I don't know if it really makes much difference, but it makes me feel better....
-
it doesnt mean a quartersawn neck will strip out, just that the grain orientation make it more likely to with frequent removal. for that reason i prefer to use threaded inserts hwen using quartersawn maple for bolt on necks
-
I find the weight of the Vociferator (think it's a bit under 9lb) if anything a touch on the light side for gigs. I find it gets naturally 'thrown around' a lot while I'm moshing. With me being a moderately big fellow, any smaller/lighter and it'd look like a toy. But thankfully it's not a toy and is just about heavy enough :)
It feels very odd to pick up my Ibanez now (not that I often do, mind). Just feels as though there's nothing there, which doesn't feel very stable when you're mashing the strings like the Monkey Boy I am. I think that's why I prefer a much heavier guitar.
-
Weight is a comfort factor for me either. When playing at home it doesn't matter too much but on a four hour gig it does.
On the other hand a guitar that has a too light body can be head-heavy which to me is the ultimate discomfort in playing.
Cheers Stephan
-
I find the weight of the Vociferator (think it's a bit under 9lb) if anything a touch on the light side for gigs. I find it gets naturally 'thrown around' a lot while I'm moshing. With me being a moderately big fellow, any smaller/lighter and it'd look like a toy. But thankfully it's not a toy and is just about heavy enough :)
It feels very odd to pick up my Ibanez now (not that I often do, mind). Just feels as though there's nothing there, which doesn't feel very stable when you're mashing the strings like the Monkey Boy I am. I think that's why I prefer a much heavier guitar.
tbh, i am really happy with 9lb for your guitar ( i know youa re too ;) ) - its really rather light considering its a solid wenge, bubinga, maple and ebony baritone.
-
I find the weight of the Vociferator (think it's a bit under 9lb) if anything a touch on the light side for gigs. I find it gets naturally 'thrown around' a lot while I'm moshing. With me being a moderately big fellow, any smaller/lighter and it'd look like a toy. But thankfully it's not a toy and is just about heavy enough :)
It feels very odd to pick up my Ibanez now (not that I often do, mind). Just feels as though there's nothing there, which doesn't feel very stable when you're mashing the strings like the Monkey Boy I am. I think that's why I prefer a much heavier guitar.
tbh, i am really happy with 9lb for your guitar ( i know youa re too ;) ) - its really rather light considering its a solid wenge, bubinga, maple and ebony baritone.
But you've seen how hard I hit the strings ;)
-
Is that the one in your signature Roo?