2 Apr
2013
2 Apr
'13
4:02 p.m.
On Tue, April 2, 2013 6:29 am, Florian Paul Schmidt wrote:
On 04/02/2013 02:35 PM, Peder Hedlund wrote:
> The same was true for a Stradivarius and a cheap
beginners violin,
> though IIRC the violin player was correct.
There is a difference between electric guitars (solid body) and acoustic
instruments. Though certainly good PUs make a difference. (noisy pots
don't help either)
I found that for classical guitars it's
significantly higher though: In
the 1500-2500 euro range (I only found this out because I got the chance
to play some really nice classicals). A guitar student of mine likes my
250 euro yamaha classical guitar better than either the Hans Herb I had
for a while or the Bertrand Martin I play at the moment (they were lent
I actually like the sound of the guitars I have made in Quebec that are
sub $500 over some more expensive acoustics. They have a very live sound,
I think because there is a very thin coat of finish. I have both classical
and folk instruments. I have a more expensive Yamaha 12 string that sounds
no better than the $100 El Degas plywood model I had when I was 16. (which
was very playable and sounded ok, but was picked as the only good one out
of a rack of 10 or more)
The big difference is that my cheaper guitars are not finished as well as
the more costly guitars... things like nut and fret ends not rounded as
nice etc.
--
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net
2 Apr
2 Apr
4:15 p.m.
New subject: price vs. sound - was - What is the best MP3 encoder?
I actually like the sound of the guitars I have made in Quebec that are
sub $500 over some more expensive acoustics.
I've played and owned a large variety of high end, and low end, gear, and
beyond a certain price point it isn't about sound anymore. I have a Gibson
Les Paul Custom worth about $2700 and I never take it out of the case
because I'm afraid It'll get scratched, that guitar is a piece of art, my
other electric was a $600 strat copy I got 15 years ago and it still sounds
and plays amazing. I also owned a $1500 Taylor 814ce and I prefer my $300
Epiphone. My brother in-law plays custom built guitars int the $4000 range
and I can till out play him on a pawn shop guitar any day of the week.
Given the choice between a functional great sounding instrument that I can
drag to a gig or up around a campfire or the worlds most lusted after
instrument I'd go with the budget gear and enjoy the hell out of it, I bet
no one ever got drunk around a camp fire deep in the Rocky Mountains with a
Stradivarius and had the best time of their life.
Daniel Worth <http://about.me/danielworth>
4:36 p.m.
New subject: price vs. sound - was - What is the best MP3 encoder?
On 04/02/2013 04:15 PM, Daniel Worth wrote:
I actually like the sound of the guitars I have made in Quebec
that are
sub $500 over some more expensive acoustics.
I've played and owned a large variety of high end, and low end, gear,
and beyond a certain price point it isn't about sound anymore. I have
a Gibson Les Paul Custom worth about $2700 and I never take it out of
the case because I'm afraid It'll get scratched, that guitar is a
piece of art, my other electric was a $600 strat copy I got 15 years
ago and it still sounds and plays amazing. I also owned a $1500 Taylor
814ce and I prefer my $300 Epiphone. My brother in-law plays custom
built guitars int the $4000 range and I can till out play him on a
pawn shop guitar any day of the week. Given the choice between a
functional great sounding instrument that I can drag to a gig or up
around a campfire or the worlds most lusted after instrument I'd go
with the budget gear and enjoy the hell out of it, I bet no one ever
got drunk around a camp fire deep in the Rocky Mountains with a
Stradivarius and had the best time of their life.
Generally I agree. I was honestly surprised to find the sweet spot for
classical guitars to be so high in price. I expected machining to have
gotten so much better in the last decades that factory built low-medium
end classical guitars would hold up sound wise to hand built classicals.
But to my dismay I found it not to be true. For campfire trips I still
take my 250 euro yamaha classical though..
Flo
--
Florian Paul Schmidt
http://fps.io
4:44 p.m.
New subject: price vs. sound - was - What is the best MP3 encoder?
On Tue, 2013-04-02 at 16:35 +0200, Florian Paul Schmidt wrote:
I was honestly surprised to find the sweet spot for
classical guitars
to be so high in price. I expected machining to have gotten so much
better in the last decades that factory built low-medium end classical
guitars would hold up sound wise to hand built classicals.
I guess warehousing the aged wood is very expensive and perhaps more
people buy electric guitars, then classical guitars. A solid body guitar
maybe doesn't need that aged wood?
4:45 p.m.
[Len Ovens]
The big difference is that my cheaper guitars are not
finished as well as
the more costly guitars... things like nut and fret ends not rounded as
nice etc.
It's one thing when the nut or frets aren't too well-rounded, but
other, similar results of sloppy manufacturing can harm the sound of
the instrument, for example when the nut slots housing the strings
aren't perfectly straight. The string will be twisted, lose sustain
and become slightly more inharmonic, and since this additional
inharmonicity will vary along the length of the string, proper
intonation will be impossible to achieve on all frets. Also, friction
of the string in the nut will increase, negatively affecting tuning
performance and stability.
Still, judging from my recent experience with new Fender Strats, I
think that for $500-600 you can get a superb guitar that will play and
sound just as good as a model costing ten times that much. You may
need to examine a few more of the cheaper ones to find a thoroughly
good instrument, but the average quality is already surprisingly good.
Classical guitars seem to be different though, I tried to find an
inexpensive "rare gem" recently but every time I tried the next more
expensive one it did seem to play and sound better. This tendency
didn't stop until the most expensive one I played that day, at $4k.
9:27 p.m.
On 04/02/2013 04:44 AM, Tim Goetze wrote:
[Len Ovens]
My church band's lead guitarist has one of the new Fender Strats
(they're made in Mexico). He also has an ES-335. The ES-335 sounds a lot
better and is much more versatile (according to him). The 335 cost about
$2500, IIRC. He also has a Gibson Les Paul (the solid heavy model).
That's the guitar I always wanted decades ago.
The big difference is that my cheaper guitars are
not finished as well as
the more costly guitars... things like nut and fret ends not rounded as
nice etc.
It's one thing when the nut or frets aren't too well-rounded, but
other, similar results of sloppy manufacturing can harm the sound of
the instrument, for example when the nut slots housing the strings
aren't perfectly straight. The string will be twisted, lose sustain
and become slightly more inharmonic, and since this additional
inharmonicity will vary along the length of the string, proper
intonation will be impossible to achieve on all frets. Also, friction
of the string in the nut will increase, negatively affecting tuning
performance and stability.
Still, judging from my recent experience with new Fender Strats, I
think that for $500-600 you can get a superb guitar that will play and
sound just as good as a model costing ten times that much. You may
need to examine a few more of the cheaper ones to find a thoroughly
good instrument, but the average quality is already surprisingly good. Classical guitars seem to be different though, I tried
to find an
inexpensive "rare gem" recently but every time I tried the next more
expensive one it did seem to play and sound better. This tendency
didn't stop until the most expensive one I played that day, at $4k.
My Garcia Concert Model 3 has beautiful tone, even now, many decades
after I bought it. It cost around $200 back then.
Another guitar I thought had great tone back then was a Yamaha FG-250
12-string I found in a small music shop in a very small town in northern
California. (Couldn't convince my parents to buy it for me!). I wonder
how its tone has held up over the decades?
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
9:58 p.m.
[david]
My church band's lead guitarist has one of the new
Fender Strats (they're made
in Mexico). He also has an ES-335. The ES-335 sounds a lot better and is much
more versatile (according to him). The 335 cost about $2500, IIRC. He also has
a Gibson Les Paul (the solid heavy model). That's the guitar I always wanted
decades ago.
I happen to like the sound of the Strat more than any other electric
I've played so I'm a little biased there. I don't really care about
versatility, I want only one sound, and this guitar has it.
My Garcia Concert Model 3 has beautiful tone, even
now, many decades after I
bought it. It cost around $200 back then.
Another guitar I thought had great tone back then was a Yamaha FG-250 12-string
I found in a small music shop in a very small town in northern California.
(Couldn't convince my parents to buy it for me!). I wonder how its tone has
held up over the decades?
I have an old ragged and stained children-size classical guitar that I
used to play for thirty years, and as long as I played it regularly I
thought it sounds wonderful. Such familiarity, I think, can often let
you do things with ease on one instrument that are out of reach with
another instrument you are not as intimate with. And I think that
whatever you play, when you play it well, it will always sound good.
Tim
3 Apr
3 Apr
1:04 a.m.
On Tue, 2013-04-02 at 21:58 +0200, Tim Goetze wrote:
familiarity
Good point. I prefer my own < 1000 EUR guitars to other low cost
guitars, because I'm accustomed to play them, but because I'm not making
music that often nowadays, I noticed that playing a guitar > 1000 EUR is
easier to do, than playing my own guitars. IMO fingerboards, resp. the
complete neck of more expensive guitars is better, often the guitars are
better balanced, have better cutaways etc. pp., just the mechanics of
old guitars often is less good. Sustain should be ok for < 1000 EUR
e. guitars too, but sometimes new guitars (also the expensive new ones)
don't sound like old electric guitars. I don't claim that new guitars do
sound less good, I like some of the new guitars, but they do not sound
like old guitars.
However, IMO expensive guitars are better to play, sometimes even the
position of the pots is better for expensive guitars and for sure an
acoustic guitar with a good sound, that has clean octaves etc. always is
expensive.
Of course, I'm talking about 2000 to 3000 EUR and not about 15000
EUR ;).
4 Apr
4 Apr
7:59 a.m.
On 04/02/2013 01:04 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 2013-04-02 at 21:58 +0200, Tim Goetze wrote:
My only electric guitar (don't have it anymore) was a Les Paul copy
bought the year before the vendor started calling it a Les Paul copy.
Outside of the weight and shape, it had nothing else in common with a
Les Paul. The pickups lacked the Les Paul punch. The neck lacked
smoothness, the frets were rough, the factory action way too high. But
it was US$200 in the late 1960s, vs a whole lot more for a real Les Paul.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
familiarity
Good point. I prefer my own < 1000 EUR guitars to other low cost
guitars, because I'm accustomed to play them, but because I'm not making
music that often nowadays, I noticed that playing a guitar > 1000 EUR is
easier to do, than playing my own guitars. IMO fingerboards, resp. the
complete neck of more expensive guitars is better, often the guitars are
better balanced, have better cutaways etc. pp., just the mechanics of
old guitars often is less good. Sustain should be ok for < 1000 EUR
e. guitars too, but sometimes new guitars (also the expensive new ones)
don't sound like old electric guitars. I don't claim that new guitars do
sound less good, I like some of the new guitars, but they do not sound
like old guitars.
However, IMO expensive guitars are better to play, sometimes even the
position of the pots is better for expensive guitars and for sure an
acoustic guitar with a good sound, that has clean octaves etc. always is
expensive.
Of course, I'm talking about 2000 to 3000 EUR and not about 15000
EUR ;).
4240
days inactive
4242
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
8 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Daniel Worth -
david -
Florian Paul Schmidt -
Len Ovens -
Ralf Mardorf -
Tim Goetze