JJ - I did not forget your comments about different horn lengths, but was not able to do anything about it at the time. Now that I have a second neck and soundboard in process, I can think about how to improve my second guitar build.
A big improvement (I hope) will be changing the soundboard from Birch to Sitka Spruce. I would also like to consider a new horn mouth, on the guitar player side only, which would also slightly change the horn length, see attached. This would also serve as a port. I would appreciate your feedback, and others also as usual!
Since the horn mouths now are not ideal for directivity, this might help. When I tip the guitar up just a bit, I can hear more from the back of the drivers, and the sound hole gives me more, I swear the horns are coming through the upper chamber!
I was playing today and thought, hmm, not as good as usual. So I put on new strings, really helped. My guitar magnifies everything. Strings old, you can really tell. A little out of tune, you can really tell. Rocking hard, you can really tell. Let it sustain forever, you can really tell!
A big improvement (I hope) will be changing the soundboard from Birch to Sitka Spruce. I would also like to consider a new horn mouth, on the guitar player side only, which would also slightly change the horn length, see attached. This would also serve as a port. I would appreciate your feedback, and others also as usual!
Since the horn mouths now are not ideal for directivity, this might help. When I tip the guitar up just a bit, I can hear more from the back of the drivers, and the sound hole gives me more, I swear the horns are coming through the upper chamber!
I was playing today and thought, hmm, not as good as usual. So I put on new strings, really helped. My guitar magnifies everything. Strings old, you can really tell. A little out of tune, you can really tell. Rocking hard, you can really tell. Let it sustain forever, you can really tell!
Thanks! I'm pretty sure what I was proposing would require some time back in the CAD seat. I'd build the presently cut second instance as just that. I'm sure the opportunity to loan one of these out will soon present itself. With a few on hand, you'd always have one in house while other musicians can more deeply explore what it can do for them. Perhaps Casey would gig with one for a time, which is a different experience than as hired solo in a studio.
That said, if it was me, I'd be thinking about the different ways I could "wrap" two horn lengths within the acoustic guitar shape. There's mouth / exit at either side of the neck joint - which I swear I saw in one of your drawings - and there's symmetrical horn mouths, one at the neck end, one as you have it now. I think if the guitar sprayed sound along the neck and out the tail, it would have an apparently fatter / wider er, "soundstage".
The different horn lengths are about tuning the horns to accommodate the frequency range of the guitar - and whatever else someone might want to pipe through, like their voice. Just like a 2 way speaker, where the low notes are handled by one system, the highs by another. In the case of your guitar, you'd give up length of one so the other could be longer, as to split the frequency handling duties between the two. Or, if what would be the "bass" horn is long enough already, maybe gain some battery / amp compartment - or - gain some isolated air volume to leak your thin soundboard chamber volume into.
My imagination is crazy enough to even wonder if you could cross the horn paths at a right angle at some point early on in the length, would that be a viable trick to more effectively route the lengths inside there?
Going even further out on the limb, wouldnt it be fascinating to give such a problem to AI and let it chew on routing solutions until it found something that worked really good for two horns with a frequency crossover between them? I believe I just read there's an AI designed rocker motor, realized in copper. That's got a flare to it, to expand the combustion just right. As I understand it, the flares need to change shape and you normally have to use a different motor design, depending where you are between the ground and space.
Your guitar, optimized using AI for horn performance I bet would make a nice subject for someone's PhD thesis, by making it try thousands of ways to snake and shape the flares around in there. Maybe you can find such a student somewhere in the world of AI based computational fluid dynamics, looking for a thesis problem to work on that everyone else isnt already doing. You'd probably have to arrange to share the resulting "IP" with the university, as they apparently did with the FM waveform synthesis.
Good night! ;')
Assuming the horn is the same as before, moving it's mouth exit away from it's end will cause a 1/4 wavelength cancellation from the end reflection and main output being 180 degrees out of phase.
For instance, if the horn stub is 8" long, a cancellation ~377 Hz should occur, and a reinforcement ~94Hz.
I don't understand how moving the horn exit "serves as a port".
It should make the horn output louder at the player's right ear, making the output from the sound board seem relatively quieter.
Any acoustic instrument's output is louder in the direction the soundboard and it's port hole or holes are pointed.
Easier to hear the difference if you take the guitar outdoors, away from boundary reflections.
North drums were an interesting piece of musical history, short horns directed mostly towards the audience.
The Godfather has spoken, will I take his advice to heed, of course, thank you Art! I really don't want to change my guitar for the second build, just had a crazy idea about how it might be improved. The problem with crazy ideas is they have no scientific evidence to support them, and data is nowhere to be found. The good thing about crazy ideas is they can be tested and might actually work. In this case I will let my idea die, nobody wants to replace wood with a bad glue job, it is not like steel where you can weld and polish and not so bad.
Speaking of crazy ideas, I love your dreaming JJ! AI with fluid dynamics, wow! Sound waves behave like a fluid, totally legit. I will save this idea for later, you never know!
I just received more short videos from studio session #3 tonight, need to hear what is not on the new video. and what might pass the mustard,
My guitar playing is kind of OK I know, not great. I am happy with the content, but my voice is a little unstable compared to first session. Figures. First session was just talk, totally natural, nailed it. This one was a bit more scripted and it shows. My Little Martha ending with harmonics, horns off, is good. The Little Martha ending with horns on sucks, blew it in two places. Improvements coming. Let's Rock!
Speaking of crazy ideas, I love your dreaming JJ! AI with fluid dynamics, wow! Sound waves behave like a fluid, totally legit. I will save this idea for later, you never know!
I just received more short videos from studio session #3 tonight, need to hear what is not on the new video. and what might pass the mustard,
My guitar playing is kind of OK I know, not great. I am happy with the content, but my voice is a little unstable compared to first session. Figures. First session was just talk, totally natural, nailed it. This one was a bit more scripted and it shows. My Little Martha ending with harmonics, horns off, is good. The Little Martha ending with horns on sucks, blew it in two places. Improvements coming. Let's Rock!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e39GEykn9o9po2pSZdtTFFPJQ7MoD9bX/view?usp=sharing
I love slide guitar, Duane Allman is my favorite, and man Butch Trucks is right there with him. Electric guitar rules on slide!
I can get about 3 more dB average on my Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar with slide, horns off, compared to my Martin, a little more power, so it holds its own.
Now as you can hear from my video, the Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar with slide horns on, is only about 5 dB average louder than horns off, not anywhere near as much as the 25 dB average I can get otherwise, why?
First of all I am playing open E, using all six strings with chords and slide, so pretty much the most power you will ever get from an acoustic guitar. That said, not a very effective way to play many songs, so really just a power test.
Slide on an acoustic playing solos, not near as much power.
I think this is not the same, but approaches violin bowing. Way more power into the strings, then of course into the soundboard for both.
Hence the violin incredible power and great tone in a small stringed instrument.
If all acoustic guitars could deliver this much power with plucking and strumming, we would not need horns in a guitar, but of course that does not happen in any way! Add the horns and add the power, comments welcome!
Keep in mind my playing is average at best, so listen to what the guitar can do, or a guitar that could be even better, manufactured by a guitar company with loads of experience.
I am pretty sure Yamaha is blowing me off now, pretty obvious, but wait, the YouTube video and website might change things. Third studio edits in process, received (7) shorts from my videographer, slide being one of them. I think it is OK to add, others are decent and will be added, some just suck. Stay tuned!
I love slide guitar, Duane Allman is my favorite, and man Butch Trucks is right there with him. Electric guitar rules on slide!
I can get about 3 more dB average on my Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar with slide, horns off, compared to my Martin, a little more power, so it holds its own.
Now as you can hear from my video, the Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar with slide horns on, is only about 5 dB average louder than horns off, not anywhere near as much as the 25 dB average I can get otherwise, why?
First of all I am playing open E, using all six strings with chords and slide, so pretty much the most power you will ever get from an acoustic guitar. That said, not a very effective way to play many songs, so really just a power test.
Slide on an acoustic playing solos, not near as much power.
I think this is not the same, but approaches violin bowing. Way more power into the strings, then of course into the soundboard for both.
Hence the violin incredible power and great tone in a small stringed instrument.
If all acoustic guitars could deliver this much power with plucking and strumming, we would not need horns in a guitar, but of course that does not happen in any way! Add the horns and add the power, comments welcome!
Keep in mind my playing is average at best, so listen to what the guitar can do, or a guitar that could be even better, manufactured by a guitar company with loads of experience.
I am pretty sure Yamaha is blowing me off now, pretty obvious, but wait, the YouTube video and website might change things. Third studio edits in process, received (7) shorts from my videographer, slide being one of them. I think it is OK to add, others are decent and will be added, some just suck. Stay tuned!
I have to wonder, if you recorded the pickup signal during the first "horns off" slide playing, then played that back with amplification through the horns without playing, what that would sound like? Like, if you used a Boss "loop station" or some such pedal, holding your hands palms up as you step on the repeat switch?
Just another way to illustrate what the horns sound like. Might be effective.
Just another way to illustrate what the horns sound like. Might be effective.
Yeah, play it acoustically but record what you're playing via whatever pickup mix (mag / piezo) you like to use. Then, play that back through the amplifier and horns. I think most easily done using something like a Boss Loop Station, but the studio could do that too.
So you'd hear it as an acoustic guitar, just like in the first half of your recent video. Then you'd hear it identically played amplified through the horns, but of course sans the acoustic guitar part....
So you'd hear it as an acoustic guitar, just like in the first half of your recent video. Then you'd hear it identically played amplified through the horns, but of course sans the acoustic guitar part....
Interesting idea JJ, while I like having the acoustic guitar and horns combined, it would be cool to hear this as an experiment. Not that it would ever sound that way, as the acoustic guitar part is obviously always present when playing...would like to see some REW traces also...hmm.
My necks are squared up flat to less than .001" (less than 1/5 the thickness of a human hair) before they are machined, can't trust flatness from a wood supplier. I don't care how good their wood is, it must be machined correctly BEFORE it goes on the CNC machine, then the CNC does its "magic" - OK good engineering - and the neck comes off the machine perfect, zero bow, zero fret buzz, perfect intonation (if the bridge is set correctly). This neck is in process now, hope to have off the machine next week (depending on shop work schedule).
I really like this chord at this neck position, with a drop D lower 6 string. It will show you how good any guitar sounds. With horns off is one of my favorite sounds, not to powerful, but really beautiful.
Now with horns on, not as good, why? First off all, I had the volume on 9 from previous rocking, and this just does not cut it, nor is it needed for beautiful finger picking, turn it down! Way too much resonance from the body at this volume with light finger picking. I like to have power, but headroom is great also, just not needed in this case!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gu7YyuYkELkWbNYMW6Fi2ui295BM0ukV/view?usp=sharing
Now with horns on, not as good, why? First off all, I had the volume on 9 from previous rocking, and this just does not cut it, nor is it needed for beautiful finger picking, turn it down! Way too much resonance from the body at this volume with light finger picking. I like to have power, but headroom is great also, just not needed in this case!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gu7YyuYkELkWbNYMW6Fi2ui295BM0ukV/view?usp=sharing
With the gain available from the preamp, the amplifier can be driven to full power with almost no acoustic level, just brushing the strings.
The acoustic sound obviously is much less when playing lightly, but the horn sound can be independently adjusted as loud as the amp is driven.
The horn sound, lacking the high frequency range of the overtones the strings, won't sound the same.
I agree with JJ, it would be interesting to hear the horns without the strings, though you would probably need to mute (dampen by hand or with felt or a rag) the strings to keep them from resonating and buzzing with the amp driven hard.
Its hard to duplicate the musical passage demos exactly; the recording of the "1st time" performance eliminates that.
It's also an opportunity to learn how to use a "loop station" (which I cant do, or have as yet to be successful with BTW) to repeat played chord progressions electronically. This of course opens up the chance to play lead over the chords you just layed down - which - just might sound interesting all coming from the same guitar. For up to 12 minutes ;')
It's also an opportunity to learn how to use a "loop station" (which I cant do, or have as yet to be successful with BTW) to repeat played chord progressions electronically. This of course opens up the chance to play lead over the chords you just layed down - which - just might sound interesting all coming from the same guitar. For up to 12 minutes ;')
Well JJ and Art, I am also very interested in the horn sound only, will need to do some homework to figure this out, thanks for the good info JJ. I do have some horn only data that I posted much earlier, not the same as you are suggesting, but getting there.
I was very encouraged when I closed the horns with iPhone music playing through them, I will never forget it, was pretty stunning to me at the time.
The REW data with horns only (back when I was playing a different guitar through the horns) was always a head scratcher for me. Why are the horns alone slightly more powerful than the horns and soundboard together? Cancelations happening? Comments? I do remember it sounded pretty damn good, pretty much the same as the Full Monty, as you can see from the REW data, thinking about it!
I just received more studio video with changes I requested, added some of my guitar playing 🤔 we shall see how it sounds, will probably post next weekend. Tonight I listen and rock on my guitar!
I was very encouraged when I closed the horns with iPhone music playing through them, I will never forget it, was pretty stunning to me at the time.
The REW data with horns only (back when I was playing a different guitar through the horns) was always a head scratcher for me. Why are the horns alone slightly more powerful than the horns and soundboard together? Cancelations happening? Comments? I do remember it sounded pretty damn good, pretty much the same as the Full Monty, as you can see from the REW data, thinking about it!
I just received more studio video with changes I requested, added some of my guitar playing 🤔 we shall see how it sounds, will probably post next weekend. Tonight I listen and rock on my guitar!
After I discussed with the Patent Examiner by phone, which was well received as noted earlier, I sent in the required documentation.
I thought it would be a long wait, but who knew? BAM - Patent Granted! This is my third patent, piano patent will be fourth (if granted)
and last, enough paperwork! 🤔 🤣
I thought it would be a long wait, but who knew? BAM - Patent Granted! This is my third patent, piano patent will be fourth (if granted)
and last, enough paperwork! 🤔 🤣
Well done, congratulations! Impressive success as DIY effort; I for sure could never do such a thing without a big corporation and all their attorneys behind me. Good luck on the piano - next up is bass!. All you gotta do it hit 35Hz in a 1/4 wave length wound up inside that body shape.
Why bass? Because all the acoustic guitar shaped / sized basses are a joke without an external speaker - the size of the acoustic container doesnt, cannot do it alone. Maybe you can fix that? Easy patent; all you have to do is figure a route for the necessary length within the body shape, make a drawing and call it what it is "Acoustic Waveguide Bass Guitar".
Why bass? Because all the acoustic guitar shaped / sized basses are a joke without an external speaker - the size of the acoustic container doesnt, cannot do it alone. Maybe you can fix that? Easy patent; all you have to do is figure a route for the necessary length within the body shape, make a drawing and call it what it is "Acoustic Waveguide Bass Guitar".
Thank you JJ, corporate patents have their ups and downs. You can get involved in a really great project, or something kind of OK. The kicker is you never own any of it, unless of course a deal is struck (unusual).
I like your idea of Folded Horns in an acoustic bass guitar. You put it in writing, so the idea is yours! If I do this, we will need to share the patent, not kidding. The only problem, as you know, is the horns would each need to be about eight feet long to capture 1/4 wavelength of the lowest bass frequency, ouch! Not sure this is feasible. That would be one big acoustic bass guitar. Ideas?
The link below is my final Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar video, warts and all, going to YouTube, and now my website will be published. I have turned this over to my daughter, she will do a good job, and she wants me to pay her BUCKS of course. 🤣
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B_l0oouoINPuiOxNpbbJKd--4RYQvFmb/view?usp=sharing
I like your idea of Folded Horns in an acoustic bass guitar. You put it in writing, so the idea is yours! If I do this, we will need to share the patent, not kidding. The only problem, as you know, is the horns would each need to be about eight feet long to capture 1/4 wavelength of the lowest bass frequency, ouch! Not sure this is feasible. That would be one big acoustic bass guitar. Ideas?
The link below is my final Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar video, warts and all, going to YouTube, and now my website will be published. I have turned this over to my daughter, she will do a good job, and she wants me to pay her BUCKS of course. 🤣
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B_l0oouoINPuiOxNpbbJKd--4RYQvFmb/view?usp=sharing
Remove the plural and just do one horn winding inside the body. Maybe butt the driver against the neck heel to give it something to push against - that big long neck. Could 8' of route fit now?
Just thinking out loud on this; those "acoustic guitar" bodied basses can only do so much in acoustic mode - maybe you can beat that performance hands down, while keeping to a monolithic instrument... So it needs to be recharged periodically - what doesnt? As long as it goes louder and sounds better than the un-amplified "acoustic guitar" style bass, it could - perhaps - find a lucrative niche among players.
Unsure if a "solid body" top in acoustic guitar shape would make it easier, without the suspended, braced thin wood top to deal with. Just make the top itself be the separating plate instead of having a thin chamber between, for the bass version. ;')