My preference is flat response, other than using a "loudness contour" when listening at low playback levels.
The "A" on the 17th fret is 880Hz, it's second harmonic is 1760Hz.
10% is -10dB, half as loud.
20% is -7 dB, more than a single pole crossover drops in one octave.
If you like the sound of speakers with blown tweeters, fine by me, but I don't expect others will 😉
Get you new F.H.A.G. with its patented "haystack" response. Maybe a lot of country players will notice the tag-line. It would be cool if your guitar fell into recording within a particular genre, just by how it sounds.
Art - I understand where you are coming from, and I do not want a haystack of course (nice pic), but I think "blown tweeters" is quit the overstatement.
I don't want too much HF, but I do want the correct amount, for my guitar. The horns do plenty, but not everything.
For evidence I suggest listening to Casey play at 0:07, 1:20, 4:26, 6:31, 7:28 and 8:11.
https://katzenberger-engineering.com/
I will consider two tweeters in the horns, would not be difficult to do. If they work, great. If they **** up the tone, I will not be surprised!
There is no "evidence" that the upper harmonics recorded are from the folded horns.
Getting a properly balanced polar, frequency and phase response in a LF/HF horn crossover is not a simple task, if your initial attempts **** up the tone, I won't be surprised either!
So to really "get it right" is going to involve some sophisticated signal processing, which someone like Baggs would have ample access to. Somehow I dont think Joe has the bandwidth to choose a platform, iterate on the available signal processing functionality and then have it built / programmed as a "pre-amp" box that goes with the guitar.
But I think a license-ee would have to, to perfect the sound of the instrument. Or bring it up to a standard "PA" level of system performance. After all, I'd see the big market for this in busking, where someone has everything they need to perform with just the guitar in hand and headset mic. Like that Enya I pointed out earlier can do.
I Agree Art, but they are there, I measure about 90 dB at 5k and a standard acoustic guitar measures about 55 dB at 5k, plus you can easily hear the HF.
It may be a smaller amount is from the horns as we know, more from the soundboard itself which is very strong, and then the driver without the horns (back of driver is pretty powerful), plus driver sound going into upper chamber, maybe. I don't care where they come from, I just want them to be there, and they are!
My jam last night was pretty damn great, I am hearing very strong and balanced tone; lows, mids and highs, are all strong, no hayride!
I agree JJ, I have always thought one of the bigs can take this guitar to the next level. Maybe wishful thinking, but it is possible!
Finishing second guitar neck fretting, you can smell the Rosewood aroma even when you barely file down a sharp edge...
The nice thing about tweeters is you can fit the little bastards just about anywhere. Personally I think they will make the guitar too bright for me, but you never know, worth a try. 4 ohms, 35 watts RMS, 5k-20k...we shall see!
How about at the horn's end? That would keep the sound's phase alignment a little better with the original speakers. Of course, who knows what sound you'll get where depicted and it could be OK. Stranger things have happened in acoustics...
Yes JJ, If it works I might mount with a through hole facing the horn end/mouth on each side, but need to test first, will be interesting to see how it sounds!
Just watched (again) someone's story of how the guitar on "Money for nothing" got recorded. Said 3 mikes; someone must have kicked over two, one facing the floor, the other no longer facing the amp's speaker, the 3rd in some ambiguous place. They got a sound that you hear on the recording. Later, trying to duplicate using the exact same equipment placing the mikes the same way, could no longer get it. Acoustics will do that kind of thing to you when "sound chasing".
Example; I'm doing a little of that myself for the open mic; I finally built up and brought my own "pedalboard", gave the sound guy the XLR receiving end of a 670 Mhz wireless, said just make what comes out of this come out the speakers. (Guy told me later my best performance yet).
The pedalboard wiring is still not the signal chain that I want, because you cant drive the compressor unit with a mic level, by design. So I have to put it at the mixer output. The mixer provides the ambient effect I want to hear behind my vocals, that which they never seem to be able to provide me with the house system... I's prefer the compressor upstream of the ambient effect - at least I think so - but maybe better not touch a thing; I'll end up just putting it all back the way I had it in the first place.
Example; I'm doing a little of that myself for the open mic; I finally built up and brought my own "pedalboard", gave the sound guy the XLR receiving end of a 670 Mhz wireless, said just make what comes out of this come out the speakers. (Guy told me later my best performance yet).
The pedalboard wiring is still not the signal chain that I want, because you cant drive the compressor unit with a mic level, by design. So I have to put it at the mixer output. The mixer provides the ambient effect I want to hear behind my vocals, that which they never seem to be able to provide me with the house system... I's prefer the compressor upstream of the ambient effect - at least I think so - but maybe better not touch a thing; I'll end up just putting it all back the way I had it in the first place.
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Yeah it doesn't take much to change the sound you want, last night I was getting a sound that I liked pretty well, but just not quit good enough compared to what I usually get. Then I discovered I accidently turned my piezo volume up to full, just sounds a little too bright at that setting. I usually have it on about 7 or 8, much better. My mag pickup I always have at full volume, never seems to be a problem.
Sounds like the pedal board is a great way to get the sound you want when you are at the mercy of the house! I am a huge Mark Knopfler fan of course, my favorite album of his is Neck and Neck with Chet Atkins, check it out if you have not already!
Sounds like the pedal board is a great way to get the sound you want when you are at the mercy of the house! I am a huge Mark Knopfler fan of course, my favorite album of his is Neck and Neck with Chet Atkins, check it out if you have not already!
JJ - if the tweeters work, I am thinking about this type of mounting and through hole into the horn mouth...
Oh, got it now. Ideally, you'd want to compensate for the time delay between the drivers. That's "easily" done with modern electronics, but would require a separate amplifier for the tweeters, as the delayed signal to them would need its own channel.
Or, you can just connect them through a crossover (capacitor at minimum) to the same amp driving the main speakers and you...get what you get. Perhaps you and others hearing this guitars sound fall in love with the high frequencies "appearing" to be far "ahead" or "leading" the rest of the sound; I dunno. Anything can happen.
In a normal HiFi speaker, the opposite is often the case; the tweeter is kicked back in space and therefore "time" relative to the woofer.
The baffle can take a physical step back where the tweeter mounts, the board can be slanted backward or the high frequency driver of a horn is set backward from the woofer cone by the horn length, both mounted to the same baffle plane. You rarely see a speaker design where the tweeter is mounted on a stick, that juts out 5' into the room, in front of the woofer's baffle board, while driven by the same electrical signal origin. Again, that's HiFi - not a musical instrument in search of a unique tonal character.
Yeah I hear that JJ, I did not have time to test the tweeters tonight, next weekend I hope!
BTW - how goes it with your new pickup design? We need details!
Tonight my jam was a blast! Everything where I wanted it, could not put the damn guitar down, a complete joy (hence the no time for tweeters excuse).
My guitar magnifies everything, if you are just slightly out of tune on one string, it will not be terribly noticeable on an acoustic guitar, but my guitar will tell all.
The tone was wonderful, balanced man, balanced! The power is just stunning, no way in hell this would work without the horns.
I get a weekly digital from AGM, every time I look, I think: is mine in there yet? Not yet. I am a subscriber, not sure if I can copy a link here, will try in next post now...
BTW - how goes it with your new pickup design? We need details!
Tonight my jam was a blast! Everything where I wanted it, could not put the damn guitar down, a complete joy (hence the no time for tweeters excuse).
My guitar magnifies everything, if you are just slightly out of tune on one string, it will not be terribly noticeable on an acoustic guitar, but my guitar will tell all.
The tone was wonderful, balanced man, balanced! The power is just stunning, no way in hell this would work without the horns.
I get a weekly digital from AGM, every time I look, I think: is mine in there yet? Not yet. I am a subscriber, not sure if I can copy a link here, will try in next post now...
Well, I'd like to "Play Guitar Like the Great Singer-Songwriters", but I'm so swamped with working on my own picks and I need a set of $25 headphones...Just bought a pair of Koss Porta-Pros for $40 for on ear monitoring, as the wires of my 25 year old, old Grados need repair again, unsure how many more repair cycles the little solder pads on the drivers can stand.
Gotta hear the wife when she calls, sometimes I miss it even with no headphones on ;') I think I'd like to play "Badge", but you have to get that "Clapton/Harrison is God" Church Bell ringing "D C G D 2x" sound nailed, or might as well not even present the song. Attempting and failing at nailing the similar sound in Harrison's "It dont come easy", I can tell who came up with it.
Just been working on songs, I guess and even though it's simple to do, I havent added the preamp/compressor board to it yet.
I did perform with it again when I brought my own pedal board last Friday, so its unique sound (compared to piezo which is the only pedestrian pickup design available for nylon. I know someone did optical...) is getting actually used successfully in performance.
Worked all week on Heart's "Alone". What to do with a chorus you cant possibly sing? Put it in Audacity, highlight the choruses, kick 'em down an octave , export the file and try to learn it that way. It worked and I somehow limbo'd through it at the open mic. First time I went from an idea "I'd like to play that" to actually being able to do it in a week. Other projects took a back seat -
I played 20 songs tonight as my guitar-fitness workout - including "Alone". Hoping one day that part all just spills out my fingers by "pressing play" and I can sing over the top, knowing there's a good chance the accompanying guitar half will take care of itself automatically. Probably should have been doing that 40 years ago.
These days, my mind can wander mid-song and I've seen moments when my fingers have covered for that. And times when they forget there's an A between the G and the D. So I just etch the pattern deeper into whatever brain cells are left. Besides any possible strengthening of my hand, that's all the guitar workout is doing; pattern etching.
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