Musical instrument as loudspeaker enclosure

[stardust4ever]

I suppose the answer is to try it and see.

Just thinking of say a guitar. The strings produce virtually no sound, but as said before vibrate the belly via the bridge. But a loudspeaker cone produces a lot of sound, and the guitar would only be vibrated by the vibration of the driver frame, and the air pressure inside the body. Difficult to guess what the end result would be.

This is true. An acoustic guitar, plucking the strings produces a surprisingly loud resonance in the body.

An electric guitar with a fairly non-resonant body, solid rather than hollow, and the strings sound like buzzing mosquitoes when not connected to an amp, very little audible output. Putting electric guitar strings on an acoustic will still produce an audibly loud sound but the volume will be reduce as the tension on the body is not as great.

I put medium gauge strings on my acoustic guitar, a Yamaha F310, and it gets plenty loud. You can also create a percussive "drum" effect by striking the body with the hand.

FYI, I am not putting a speaker in it as it is a nice guitar, and I wouldn't destroy something nice that isn't broken. People also made a good point about existing mods not blocking the resonant hole as this adds to the sound.

 

[turk 182]

seems the consensus is that a speaker in a guitar may not sound good because of unwanted resonances. i wonder if panel exciters could perhaps use the resonant qualities of an acoustic guitar body to good advantage.
with the low cost of panel exciters it may be a fun experiment.

 

[stardust4ever]

seems the consensus is that a speaker in a guitar may not sound good because of unwanted resonances. i wonder if panel exciters could perhaps use the resonant qualities of an acoustic guitar body to good advantage.
with the low cost of panel exciters it may be a fun experiment.

What a novel idea... 😀

I wonder if one could be installed without permanent damage to the guitar body? Or a bass shaker mounted on a drum?

A self playing guitar or drum would surely turn heads. One would need to place some felt on the neck under the strings (if attached) to prevent stray musical notes from exciting the strings.

 

[AquaTarkus]

It's important to see how much effort Hans Kolenbach spent on finding ways to get rid of resonances. This is very different from sticking a driver in the body of an acoustic musical instrument, which is designed from the outset to have a non-linear frequency response, due to strong resonances.

Sent from my phone. Please excuse any typpos.

 

[stardust4ever]

That guitar in one of the pics first page was definitely heavily stuffed, not sure about the cello. Part of my fascination with mounting drivers on instruments would be the way the instrument colors the sound.

I read up on exciters on parts-express and might be fun to play with. Just strapping a pair of them to the bathroom mirror for use while taking a shower would be fun. Doesn't necessarily need to be hifi.