Guitar Sounds Dull unplugged

[syddd]

I have a Warmoth Partscaster with a maple neck and ash body. One of the things that I notice after finally reassembling my Fender Blacktop Stratocaster with a maple neck and alder body is just how much brighter and snappy it sounds when unplugged - even when playing open strings.

So my question is - why? I would like my Partscaster to sound brighter and snappier when unplugged. This issue still is apparent with new strings and I have the same gauge on both.

I have a graphtech tusq nut in the Partscaster - would this be the cause?

[newey]

Nut may be contributing, but the most obvious place to look is the pickups. Are they the same?

[b4nj0]

I have a compound radius stainless-steel frets Warmoth quarter-sawn neck on a one piece Schecter Hawaiian Koa body, and it too sounds dull unplugged. It has a bone nut installed by a good "luthier" in place of the ex-works thing Warmoth installed. By contrast, my much reviled 1973 Strat sings nicely unplugged, even with its bullet truss rod, three bolt neck and "plastic skin" (how Roka's in Covent Garden who refinned it for me described it when I collected it.) So, you're not alone, but hey- it's an electric and what counts is how it sounds cranked up a bit.

でつ e&oe ...

[thetragichero]

yeah my question is: who cares?
you're not going to mic up the 'acoustic' sound of your electric guitar for recording or gigging so as long as it sounds good plugged in move along

[gckelloch]

Feb 13, 2022 0:33:21 GMT -5 syddd said:

I have a Warmoth Partscaster with a maple neck and ash body. One of the things that I notice after finally reassembling my Fender Blacktop Stratocaster with a maple neck and alder body is just how much brighter and snappy it sounds when unplugged - even when playing open strings.

So my question is - why? I would like my Partscaster to sound brighter and snappier when unplugged. This issue still is apparent with new strings and I have the same gauge on both.

I have a graphtech tusq nut in the Partscaster - would this be the cause?

Of course, the nut only affects the open string tone. Generally, heavier woods resonate less. I'd assume that means the weaker higher freq string vibrations will cause that much less resonance in a heavier body.

The freq range you hear acoustically is drained from the strings. Generally, the softer grain in Alder absorbs more high end than hard Ash, but the softer open grain streaks in Ash tend to allow for midrange damping if there is enough energy from the strings to vibrate the denser sections between those grain streaks.

However, the midrange is surprisingly acoustically loud from the rear of my 6lb Roasted Ash body guitar. Accordingly, it has that much less midrange electrically, but more high end than the 4.4lb Alder body it replaced. It may also have more low bass, but the Alder body had good bass too.

[sumgai]

Feb 13, 2022 22:19:26 GMT -5 thetragichero said:

you're not going to mic up the 'acoustic' sound of your electric guitar for recording or gigging

Ahem. Allow me:



Who cares, indeed!


BTW, if you're reading this site, you're probably interested in guitars and guitar music. You also probably have an internet connection, that seems an elementary deduction. So, if you aren't following the guy in the above video, then you are a "wannabe"... you have no interest in what other players are doing, and particularly no interest in the higher/highest quality players out there. Check out his channel, I guarantee your jaw will get sore from dropping to the floor time after time. Yes, he's that good.

Thank me later.





sumgai

[b4nj0]

At least one of the tracks on "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" saw that Frusciante fellow mic. up an unamplified electric, and I have a zebrawood neck through Firebird which is a really heavy beast, yet it gets that Tokai "Springysound" when played acoustically. It is actually a dog of an instrument in its ex-works presentation and really would benefit from some "luthier" TLC. Oh dear Gibson, oh dear me.

Good link BTW SG, (yet) another sub!

でつ e&oe ...

[newey]

I missed the part where he said "unplugged" . . .

[gpdb]

I've had this happen to partscasters that I've built too, and it is super frustrating. It's hard to pin point what the issue is, and I ended up selling mine. But I've built others that played better than any other guitar I own. I highly doubt that the wood type plays any real part. If the strat has a tremolo, you can tighten the springs so that the whole plate is connected with the body which can help. It's definitely not the nut if the issue persists when chording notes. The only real option is that something at the bridge, or connecting to the bridge, is dampening the strings. That might be the bridge saddles, maybe the springs, maybe the wood is less dense where it connects to the bridge and is robbing frequencies. I haven't found a way to fix it, so I'm sorry you're in the same boat. Partscasters are like that... very much a gamble. Here's mine since we're talking about them  

[blademaster2]

Feb 13, 2022 0:33:21 GMT -5 syddd said:

I have a Warmoth Partscaster with a maple neck and ash body. One of the things that I notice after finally reassembling my Fender Blacktop Stratocaster with a maple neck and alder body is just how much brighter and snappy it sounds when unplugged - even when playing open strings.

So my question is - why? I would like my Partscaster to sound brighter and snappier when unplugged. This issue still is apparent with new strings and I have the same gauge on both.

I have a graphtech tusq nut in the Partscaster - would this be the cause?

The unamplified string can only be influenced by:
- the two ends from which it vibrates
- the stiffness/resonance of the body and neck in between supporting the string tension
- anything the pickup could do to absorb energy from a vibrating string.

Here is my experience FWIW. I managed to noticeably improve the snap and sustain of an electric guitar through three little jobs I performed on it:

1) Ensured that the neck was properly and snugly mounted to the body. I removed a 'credit card strip' shim and fashioned a complete, wedge shim made from rosewood scrap to get the hardness maximized. Then I bolted it in firmly
2) Re-Filed the bone nut (perhaps I replaced it, cannot recall off hand), after looking at the string exit points and seeing that there was lateral movement of the strings within the nut slots. This robs the string energy, for open strings only of course.
3) The guitar had a Gibson bridge, so I purchased new saddles so I could file fresh slots and again ensured that the string was securely held in the channel slots like I had with the bone nut.

On another guitar I had a single fret that was dull sounding and I discovered that the fret had not seated firmly onto the fingerboard when it was installed. Luckily it did not throw off the frets around it and require a new dress/crown job. I also hear that the angle of strings pulling down onto the bridge and nut can influence this but I have never addressed that.

Besides that, I can think that pickup height if too high has been reported to reduce sustain. Then of course there is the fingerboard wood and body wood, which will dull a guitar if the wood is softer/less crisp than another by comparison.

[gckelloch]

The issue here is that it's difficult to tell how a guitar will sound electrically by the acoustic sound because both resonance and damping drain string energy. A lack of guitar resonance or damping may sound acoustically "dull", but very full electrically. Imagine how a solid diamond guitar would sound electrically. Conversely, significant guitar resonance may sound acoustically lively, but comparatively dull electrically. Significant guitar damping may sound dull acoustically and electrically.

[sumgai]

Feb 13, 2022 22:19:26 GMT -5 thetragichero said:

you're not going to mic up the 'acoustic' sound of your electric guitar for recording or gigging....

Allow me once again...

[sumgai]

... and of course, you could go the other way around:

[newey]

That guy would be me. I have my Yamaha acoustic strung with electric strings. It's getting tough to find acoustic string sets that aren't bronze, which I hate- too bright and too much finger noise when playing them. So I go with electric strings.

My other acoutic, the Eko, still has the bronze strings it came with; just haven't gotten around to changing them yet. But I have a set of electric strings awaiting the change . . .

[pyrroz]

saddles take the vote from me as well. also look out for resonance from some other component, truss rod loose? some wire vibrating at the same frequencies ? the trem springs need dumpening? I know it sucks.... My G on my Carvin sounded open dull.... right, all Diamond Darrell type harmonics killed because of that. It was the nut.