Difference Between F-hole And Chambered Gutiar?

[TheCross]

I want to build a LP style gutiar and was wondering what the (tonal) differences are between sound chamber under the let's say maple top/ in the body and those which go through the maple cap resulting in some kind of f-hole...

got it?

a) would be doing a sound chamber in the body and fitting the top on that

similar to a) but going further and ending in some kind of f-hole, so one can actually SEE the chamber

???

[Maurits]

I believe with f-holes the guitar can be more prone to feedback, this might just be the case on completely hollow bodies though, I'm not sure.

[al heeley]

I doubt you'd hear much difference if you cut an f-hole into a chambered guitar. But a full arch-top with f-hole is a totally different instrument to a chambered solid body, and this is where internal resonance really starts to make a big sound difference and can lead to feedback problems with louder amplification volumes.

[TheCross]

so.... chambered guitars are just as vulnurable to feedback as complete hollow bodies do? did I get you right?

I want to do it with my next project... a) for weight issues and for fun/testing the more woody/acoustic sound...

[al heeley]

Nope, chambered guitars with small resonant areas are nowhere near as prone to feedback as a semi-acoustic or archtop type.

[verhoevenc]

There's several types of "chambered" guitars. The larger the chambers the more prone you're going to be to changing the sound from a solid body guitar, AND if they get big enough the more susseptable to feedback. IE: If you jsut take a forstner bit and drill a bunch of 3/4" diameter cylenders into the body resulting in like a "honey-comb" you'll get a lighter body with still close to a solid body sound. However, if you make one big chamber on the bass side and one big chamber on the treble side with a block down the middle (ie: semi-hollow guitar) you'll be more prone to feedback, but you'll get SLIGHTLY more "acoustic" tones typical of semi-hollows. If you go one step further and connect those two hollows on either side together behind the brige you'll have one big chamber and thus will be more prone to feedback than a normal semi-hollow, but will also get more of that semi-hollow tone. It's a trade off, the more the air is free to move around inside the body the more prone you'll be to feedback, but the more semi-hollow sound you'll get (which I personally LOVE). And yes, adding an f-hole WILL make whatever cavities you have more prone to feedbacking as well. Feedback is caused by the sound your guitar makes coming back at it from the amp and vibrating it, ie: if you have chambers the vibration will get in there and vibrate around and be prone to feedback, more and more so as the cavities get larger and the vibrations have more area to affect. Adding an F-hole is like opening a coor into those cavities which will therefore increase that proness to feedback. However, all of what I've just said above is to a DREGREE! It's nowhere NEAR as prevelent as you'd find with a FULLY hollowbody guitar! Take an epiphone dot for instance. It has a hollow camber on each side that goes for pretty much the whole length of the body, each with an f-hole over them, and then a solid block down the center. Yet you still see PUNK bands like "Matchbook Romance" playing live shows with their Dots and doing fine.

However, if you're really worried about it, but still LOVE the look or an f-hole like I do, and still wanna get a light body. Do what I did for my "spalt top meu". I cut the f-hole in the top and put a chamber under that BARELY oversized for the hole and sprayed the inside black. Therefore you get an f-hole that LOOKS like it's over a full sized chambered semi-hollow, but that chamber is small, less prone to feedback. Then for the rest of the body's sides I did that "honey-coming" hollowing I talked about to take out some of the weight.

Hope that helped.

Chris

PS: If you're still worried about HOW feedback prone things are... look at it this way... ALL guitars... even the les pauls that people over-drive to hell and back have a "chamber".... it's called a control cavity You really got to get them big and open for things to really start making a difference.

[verhoevenc]

Here's the guitar I was refering to in the above reply about how I did both smaller weight loss chambers (slightly larger than honey-combing, but still the same purpose.) AND a cavity just over-sized for an f-hole to go on top.

That's an image of the body with a ghost image of the top that goes on it so you can see through the top to what's undernieth.

As you can see that cavity is just big enough to include the f-hole but not really see the walls when you look in. I also blacked it out to help not see any walls when you look in it and make it look bigger than it is.

Those are really early pictures of the build, you can see where it is right now Here and further down the thread (thread is shared with another current build, so scan down for more on the spalt top).

Chris

[TheCross]

Here's the guitar I was refering to in the above reply about how I did both smaller weight loss chambers (slightly larger than honey-combing, but still the same purpose.) AND a cavity just over-sized for an f-hole to go on top.

That's an image of the body with a ghost image of the top that goes on it so you can see through the top to what's undernieth.

As you can see that cavity is just big enough to include the f-hole but not really see the walls when you look in. I also blacked it out to help not see any walls when you look in it and make it look bigger than it is.

Those are really early pictures of the build, you can see where it is right now Here and further down the thread (thread is shared with another current build, so scan down for more on the spalt top).

Chris

thank you I'll think about that idea.