Anyone Incorporated A "fat Finger" Into A Design?

[marksound]

Maybe this is related... I remember seeing a guitar (possibly a midi guitar?) that has a extra bar running from the headstock to the body. So it's essentially an extra support for the neck.

I suppose it's a pretty extreme 'fat finger' but it seems to me it might give results similar to pressing the headstock against a piece of furniture?

You mean the 80s Roland GR707 guitar/synth controller?

I think someone at Roland was just snorting Drano.

[WezV]

There was one of those screwed to the wall of a bar where i live a few years ago, shocking when you consider the new price would have been about $3500. They had a lime green peavey t-60 as well. I did try to liberate them a few times when drunk but they never let me have them - even when they redecorated and got rid of them!

[fookgub]

Russ, I'm not entirely sure I agree with your assessment. Consider the neck as a resonant system (say, a mass on a spring). Adding mass to the headstock will lower the resonant frequency, while increasing stiffness (with CF) will tend to raise the resonant frequency. If you buy into the theory that dead spots occur when the fretted note matches a resonance mode in the neck, then both methods will affect dead spots, but in entirely opposite ways.

Of course, this is purely conjecture. I think the mass-spring analogy is an ok 1st order approximation, but the physics of an actual neck are obviously much more complicated.

Anyhow, I'm off to a diff. Eq. class to be taught by someone who has a very poor grasp of the english language.

Been there... twice. I feel your pain.

[thegarehanman]

Fookgub, that's generally where I was going(although perhaps I was stumbling there, ). I really don't have enough experience in that area to expound too much though, so I tried to keep it general. In adding the cf to the neck, you would raise the resonant frequency, but the added stiffness should decrease the amplitude of vibrations. Regardless of which direction you go, if you can make the resonant frequency higher or lower than that of (most of) the strings(obviously this has holes because all of the modes of vibration in a string...but some are notably more audible than others). This makes sense to me, am I off base? I'm just apply my general physics knowledge here. My personal focus is on materials and cfd, so some of this stuff is a bit foreign to me.

peace,

russ

Edited January 25, 2007 by thegarehanman

[Mickguard]

You mean the 80s Roland GR707 guitar/synth controller?

Marksound to the rescue again!

How about this lyre guitar?

[fryovanni]

I tend to agree with what Russ is saying. For what it is worth this is kinda how I think about these things.

As a string vibrates the guitar will vibrate(this is a given). The easyier it is for the string to make the guitar move the faster and farther the guitar will vibrate more. Same effect you see on an acoustics bridge. How stiff a guitar is will reduce how much and how fast a string will set the guitar in motion. More weight or mass will make it harder for the string to set the guitar in motion. Now one interesting thing to think about is that although it takes more energy and time to get a larger mass moving. It also takes longer to slow it down. This would be different for stiffness as it will decelerate quicker than a less stiff guitar. From an acoustic bridge point of view this is pretty straight forward as to what it does to the sound. From an electric point of view it is a little more vague. If the body is still vibrating as the string slows some of that motion will make the string continue to vibrate until the energy between the two is used(kinda like charging and discharging a battery). Now stiffness is a little different, and to be clear "slop" such as a loose bridge stud does not equal lower stiffness vs higher stiffness(at least for what I am thinking here). Higher stiffness will make it harder to move the body, and the body will not want to continue moving when that energy sets it in motion. I figure stiff and low mass equals fast attack, short decay more high dynamic headroom or range. I think of less stiff and more mass as slower attack, longer decay more compressed dynamic range. Of course nothing is black and white all guitars are going to will be a little different(in terms of weight, stiffness, and design). I would not expect a heavy and stiff guitar to give you good results or a light and soft guitar to give good results. Somewhere between there is a nice compramise, and of course this does not really describe the upsides and down sides of these factors when you are looking at frequecy responce or dampening. As far as that goes bass(longer slower powerful) frequencies benifit from a bit of compression, higher frequencies seem to like a bit more dynamic headroom to sing. Just my thoughts FWIW.

Peace,Rich

[biliousfrog]

Nice responses so far...good to hear some theorys & experiences .

I doubt that there'll be a definitive answer on what effects mass & stiffness have but I think that the debate is just as important...gets the grey matter working.

There's probably a government grant for anyone wanting to study this...just think of all those guitars you'd need to buy for research...plus all the ones you'd need to build...then there's the equipment needed to make them...then there's a group of research assistants to help you dressed in those tight, white lab coats...with the top button's undone just a bit too much .....Did I say that out loud