Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

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simonm
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Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

Post by simonm » Tue Apr 12, 2016 12:46 am

A player who I respect a lot, and who has played a lot of top end guitars, has given one of my guitars a serious workout and given me the verdict. Here is an extract, slightly edited:
soundwise it is a good guitar, I particular like the basses. With a pitch around f it has a fundamental tone, loud and bold, but transparent and with good separation. The trebles are articulate, but are lacking a bit of sustain. Due to the yellow cedar probably the first string is dead quite soon after picking. As action is quite low, this guitar would fit perfectly as flamenco guitar
The guitar is a yellow cedar with spruce and in general following the 1912 Ramirez/Santos Hernandez pattern. Not an exact copy. It is the second YC I have done. The other was similar, not as loud and possibly had a bit more treble sustain but no way of doing a direct comparison as it is gone. The current one has a marginally thinner top.

One thought is to use double sides on the next one. Any other thoughts as to what avenues I should explore? I think it is worth doing another yc pretty soon so as to try and address this.

Or maybe I should just stick a scratch plate on and flog it as a flamenco and forget about it :-)

jeffhigh
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Re: Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

Post by jeffhigh » Tue Apr 12, 2016 10:44 am

With the action described as "quite low" this may be the cause of low sustain.
Measurements of relief and 12th fret action would help further commentary.

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kiwigeo
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Re: Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

Post by kiwigeo » Tue Apr 12, 2016 9:33 pm

Some tap test info would be helpful Simon.
Martin

simonm
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Re: Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

Post by simonm » Thu Apr 14, 2016 7:19 pm

I don't have the guitar back yet so I can't make nice new pictures however I dug this one out. Any hints from that?

Thanks guys.
top_monday.jpg
Edit 1.
added some note values for peaks.
88 F1 (87.3)
190 between F#3 and G3 (185 & 196)
344 a bit below F4 (E4 329 F4 349)
416 G#4 (415.3)

My tester was very accurate in assessing the fundamental. :-) I would not hear that.

Edit 2.

For what it is worth, the guitar is based in general terms on the 1912 Ramirez plan and the Santos Hernandez in in the Courtnall book. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a copy but that is the direction.

jeffhigh
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Re: Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

Post by jeffhigh » Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:47 am

Low action on the treble strings will cut sustain before you hear a buzz
That is part of the flamenco sound as well as any structural variation.

simonm
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Re: Improving treble sustain on a lightly built classical guitar?

Post by simonm » Fri Apr 15, 2016 11:18 pm

jeffhigh wrote:Low action on the treble strings ...
While the guy reviewing the guitar mentioned low action, I would not say it is as low as a flamenco. On recent guitars I tend to have 3mm-3.2mm on the treble and 4mm-4.2mm on the bass: essentially I set it pretty much as low as it will go without buzzing with my playing. I have two new guitars in the house at the moment. I will test higher treble settings on these to see if I notice a difference.

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