I can't believe it, this guitar sustains so much I tried this: I fingered a simple E chord, and smacked the head of the neck. Did NOT play a chord.
The sustain went down the neck, and into the horns, the guitar went wild, had to touch the strings to prevent feedback, after about 15 seconds.
Then let it ring, touch soundboard for different sounds, WOW, this is crazy good! The soundboard is dancing with vibration!
The sustain went down the neck, and into the horns, the guitar went wild, had to touch the strings to prevent feedback, after about 15 seconds.
Then let it ring, touch soundboard for different sounds, WOW, this is crazy good! The soundboard is dancing with vibration!
This is a quote from Tom Danley that answers your questions better than I could:
"Here is how the Tapped horn works as opposed to “normal”.
When you make a bass horn “too small” it is so when the peaks and dips become unacceptably large.
These are caused by the uneven acoustic loading VS frequency of a horn that is too small acoustically to have reached a constant radiation resistance.
The lowest peak is the acoustic quarter wave resonance.
Where the loading is high, the impedance is low, the current and delivered power is high and viola, a peak.
Horn / driver matching theory on the other hand begins with the assumption that the horn has a more or less constant load impedance on the driver AND is 1⁄2 wl or longer, not 1⁄4 wl long of most real lf horns.
The idea here is that one finds a driver suited to properly drive the 1⁄4 wl resonance, which also makes it too heavy for operating above that F.
By tapping into the horn, one has both radiations added into the horn BUT they are separated in time / phase.
At the low cutoff, the end face of the driver feels all the load, it is at the pressure maximum. The other driver face nearer the mouth end is about 1⁄4 wl from the other end, the 90 degree phase causes little addition and front radiation reflects off the small end and essentially cancels out the front radiation with an equal but opposite reflected signal.
This basically leaves only one side of the driver “feeling” the acoustic load.
As one increases the frequency, the front and back radiations begin to add constructively because the path length represents a delay of more than 90 degrees.
At the point where normally one would find the deep dip in between the first two peaks, one now has BOTH sides of the radiation fully additive (like a transmission line except in a horn). At this point, the same driver motor has in effect twice the cone area being loaded compared to the quarter wave resonance.
By having a source impedance that changes its impedance in a similar way to the “too small” horn, one can make the total enclosure size much smaller for a given ripple in the response.
The Ripple issue is set by the impedances at BOTH ends of the horn, while you may not have control over the mouth size, you can control the driver end. Here, the driver end impedance is made to vary in a way complementary to the load.
If one had all the space needed, an acoustically “full sized” conventional horn can be made a little more efficient so the Tapped horn isn’t for every use, just when “full size” is too large."
Thanks Art, I I will need to read that a few more times, that is for sure, Tom Danley is a wild man. I love how he experiments so much, and all the drivers in horns. I have my amp with four speakers all spliced up with wires to reach any location on my guitar horns, so will experiment next weekend.
I now of course have the finished guitar to play, and also my guild with pickups going through my spare folded horn guitar body, to test different speaker locations, much fun! There is a guy that builds guitars in Ohio that wants to hear my guitar, first real demo. I think he is too small to do anything with this, and does not have the CNC equipment required, so he would need to bend wood and fabricate that way, not sure how different it would sound. I would just license the rights to him. I saw him jam online with his buddy that played guitar in Johnny Winters last band, before he passed away. These guys are seriously good guitar players. I doubt it will go anywhere, but good to get exposure and make some new friends.
A clip below of the Danley Jericho Horn details, WOW!
I now of course have the finished guitar to play, and also my guild with pickups going through my spare folded horn guitar body, to test different speaker locations, much fun! There is a guy that builds guitars in Ohio that wants to hear my guitar, first real demo. I think he is too small to do anything with this, and does not have the CNC equipment required, so he would need to bend wood and fabricate that way, not sure how different it would sound. I would just license the rights to him. I saw him jam online with his buddy that played guitar in Johnny Winters last band, before he passed away. These guys are seriously good guitar players. I doubt it will go anywhere, but good to get exposure and make some new friends.
A clip below of the Danley Jericho Horn details, WOW!
When I read that, I thought of you doing a "Crazy Horses - waaaaah, waaaaaaah" solo on your guitar.
Long sustained waaaaaaahs🙂
Yes Steve, so much to test knowing what this can do! Home tonight, hopefully will have time to do the four speaker test, highly interested in that.
My Sitka Spruce soundboard wood from Alaska finally arrived, building a new soundboard by hand, but I will use light bracing to see how much it will hold up and vibrate. Traditional soundboards are so stiff, which has many pluses of course, and they are great, but I like to chase my own ideas to see what happens.
My Baltic Birch soundboard is not totally flay, it dips downward at the sound hole, but who cares? An arch top is not flat, does not matter. What is highly important is the bridge to nut and neck position and straightness (or slight relief).
I was at a Jazz Fest this week and saw a guy play an electric violin - carbon fiber? I was very impressed by the sound. Not sure why electric violins sound very similar to wood violins, maybe it is due to bowing?? An electric guitar does not sound anything like an acoustic guitar, but they are both great, so a plus!
Personally I am not impressed with carbon fiber or plastic guitars, just an opinion, I am sure they are great for many people, I just love the sound and look of wood, and wood horns
. From what I hear on YouTube they sound a little tinny, one of my least favorite ways to describe a guitar sound, just can not hear that rich low end, but I give them high marks for being innovative.
On another note that is engineering related, prayers to the families of the terrible sub implosion, I can only wonder what kind of testing they did, since the vessel body was made with 5" thick carbon fiber.
Most (if not all) subs are steel, and carbon fiber bikes and tennis racquets are known to pretty much explode when they fail, this is not news. I give the guy credit for being an explorer and doing it himself. Steel cracks or bends, or rusts eventually...all observable. Carbon fiber delaminates internally, difficult to observe. When it finally delaminates to a point of failure, under pressure it will not just crack, it explodes, sad event for sure.
I sent all my updated info to Gibson via email this week, their email "Postmaster" rejected it in 30 seconds! Ah, the life of an outsider, an underdog, next step is FedEx. Anyway, can't wait to get home and play my guitar tonight, everybody loves an underdog! Let's rock!
My Sitka Spruce soundboard wood from Alaska finally arrived, building a new soundboard by hand, but I will use light bracing to see how much it will hold up and vibrate. Traditional soundboards are so stiff, which has many pluses of course, and they are great, but I like to chase my own ideas to see what happens.
My Baltic Birch soundboard is not totally flay, it dips downward at the sound hole, but who cares? An arch top is not flat, does not matter. What is highly important is the bridge to nut and neck position and straightness (or slight relief).
I was at a Jazz Fest this week and saw a guy play an electric violin - carbon fiber? I was very impressed by the sound. Not sure why electric violins sound very similar to wood violins, maybe it is due to bowing?? An electric guitar does not sound anything like an acoustic guitar, but they are both great, so a plus!
Personally I am not impressed with carbon fiber or plastic guitars, just an opinion, I am sure they are great for many people, I just love the sound and look of wood, and wood horns
. From what I hear on YouTube they sound a little tinny, one of my least favorite ways to describe a guitar sound, just can not hear that rich low end, but I give them high marks for being innovative.On another note that is engineering related, prayers to the families of the terrible sub implosion, I can only wonder what kind of testing they did, since the vessel body was made with 5" thick carbon fiber.
Most (if not all) subs are steel, and carbon fiber bikes and tennis racquets are known to pretty much explode when they fail, this is not news. I give the guy credit for being an explorer and doing it himself. Steel cracks or bends, or rusts eventually...all observable. Carbon fiber delaminates internally, difficult to observe. When it finally delaminates to a point of failure, under pressure it will not just crack, it explodes, sad event for sure.
I sent all my updated info to Gibson via email this week, their email "Postmaster" rejected it in 30 seconds! Ah, the life of an outsider, an underdog, next step is FedEx
. Anyway, can't wait to get home and play my guitar tonight, everybody loves an underdog! Let's rock!My four driver experiment was a total disaster, sounded like horseshit! I bought a Chinese amp, because it had four speakers, and I wanted to try this with four connections, testing to four speakers in my horns. I highly doubt that the horns or driver placement are the problem. I tried every control combination possible, then tried with two drivers only, was absolute garbage.
I do not understand circuit boards, but I am convinced these suck. My Roland amp is great with two drivers!
That said, I need proof. I will just splice my Roland into four drivers, let's see what happens.
I am soooo happy with my setup now, just trying for more headroom so I can play on7/7 instead of 9/8 gain settings.
Man I played tonight with the covers off the back of the drivers, I know not great, BUT when I let the guitar ring out away from my body with this, wow! Sustain! I swear it is almost like an electric guitar, but with acoustic guitar tone!
I do not understand circuit boards, but I am convinced these suck. My Roland amp is great with two drivers!
That said, I need proof. I will just splice my Roland into four drivers, let's see what happens.
I am soooo happy with my setup now, just trying for more headroom so I can play on7/7 instead of 9/8 gain settings.
Man I played tonight with the covers off the back of the drivers, I know not great, BUT when I let the guitar ring out away from my body with this, wow! Sustain! I swear it is almost like an electric guitar, but with acoustic guitar tone!
I played acoustic guitar though an amp, just to see if I am off base, and maybe and an amp can sound as good as my Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar. I don't want to talk myself into anything, must be aware. It just does not sound good, really, at all. I mean I used a respectable acoustic guitar amp, the sound just is not there, I mean it would feedback on five! WTF?
I mean this thing is a beast, heat sink and all, 60 watts! Will be great right? NO!
I really think it is too much power for the horns in my guitar. It sounds "bombastic" does that make sense?
It actually made the piezo feedback, which never happened before.
Art, I could use your help my friend, what is going on?
My horns are not large. I am soooo thankful that my 30 watt system works so well. Good to test limits, just kills me to hear this, too much power in a small system has limits!
I really think it is too much power for the horns in my guitar. It sounds "bombastic" does that make sense?
It actually made the piezo feedback, which never happened before.
Art, I could use your help my friend, what is going on?
My horns are not large. I am soooo thankful that my 30 watt system works so well. Good to test limits, just kills me to hear this, too much power in a small system has limits!
OK I just found the ohms rating for the Roland amp speakers. I knew the Roland AC33 amp that I have been using with great success has 4 ohm speakers, and my Tectonics speakers are 4 ohms, all good.
I just discovered the AC60 has 8 ohm speakers. I don't want to use this with two speakers only, so I will try four speakers in parallel to see if that works. My piezo and magnetic pickups both have preamps, so not sure how that affects the power and sound, no specs on those. Plus the AC60 was making my peizo feedback, need to see if that happens again.
I just discovered the AC60 has 8 ohm speakers. I don't want to use this with two speakers only, so I will try four speakers in parallel to see if that works. My piezo and magnetic pickups both have preamps, so not sure how that affects the power and sound, no specs on those. Plus the AC60 was making my peizo feedback, need to see if that happens again.
Yes, thank you Art, should be in series, not parallel, appreciate your help.
I would do my two 4 ohm speakers in series to get an 8 ohm load, that would match the 8 ohm amp/one speaker of the AC60.
Then the same for my other two speakers.
Four speakers total. Can't do this with only two speakers for the AC60. Will try this weekend.
But of course the AC33 with two speakers each at 4 ohms matches that amp speaker setup, hence the great sound.
I still think the other Chinese amp option is just cheap. That said it had two 6" and two about 1" tweeters, so there was likely some crossover circuit that also screwed me up. I would have to pull the guts out with a crowbar to see that, but the sound was terrible, also with just two speakers only, no like.
I am finally playing my guitar for some friends, now that I have something that actually works. My buddy said did you build this from a kit? Nope, solid maple blocks, his jaw about dropped. Then he heard the sound and loved it!
I also talked to a piano player friend of my mine, gave him the whole story, you could see the wheels turning in his head, he said WOW. I mentioned being one with your instrument when playing, and he said, yeah like a grand piano. YES! The music comes out of the instrument itself, not an amp!
I would do my two 4 ohm speakers in series to get an 8 ohm load, that would match the 8 ohm amp/one speaker of the AC60.
Then the same for my other two speakers.
Four speakers total. Can't do this with only two speakers for the AC60. Will try this weekend.
But of course the AC33 with two speakers each at 4 ohms matches that amp speaker setup, hence the great sound.
I still think the other Chinese amp option is just cheap. That said it had two 6" and two about 1" tweeters, so there was likely some crossover circuit that also screwed me up. I would have to pull the guts out with a crowbar to see that, but the sound was terrible, also with just two speakers only, no like.
I am finally playing my guitar for some friends, now that I have something that actually works. My buddy said did you build this from a kit? Nope, solid maple blocks, his jaw about dropped. Then he heard the sound and loved it!
I also talked to a piano player friend of my mine, gave him the whole story, you could see the wheels turning in his head, he said WOW. I mentioned being one with your instrument when playing, and he said, yeah like a grand piano. YES! The music comes out of the instrument itself, not an amp!
You should hear how it is when your voice comes out of the instrument itself, along with the guitar sound. Of course, I'm running bedroom / open mic SPL levels while you're shooting for street / subway busking levels.
I've seen boxes that can model acoustic guitar sounds, the Boss AC-8 is one example. Since some players might already have stuff like this, you could shoot for a "HiFi" frequency response from your horns and let the external boxes do the sound character via DSP. That and an amp "head" (no speaker) should complete a system; pedal board with all the modeling box, amp, battery - and your guitar - with just an pickup output and speaker input 1/4" jack.
There's so many mix 'n match possibilities. My older Behringer Acoustic amp has inputs for both guitar and vocal; I'd have to believe someone currently makes a "street" version with a lithium battery, acoustic instrument modeling, ambience effects and vocal input.
I know you want to get it refined to "one thing to carry"; that's far easier to do without the power necessary to play outside, against traffic and street clamor. I've no doubt places like Yamaha, Peavey and Roland could do it. But they're big corporations with all the resources you could imagine. Just one guy is going to be tough to pull off a fully integrated system that's also really good in every way; all the guitar models, compression / distortion controls, EQ, effects and a second independent channel with most of that for the vocal input.
Yes JJ, I would love to hear voice and guitar from the guitar itself, just have not tried it yet, but I will. Are you saying you have tried this, how does it sound? I bet pretty cool.
I have heard the boxes modeling acoustic guitar sounds, but only on YouTube, so I can't give a real review on the tone.
That said the impression I get is it ranks in this order from best to everything else 1) acoustic guitar, by far best, but not loud enough. 2) acoustic guitar thru great mic and PA. 3) acoustic guitar though amp, not as good but OK with a good amp. 3) Guitar modeling.
Oh yeah, the Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar is in there also, guess where?
I have decided to do both options, internal amp, everything in the guitar, and external amp. I am glad you and others talked me into this. With all the options you mention above, I must have the external option. I was so focused on making/hoping this guitar worked. Now that it does, I can think about options/gear/improvements/multiple drivers (get the impedance right, thanks Art) who knows what else will pop up.
I sent info via email to Gibson again, this time to the number two guy (Chief Commercial Officer), and the Gibson email "Postmaster" did not reject my email this time. I put the response chance at 5%, just a guess. I know exactly what the response chance would be if I did not try.
Will try the Roland AC60 this weekend with four drivers, looking forward to that. Next weekend my wife goes to Florida without me, the house will be ROCKING! Can't wait!
I have heard the boxes modeling acoustic guitar sounds, but only on YouTube, so I can't give a real review on the tone.
That said the impression I get is it ranks in this order from best to everything else 1) acoustic guitar, by far best, but not loud enough. 2) acoustic guitar thru great mic and PA. 3) acoustic guitar though amp, not as good but OK with a good amp. 3) Guitar modeling.
Oh yeah, the Folded Horn Acoustic Guitar is in there also, guess where?
I have decided to do both options, internal amp, everything in the guitar, and external amp. I am glad you and others talked me into this. With all the options you mention above, I must have the external option. I was so focused on making/hoping this guitar worked. Now that it does, I can think about options/gear/improvements/multiple drivers (get the impedance right, thanks Art) who knows what else will pop up.
I sent info via email to Gibson again, this time to the number two guy (Chief Commercial Officer), and the Gibson email "Postmaster" did not reject my email this time. I put the response chance at 5%, just a guess. I know exactly what the response chance would be if I did not try.
Will try the Roland AC60 this weekend with four drivers, looking forward to that. Next weekend my wife goes to Florida without me, the house will be ROCKING! Can't wait!
It sounds spooky good. If you can hold a tone with your voice on pitch, you can get an infinite sustain effect as the guitar strings decay. Or add another note to a chord - of course, beyond my ear training capability unless I'm somehow doing that without even knowing...
What I like about it is that it puts your voice - at least the ambient echo of it - so intimately mix'd with the guitar's sound. Makes it easier to sing on key to whatever the guitar's tuned to, which is always concert tuning in my playing. Puts the guitar's body-filter over your voice, as that's being driven into the wood the guitar is constructed of. OK for echo, but your horns could take the "dry" voice signal as well.