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System for objective evaluation of guitars


jdrnd

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Jonathan,

You have given me the most reasonable explanations for the beauty of subjectitvity and why it counts most in guitars, guitar playing, and for that matter, music in general. There is little that you say that I disagree with. But on top of what you say imagine the degree of sophistication and complexity that this discussion would have if one could decribe the objective characteristics of each instrument and amplifier that contribute to the subjective experience that you (and almost everyone else) describes.

Jeff

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If someone said buy this guitar because 1. it has interesting overtones in the lower registers, 2. that person produced some sought of printout, and 3. the waveform of the printout correlated to a particular sound that I could recognize, I could at least get an idea of what that person means.

You could also have the GC goober pull it down off the wall and play it . . .

Gentlemen with the slide rules and calculators: I have just changed to light guage strings -- please re-do all your calculations. Thank you.

Next we'll adjust the amp (I'm quite sure all of us have enough different amps together to keep you calculating for a few thousand years) in 1/2 tone increments starting with treble on the clean channel . . .

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Matt,

I agree that there are thousands of variables. The year is 2006. We have computers. ...is there really such a thing as GC goober? or is your example equivalent to a SRP Ratpus limited edition? (Sometimes I can't tell when you guys are goofing on me or not; the learning curve for guitar-speak is steep)

Jeff

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224 guitars, wow. and according to darc thats nothing!

Please don't put words in my mouth. What I said is that 200+ guitars is not as uncommon as you might think around here. To me, it's kinda nuts actually, but I'm a recovering minimalist. But to each his own and all that.

I typically own around 8 guitars, and that's to support various tunings, MIDI requirements, acoustic vs. electric, etc. And it's still more than I need.

Edit: apparently you weren't putting any words in my mouth at all:

That number doesn't even catch my attention anymore. 200 guitars. Pfffft. 

Sorry about that. Musta been my other personality typing yesterday...

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Guest Mike Lee
Mike,

I'm a Neurologist... (I also have a PhD in Biology (neuroscience) which I obtained prior to medical school). What do you do?

No wonder you're driving everyone crazy!

As for me, I have a Mechanical Engineering degree and an MBA. I've done various design and manufacturing job, and I'm currently the maintenance manager for the assembly area in a diesel engine manufacturing plant.

I don't think the people making slide rule jokes have any idea what a slide rule is used for, or that they are no longer needed at all. Hint: you don't measure anything with it.

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True. For measurments I would normally use an inside, outside, or depth electric micrometer. You gentlemen crunching the numbers are aware that the valence number of iron in the strings changes over time due to oxidation? Might be time to re-calculate . . .

For the most pristine quality sound, we really need no guitar at all. All we need is an Apple, a keyboard, and Logic Pro. An infinite number of guitar sounds (all types of sounds in fact) can be produced, produced the same way, with the same tone, same tempo, etc., etc., etc., and unlike the human, reproduce it the same way every single time. But this is mathmatics, not music or real life.

Good luck with your formula for producing the best guitar and welcome to the forum. Interesting concept, and I'll keep the tinfoil on in hopes it is achieved . . .

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All we need is an Apple, a keyboard, and Logic Pro.

Now you're comparing Apples to hamburgers. :o

I used to nail Tony Iommi's tone, with an old turntable and a copy of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. :o

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There is no good barbecue in Western North Carolina. We can look at the cooking technique and the ingredients in the sauce. They all suck in Western North Carolina. Go to Tennessee, Georgia, or South Carolina and it gets better.

We can see better cooking recipes. Scientifically we can deduce that the pH and moisture contents are different. We can laugh at people in Western NC that think they know what barbecue is supposed to taste like. The WNC people are offended by remarks like mine (but WNC BBQ really is not as good as it should be) and claim how long they have been in business making BBQ. The mustard based BBQ people from South Carolina really do make better BBQ, but it is also an entirely different recipe. An argument can be lost on that fact alone.

BBQ magazine editors will swoon over the brands of BBQ sauce that happen to be the most heavily advertised in their pages. Stores that get a bigger discount from a manufacturer will be trying harder to sell that brand of BBQ sauce.

It all comes down to what kind of BBQ you like, what you have tried, what you understand about cooking BBQ, and whether or not you could stand to eat the same BBQ every day.

now your just being crazy! LOL

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If I hadn't taken a wrong turn in my first year of college and switched majors from Music to science, I would be a rockstar. You would all be talking about which guitar, pickups, amps, and settings to use to emulate my playing. Luthiers would be sneaking in to my dressing room dropping guitars off for me to try so they could obtain testimonials from me; and now that I can afford to buy a good instrument and spend some time playing, its too late. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to become a scientist. Life is definitely not fair.

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Mile,

"The one thing that is almost universal is the quality of the fretwork. Properly crowned and polished frets will intonate and play better than roughly finished frets. This is one place where Hamer consistently eclipses Gibson. If you want, we could measure the surface finish of the frets with a profilometer, but all you have to do is bend a string or two and add a little vibrato to see for yourself. We can also judge quality based on semi-objective measures - overall fit and finish, fit of the binding, finish bleed on binding, excess glue at joints, amount of filler around the inlays, neatness of wiring and soldering. These are the things we talk about when we say a Hamer is built better than a Gibson, and for the most part, these things are consistently better on Hamers. Before I owned a Hamer I tried to buy a Gibson and was disgusted at the poor quality of workmanship for the price asked. Hamer was better and less expensive. And this is based on someone who was biased in favor of Gibson to start out with. "

Do you mean fret bars or frets. The fret bars on Hamers (at least my Hamer), are high, so if I press the string to the fret surface I bend the string out of tune. In fact that was what I was doing when I brought my guitar home. It took a while to lighten my grip (my acoustic had 012 strings). Since one doesn't push the string to the fret surface, how would polished frets affect intonation?

Jeff

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okay, so Mike means that the fretwire is polished. If thats the case then that would affect intonation.

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Music is art not science. I am definately a techhead, but while knowing a bunch of specs about a guitar might give me an idea that it *might* work ok for me, until I pick it up and play it I'll never know for sure. And sometimes I get surprised when a guitar works well for me that I would have never expected, go figure. And why is it that I can deal with certain specs on Acoustics that would drive me nuts on electrics? Guitarist and guitar are a system for producing art... and the art produced can change depending on how the guitar and guitarist function as a unit. No measurements are going to show what happens when any individual picks up any particular guitar.

I've owned alot of guitars, some cheap, some more expensive; but ever since I bought it the one I always pick up first is my PRS CE 24. I can give you some opinions of why that is, but all that I really know is that when I play that guitar it feels and sounds "right" to me. And that is all that really matters.

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If quantitative analysis were applied to barbeque, the clear champion would be:

Link to the best friggin' BBQ on the planet and if you don't agree you're just stupid

No one who has tried Sweatman's barbeque has failed to agree that it's the best. If anyone tries to tell you differently they're just trying to hide the fact that they were too stupid to find the place (which is quite difficult, actually). Once you try Sweatman's you will be willing to travel hundreds of miles for another taste. It is the crack of Q!

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I don't know what it is, but I've got a feeling this will be good . . .

You'll be disappointed. My set up fizzled. Lou was supposed to be next to post, with his trademark "Intonation is for pussies" mantra.

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