Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

[zionstrat]

Most of us have an understanding of some sort about the impact of mass on sustain- ie under many conditions, mass does increase sustain- add a C clamp to a headstock, etc. However, there are many other variables (tight neck pockets is a big one for me) and practically all the evidence I am aware of is anecdotal.

With that said, do you know of any experiments where someone took a single guitar, they varied the mass and measured the sustain?

I'm about to build a swimming pool tele, expecting a loss of sustain, but that is ok for this build-

However, it seems like it would be easy to sink some big threaded inserts inside the pool and I could literally bolt on graduated weights.

Obviously, the connection needs to be very solid or the sustain would just resonate away like a loose neck pocket.

But assuming this experiment is done right, it seems like it would cross out all of the other variables (hardware, wood density, and the magical interaction between different necks and bodies) because none of these variables would change.

I googled for serious papers and didn't find anything. But I can't imagine this hasn't been done before. Anyone have any experience?

 

[RandomToneGuy]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

No documentation, byput from my experience, it has to do more with tight contact of the neck and body, material density and mass, and ability to reflect sound or project acoustic energy, as far as losing mass from removing material, the are other factors, tight contact of the neck and body are #1, #2, is are the joints within the neck prior to attachment interfering with the transfer of sound energy, and is there anything more resonant to compensate for it?

In short to, many variables.

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[metalchurch79]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I do not have any personal experience in that, however the subject has been explored before. The name preceeds me at the moment but a company had a metal rod insert (s) in the butt of the guitar than ran up past either side of the floyd rose.
I tried googling that prior to posting this but couldnt find what company it was.

With your idea, id imagine that youre right in the respects that attaching solidly so it doesnt act like a dampener would be one obstacle.

 

[Securb]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

The older I get the more I am starting to think most of the sustain comes from the neck, not the body. My 59 necks sing forever. The sound is fuller and the sustain is better than my 60s or shred necks. However, this is just the impression I get playing my axes, I have no scientific proof.

 

[Davii]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I was watching this last night:

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

The #1 factor in sustain is a rigid platform for the strings. Especially the neck. A stiffer neck produces more sustain and evens the tone.

The thing about mass; a light weight or hollow body vibrates more easily. So energy from the strings is lost exciting those parts. In the end you have slightly more acoustic output, and less sustain.

As an example, take a banjo. Almost 100 % of the strings’ energy from being plucked goes into vibrating the head. This is converted into a loud acoustic output. And the sustain is close to zero.

On the other hand take a heavy guitar like a Les Paul. You have very little energy converted into acoustic sound. And a very long sustain. The mass of the body has too high a mechanical impedance to get excited much by the strings.

Companies like Alembic put brass inertia blocks under the bridge to help isolate the strings from the body.


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[zionstrat]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

Good stuff all around

The table trick is fun- I actually practiced that way in college (resting the guitar body on the table) to keep the chops up without getting death threats from neighbors in the days before master vol

Sounds like all agree neck has a lot to do with sustain- Again from personal experience I think this is true because I play, wide 25.5s that tend to be relatively massive.

The Alembec brass block example is interesting- I had been told that it was increasing the mass of the guitar- decreasing vibration of the body and forcing the wave to stay in the string, but it sounds like it may be doing something differnt than I had heard?

Frankly, I'm doing the build, so I might as well play around with it- But I would still love to see the data.

Unfortunately it wont be soon, too many other projects will come first- maybe someone will write a paper before I get back to it

Cheers,
ZStrat

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

My two cents:

First of all, I agree with some others here that the neck has a lot more to do with sustain than most players give it credit for.

Aside from the issue that every piece of wood is different, when it comes to adding mass to a particular instrument the location of that mass may make a lot of difference too. I don't think just adding weights in the cavity would necessarily be an accurate indicator. Anybody remember FatHeads for Stats & Teles? They were brass plates that mounted to the back of the headstock. Intended to increase sustain. Some said they worked well, others disagreed- I think it may have been various individual guitars responding differently. Some also said they improved tone. And most agreed that they did help alleviate dead spots on the fingerboard. Then at the other extreme (literally) there were the guitars that had weight rods at the bottom of the body which could be added or removed. There may also have been different sets of rods with different weights; I'd heard of the idea but don't know the details. And then there are the tone blocks set in the body for a bridge to mount to- somebody mentioned Alembic which probably was the first, but I've seen that in Les Paul-type guitars too. And I agree with previous posters that that case may be more a matter of isolation than simply of mass.

I think to get a more generally applicable take on mass vs sustain in one specific instrument, a better way to get an idea of it would be to start with a fairly thin body and add mass to the back in the form of thin plates that match the full outline of the body. You could sink threaded sockets into the body and use machine screws to attach different panels to the back (preferably metal ones, to minimize random variations in weight and its distribution). That way A) you aren't removing any wood from the main body that might or might not affect the sustain, and B) the added weight will be as evenly distributed as possible across the body area.

Finally there's the issue of pure unplugged sustain versus live amplified sustain. Two different qualities, and the extra mass that may help some guitars sustain longer naturally can also sometimes interfere with them coming alive at volume. Liveliness is rather important to me personally and though it's kind of a separate issue, it is related. IME not all light guitars come alive easily at volume, and not all heavy ones need tons of volume for it to happen. Still, in general there often seems to be a correlation. My feeling is, in theory it should take more ambient sound energy to make a heavy guitar vibrate than it does for a lighter one. But as I said, there are exceptions so it isn't that cut-and-dried.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

the neck has a lot more to do with sustain than most players give it credit for.

Word.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I know in the 70s there were all sorts of experiments to add mass to the whole guitar. Someone must've experimented with it enough. Maybe they didn't have it down to an exact science, because super heavy guitars sort of went away. I have also heard very light guitars sustain forever, so I'd put it down to construction methods and the idea of getting the whole neck/body to vibrate as one.

 

[RandomToneGuy]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I know in the 70s there were all sorts of experiments to add mass to the whole guitar. Someone must've experimented with it enough. Maybe they didn't have it down to an exact science, because super heavy guitars sort of went away. I have also heard very light guitars sustain forever, so I'd put it down to construction methods and the idea of getting the whole neck/body to vibrate as one.

While on the difficult side, it's nor farfetched to get the neck and body to vibrate as one, the neck-through-body method comes just short of that in 1 pc or 3pc sometimes 5 pc necks, but what would be interesting would be if someone got 8/4 lumber like purple heart, and added a wenge cap, that extended into the finger board and partially into the headstock, I have some spare wenge, but would rather prototype on mdf than either wenge or purple heart. Maybe some 2A or 1A 8/4 Quilt or Flame maple would be cheaper?

It's worth a try in my opinion, to make the body and neck, require no attachment, as they would be connected from wood fibers.

The only other thing I can think of, neumatic clamping system on a neck-thru.

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[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I know in the 70s there were all sorts of experiments to add mass to the whole guitar. Someone must've experimented with it enough. Maybe they didn't have it down to an exact science, because super heavy guitars sort of went away. I have also heard very light guitars sustain forever, so I'd put it down to construction methods and the idea of getting the whole neck/body to vibrate as one.

Neck/body fusion is definitely a factor- IME long tenon guitars have generally felt more lively and sustained better. I also have two set-neck Fenders which sustain better than all my others except for one supernaturally lively old Strat. That one's just larger-than-life in every way.

As for light guitars sustaining forever, I agree they tend to sing at volume. When a lightweight axe has exceptional sustain unplugged, I tend to think of it more as a serendipitous combination of wood and/or design rather than a matter of weight. Not necessarily arguing that must be the case, it's just how my internal dialog runs.

 

[MetalManiac]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I calculated it once ;

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I've always thought that one of the best ways to increase sustain is to increase the mids, especially in a band situation. It doesn't matter how long the instrument will sustain if it gets lost behind the other instruments. There are many that will disagree on that, and I completely understand that. I'm just saying that decent sustain can go a lot farther if you can cut through, but then again if your sustain is extremely horrible, it can also make it a lot more obvious.

Edit: I was thinking further and realized that strings and the bridge also have the ability to make or break a guitar's sustain. It doesn't matter how well the wood transfers vibrations or what have you, if you have soft saddles or old strings, the guitar is not going to sustain. A guy once tried to throw away his guitar on account of poor sustain, and a simple string swap (and a slight neck adjustment) completely got rid of the problem. He then got new saddles and the thing sustains for an a solid 45 seconds.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I don't think of mass so much as coupling. Do the strings transmit their energy efficiently?

Bill

 

[RoteGitarre]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I do not have any personal experience in that, however the subject has been explored before. The name preceeds me at the moment but a company had a metal rod insert (s) in the butt of the guitar than ran up past either side of the floyd rose.
I tried googling that prior to posting this but couldnt find what company it was.

With your idea, id imagine that youre right in the respects that attaching solidly so it doesnt act like a dampener would be one obstacle.

The Kramer "American Showster" series is the one that jumps to mind. The Savant, Metalist, and others. Some had metal plates along the lower edge of the guitar, others had bars inserted in the body to increase string energy and eliminate dropouts, or so the marketing copy says:

http://www.vintagekramer.com/company45.htm

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[Davii]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

I'd taken it as keeping as much of the energy in the string, and transfering as little out via the nut, and saddle as possible?

 

[Sirion]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

http://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/node/247

This interview might be of interest, as it deals with some of the topics discussed here. I should add that I own a Byrd Super Avianti, and whilst it is overkill for me most of the time it is by far the best guitar I own, and probably the best guitar I have tried.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

Steinberger.


I read an interview with Grover Jackson where he said he looked into this many years ago when he worked for Gibson and before going to Charvel.

He found that big heavy LPs had less sustain and a brighter, thinner tone than a basswood Strat with a 6-point vibrato, or even an SG. This is why you rarely find big heavy clunkers with a Jackson logo. Even the Mark Morton Dominion and the SweeTone Jazz'R were semi-hollow (solid neckthrough with hollow wings, ala Les Paul's Epiphone Log).

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: Has anyone documented mass vs sustain?

Someone just needs to take a sawzall or hacksaw to the body of a cheap guitar to answer this question. Test it, cut away some body, test it, cut away some more body, test it. Simple. If acoustic and at-volume sustain stays the same then body mass is not important to sustain. All other variables would remain constant. If sustain decreases then it suggests mass might be important. Repeat test with a different guitar or body using a drill rather than a saw to rule out body shape.

So...who has a cheapo guitar, a saw, a video camera, and some time on their hands?