Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

[The_Sentry]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

You know....I didn't ask for a condescending outlook on "how loud the band is"....please stay on topic.

I thought of another way to do this: Instead of foaming inside the guitar, I should be ablt to find a piece of conduit that's relative to the size of the pickup cavities, cut them to length so that they buttress firmly enough between the underbelly of the guitar and the pickup so that the conduits do not move....and I can foam the plastic conduits outside of the guitar, place them inside, and try it....if it doesn't work, then I simply remove the conduits with zero permanent alterations to the hollowbody. (I could even use 2 to 3 smaller pieces of smaller conduits filled with the foam and line them up so that they're relative to the size of the pickup while being secured with tie straps or plummer's tape.)

:sword:

:chairshot

People here are offering the discourse that there's nothing new, nothing can be changed, it's all been done before.

So what if it has?

Insofar as I know....yes, people have been PLAYING guitar for hundreds of years. So if people have been doing THAT, then why bother? Why bother modding a guitar at all if "it's all been done"?



Quite frankly I am dismayed by the responses on a board that deals with a product that is specifically based on aftermarket modifications of electric guitars. It makes me wonder why many of you even bother modding YOUR guitars at all out of the box....

Peace Out.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

I think the part that you may be perceiving as condescending is actually the group helping you save time and money.

One time I made homemade ice cream with my dad. We bought cream and sugar and real vanilla and brought it home to the ice cream crank, and worked on it for a few hours, crankin' and crankin' and crankin'. After it was done, I had to go back to university, and we made so much my dad wanted to send it with me for my buddies to eat.

So we go to the grocery store and buy a foam cooler and some dry ice.

And then I take it back to school, get it up there, and my buddies eat some of it and say "this stuff is terrible."

We spent 12 man hours and $40 making 2 quarts of ****ty ice cream.
You can spend 0 man hours and $5 buying 2 quarts of delicious ice cream.

The moral of the story is that sometimes, when you try to make something yourself, even if you learn from it, you get terrible results, at 8x the price and time.

What I'm saying is that you are describing a semi-hollowbody guitar, ignoring that many, many very functional designs have been made for over 60 years, and they're all functionally better than filling a ****ty full-hollowbody with expanding insulation foam or conduit pipe.

Your idea is like ice cream. Maybe fun, maybe a learning experience, but don't expect a decent result from it. If you want a decent result, go to the store and pick up the thing that's proven to be the right bang for the buck throughout decades of supply and demand.

Good luck!

-Hunter

 

[kentuckycowboy2]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

I hear ya, Empty...but there's something that's gotta be stated here.

I can't just walk into any store, find a guitar, and "hey, there it is".

As a lefty....I take what I can get.

If I was to do this, the biggest trick would be to get the foam under the pickup area only...not throughout the whole guitar. It's more of a case of isolating the vibrations....completely isolating them.

Eh...I'll probably do it anyway. Usually when people are this apathetic or negative it just gives me more reason to do it. :banghead:



That's a pretty big thing to admit in light of the responses here.

:nana:

Can you cut some kind of paper roll IE paper towel dispenser roll to size , and coat it with something nonstick on the inside then cut it to fit tight in there make a hole in it for a straw to spray it in and tear away the paper after it sets ? Just a thought if you are set on the foam ideal .
John

 

[The_Sentry]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

Can you cut some kind of paper roll IE paper towel dispenser roll to size , and coat it with something nonstick on the inside then cut it to fit tight in there make a hole in it for a straw to spray it in and tear away the paper after it sets ? Just a thought if you are set on the foam ideal .
John

Hey John...thanks for actually talking to me about this as opposed to "at" me.

I could go with the cardboard (the paper towel dispenser is a great idea), and I may go that route...I'm just wondering if it's actually too big. I'm starting to really take into consideration using very small pieces of conduit lined together with the foam included. (The foam would probably take a bit longer because of the narrow width...it may be a case of setting it and letting it dry...or, I could take some of that styrofoam shipping junk and stuff it into the conduit...hmm...)

I have to thank you because your dowel idea put me back into line with the idea of the conduit in the first place...and simply using that.

So...thanks. I'll probably try it out...and I've got a way of trying this w/o damaging the guitar permanently.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

People here are offering the discourse that there's nothing new, nothing can be changed, it's all been done before.

No, not that nothing new can be invented for guitars, but just that you haven't come up with it. A lot smarter guys than any of us have worked on this for many years.

Chill out. We just find it odd that you're trying to solve a problem with a guitar, when you don't own one of those guitars & don't know if it would be a problem for you. I know a lot of guys with full hollowbodies that don't have feedback problems (myself included). Ibanez boasts that their hollowbodies don't use posts under the bridge, so that the tops can vibrate freely. There are tonal benefits to doing it that way. Stuff the body full of padding, foam, or newspaper, and you lose the acoustic qualities, the main reason for having a hollowbody. The cure kills the patient. At that point, you're better off with a semi-hollow or solid.

50 years ago manufacturers started using center blocks, posts, dowels, and even doing away with F holes altogether (and painting them on for looks). Problem's been solved a long time ago. Party's over.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

Suspicion confirmed: my posts are invisible :laughing:

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

Suspicion confirmed: my posts are invisible :laughing:

Only for the OP.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

:laughing:

 

[The_Sentry]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

Yeah...whatever.

I'm dropping this topic. And if I didn't respond to you, a rebuttal

...what would be the point of looking at the hind end of a jackass? All you're gonna see is butt, and it's gonna stink.

There's no point to it.

Peace Out.

 

[RushOfBlood]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

Was there or was there not a tom delonge signature 335-style that was supposedly treated in this manner?

 

[blueman335]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

Yeah...whatever.

I'm dropping this topic.

If you ask an odd question to thousands of guys all over the world, don't expect to have rigid control over the responses. They just may not be what you expect or what you want to hear, but that's life. This is a living, breathing conversation and it flows. We're all free to speak here, and you sought our input. When you talk to a group of people face-to-face do you roll with where it goes, or do you get demanding, lose your cool, & storm out if you don't have full control over what everyone else says? Why do that here?

 

[Bludave]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

How can I put this? Dumb idea. If you plug up a hollowbody, you lose the rich acoustic overtones, which is it's claim to fame. Why have a hollow body then? You lose the main benefit. And to actually buy a hollowbody just to plug it up with crap, is pretty weird. If you're paranoid about feedback, get a 335 or a solid body in the first place.

To reduce potential feedback, some hollowbody makers put dowels or other wood supports under the bridge, to limit the vibration of the top.

I've seen plenty of guys use full depth hollowbodies at typical bar gigs, at reasonable volumes, and there's no issues. Just hold your strings or turn down the volume when you're not playing. Maybe you have to avoid facing your amp...big deal. Nugent used a Byrdland for years at concert volumes, and when he wanted, he could get some incredible low octave feedback from it (like a roaring lion). The feedback was controlled and only when he wanted it. What are you so worried about?

If we could only channel all this brain activity...

Well put my friend!

 

[baritone]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

I am more of a guitar enthusiast that a guitar expert. Try it. It sounds like you are interested in taking a cheap hollow and taking some measures to damp the vibration of the pickup itself. Totally reasonable ambition.

On my hollow Ibanez, I notice that most of the feedback and squeal come from the thin slabs of body wood and the cover of the neck pickup at different times. To damp one of these factors with foam is totally worth the effort, and quite different from a semi-hollow with a big wood block in the middle of it.

Do what you want; stretch the boundaries.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

On my hollow Ibanez, I notice that most of the feedback and squeal come from the thin slabs of body wood and the cover of the neck pickup at different times. To damp one of these factors with foam is totally worth the effort, and quite different from a semi-hollow with a big wood block in the middle of it.

But since a lot of manufacturers already make hollowbodies with a post under the bridge, why not just buy one of those? Or get one that doesn't have F holes. Or get a 335. Filling the body with foam or anything else ruins the acoustical properties, which means you really don't want a hollowbody in the first place. This thread is a display of one man's stubborness clashing with reality.

 

[David Collins]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

While I understand what you're trying to do here, I have to say that the summary of what causes feedback is rather incomplete. There are a number of different factors and influences at work here, and vibrations of the pickup itself is but one small piece of the puzzle.

When sound comes from the speakers and through the air, the body of the guitar will of course be set in to motion with sympathetic vibration. How readily the guitar will vibrate (and to what frequencies) will depend on the wood, stiffness, density, size (think of the face of your guitar as a large, stiff diaphragm), and a number of other things.

From here, the most significant path regarding feedback in most guitars is that the strings themselves are driven back in to sympathetic vibration. The pickups themselves are of course also driven to vibrate, and though amplitude of this vibration may be quite small relative to the string vibrations induced by feedback, it is not insignificant. It is usually secondary however, and by quite a degree.

Results from pickup vibrations can take two distinct incarnations. The first is the micro-vibrations the pickups will endure relative to the strings, which though not large enough to generate much signal of their own, can indeed influence the net tone of the feedback overall. The second is internal vibrations of the pickups, which induce a signal largely independent of the strings. This is microphonics, and in relation to feedback is responsible more for high squeals than the more desirable low and mid range feedback swells.

So anchoring your pickups more rigidly within their cavities will have relatively little effect on the primary source of low/mid range feedback, which is how the strings are sympathetically driven. Filling the whole guitar with foam will increase the damping of the system, but do little to affect the mass or rigidity. It will certainly have some effect, especially in controlling low end feedback, but won't go near so far as to mimic a solid body response. Different blocks and posts will likewise stiffen the plates and bridge, but may not result in a net decrease in feedback across all frequencies. Yes, you are stiffening the plates to better resist vibration at some frequencies, but you are also more efficiently coupling them to better transfer others.

Contrary to your expectations though, the more rigidly pickups are anchored within their cavities, the more likely you are to increase your high frequency feedback, while lessening the low end a bit.

There are a lot of things going on here at once though, and you can't simply apply a rule that says more rigidity in pickup mounting will lessen feedback through the entire spectrum. Air vibrates the wood, wood vibrates the strings, wood vibrates the pickups, and how everything is anchored affects how these vibrations are transferred, though results of changes are not always so simple and direct as we might like to think.

I know it's not best to link to other forums, but I don't feel like typing this all over again. I discuss in brief a particularly poignant case I worked with, in the 2nd post on this thread over on TGP, which may offer a decent example of how pickup mounting can affect the feedback and tone. Of course your guitar and goals are much different than this case, but the way changes can be affected may still share similar cause and reasoning.

 

[baritone]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

But since a lot of manufacturers already make hollowbodies with a post under the bridge, why not just buy one of those? Or get one that doesn't have F holes. Or get a 335. Filling the body with foam or anything else ruins the acoustical properties, which means you really don't want a hollowbody in the first place. This thread is a display of one man's stubborness clashing with reality.

I think if he fill the cavity all the way up, that would be pretty funny. But what about a tiny bit located in like a feedback sweet spot?

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Hmm....A hollowbody experiment?

How about a small sealed oil piston[fitted between the front and back panels] that gives some rigidity but absorbs vibration.:sword:: private: