2020 New Year's Resolutions

It's also helpful to check plucking with the fingers AND a pick.  You get different tones.  The wolf tone may not be as noticeable one way or the other.

CTGull,TonyKgull,@sleigh,

Just to put the record straight, THESE are wolf tones:



If your guitar starts doing that, run for the hills immediately and don't forget to call Animal Control.

Tony

After playing my 2019 Taylor K14ce for a while (I got it in October), and then playing some of my other guitars, I really experience how much the volume of individual notes varies. This isn't the wolf tones that are being discussed in this thread, but I was surprised at the variance.

My Taylor has the V-bracing that Andy Powers and others are discussing all around the internet. I make no claims about this stuff except that this particular guitar is the most tonally balanced guitar I have ever played. Also, it does not get "plinky" sounding as you go up the fretboard as so many do. Even David Qualey commented that the "sweet spot" for guitars is in the middle area of the fretboard, around the 5th through 9th frets.  That is also why Lex Von Sumayo uses a capo at the third or fifth frets most of the time for his arrangements.

This is David Qualey:

This is Lex Von Sumayo: 

On my Taylor, it is all "sweet spot". So, though I don't claim to understand all the stuff that Andy Powers is talking about, I can say that there is something to his claims, at least in this particular guitar.

As an aside, my Taylor has a "baked" Sitka spruce top.  As I mentioned in the thread about this subject, I can't quantify how much or how little, this contributes to the overall sound.  However, I doubt it has anything to do with how even all the notes are across the entire fretboard.

This instrument has become my absolute favorite for this reason. I can use a capo and not experience that "plinky" sound up the fretboard. I don't get that slightly out of tune sensation way up the neck either, whether in standard or open tunings. So just maybe, Andy Powers has stumbled onto something worth knowing about when tinkering around with your guitars. The only other explanation for my guitar that I can think of is that this is a one-off fluke that just happened to come together by random chance in the building of it. Since it is the only sample of this model that I have played, I can't prove this statement wrong.

However, I can also say from personal playing experience, that not all V-class guitars are created equal. I played a V-class 914ce and much prefer the earlier X-braced model for its tone. The term I would describe for that experience is "underwhelmed". Other lower cost V-class Taylors I have tried seem to produce varying degrees of success. So I would certainly not run out and buy a Taylor just because it is V-class. I still believe in "try before you buy". When I picked up my Taylor in the shop, I knew on first strum that it was special. I would not have gotten that from an online guitar catalog or web site or even a youtube video.

My uneducated suspicion is that different types of bracing work well with certain wood combinations, but I also suspect that one bracing type is not necessarily the best for all possible wood combinations or styles of guitar building. It may well be that the Taylor model I bought just happened to be one that responds well to V-bracing.

In any case, I really was quite surprised at how balanced and even all the notes on my Taylor are compared to any other guitar in my collection, whether wood or carbon fiber. The only negative aspect of this is that I am becoming rather dissatisfied with these other guitars because of that.

Tony

Happy February! 😁🙄

Had a pretty good weekend-off from all 3 of my jobs, and practiced guitar, mandolin and recorder. Been working pretty hard on classical, J.S. Bach's Bouree in e minor, and Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (hoping to be able to play for special music this summer.) Went from moderately bad (uneven tempo, getting off by one string) to minimally bad (less mistakes.) I may get there yet!

I love the Bouree in Emi.  I first heard it on a Julian Bream LP.
Are you learning from standard notation or from tablature? (or by ear?)
I used to play this on the 5-string banjo, though I had to make some modifications. 
I used a steel string to play it on guitar, but never did get the second part perfected and my arthritis has prevented me from doing anything that complicated these days.