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Post by Onechordtrick on Aug 6, 2019 15:51:17 GMT
Ergonomics aside what’s the difference? An article from Fender suggests that 12 frets are warmer and fuller sounding with more sustain whereas 14 fret are brighter.
Or is there more to it in terms of wood choice, bracing, etc.?
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davewhite
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Post by davewhite on Aug 6, 2019 16:03:54 GMT
It depends how high you drop them from and what surface they land on.
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Post by Onechordtrick on Aug 6, 2019 16:22:13 GMT
It depends how high you drop them from and what surface they land on. I knew that I could rely on one of our resident luthiers to add their wisdom and insight
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Post by ocarolan on Aug 6, 2019 18:37:25 GMT
... I'm sure Dave will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Dave may be saying is that it depends on the builder, and all the other aspects of the design - you can't isolate one factor and attribute to that alone any particular characteristics.
Mind you, Dave phrased it better, I thought.
Keith
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Post by fresh1985 on Aug 6, 2019 18:49:57 GMT
I think warmer and fuller just about sums it up, all other things being equal.
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Post by malcolm on Aug 6, 2019 18:53:05 GMT
Ergonomics aside what’s the difference? An article from Fender suggests that 12 frets are warmer and fuller sounding with more sustain whereas 14 fret are brighter. Or is there more to it in terms of wood choice, bracing, etc.? I own three twelve fret guitars in different wood combinations and yes, I would say they definitely sound warmer and fuller. Unless you are going to play up around the body joint a lot, why would you need fourteen frets? Even then a great player can still play up there, check out Eric Skye for examples of this.
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Akquarius
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Post by Akquarius on Aug 6, 2019 19:56:44 GMT
Interesting thought. My Akquarius has 15 frets off the body and it sounds pretty warm and full to me. But then, it may be because of the larger body.
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colins
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Post by colins on Aug 6, 2019 20:19:59 GMT
... I'm sure Dave will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Dave may be saying is that it depends on the builder, and all the other aspects of the design - you can't isolate one factor and attribute to that alone any particular characteristics. Mind you, Dave phrased it better, I thought. Keith Absolutely Keith, the fender statement cannot be taken as a generalisation. There are so many variables that come together to make a guitar that simple saying an effect is due to either 12 or 14 frets is ridiculous. The builder is the main factor, body shape and volume, bridge position, materials, bracing pattern, top deflection, neck stiffness, I could go on for pages. Oh and Dave and I both make 13 fret to the body guitars! But yes Dave said it better.
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Post by bleatoid on Aug 6, 2019 21:25:41 GMT
Yep - too many factors.
Looking at it another way, if one took a 14 fret guitar and converted it to a 12 fretter by sliding the neck into the body and moving the bridge, keeping the scale length, bracing (and as much else as possible) the same, and doing the best you could to patch the holes in the top etc.....how would you expect the sound to change?
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Post by earwighoney on Aug 6, 2019 22:38:45 GMT
It depends how high you drop them from and what surface they land on. This might be my favourite thing I have read on a any guitar forum. Fine work.
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Post by malcolm on Aug 7, 2019 6:28:12 GMT
... I'm sure Dave will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Dave may be saying is that it depends on the builder, and all the other aspects of the design - you can't isolate one factor and attribute to that alone any particular characteristics. Mind you, Dave phrased it better, I thought. Keith Absolutely Keith, the fender statement cannot be taken as a generalisation. There are so many variables that come together to make a guitar that simple saying an effect is due to either 12 or 14 frets is ridiculous. The builder is the main factor, body shape and volume, bridge position, materials, bracing pattern, top deflection, neck stiffness, I could go on for pages. Oh and Dave and I both make 13 fret to the body guitars! But yes Dave said it better. I also have a 13 fret to the body guitar, it makes a very good compromise.
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Post by walkingdecay on Aug 7, 2019 7:24:24 GMT
There are some interesting comments by Norman Blake on why he favours short scale here: www.vintageguitar.com/2902/norman-blake/By the way, those seeking to excuse buying yet another instrument may like to direct their offended others to the comment, "I don’t feel that any one guitar does everything."
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Post by andyhowell on Aug 7, 2019 8:06:59 GMT
Are 12 frets to the body always better than 14? Ever played a gorgeous old OM?
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Post by jackorion on Aug 8, 2019 8:25:31 GMT
Aside from the usual 'too many factors, depends on the builder etc etc' issues, there are a few generalisations that you could make about 12 vs 14 fret guitars, when discussing similar models from individual manufacturers.
Taylor - so Taylor essentially take their normal 14 fret body and just shift the neck and bridge down - yes I know this will change the placing of the bracing etc as well, but essentially that's their design philosophy when it comes to 12 frets. What this does is 1. make the guitar feel more compact as the overall length is now shorter and 2. places the bridge more centrally on the lower bout.
Taylor would suggest that this makes the guitar more responsive to a lighter touch and emphasises bass - logically I guess that makes sense - if you think about striking a drum head, it gets brighter as you move to the edges and is most resonant in the middle, so it you consider the lower bout of a guitar to be somewhat analogous to a drum head (I'm sure someone will claim this analogy is incorrect) it would make sense that the centre of the bout is the place that will sound most resonant.
I've played lots of 12 fret Taylors side by side with their 14 fret counterparts and always found them to be more responsive, warmer, and a bit softer sounding. On the '2' body size (Grand Concert) both the 14 and 12 fret are shorter scale so that didn't come into play.
Martin - so Martin 12 vs 14 fret is the other way round - Martin started out with a 12 fret design and them made the body shorter to make the 14th fret neck join - because of this the bridge placement is not as drastically different as it is on some other manufacturers. Martin 12 fret bodies are generally larger than their equivalent 14 fret (a 000-28 is smaller that a 000-28VS for example) and, because of this, the 12 fretters tend to have a little more bass (larger body) and, in my experience, a different projection pattern - it's a little bit more around the player that out front (for a while I owned both an OM28v and a 00028vs - both the same scale length, both sitka rosewood, slightly different bracing).
An exception to this are the Norman Blake models where it is a modern 000 14 fret body with a 12 fret neck - in that case the guitar is designed in a similar way to the taylors with the neck shifted down rather than the body being bigger.
Also quite a lot of Martin 12 fret models are historical based, so they tend to have the longer 25.4 scale length...
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Post by Matt Milton on Aug 21, 2019 11:34:02 GMT
I own 4 acoustic guitars. Three of them are 12-frets and one of them is a 13-fret. Namely:
Recording King ROS616 (orchestra model, all solid mahogany, V-neck, 12 frets, very light finish) Recording King ROS16 (basically the same guitar but with solid spruce top, lam mahogany back and sides, chunky neck, 12 frets) Recording King RNJ26NA (‘Nick Lucas’ shape deep-body parlour, solid spruce top, solid mahogany back and sides, 13-fret) Harley Benton CLP15M (parlour, solid mahogany top, lam mahogany back and sides, 12 frets)
So yes, I am a bit of a fan of 12 frets to body. And a big fan of the Recording King guitar range that pre-dates their current offerings: they made some exceptional guitars a few years before and after 2010.
I really notice a difference in the sound with 12 frets and I would say ‘warmer’ and ‘fuller’ are the right adjectives, though perhaps more the former than the latter. The ROS616 is perfect for me and has a gorgeous tone. The combination of 12 frets with an overall pre-war design – e.g. Martins or Montgomery Ward sort of thing - is a winning partnership. Everything I’ve read about the logic of why 12 frets to body would make a warmth/fullness difference to the sound seems to make sense. The 13-fret Nick Lucas guitar I own has a very similar sound (plus its deeper body gives it a wider, more open sound than a traditional 'boxy' parlour)
The classical guitar tends to have 12 frets to body, and a lot of those pre-war shapes are kind of steel string developments of the classical; so it’s no coincidence that I’ve grown up to favour guitars that remind me in some way of my dad’s cheap classical, which I grew up on.
That said I’ve played a few 12 fretters with different wood types – spruce/rosewood and one with a cedar tops - and they haven’t really done it for me in the same way: I’m a big fan of mahogany. And the Taylor 12 fret I tried (can’t remember which) left me underwhelmed. So I wouldn’t say having a small body and 12 frets automatically seals the deal for me.
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