Vibro-electric transfer path analysis of a solid body electric guitar

Elliott, AS; Magill, J; Kendrick, P

Abstract

Solid bodied electric guitars typically employ one or more magnetic pickups attached to the guitar body in close proximity to the guitar strings. At low frequencies the amplitude of the vibrating string is typically far greater than vibrations transmitted through the guitar body and it is likely therefore that the output current is largely dominated by the string vibrations with little contribution from the guitar body itself. However, musicians often describe subjective differences between instruments made from different body materials, with mahogany often being cited as sounding ‘warm’ for example. Described in the presentation is a method that has been used to determine the contribution to the guitar signal from just the guitar body itself so as to estimate at what frequencies the guitar body may make a significant contribution to a guitar’s ‘tone’ if any. The method is similar to the approach used to diagnose structure borne noise problems in vehicles and aircraft known as transfer path analysis. However, instead of determining forces and their contribution to vehicle interior sound pressure, we determine the forces applied to a guitar body through the bridge and nut together with their contributions to the guitar output signal. In this way the contribution of the string and the guitar body can be found independently and compared to the guitars total output signal. Preliminary experimental findings from a vibro-electric transfer path analysis of a Gibson Les Paul type guitar are presented.

Citation

Elliott, A., Magill, J., & Kendrick, P. (2018, April). Vibro-electric transfer path analysis of a solid body electric guitar. Presented at Acoustics 2018, Cardiff, Wales

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Acoustics 2018
• Conference Location: Cardiff, Wales
• Start Date: Apr 23, 2018
• End Date: Apr 24, 2018
• Publication Date: Apr 23, 2018
• Deposit Date: Feb 13, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 13, 2019
• Publisher: Institute of Acoustics
• Publisher URL: https://www.ioa.org.uk/
• Related Public URLs: https://www.ioa.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=295
• Additional Information: Additional Information : Proceedings ISBN: 978-1-906913-29-8; Event Type : Conference