My Fickled Ear

[Buc McMaster]

Since acquiring this new H'Bird I've been doing my level best to wear the poor thing out every waking moment. Of all the acoustic guitars I've owned over the last 40 years, this one is the one. The short scale combined with what has turned out to be a fantastic factory setup add up to the best player I've ever put my hands on. But then there's the tone thing........

 

We all know that pick choice makes huge differences in the tone of an acoustic guitar. A heavy (approx .050") Red bear pick produces a big, fat tone with somewhat muted highs due to the rounded attack edge (style E shape). I liken the treble tones to the sound of a cymbal struck with a felt head mallet. Overall it's a smooth powerful sound. When attacked with a thinner edged pick (plastic, nylon, tortoise, etc.) the highs rip and chime with brilliance and the low end becomes more focused and tight. These highs I compare to a cymbal sturck with a 2B stick - lots of sparkle an sizzle. The difference in tone is obvious, but the thing is how the two mix with the voice when singing. For just wailing out a string of chords and riffing, the thin edged pick seems better to my ear. When singing a tune, the round edge thicker pick seems to keep the guitar tone out of the way of the voice, softening it's part and underlying the vocal well.

 

Do those of you who sing along with your guitar find this to be the case, or is it my old ear fooling me into thinking my voice sounds better with a muted guitar tone?

[E-minor7]

First – great to hear you are digging in as a youngster again. I remember when your boat took over and you sounded tired of acoustic playing.

(Always sad when a spirit burns out).

 

My Bird is best – or taken to its fullest – when flatpicked. It is my main vessel to regain those pick-skills. That means I don't sing with it that much, , , but I could do without problems and in fact have a tune or 3 where it happens :

 

Cripple Creek Ferry - Young

I Surrender – M. Cohen

Reasons For Waiting – I. Anderson

 

The pick I find most animating is the Dunlop .60 -

 

It's medium and gives the notes/every strum a percussive flavor that - to my ears - works so fine with the honey-tone. You hear this tiny splash all the time, which mixed with the drier nature of the guitar creates wonders – add to that the possibility to both caress the creature and drive it up hard.

 

Need I say I would be very interested in reports on how the instrument opens.

 

Carry All Ages ~

[EuroAussie]

Yeah I would agree with that Buc. However since the head of acoustics at Thomann (also Gibson owner) but me on Gibson Medium picks I havent looked back. Havent found a pick that produces such a natural tone out of a guitar and they dont wear out much. With the thinner picks I get a bit frustrated with the flicking noise during strumming, but yes there is definitely a place for them.

 

Great to hear youre bakc on the saddle and riding em' hard !

[Buc McMaster]

It's not so much the thickness of the pick - all the picks I use are quite thick with zero flex....I like the pick to go through the string, not around it. It's the edge profile that makes the difference in this case: a sharp edge (as in "V") opposed to a round edge (as in "U"). The sharper edge comes off the string "cleaner", producing a sharper, higher tone. A round profile causes the string to kind of roll off the pick, muting the highs, imparting a fatter tone. What I'm wondering is do these differences in guitar tone change how your voice mixes with the guitar for better or worse, one way or the other? Has voice/guitar tone mix ever played a part in your choice of pick?

 

Aussie: my wife has become a "guitar widow" since the Hummingbird moved in!

[MR GIBS]

I prefere to play on my acoustic guitars only with a cheap 0,46mm Stag pick.

This gives the best sound to my ear (old enough ;-)

[Jinder]

I use a fresh Dunlop Tortex .73mm pick (the yellow ones) for everything...I like a firm pick which gives strong feedback and a positive flatpicking response, and this has long been my go-to pick.

 

Glad you're enjoying the Hummer, I loved both of mine, particularly the last one-an amazing instrument. I read somewhere that they were designed to have a frequency curve that dipped out at the frequency that the human voice occupies, so the guitar "gets out of the way" of the human voice. An interesting thought, and I always found mine recorded exceptionally well with vocals.

 

In the same article, it was claimed that the Hummingbird is the most recorded acoustic guitar of all time.

[blindboygrunt]

this ties in a little to a thought that was floating around my head , i am now a three week newbie , with a j45 that i got rid of a lowden for. beautiful as a lowden is , it wasnt the sound of the majority of the music i love to listen to and play. billy connolly (another gibson guy) once described his voice as being like 'a goose farting in the fog' , i can relate to that . i ain't caruso but i pick the right songs for myself and get away with it .

anyway ... the thought i had was that maybe the huge noise of the lowden with all its bass and overtones , would hide my dylanesque grunt of a voice, and make me sound better . but i have found that i find it much much easier to hear my own voice within the dry, simple ,woody , chord noise of the j45 and hence, in the milliseconds involved, can match my voice's key and pitch much easier ,i hope you can understand what i'm getting at .

btw i'm 39 . seeing as you're all concerned about it being an age thing :-)