Abstract
Research show that the vibrations of the strings and the radiated sound of the solid body electric guitar depend on the vibrational behavior of its structure in addition to the extended electronic chain. In this regard, most studies focused on the vibro-mechanical properties of the neck of the electric guitar and neglected the coupling of the vibrating strings with the neck and the solid body of the instrument. Therefore, the aim of the study was to understand how the material properties of the solid body could affect the stiffness and vibration damping of the whole instrument when comparing ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) and walnut (Juglans regia L.) wood. In the electric guitar with identical components, higher modal frequencies were confirmed in the structure of the instrument when the solid body was made of the stiffer ash wood. The use of ash wood for the solid body of the instrument due to coupling effect resulted in a beneficial reduction in the vibration damping of the neck of the guitar. The positive effect of the low damping of the solid body of the electric guitar made of ash wood was also confirmed in the vibration of the open strings. In the specific case of free-free vibration mode, the decay time was longer for higher harmonics of the E2, A2 and D3 strings.
Highlights
The solid-body electric guitar has a thick and solid wood plate with theoretically low admittance at the bridge to better support the vibration of the strings than hollowbody acoustic or electroacoustic guitars [1,2,3]
In the investigated low-frequency interval (
When we made the solid body of an electric guitar from two types of wood that have different acoustic–mechanical properties, we found that they have some influence on the vibro-acoustic properties of the guitar body as well as the whole instrument
Summary
The solid-body electric guitar has a thick and solid wood plate with theoretically low admittance at the bridge to better support the vibration of the strings than hollowbody acoustic or electroacoustic guitars [1,2,3]. The electric guitar itself emits very little sound, so there is generally no need to transfer the energy of the vibrating strings to the body of the instrument. This means that the vibrations of the strings of a solid-body electric guitar do not decay as quickly as those of an acoustic guitar [4]. Studies on the acoustics of the electric guitar have so far focused mainly on the chain from the pickup to the amplifier, including effects devices for sound synthesis and postprocessing of the output signal or musical analysis [2,3,6,7,8]. Vibrations in the neck have been shown to cause dead spots at certain fret positions [13]
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