Does any guitar have a wolf note?

[Primdmit]

Originally Posted by DesmondWafers

I struggled with this a lot when I was first getting into higher end acoustic guitars. Initially I tried to find guitars that didn't have them at all, but after reading many, many posts by alan and trying quite a few guitars I gave up on that idea. Almost all guitars are going to have them, usually on the low E somewhere between the first and 5th fret and to a lesser extent on that same note around the fretboard. Smaller guitars seem to have them higher up, at least in my experience. After I accepted that most guitars are going to have them somewhere, I decided to try and find one where it was not on the low G as it's such a critical note for most guitar music. It turns out that there are a LOT of guitars where it's directly on the low G. After many returns (and a decent amount of money lost) I wound up with two guitars. One is a d-18 that has it somewhere between E and F#, the other is a taylor where it's on the F# pretty squarely. The martin doesn't bother me at all; it's hard to tell and the only note that really sounds like a classic wolf note is the 12th fret low E which is not particularly important (to me anyway). The taylor drove me crazy. It's a 717 and I can't tell you how much it bothered me at the start. I tried strings, I read threads with posts by alan saying to try adhesive putty placed in strategic areas, nothing ever helped.

Except...I started recording it. After recording and showing the issue to other people, I came to the conclusion that wolf tones on acoustic guitars generally are more displeasing to the player rather than the audience. Play a song that uses the culprit note and record it and see if it really makes any difference. I think that a big reason that they're worse for the player is that you can physically feel them, the whole body resonates when you hit one directly, especially on the lower notes. Think about it, how many times have you listened to a recording and said "oh that guy's guitar has a bad wolf tone on X note"? You can definitely find them if you're looking, but my lesson from the whole experience was just that it's pointless to obsess over unless you have a LOT of time and money and the return is not worth it for a great deal of guitar players.

Alan's point that lighter braced, more responsive guitars are more prone is also something to remember. I've played heavily braced cheap guitars where I couldn't really find a wolf note, but I've never played a guitar that I wanted to own that didn't have some form of them. People will tell you that they own guitars where every single note is exactly the same and balanced perfectly, but I take this with a grain of salt unless it's some incredibly expensive tap-tuned luthier masterpiece. The fact of the matter is that no music that I love really utilizes that caliber of instrument and I am almost certain that if you could play something like Tony Rice's d28 or another famous guitar you'd find that they'd have a wolf somewhere.

TL;DR: Don't worry about it, most guitars have them.

Nice comment! Thank you!

[LakewoodM32Fan]

I do have a workaround of sorts...

Because I grew up in the grunge era, a lot of songs I play are half step down tuning. I also sing flat often because...I’m not a good singer lol.

In my normal course of playing, 6th string 4th fret (where the G moves to at half step down tuning) is one of my least used positions on the neck, at least in the “money” part of the fretboard (open to fifth fret).

So for now I’ll keep this one tuned a half step down permanently. Been playing my grunge repertoire on it for the last hour and it sounds fantastic. Also never needed that G note so...bonus!

[jaymarsch]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

jaymarsch wrote:

" Guitars with dead spots, yes, but a true wolf note only once."



The classic 'wolf' note is the one that shows up on 'cellos; a note that 'growls', 'howls' or 'warbles' when it's bowed. Many people say that what we see on guitars is not a wolf note because it doesn't behave that badly. In fact, the 'thuddy G' wolf on the guitar is pretty much exactly the same thing, or would be if we were bowing the string. As it is, it's 'just' a dead note. As far as I'm concerned dead spots on guitars are wolf tones.



I'm not sure if a ToneRite would help. Some wolf notes seem to go away with playing, and some emerge from playing too. So far the only reasonably well done study I've seen on the ToneRite (in the in line Savart journal) says that it doesn't do anything useful. If you've got on you could try it, but I wouldn't expect much.

Thanks, Alan, for clarifying. I just meant that my ears had not experienced the howling type of wolf notes before.
Best,
Jayne

[Banditos]

Originally Posted by DesmondWafers

I struggled with this a lot when I was first getting into higher end acoustic guitars. Initially I tried to find guitars that didn't have them at all, but after reading many, many posts by alan and trying quite a few guitars I gave up on that idea. Almost all guitars are going to have them, usually on the low E somewhere between the first and 5th fret and to a lesser extent on that same note around the fretboard. Smaller guitars seem to have them higher up, at least in my experience. After I accepted that most guitars are going to have them somewhere, I decided to try and find one where it was not on the low G as it's such a critical note for most guitar music. It turns out that there are a LOT of guitars where it's directly on the low G. After many returns (and a decent amount of money lost) I wound up with two guitars. One is a d-18 that has it somewhere between E and F#, the other is a taylor where it's on the F# pretty squarely. The martin doesn't bother me at all; it's hard to tell and the only note that really sounds like a classic wolf note is the 12th fret low E which is not particularly important (to me anyway). The taylor drove me crazy. It's a 717 and I can't tell you how much it bothered me at the start. I tried strings, I read threads with posts by alan saying to try adhesive putty placed in strategic areas, nothing ever helped.

Except...I started recording it. After recording and showing the issue to other people, I came to the conclusion that wolf tones on acoustic guitars generally are more displeasing to the player rather than the audience. Play a song that uses the culprit note and record it and see if it really makes any difference. I think that a big reason that they're worse for the player is that you can physically feel them, the whole body resonates when you hit one directly, especially on the lower notes. Think about it, how many times have you listened to a recording and said "oh that guy's guitar has a bad wolf tone on X note"? You can definitely find them if you're looking, but my lesson from the whole experience was just that it's pointless to obsess over unless you have a LOT of time and money and the return is not worth it for a great deal of guitar players.

Alan's point that lighter braced, more responsive guitars are more prone is also something to remember. I've played heavily braced cheap guitars where I couldn't really find a wolf note, but I've never played a guitar that I wanted to own that didn't have some form of them. People will tell you that they own guitars where every single note is exactly the same and balanced perfectly, but I take this with a grain of salt unless it's some incredibly expensive tap-tuned luthier masterpiece. The fact of the matter is that no music that I love really utilizes that caliber of instrument and I am almost certain that if you could play something like Tony Rice's d28 or another famous guitar you'd find that they'd have a wolf somewhere.

TL;DR: Don't worry about it, most guitars have them.

Thank you for this, I just bought second hand an HD 28 and of course it has that on the G on the low E the note I probably use the most. When I tried out the guitar before buy I noticed it but thought old strings this and that, and I am a novice with higher end guitars so didn't know one has to be very cautious with this on scalloped and overall more sensitive and refined instruments. It annoys me a lot as of now but probably just the buyers' remorse. I will try some easy fixes, such as different pins or sound hole altering by cardboard, however I cannot see myself using a guitar with that on the long term. Anyway the point is despite many people say they never heard of these issues I am happy to see that it is more real than they claim. They either cannot hear them or have less refined instruments. Cheers.

[Banditos]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

What GinL said.

Every guitar has a set of strong resonances in the low frequency range that produce the characteristic tone of that instrument. I have seen guitar-like objects that lack these, but you would not want to play them: those resonances are necessary. The problem come in when one or more of these match the pitch of a played note or overtone too exactly.

That was probably what happened with GinL's guitar; if it was the G on the low E string, 3d fret, that's the classic guitar wolf note. In that case the Helmholtz-type 'main air' resonance matches that G pitch at around 98 Hz. It sucks all of the energy out of the string and turns it into sound in a hurry, so you get a note that's twice as powerful for half as long. You don't notice the extra power because of the way your ears work, but it's hard to miss the lack of sustain. Often this also affects the pitch of the note, making it 'muddy' and uncertain.

This is actually a complex situation, very much like a 'bass reflex' speaker cabinet, and involves the air and the top at least, with the back, and sometimes even the neck, contributing in many cases. All of these things working together contribute to the pitch, and they can change depending on humidity; 'air' resonances rise in pitch as the humidity goes up, while 'wood' resonances drop in pitch. Things that line up right (or wrong!) at 45% relative humidity might not line up at all at 30%, or 60%, so the 'wolf' can come and go.

There are lots of different 'wolf' notes caused by different resonances lining up in odd ways. Fortunately not every such alignment is a problem; sometimes it just helps make the sound 'interesting'. In fact, it's generally true that the more resonances a guitar has, and the more they 'couple', the better the guitar is. You don't want to get rid of these resonances then; as I've said, you would not like a guitar that lacked them. The trick is to control them; to keep them from becoming strong enough to become problems.

This is a lot easier for a hand maker or small shop than it is for a bigger factory. A small maker can pay attention to things like the 'tap tones' of the guitar as it gets assembled, and can work with each set of wood to get it to work right. Factories have to work to the average properties of the types of wood they use, and there's far more variation in the properties than you might think. They also can't really take the time to fine tune things as they come off the line. It's also true that the resonant pitches can change for a number of reasons, sometimes years after a guitar was assembled, so a guitar that was fine when it left the factory can have a wolf when it gets to the store.

Of course, the variation in wood means that manufacturers also tend to over build a bit: they have to be sure that the weakest set of braces on the weakest top still ends up being stiff enough to hold up, and since they can't test each set going in they have little choice but to make the instruments a bit heavier than they need to be on average. This cuts down a bit on responsiveness, and helps to tame wolf notes.

So there you are. Wolf-type notes go with the turf, so to speak, and are OK so long as they're not a problem. There's not much a manufacturer can do to eliminate them entirely. Sometimes they can be addressed after the fact, but often, as in the case of the 'thuddy G' wolf, the changes you have to make can void the warranty.

Hi, first and foremost I would like to thank you your amazing contributions about this and everything else on this forum! I started to look for this issue and I see a lot of your smart and wise and concerned posts. Thank you!

(I wish I could actually take the guitar to you to check it, but I guess you live far from me.)

So as I already posted I just bought second hand an HD 28 and of course it has that on the G on the low E. If I did my homework well I have options like:
-cardboarding the sound hole
-put weight on the top (inside) in different spots which I guess I determine in advance by tapping or muting with fingers or by adding weight from outside
-changing pins for heavier (or lighter?)
-maybe try different gauge strings?
-scalloping even more braces ( I am not sure I would do that on a Martin HD28)

Anything else?
Thank you!

[Coler]

Originally Posted by DesmondWafers

I struggled with this a lot when I was first getting into higher end acoustic guitars. Initially I tried to find guitars that didn't have them at all, but after reading many, many posts by alan and trying quite a few guitars I gave up on that idea. Almost all guitars are going to have them, usually on the low E somewhere between the first and 5th fret and to a lesser extent on that same note around the fretboard. Smaller guitars seem to have them higher up, at least in my experience. After I accepted that most guitars are going to have them somewhere, I decided to try and find one where it was not on the low G as it's such a critical note for most guitar music. It turns out that there are a LOT of guitars where it's directly on the low G. After many returns (and a decent amount of money lost) I wound up with two guitars. One is a d-18 that has it somewhere between E and F#, the other is a taylor where it's on the F# pretty squarely. The martin doesn't bother me at all; it's hard to tell and the only note that really sounds like a classic wolf note is the 12th fret low E which is not particularly important (to me anyway). The taylor drove me crazy. It's a 717 and I can't tell you how much it bothered me at the start. I tried strings, I read threads with posts by alan saying to try adhesive putty placed in strategic areas, nothing ever helped.

Except...I started recording it. After recording and showing the issue to other people, I came to the conclusion that wolf tones on acoustic guitars generally are more displeasing to the player rather than the audience. Play a song that uses the culprit note and record it and see if it really makes any difference. I think that a big reason that they're worse for the player is that you can physically feel them, the whole body resonates when you hit one directly, especially on the lower notes. Think about it, how many times have you listened to a recording and said "oh that guy's guitar has a bad wolf tone on X note"? You can definitely find them if you're looking, but my lesson from the whole experience was just that it's pointless to obsess over unless you have a LOT of time and money and the return is not worth it for a great deal of guitar players.

Alan's point that lighter braced, more responsive guitars are more prone is also something to remember. I've played heavily braced cheap guitars where I couldn't really find a wolf note, but I've never played a guitar that I wanted to own that didn't have some form of them. People will tell you that they own guitars where every single note is exactly the same and balanced perfectly, but I take this with a grain of salt unless it's some incredibly expensive tap-tuned luthier masterpiece. The fact of the matter is that no music that I love really utilizes that caliber of instrument and I am almost certain that if you could play something like Tony Rice's d28 or another famous guitar you'd find that they'd have a wolf somewhere.

TL;DR: Don't worry about it, most guitars have them.

Such a good post.

I’ve never played a guitar I wanted to own that I couldn’t find a questionable lack of sustain on a note, usually in the first five frets on the low E, most frequently on G or F sharp. And of course, if you tune down, the location changes accordingly, which is the real tell.

However, I’ve never detected the problem on a recording, even when trying to produce it exactly for that purpose, and I’m led to the same conclusion as Desmond arrives it - these things are felt by the player far more than they are heard by the listener.

I also agree that the severity of the phenomenon can change over time, and with environmental changes, and can re-emerge. These are not simple matters but they do not require complex assessment. If the sound is unpleasant to you then it may well be a problem for you, especially if you play primarily for your own pleasure but always remember that what you are experiencing is simply not an issue for your audience.

[Bowie]

They all have them. People just don't understand what they are or how to find them. The fundamental will cancel out at the resonant frequency of the box and you THINK you hear the fundamental because of how our minds fill in the gap based on the overtones we hear. But, if you know how to listen you'll find it is missing. This manifests as a lack of bass on that note. It's often between two specific notes on many acoustics. Search at your own risk. Once you find where it is you'll hear it in almost every acoustic you play.

Some are worse than others. I had it very strong in a Froggy Bottom that was rosewood but barely noticeable in the same model in walnut.

I actually had the pleasure of speaking to Frank Ford about this and he essentially said there's not much you can do other than, if it's a luthier built instrument, see if the builder can tune it to a different note that's less impactful to your playing.

[Alan Carruth]

Often the best way to fix a 'wolf' issue around the low G is to shave back braces. The guitar is a 'bass reflex cabinet' in the low range: the top and back work together to pump air through the hole. Reducing the stiffness of the back by shaving the braces, particularly the lower two, can drop the 'air' pitch by a semitone or more, depending. It's easy to check this out without any risk. Stick some poster adhesive onto the back along the center line at the brace locations. The added mass drops the resonant pitches of the 'back' vibration modes, and can strengthen the 'couple' with the top and the air. If it works you can go ahead and shave braces, but keep track of the tap tone pitch of the back, and observe the 'rule of half': only go half as far as you think you want to, and then play it for a while. If you can get the 'air' pitch right between played semitones (say, drop it from G to F#+50cents) you'll have done about all you can that way.

[Banditos]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

Often the best way to fix a 'wolf' issue around the low G is to shave back braces. The guitar is a 'bass reflex cabinet' in the low range: the top and back work together to pump air through the hole. Reducing the stiffness of the back by shaving the braces, particularly the lower two, can drop the 'air' pitch by a semitone or more, depending. It's easy to check this out without any risk. Stick some poster adhesive onto the back along the center line at the brace locations. The added mass drops the resonant pitches of the 'back' vibration modes, and can strengthen the 'couple' with the top and the air. If it works you can go ahead and shave braces, but keep track of the tap tone pitch of the back, and observe the 'rule of half': only go half as far as you think you want to, and then play it for a while. If you can get the 'air' pitch right between played semitones (say, drop it from G to F#+50cents) you'll have done about all you can that way.

Thank you!

[Bob Womack]

I've spoken of this before, but I'm surprised no-one else has: I have a very nice 1999 Taylor K14c (cedar/koa grand auditorium). It is among the lightest and most resonant guitars I've ever played and I love it. It is also a commemorative guitar, commemorating my lovely wife's and my twentieth anniversary. I wasn't about to dump it for an imperfection. When it was first delivered it had a quiet wolf note on the low E string at F#. You know, thunk, thunk, thunk. No surprise, eh? However, somewhere around the guitar's ninth or tenth year it simply went away. One day I just noticed it no longer exhibited that wolf dead note at all. The F# range like a bell. And it hasn't since.

I think the question of why a guitar would cease to have a wolf note on its own it worthy of discussion. Why? We tend to want instant gratification, and an instantly perfect guitar. But what if, when we sell a less than perfect guitar because of a wolf note, we are just setting up the second or third owner to enjoy the excellent guitar we wanted and that it was inevitably to become? What if guitars need for us to be patient for them to finally settle in?

Questions, questions.

Bob

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I've spoken of this before, but I'm surprised no-one else has: I have a very nice 1999 Taylor K14c (cedar/koa grand auditorium). It is among the lightest and most resonant guitars I've ever played and I love it. It is also a commemorative guitar, commemorating my lovely wife's and my twentieth anniversary. I wasn't about to dump it for an imperfection. When it was first delivered it had a quiet wolf note on the low E string at F#. You know, thunk, thunk, thunk. No surprise, eh? However, somewhere around the guitar's ninth or tenth year it simply went away. One day I just noticed it no longer exhibited that wolf dead note at all. The F# range like a bell. And it hasn't since.

I think the question of why a guitar would cease to have a wolf note on its own it worthy of discussion. Why? We tend to want instant gratification, and an instantly perfect guitar. But what if, when we sell a less than perfect guitar because of a wolf note, we are just setting up the second or third owner to enjoy the excellent guitar we wanted and that it was inevitably to become? What if guitars need for us to be patient for them to finally settle in?

Questions, questions.

Bob

It's possible that observation is most likely due to the eventual maturation of the woods used to construct the guitar. All woods change in their characteristics over time, so it wouldn't be unusual for a slight resonance or dead spot to eventually change. I would think that some instruments could conversely develop a slight wolf tone with age.

I may just not pay a lot of attention to these sort of discussions, but oddly I've never seen "wolf notes" used before; I'm more used to seeing "wolf tones". A small thing, but maybe the term is more common in guitar discussions?

[Jimi2]

Originally Posted by CuidadoCaliente

Anyone ever hear of this?

"On a guitar you can add some mass to a specific place on the soundboard to dampen certain modes of its vibration and effectively kill off the wolf note. What you need to do is, whilst playing the wolf note, apply firm pressure to the soundboard with the ball of your thumb, you may need a third hand to help you. Keep playing the note whilst slowly moving your thumb all over the soundboard until you find a position where you notice the note to decrease in volume. Next get a piece of “blue-tack” and a small heavy object (a large nut or maybe a pound coin) and stick it to the soundboard at the location where you had your thumb. N.B. Blue-tack should not damage the finish but don’t leave it on there for days! Play the note again and listen to the effect, and adjust the location slightly until you find the position that has most effect, now remove the nut and attach a lighter weight and listen again. Keep doing this until you find the optimum amount of weight needed to bring the wolf note into a balance with the other notes on the instrument. I should point out that any mass added to the soundboard will also have some effect on the whole instrument so it is important to only use the minimum weight necessary. Now make a note of the exact position before removing the blue-tack and weight (coin, nut, washer etc), weigh this and then get a piece of hard/heavy wood and cut it down till it weighs the same, I have used ebony for this. Now the tricky part is to fix this block to the inside of the soundboard at the exact same location as you found earlier! You will need to loosen the strings to gain access through the sound-hole. I used animal glue for this as it’s easily reversible with warm water but a good quality double sided tape should also work well and has the benefit of being easy to remove and reposition if you get the location wrong."

From here - https://michaelmesser.proboards.com/...ing-wolf-tones

Originally Posted by Rudy4

It's possible that observation is most likely due to the eventual maturation of the woods used to construct the guitar. All woods change in their characteristics over time, so it wouldn't be unusual for a slight resonance or dead spot to eventually change. I would think that some instruments could conversely develop a slight wolf tone with age.

I may just not pay a lot of attention to these sort of discussions, but oddly I've never seen "wolf notes" used before; I'm more used to seeing "wolf tones". A small thing, but maybe the term is more common in guitar discussions?

Yes, my recently acquired 2013 Lowden has a dead low G. Can’t say whether it was always there, or whether it developed later in its life. It’s noticeable enough to be a real problem; I solved it with a Daddario O Port insert, but after removing that, I feel like that device changed the voice of the guitar slightly for the worse. I’m trying to look into Alan’s suggestion of shaving the braces.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Jimi2

Yes, my recently acquired 2013 Lowden has a dead low G. Can’t say whether it was always there, or whether it developed later in its life. It’s noticeable enough to be a real problem; I solved it with a Daddario O Port insert, but after removing that, I feel like that device changed the voice of the guitar slightly for the worse. I’m trying to look into Alan’s suggestion of shaving the braces.

I owned a Lowden 023c for several years. I personally would not touch Lowden bracing, as George is a pretty good engineer for his designs. Your call on that one, though.

You might try contacting them to see if that have any suggestions for you to try.

[Dave Hicks]

F# on the 4th string on a Taylor 414. It's 26 years old, so I don't expect any change. I was surprised to try several Taylors in stores and find that some, but not all, had the same F# wolf.

On the 414, I can make it less noticeable by playing that note a bit harder.

D.H.

[Sadie-f]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

jaymarsch wrote:
" Guitars with dead spots, yes, but a true wolf note only once."

The classic 'wolf' note is the one that shows up on 'cellos; a note that 'growls', 'howls' or 'warbles' when it's bowed. Many people say that what we see on guitars is not a wolf note because it doesn't behave that badly. In fact, the 'thuddy G' wolf on the guitar is pretty much exactly the same thing, or would be if we were bowing the string. As it is, it's 'just' a dead note. As far as I'm concerned dead spots on guitars are wolf tones.

I'm not sure if a ToneRite would help. Some wolf notes seem to go away with playing, and some emerge from playing too. So far the only reasonably well done study I've seen on the ToneRite (in the in line Savart journal) says that it doesn't do anything useful. If you've got on you could try it, but I wouldn't expect much.

I'll go out on a limb and try to add to this.

Suppose a note matches a resonance such that the volume is doubled -- IME, that's actually a fairly possible number.

With a bowed instrument, the musician is putting energy into the system the entire time they're bowing a note, and at least arguably, they can push harder, the other way to think of it, is the player needs to push a little less hard to hit the same volume. On a plucked instrument, the energy into any given note struck is fixed - therefore while it will sound louder, it also decays faster.

We also have to factor how the ear works - the power measured (as watts, whether there's amplification or not) that's measured as double, is only 3 decibels. A doubling of volume as humans experience it is 10 dB, so we don't very well register 3 dB. So the note doesn't sound much louder, however it's sustain is 1/2 as long, and we do easily here that. Hence "thud".

p.s. I've measured this, the trade off between volume and sustain is easy to see on an oscilloscope or DAW.

Back to the bowed instrument, because I can grok this a little better; I believe, but do not know, that a stronger resonance will likely also affect harmonics, probably also overtones. I expect it's true for the guitar too, it's just easier for me to picture in a system that has continuous energy input.

To the OP, I've experience wolf tones on better instruments, and in the violin/cello world, it's said that a great instrument always has wolf tones, the musician gets to work around them. I think that's equally true of guitars, and as it all comes down to physics, I've taken the approach that it's the instrument I have in my hands, and wishing there were no wolf notes is not productive, learning to use what the instrument can do is what sounds best.

To the question of "do all?" .. I would say not. I own an ovation that has no wolf notes, it's remarkably even across its tonal range. It also hasn't got notes and resonances that are spectacular. It's a good 45 year old, $400 guitar