Your room matters so much to the guitar's sound!

[koolimy]

Today I did a bit of an experiment, as I took my guitars to 3 different rooms to hear what it sounded like.

The first room was more absorbent, and medium sized. The second room was reflective, and large. The third room was reflective and small. What I noticed was, that my guitar sounded very different in each room!

In the first room, my guitar sounded dry and fundamental focused. The bass-mid-treble frequencies were more balanced. My guitar is a Cherry/Adirondack J-185 made by me, so that's closer to its natural tone. In the second room, it sounded wetter and bass focused. It also sounded more responsive compared to the first room, as I could get a louder sound with a softer touch. The third room made the guitar sound quite wet and syruppy. It was also more treble focused compared to the 2nd room. The guitar sounded the most responsive in this room, as I could barely touch the strings and it would come to life.

I always knew that the room was important for the sound of a guitar, but I wasn't expecting it to be so drastically different. I could have sworn that I was playing 3 different guitars, as the difference was quite noticeable.

Have any of you had any experiences like this?

[Dirk Hofman]

Yeah, for sure! One real twister in this is if you're in a great guitar shop surrounded by amazing guitars, and they all start resonating with the one you're playing. Sounds incredible! Then you get home and...it's a bit less.

[Deliberate1]

That is always an interesting experiment. I am fond of playing in the bathroom....

And, at the risk of being persnickety, which is not at all my intent, the guitar speaks with the very same voice no matter the room, which is what makes the guitar "sound" different. It raises the question, then, what is the "true" sound of a guitar. I suppose that could be determined in a sound environment that was perfectly neutral and non-contributing. While I would like to try that sometime, I might not like what I hear....

David

[catndahats]

Very much the same experience regarding rooms/spaces.
Even changing position / direction in the same room effects what I hear.

Sometimes I change instruments or go outdoors and get another completely different sense of the sound. When recording, try to get the same sound by noting settings, changing strings, etc...but like in real estate it is location, location, location.

It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Deliberate1

That is always an interesting experiment. I am fond of playing in the bathroom....

And, at the risk of being persnickety, which is not at all my intent, the guitar speaks with the very same voice no matter the room, which is what makes the guitar "sound" different. It raises the question, then, what is the "true" sound of a guitar. I suppose that could be determined in a sound environment that was perfectly neutral and non-contributing. While I would like to try that sometime, I might not like what I hear....

David

Is there such a thing as a neutral room? There are so-called wet and dry rooms: rooms that reverberate a lot or not much.* And since most of us don't always play in the same room, how useful would testing a guitar in a neutral room be?

A more real-world test would be comparing different guitars in the same room. That's what's nice about the acoustic guitar rooms some stores have.

-------------

* The college recording studio I took audio in was half-and-half — hard surfaces on one side, soft on the other, no right angles — because the teacher who designed it felt that was the most lifelike soundscape.

[J Patrick]

Everybody knows their guitar sounds it’s best in the bathroom..

[koolimy]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Yeah, for sure! One real twister in this is if you're in a great guitar shop surrounded by amazing guitars, and they all start resonating with the one you're playing. Sounds incredible! Then you get home and...it's a bit less.

LOL! I haven't had that experience thankfully, as my guitar shop experience has been w/ Guitar Center at best, so the guitar I got from there (Yamaha FG800) sounded both good at home and in the shop. But I can definitely see that happening! And it would be worse the better the guitars are, because they will be resonating more.

That is always an interesting experiment. I am fond of playing in the bathroom....

And, at the risk of being persnickety, which is not at all my intent, the guitar speaks with the very same voice no matter the room, which is what makes the guitar "sound" different. It raises the question, then, what is the "true" sound of a guitar. I suppose that could be determined in a sound environment that was perfectly neutral and non-contributing. While I would like to try that sometime, I might not like what I hear....

David

I think you raise a really interesting question! I guess you could find the "true voice" of a guitar by playing it in something like an anechoic chamber. But at the same time, that's a totally unrealistic and boring way of playing the guitar. Maybe finding the guitar's true voice is less important than finding the voice that fits your living situation.

Maybe we need to share tips on how to find a guitar that best suits our particular living situations? Like if you have a very reverberant playing room, maybe go for a more fundamental sounding guitar (I have no clue if this is the way you should go, just throwing something out there).

Very much the same experience regarding rooms/spaces.
Even changing position / direction in the same room effects what I hear.

Sometimes I change instruments or go outdoors and get another completely different sense of the sound. When recording, try to get the same sound by noting settings, changing strings, etc...but like in real estate it is location, location, location.

It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?

I remember when I lived in a very absorbent apartment, the sound of my guitar would change based on if I was facing the wall or not. So I definitely can see how changing position/direction alters the sound.

It is wonderful! In essence, I get 2 new guitars for the price of 1.

[SColumbusSt]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Yeah, for sure! One real twister in this is if you're in a great guitar shop surrounded by amazing guitars, and they all start resonating with the one you're playing. Sounds incredible! Then you get home and...it's a bit less.

There was a guitar store here in DC that was on the second story of a building and had a large room stuffed with junker guitars behind bars (literally) at the top of the stairs. They would seat you in a chair at the top of the stairs to try a guitar and the combination of the acoustics of the stairwell and the 100 guitars behind you sympathetically vibrating made every guitar I ever played there sounded magnificent.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by J Patrick

Everybody knows their guitar sounds it’s best in the bathroom..

Especially if I leave it there and go work on a crossword puzzle . . . .

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Yeah, for sure! One real twister in this is if you're in a great guitar shop surrounded by amazing guitars, and they all start resonating with the one you're playing. Sounds incredible! Then you get home and...it's a bit less.

That's how it is in my music room. All the fiddles, mandolins, guitars are hanging on the wall just like a music store.

The walls and ceiling are smooth painted sheetrock and the floor is ceramic tile. It's a good sized (300 square feet) space.

Sounds a lot better than any of the bathrooms in my house.

But to me all my instruments sound best when playing with other people, preferably at a bluegrass festival campground jam.

[koolimy]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

Especially if I leave it there and go work on a crossword puzzle . . . .

I know you are joking, but I actually think storing your guitar in the bathroom could help it sound better.

My guitar that I mentioned is stored in the small, reflective room, and I notice that whenever I make a sound, the guitar rings out. So it's basically receiving the tone traveler treatment without me doing anything, and the guitar has become more responsive as a result. The bathroom will probably be small and reflective, so I suspect that the guitar will pick up on any little sounds made in the bathroom and resonate along with them.

Plus, the bathroom will likely be better for humidity control, especially during the winter. You just need to make sure you take the guitar out when you take a bath or shower and bring it in once the moisture has escaped.

[tinnitus]

As one who stands and wanders from room to room when I play at home, I'm no stranger to the superb acoustics in most/all bathrooms. Smaller, squarish kitchens sound pretty good, too, especially with tiled walls and stone countertops (as long as we're analyzing room acoustics).

I visit "Guitarget" regularly and noticed last week that my local store has re-arranged two of their wood-walled acoustic rooms, putting their more expensive guitars up near the ceiling and moving several "mids" down into groping proximity.

Pulled a $2,400 Taylor off its hook and found it played very nicely with crisp low action and a familiar/comfy feel to the neck. Definitely something I could gig with immediately without having to adjust to anything. The sound really got my attention. Impressively loud, clear and articulate, very suitable for lead guitar riffing in an open mic duo setting.

Took it out to the slightly larger room where I could sit down and actually dig in (no strap), and it suddenly sounded just like everything else hanging out there. Nothing wrong with it, but no longer as "special" as it had sounded moments before in the smaller acoustic room (there are three). I wonder how many buyers have been similarly mesmerized in that exact same setting. "I found it! Listen to this thing!!!"

BTW, I never go anywhere without my preferred brand/gauge of pick (in that tiny jeans/shorts "pickpocket") since one never knows when one might find a stray guitar in one's hands. Does one?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Deliberate1

. It raises the question, then, what is the "true" sound of a guitar. I suppose that could be determined in a sound environment that was perfectly neutral and non-contributing. While I would like to try that sometime, I might not like what I hear....

David

Simple take the guitar outside in a wide open field. That is the "true sound of guitar" Any room (with the possible exception of totally non reflective anechoic chamber) will color the sound specific to that particular space

[DDW]

This is also the problem with Youtube demonstrations of guitars: Played by a certain player, in a certain room, with certain mics/pickup equipment, processed through certain electronics, played through a certain browser, using certain electronics and speakers at your end. The guitar may turn out to be the smallest of the variables involved.

[Jamolay]

The sound is also aimed away from you if you have only a standard sound hole, bouncing back off any reflective surfaces, or not if you are out in the field.

I would argue that if you want to hear what your guitar sounds like, you need to stand in front of it while someone else plays it.

When I started my learning, I struggled with the brightness of several guitars. I prefer a sound on the warmer side. Eventually I figured out it was because I was sitting in a corner of a room with large windows along both walls, a hard tile floor, low drywall ceiling and open to the rest of the house (50’ empty space) in front of me.