Scalloped Versus Non Scalloped?

[BluesKing777]

As I find over the years I like the non scalloped acoustics I own, like my Water loo WL-14X and my 59 Gibson LG3.....not sure why.

Any good explanations of the difference in tone out there for us?

What is your preference?


BluesKing777.

[CollingsPicker]

No preference. I purchase guitars on how the sound, play and feel. I couldn’t tell you what the braces are on any of my guitars from Collings, Martin, Taylor, Goodall….. All that matters to me is the “guitar” which is the sum of it’s design and parts. Scalloped bracing on one guitar with rearward X bracing will have a different effect than on a guitar with different woods and bracing so “scalloped or not” doesn’t matter until taken as part of the whole. Since I can’t tell what the “whole” will sound like until I play it, what matters is how I feel about it when I play it. It’s like asking whether bone or Micarta is better for nuts. It depends on the guitar.

[fartamis]

I have both models in a dreadnought format, I like them both. I would say the scalloped has more rumbling lows with warmer mids and highs. Unscalloped is brighter across the sound spectrum and better for cutting through the mix. I find both have pros and cons, but they each definitely have a place in a stable.

[Wade Hampton]

A few years ago I was at Mass Street Music in Lawrence, Kansas, and they had both the reimagined straight brace Martin D-28 and an HD-28 with scalloped braces. I played them side by side and surprised myself by preferring the straight brace D-28: it had a better treble response and was more even across the entire tonal spectrum.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[musicman1951]

I much prefer scalloped, but I suspect it has a great deal to do with the power - or lack there of - of the right hand while playing. I'm almost totally fingerstyle and don't use a great deal of pressure with my RH fingers. If I usually used a pick I might have the opposite opinion.

Long winded way of saying playing/song style matters.

[Kerbie]

I usually prefer scalloped, but it's not a mandatory item for me.

[mawmow]

I would not mind as far as I just like how the guitar sounds !

I once owned an all-Mahogany ladder-braced 1966 Gibson Lg-0 and used to like the tone.

[Goat Mick]

Honestly I've never given it any thought. I play the guitar and if I like the way it sounds I buy it. I think I may have more straight braced than scalloped but I definitely didn't check any of them before I bought them.

[Mr. Jelly]

My take has been that the non-scalloped have nicer, rounder and louder sounding highs, more articulate overall, and the scalloped have thinner sounding highs with more low-end presence across the board. As a general rule that is often broken.

[zombywoof]

Bracing is a huge field. And like pretty much every aspect of a build it is a trade-off between tone and stability. It is not only whether it is scalloped or not but what angle it is set at, the carve/pattern, how radically the ends are tapered, and so on and so on.

This is, of course, only anecdotal as it is based solely on my experiences. I don't build them I just play them. But what really sets my 1942 J50 apart from the crowd is the bass response. This guitar has been described by others as having a low end which would make a pre-War Martin D28 Herringbone run for cover. But the bracing also has a long scallop pattern rather than the scooped center with two peaks. I guess the theory is this resulted in a bracing which is very flexible which when combined with the fact the guitar has an overall very light build accounts for the increased bass response. I have heard the same thing said about increased bass response in guitars having a smaller 3 3/4" diameter soundhole. Me, I tend to think of it as a kind of magic.

On the other hand, my 1932 Gibson L1 and 2013 Fairbanks Smeck have non-scalloped bracing. The main difference to my ears is both have a more fundamental power to them while they are noticeably richer in overtones/harmonics, something which my J50 is not. Again, though all of this is based on my admittedly limited experience.

Talking about the Waterloos though after the initial craze died down and I finally got a chance to play a couple I found I preferred the ladder braced WL-14. But the two guitars I have a real itch to compare are the WL-14X and their take on the Kel Kroyden. The Waterloo KK is so lightly built they come with the warning to go with nothing heavier than 11 to 52 strings. For those of us who own 1930-1933 Gibson L series guitars this is a way of life. It takes some serious chutzpah these days to offer a guitar which is that lightly built.

[EZK123]

Theoretically (and practically in my experience), the scalloped braces will have a stronger bass response and a little more volume, the non-scalloped will have more pronounced treble response and sound a little more focused.

Those are sweeping generalities but they do make sense in that the additional flex allowed by scalloped braces will allow the lower frequencies to vibrate better, while the stiffer top from non-scalloped bracing will tend to prevent the lower frequencies from being dominant.

Of course this ignores things like standard vs. forward shifted placement of the bracing, thickness of the bracing material, etc. (think D-28 vs. D-35 and HD-28 vs. HD-35 for example). I don't think the 3-piece back has a huge impact on tone, but the thinner bracing on either of the 35s create a well known "bassier" tone than the 28s. The forward shifted and scalloped bracing on the HD models changes the formula enough to be very noticeable on either. (A lot of this has varied over the years, especially with the "reimagined" models starting in 2018).

I'm probably off a tad on which models have forward shifted bracing too.