Boxy?

[Mycroft]

Sing, talk, make noise with you mouth and listen to the quality of sound. Then make a cup of your hands and put them over your mouth while continuing to make the noise.That change in quality is boxy. Extreme, but yes, boxy.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by jaymarsch

Yeah, I have always had a hard time describing what exactly “boxy” sounds like. I know it when I hear it and do notice it more on smaller and more inexpensive guitars than other guitars.

Larrivee parlors sound boxy, and they ain't cheap.

But 'boxy' isn't necessarily bad; it's just different and will suit certain styles and songs but not others.

[Dean Riley]

To me I associate boxy with less low end response or even a boost in the nasally mids. EQ is a funny thing... reducing mids can increase the perception of highs, reducing lows can increase the perception of mids etc... and I think for me, that's a lot of it. I have a taylor academy guitar for my oldest and it's very loud, all mids, and it has a more "boxy" sound... if I play my j-45 after that guitar, it makes the j-45 sound super full and even... but then if I play my HD-35 for awhile, and then go to the J-45, it sounds a bit "boxier" for a minute or two in comparison to a massive Martin cannon.

So for me, it's all about the perceived low end... and I acclimate to whatever I'm playing usually.

[bufflehead]

the polar opposite of "boxy" to me would be "scooped."

Boxy <----------------> Scooped
Nothing but mids <---------------->Shallow mids with more high and low ends

[Br1ck]

You can build a pretty good sounding dread for $500. A good sounding parlor is more like $5000, new or vintage. It is just harder to make magic with a small instrument, and it's the same wit ukes and mandolin. You havent really heard a good uke until you get to the big bucks beauties, and premium mandolins are in the very high teens and up. $18,000 plus.

[TomB'sox]

Originally Posted by ewalling

For me, 'boxy' describes the sound that small guitars make. No matter how sweet the sound, a small guitar 'box' sounds like a small guitar box. It has a small space in which the air can move, and this produces a sound that reflects this - sort of constricted and bound.

Contrast that with a big box, as in a dread, and we get the opposite. The sound is open and full.

I agree with the definitions of boxy given in this thread, I always say when I hit the bass I hear thud, no sustain, no ring.

I played an OO this weekend at B.I.G. that was as open and airy as a dread, so not all small boxes sound like a small box, but have to say a lot do.

[Silly Moustache]

I have three Collings Dreads, and a Santa Cruz "RS" 12 fret deep bofied jumbo.
the Collings are not bass biased like Martins but are well balanced across the strings. The SCGC "RS" has bass in profundis - kinda why I got it.

When people first heard Colling guitars it was often said that tey were "bright" and/or lacked bass ....... compared to Martins of course.

With respect, I suspect that some people who are "imprinted" on Martin dreads and,maybe middly Gibson jumbos have difficulty accepting that not all guitars are bass biased.

I think that there is a new fashion for small(er) bodied guitars - possibly because many of us are getting older fatter, and can't play big ol' guitars when slouched on the coach, or maybe it was the covid thing?

In 2016, i got a Waterloo WL12. - made to sound l8ike a small '30s Gibson. It does but better ( I managed to A-B it wityh a '30s l-00). With the mape back and sides it had a "different" but great sound - ulimate blues box to my mind.

In 2019, I got an Eastman E20-P effectively a copy of a Martin 0-28, adi/eir, and its volume and tonal balance was surprising - I really love it.

In 2020 I gort another Eastman - an E40-00 which with the same woods his built to a higher standard and has a more sublte but more profound tonal balance.

Neither of these could by any sensible stretch be considered "boxy"

[L20A]

Would you consider David Rawlings guitar to be Boxy?

[rlgph]

Thanks for all your comments. I guess i'm a boxy kind of guy -- don't generally like dreads. I have an 0-size Martin and Pono, and have had several 00s (still have one). Most have sounded great to me, and all have had outstanding sustain, but none have quite come up to the frequency-richness of my 000-18 GE.

I definitely agree with the comment about Larrivee parlors; the two that i had shouted boxiness to me, as most of you have defined it.

[Tnfiddler]

As great as Dana’s guitars are, I’ve only heard one or two Bourgeois L—DBO models that actually sounded good to me. Most have the typical small-body “boxy” tone. My best way to describe “boxy” is “vanilla”! The tone is there, but it doesn’t have any or a lot of character(sparkle, sustain, overtones) to the sound.

[Goat Mick]

In my head the term "boxy" means like it sounds like someone put strings on a cardboard box. Just a dead sounding, lifeless guitar.