Terminology for the sound of an acoustic guitar

In the guitar world, guitarists discuss the timbres guitars produce in terms that may not be familiar to many musicians. This glossary briefly describes some of these terms, without aiming for completeness. Judging sound is of course very personal. For example, one guitarist prefers sparkling highs and the other prefers warm bass tones. Tastes differ and that is of course allowed. But to get to know those different flavors, here is a glossary:

Attack: The response of a guitar – or in other words, how quickly the sound reaches its peak volume. By playing with a pick, for example, you get much more attack.

Balance: A guitar where lows, mids and highs support each other and the notes flow into one harmonic entity.

Bassy: A guitar where the bass tones dominate. The larger the guitar, the more powerful the bass response. 

Bright: A guitar where the high tones dominates, in other words a guitar in which the treble is emphasized.

Complex: A guitar sound in which the tones contain a lot of harmonic detail in both the higher and lower frequencies.

Compression: The way a guitar produces a natural equalization effect. A mahogany top produces more equalization than for instance spruce. The equalization effect can reduce the attack when strumming vigorously.

Crispy: A ‘crispy’ sound can be characterized by its sharp tone with a clear and precise attack. The emphasis is on the high tones. 

Dark: the bass tones dominate.

Dry: Tones with a strong low focus, minimal overtones and a short sustain.

Fierce: A fierce guitar sounds sharp with a high attack and lots of treble

Growling: A particular overdriven sound produced by a guitar with a larger body, often as a result of a hard playing.

Intonation: The accuracy with which the notes on the different frets match the correct pitch.

Piano-like: A guitar that sounds like a piano with bright sparkling tones and excellent clarity of individual notes.

Projection: The physical range of the sound, in other words, the sound of a guitar with a lot of projection extends beyond those with a low projection.

Resonant: A guitar with a high resonant sound is characterized by long sustain with a strong presence in the lower and midrange frequencies. The guitar has a high reverberation and the tones blend harmoniously. See also warm, woody, complex and rich sound characteristics .

Responsive: A guitar’s response refers to how the guitar reacts to being played. A responsive guitar makes it easy to play soft and loud tones with subtle variations in volume and tone. The sound is then clear and full.

Rich: When an acoustic guitar produces a rich sound, it exhibits a well-balanced frequency response across the low, mid and high ranges. A rich sound refers also to the terminology of warm, resonant, woody and complex timbres. 

Round: Guitar with a round sound does not sound sharp. Low and mid are more dominant than high.

Sparkling: Usually used to describe acoustic guitar tone with pleasing clarity and tone definition, often with more overtones and no distortion. Especially the tones higher on the neck sound ‘sparkling’. See also “Piano-like”. The high tones also often linger for a relatively long time. Sparkling is often used as a counterpart to ‘warm’.

Sustain: The length of time that a note continues to be heard.

Warm: A sound with relatively many low and mid frequencies and somewhat softer high frequencies.

Wide: A ‘wide’ guitar sound refers to a sound that has clearly audible lows, mids and highs, in other words, guitars with a spacious or expansive character. In addition, the ‘wide’ sound is also characterized by natural reverberation and a lot of sustain.

Woody: A woody sound refers to a warm, resonant tonal quality that resembles the natural characteristics of wood. The emphasis is mostly on the midrange frequencies. 

Woolly: Warm sound, but with less sustain.

Which tones characterize Homestead guitars?

To answer that question, as we are not objective, we use the comments from the test reports of the magazine Guitarist.

“An impressive volume, with a warm timbre. The sound is perfectly balanced in proportion. This guitar sounds very exuberant and responsive right out of the hardcase, with a nice sustain. The intonation is perfect, so is the adjustment” (test of a Grand Auditorium with cutaway, Guitarist no. 319, October 2017).

“It is noticeable that the Slopeshoulder Dreadnought has a slightly firmer low end and sounds a bit less bright (than an OM with cutaway).” (Guitarist no. 333, December 2018).

About a 12-fret DS: “The sound of this DS is indeed a breath of fresh air. Lows, mids and highs are perfectly matched and the guitar is also very responsive, reacting instantly to the dynamics of your playing. The volume and projection are also impressive.” (test of a 12-fret Dreadnought Slopeshoulder, Guitarist no. 344, November 2019).

About the two Danny Vera models, a jumbo and an OM: “The sound of both guitars is equally impressive. The jumbo has a slightly louder and wider sound, which occasionally resembles a piano. The OM sounds were lighter and more defined. The difference in sound cancels out the similarities: a particularly beautiful, balanced sound.” (Guitarist no. 359, February 2021).

Robin van de Poll, 18 July 2023

Homestead models: different shapes of guitar bodies

At Homestead Guitars, we offer a variety of guitar shapes for customers to choose from. Besides the appearance, the shape of the guitar’s body also produces different tonal colors and a different feel when you wrap your arm around the guitar’s body. The best way to get to know the differences between these models is to try them out yourself, which you can do in our showroom.

The most important factors in choosing the right guitar model are the playing comfort, the sound and the ‘looks’ of the model.

Playing comfort

Let’s start with the playing comfort. Choose a model that you can easily play on. If you are relatively short, don’t get a Jumbo model, otherwise the guitar may cause pain in your arm or back. Guitarists with chronic back problems also often opt for a smaller guitar model.

The sound

A second factor is the sound of the guitar. With a smaller body, e.g. the Orchestra Model (OM), the higher notes resonate more relative to the mids and lows, while with a larger/wider body (Jumbo, Dreadnought) the lower notes dominate slightly more relative to the mid and high. Keep in mind that the sound of the guitar is determined by several factors, such as the wood species and a 12-fret or 14-fret (neck and body) connection (see also under FAQ). But the design of the guitar model also has an influence. So it’s not just about size. A Dreadnought is often said to be good for strumming and country, while the OM is more appreciated for fingerpicking. Also, the placement of the waist (the narrow part of the guitar) and its width change the way the vibrations move in the guitar and this can have a small effect on the sound. This all remains very personal and the best thing is to try out different models and choose what you like best.

The looks

Finally, the appearance of a guitar can also influence the final choice. This is also very personal. For example, the OM, Jumbo and Grand Auditorium have a thinner waist than the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought guitar is named after an early 20th century English battleship. The Dreadnought guitar is in fact much larger than, for example, the compact Parlor or Parlor model that was common until then. Some guitars have a cutaway. A cutaway has a clear function (see also under FAQ), but is sometimes also bought because of its appearance on the guitar.

Below we discuss various common guitar models with the associated common opinions.

*What does it mean:

Tone Balance: The same level of volume between high tone(treble), middle tone (mid), and low tone (bass).

Why does the B string on the guitar sound a bit out of tune?

A common problem people run into when playing guitar is that sometimes the B string doesn’t sound that great even though it’s perfectly tuned. In other words, if you tune the B string perfectly to the G string, the B string will sound a bit out of tune with the other four strings. How come?

Briefly explained, the reason why the B string always sounds a bit out of tune is that in the West we use a 12-tone tuning system, which is not 100% consistent with the way sound is measured in Hertz by the laws of physics.

If we walk across the fretboard of the guitar from bottom to top, there are 12 steps to get to the same note an octave higher. The notes that make up tuning system in Western music are divided into 12 different tones per octave. Technically, this system is “unnatural”, and that is because it does not equal the exact speed of the vibrations, measured in hertz, that make up the sound of each note.

Let’s look at the relationship between the six strings. You will see that the guitar strings, with the exception of the B string, are the same distance apart. Below are the tunings of each string on the guitar, measured in hertz.

In physics, every tone must be a multiple of the same tone an octave higher or lower. The only tone without a comma is the A. The A string on a guitar is 110 Hertz, one octave higher it is 220, etc. If we divide the values of the E string indicated above, it comes down to a factor of 4 .

But if we start designing the guitar based on hertz, then we get an unplayable instrument (see photo below). That is why (in Europe) the 12-tone scale has been used.

Example of a microtonal guitar. (This guitar was not built by Homestead)

The fact that a twelve-tone system does not fully correspond to the sounds of nature does not explain why it is mainly the B string that intones.

This is because the distance between the B string differs from that of the other strings. All the other strings are separated by four notes. E to A, are five semitones apart, just like A to D and D to G, but here’s the thing: from G to B there are only four semitones away from each other. Finally, the B to E strings are again five steps apart.

But why does distance determine voice clarity? That’s because the mathematical ratio of frequencies that the human ear interprets to represent a pure scale creates a slightly smaller interval than the scale needed to play the music.

At a distance of a quarter (5 notes) this is actually inaudible to the human ear. But with the shorter (four) distance from G to B this is audible. The deviating distance is therefore the reason why the B string sounds out of tune. Because the G string and B string are closer together, the inaccuracy in Hertz is up to 14%. As a result, if you tune the B string so that it sounds clean along with the G string, you will run into problems in conjunction with the other strings. Conversely, if you tune the B string with a tuner, it will sound too high in the ear compared to the G string.

Summarizing

It is all quite difficult to understand, but in summary we can say that the tones on a guitar do not correspond 100% to the sound according to the laws of physics (measured in hertz). This is usually inaudible, with the exception of the B string (in relation to the G string). Because this distance is shorter than the “perfect quarter”, the inaccuracy becomes greater. Most guitarists can live with this. Other solutions are: tuning the B string by ear, getting a modified bridge saddle (does not solve the problem completely) or buying a guitar with different frets.

We at Homestead, like 99.9% of guitarists, can live with the slight unevenness in the guitar’s scale. But we thought it would be interesting to explain why the B string often sounds a bit out of tune.

Now every Homestead, like all other acoustic guitars, has a metal pin mounted in the neck. You can’t see this pin, called Truss Rod, but it can be easily adjusted from the sound hole with the supplied Allen key.

When turning counterclockwise, there is a little more concavity and any resonance or buzzing disappears. Turning clockwise lowers the action and makes the guitar easier to play. First turn it half a turn, tune your guitar again and check whether the neck is the way you want it. If you are still not satisfied, turn it another half turn. Continue until you are satisfied.

New Netherlands

It is interesting to know that, in the 17th century, this region was once colonial territory of the Netherlands (named: New Netherland) and that gold was searched. Our distant ancestors behaved very violently there, with regard to the original inhabitants. For more information, read the article: “The gold of Adirondack”

Homestead uses Adirondack on all models

Because the sound is so much better than other spruce, Homestead uses Adirondack wood as standard on all its models. Our American supplier, John Griffin of Old Standard Wood, regularly travels to the Adirondack Mountains to pick out the very best wood.

In our selection of the available tops, we only settle for the highest (AAA) quality and we pay attention to various quality aspects. For more information on our selection criteria: Adirondack

In short: Adirondack standard on all our models, that’s one of the reasons why a Homestead sounds so good.

Robin van de Poll, 26 april 2022

Which lacquer is best for a guitar?

There are basically two types of lacquer when building guitars: Nitrocellulose (Nitro) and Polyurethane (Poly) or Polyester. Nitro was the standard lacquer for guitars until the 1970s. Polyurethane has become more and more common since the 1970s.

Opinions on the best paint vary widely among connoisseurs and luthiers. There are clearly proponents and opponents for the lacquers used. Below is an overview of the advantages and disadvantages.

Polyurethane

Polyurethane is a synthetic compound of two polymers. Poly has become the standard in guitar building since the 1970s, mainly because of the environment. The fact that Poly is easier to process and therefore cheaper has also played a role in the increasing popularity of this lacquer. Finally, Poly guitars look better and last much longer, often decades. However, the sound of Poly guitars is slightly more neutral than that of Nitro guitars.

While Nitrocellulose lacquer is more commonly used on premium guitars, that doesn’t mean Poly is of lower quality. Poly can be found on both cheap and high-end guitars.

Some guitar brands combine both types of lacquer, whereby the base layers are applied in Nitro and the top layers in Poly.

Conclusion

Choosing remains difficult and it is all very personal. In summary, it comes down to the following: if you go for a guitar that looks good for a long time and also has a good sound, then you go for Poly. If you go for the most pronounced sound and if you accept a faster aging of your guitar, then choose Nitro.

As mentioned before, Nitro’s price is more expensive than Poly, but that makes little difference to the overall guitar price.

Homestead builds its guitars in both Poly and Nitro, so we can meet the needs of every customer. Our advice: take a look at our webshop. There you can find our guitars in both lacquers. Or visit our studio “De Kluis” in Heemstede and try out both types of lacquer and judge for yourself.