{"id":199,"date":"2011-06-12T07:50:45","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T14:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/?p=199"},"modified":"2012-04-05T10:46:20","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T17:46:20","slug":"guitar-bracing-designing-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/guitar-bracing-designing-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar Bracing – Designing Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guitar\u2019s internal bracing is one of the most important elements of a guitar and is sometimes overlooked. Also called tone bars, these structural wood braces are located immediately under the top. As their name implies, their purpose is to add stiffness and strength to the guitar\u2019s thin top as well as help define its acoustic voice by influencing different movements. An instrument maker will shape and carve a series of braces in order to strengthen the top to disperse the energy from the strings. From an engineering perspective, there are many adjustments that a guitar maker can apply to a piece of wood for it to function as a supporting brace while making an efficient guitar. The most successful guitars move a lot of air, absorbing the least amount of string energy, and do so in a very balanced and beautiful way.<\/p>\n

There are as many different variations of guitar bracing as there are guitar makers. Some famous guitar making families defined their sound and style through a very specific and distinct bracing design that was practiced for generations. Other makers spend their time using guitar bracing as a platform of exploration. Just as every piece of wood is uniquely different, every maker has a method and approach to bracing a guitar, whether good or bad.<\/p>\n

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Koentopp Traditional Classical Guitar Bracing<\/p><\/div>\n

We can summarize the tonal spectrum of a guitar on a scale with bass on one side and treble on the other. A guitar player would have a negative reaction to a guitar that was unbalanced with more bass than treble, or viceversa. The best instruments encompass the whole spectrum. The difficulty in building a guitar is that the bass frequencies move in a completely different way than how the treble frequencies move through a piece of wood and the guitar has to do both successfully. When these frequencies are all balanced, clear, and working harmoniously, the result is a successful instrument. Some guitars are, in nature, heavier on one side of this spectrum and it is up to the maker to supply a bracing design that will bring it back to a balanced state.<\/p>\n

Bracing in a flat-top guitar is different than an archtop guitar because it serves multiple functions. It is there to support the top from the strong forward pull of the strings and unify the top into a stiff surface. As the tone bars disperse forces across the surface of the top, they influence the top to vibrate in different ways. By studying the way bass and treble frequencies originate and escape a guitar, the bracing can be designed to bring out a desired quality.<\/p>\n

An archtop guitar acts differently than a flat-top. The strings are fixed to a tailpiece which is attached to the back rim of the guitar. As a result, the forward pull of the strings is dispersed through the majority of the guitar\u2019s body and not solely on the top. In this situation the force acting on the top is in a downward direction at the bridge. The braces support and unify the top but they do not need to be designed to counter the pull of the strings.<\/p>\n

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Koentopp Chicagoan X Bracing<\/p><\/div>\n

Many people know the archtop as a beautiful and organic shape. \u00a0When carved correctly, it\u2019s true beauty lies in perfect mathematical curves relating to each other across the top and back surface of the guitar. The more perfect these archings, the more efficient the guitar becomes and the more the top acts as a major brace structure.<\/p>\n

An arch, when designed correctly, is one of the strongest load bearing structures. Centuries ago, violin makers had mastered this \u201cgolden curve\u201d and as a result, the arching became more mathematical, as did the bracing. Controlling the arching, the height, and the parameters of these curves, leaves the maker with a controlled way of experimenting with tonal possibilities just like adjusting the profiles of bracing bars.<\/p>\n

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Violin Bass Bar by Master Violin Maker, Michael Darnton<\/p><\/div>\n

I always examine guitars closely when I receive them for repair or reconditioning. I often stick my fingers through the f-holes to feel the profiles of the tone bars. Even on some high end custom guitars there seems to be little consideration for both the bracing and the arching.\u00a0For instance, a brace should never be flat on top or shaped like a rectangle in a cross section unless a makers goal was to add extra mass or absorb more energy. Removing the upper corners of a rectangle and rounding it to more of a bullet-like shape does nothing to jeopardize its load bearing strength but does, however, remove one-third of its energy absorbing weight.<\/p>\n

A guitar maker can control a braces’ strength by manipulating its height. If you remove a quarter amount of a wooden board\u2019s height you loose half of its structural load bearing strength. With certain principles like this in mind, classical guitar makers control a guitar\u2019s voice not only by choosing a brace layout but by manipulating brace profiles and their related heights.<\/p>\n

The design of a traditional classical guitar makes it more conducive to low frequency movement. When I am building a classical and conceptualizing my bracing I do so to bring out the trebles and create balance. I keep in mind all variables and converge them as the guitar comes together. I first pick woods that I believe will give me a good platform of color and timbre and start me in the right tonal direction. \u00a0I then choose different pieces of brace wood, with different stiffness\u2019, and work with them to bring the guitar into a balanced focus. My methods change from guitar to guitar but the idea is always constant.<\/p>\n

In order to make a successful guitar, more attention must be paid to the design and construction of the bracing, including the arching of the top of the guitar. The bracing should focus on the whole idea of the guitar; balancing the entire tonal spectrum. This is an art of controlling stiffness and influencing different kinds of movement. A maker has a palette of sound voicing that they can choose from by adjusting the profiles, dimensions, and layouts of a guitars internal bracing (which I will discuss in greater detail in a future post). In my opinion, success of an archtop\u2019s bracing is dependent on the efficiency of its arching. The more efficient the guitar is in all of its parts, the more delicate and influential the braces become.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A guitar\u2019s internal bracing is one of the most important elements of a guitar and is sometimes overlooked. Also called tone bars, these structural wood braces are located immediately under the top. As their name implies, their purpose is to add stiffness and strength to the guitar\u2019s thin top as well as help define its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koentoppguitars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}