A Solid Acoustic makeover

Gear & Tools Talk 🎸 Guitars, Instruments & Maintenance
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Ok, so I enjoy modifying and making the instruments that pass through my hands, of which there have been many, better and unique in some way.

So, after purchasing a ‘silent’ solid acoustic on Amazon, the guitar arrived and it is a very nice instrument: “for the money”!

After playing it for awhile, the frets for my fingers were too small.
A different neck was ordered, a reduced price one as the object was to get an inexpensive instrument and modify to my taste and playing style.

Plus the measurements in relation to neck to body height were not the same. The result of this necessitated the bridge being sanded and made more shallow, also some grooves were made for the strings to sit in more securely.

This depth was also a problem with the nut, so more was added.

Another problem found with the neck was the 6th fret required levelling, this was done.

The modifications are now almost complete and the guitar is a joy to play, though the action is high and the bridge still requires more work.
That work, when done should result in an acoustic guitar that will survive any OMs that I visit and perform at.

I suppose the point of this post is to say that as well as learning an instrument, you may find that treating it as a tool that perhaps one might change to your will may bring a deeper understanding of the thing you hold and play. It certainly did for me.

Whatever and however your journey wends its way, may you always be amazed and thankful for the beauty and joy that creating music is able to bring to our lives.

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The first picture shows the instrument.
The second is the back with the belly cut and you can see the neck has been sanded from gloss to satin.
picture #4 Is the locking tuners that were added
#5 Is the headstock which might get a logo

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Hi Mal ,

Great to read that you do it this way :man_bowing: :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:and also getting so much playing pleasure out of it :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:, well …I do sponsor the local middle class do-it-yourselfers instead before I cause more damage than good :sweat_smile: ( maybe some day I make a guitar (prefab) or change big things on a guitar ,maybe )

But

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:smiling_face:

Greetings

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Pictures on the way. :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

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Lovely looking guitar. Sorry for my ignorance but what is a silent acoustic guitar. That sounds like an oxymoron to me.

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It’s an electro-acoustic without a hollow body to amplify the string noise. In other words, you can barely hear it until you plug it in.

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Great info Mal, thanks for sharing. It looks really nice and of course does remind us that if there is something that we don’t like about our instruments, it’s not set in concrete, mods can be made :+1:

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Thanks for sharing Mal. So you are amateur luthier as well as fine guitarirst.

Appreciated the detailed description and pictures. Looks amazing and look forward to hearing it at a JG OM one fine day.

But I too was going to post . . .

And still a bit confused. Simply sounds like a tongue-in-cheek fun way to say ‘electric guitar’.

Help me out, Mal

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Hi David.
Yes a silent acoustic is simply a solid body with acoustic strings and sounds just like a solid electric without the amp.
That is what is shown in the pictures. I like the guitar as it is also a T style.

Hope that helps. :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

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Perfect, thanks Mal.

So a guitar that plays like an acoustic and sounds like an electric.

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Correct. Almost, though bending is a little harder due to the acoustic string gauge.

Plus the pickup is under the bridge, so possibly not as easy to change, unlike on an electric where it is ‘simply’ a matter of ‘unscrewing stuff’. :sweat_smile:

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Right, I guess the bending is the part that comes with ‘plays like an acoustic’.

Interesting that the pickup is under the bridge. I never paid attention to that earlier. How does that work since as I udnerstand it, a typical EG PUP works with strings vibrating in a magnetic field, which I figure can’t be the case if the PUP under the bridge?

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Not sure to be honest. I would imagine piezo or similar, as found on many acoustics. It does to my ears, sound good though.

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Definitely! I am thankful for the joy it brings me when I can repair or tweak an instrument!
In building a whole instrument/kit - while I have started a few projects - I only finished a soprano uke together with my son yet. Although the kit only cost 25 Euros, it definitely sounds better than most entry level sopranos and intonation is quite good for a soprano too. :slight_smile:

But your silent acoustic - it certainly looks nice and I’m glad you enjoy it!

If the action is high, did you think of modifying the neck pocket (oh, you’d have to put some shim here) or the neck angle?
I mean, if your bridge inlay is sanded down a lot there can be a limit to getting it lower at the bridge. But better do it where it’s easiest or most convenient for you.

Definitely a pretty guitar! :slight_smile:

Yes, plus (and you talked about it a little later) an acoustic bridge with a piezo under the bridge inlay so plugged in it will sound like a plugged in acoustic guitar, (it should at least) and a bit different to an electric.

Well, it’s the place where the strings transfer the vibrations to an acoustic body anyway, so that piezo in between bridge inlay and wood vibrates along and produces those electric impulses under pressure.

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This is getting to where it needs to be for ease of playing. It will always be a little high, but I can live with that for now.

At some point the neck might be changed again. The problem here is that not many bolt on acoustic necks, to my knowledge, exist. The neck on at present is electric and so sits lower. For now though it works fine.

Thank you for the shim reminder.

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I have now just put a shim below the neck joint. It now plays as I like, Excellent!

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Thanks for that Dominique. I was thinking/imagining not wanting piezo PUP since they generally don’t sound great.

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Yes, I think I know what you mean. But the better ones among them can sound quite good. Not sure though if the piezos themselves can make a big difference or the better ones always sound good only because the amplifier after them takes care of the tone.

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I’ve noticed some significant differences between a few different types of piezo pickups.

Piezos are pretty standard for most ukulele players so my wife has a few instruments with piezos. I have a Taylor with their better piezo pickup. And at the open mic nights we go to, we hear a lot of different ones. There’s quite a range of sound quality. The worst ones definitely sound bad. But the quality piezos don’t sound that much different from the aftermarket acoustic pickups. I’m sure if you’re nitpicking over your tone, you’d care.

There’s one guy who shows up who plays a solid body acoustic. He plays an Ibanez like Tim Henson (but I don’t think he has the “signature” model) and plays fingerstyle. The pickup in his sounds nice. You can definitely tell he’s on nylon strings and not steel ones and that makes a bigger difference in his tone than the pickup.

I’ve definitely heard some that have that signature “quack” sound that people tend to hate. Not all of them, IMO, sounded particularly bad.

The amp definitely makes a difference, too. We’ve had a few amps in the house and always try out all the instruments on them. My wife has a little Fender acoustasonic. It’s not really big enough to play at most venues, but it does have a mic input and it gives her an opportunity to practice plugged in and with a mic. Being built to sound good with acoustic instruments, it’s kindof the “standard”.

The Fender Champion 40 I used to have did NOT sound good with acoustic instruments. It worked, but I could never get the tone to sound quite right. When I replaced that with the Fender Blues Jr. tube amp, I tried out our acoustic instruments on it and they sound pretty darn good on it. Better than the little acoustasonic after a little fiddling with the knobs. Not exactly “faithful” to a pure unamplified acoustic sound, but also not in a bad way.

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At present the guitar sounds good to me. At home I run it through a Bugera acoustic amp. Through the mixer which has effects, and which will be used for the online comunity OMs.
My intention for the instrument is to also use it mainly for live OMs. The reason being it is solid body and not as fragile as a ‘normal’ acoustic. What it will sound like then will depend on the equipment to hand.

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I’m glad to hear something I said made some sense :slight_smile:
It doesn’t always :roll_eyes:

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