Official Luthiers Forum!

Here's the chambering I did on a LP style from a few years ago. It worked out well...much lighter than a LP and better balanced. The customer continues to rave every time I see him...sometimes we get lucky!

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Chambering certainly affect the sound. The shape of the chamber(s) also affect by itself the way the sound will change. And if I have some suggestion for you...

1- Yes, keep wood under the pick ups, the bridge and around the neck pocket.
2- Make sure to keep a closed and blinded control/electronic cavity, or either you way have trouble with feeding and hum-ing. Same thing for the pickups.
3- If you have a heavy neck, for any reason, don't over-chamber... You have to keep a certain balance.


Francis

_________________
Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Warmoth, who build custom guitar bodies and necks, make 3 kinds of body: solid, chambered, and hollow. Check out their website (warmoth.com), there are pictures of their chambering "system". Quite interesting.

_________________
Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Very timely thread for me. What is the possible difference between a body with a solid center running from bridge to neck, like the one shown above, and one chambered under the pickups?

I've done 2 this past year. Both Teles. I really like the tone of the chambered body. I can point you to the build threads if it's okay to post links to other build sites.

This one is all maple with Texas Special PUs. It has a tight, compressed midrange that cuts thru nicely.

http://www.crenshawweb.com/thinline2.mp3




This one is quarter sawn ash. It's more twangy like a traditional Tele but with a smoother midrange.



Peace,
Mark

This is one I made for a customer. I used tapped Fralins and a hipshot trem.
The chambers are 2 large size plus the trem cavity in the center block that runs the length of the body. The top is maple 1/4" thick, swamp ash back is about the same.
This setup for chambers does not howl but rather starts to feedback mostly in the fundemental ,starting to sing at lower volume levels than a solid body . It also will sing at very high levels without shrill squeals from the wood getting too excited.
Nice mids and a very loud unplugged sound are a given.

_________________
How long is that in luthyears?

I was under the impression that a chambered guitar was a fully sealed body as opposed to a semi-hollow body, which has f-holes...or some other opening. Was I wrong?

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I don't know... by definition... semi-hollow don't have to be "open". But, now you say this.. I rarely see hollowed bodies without F-holes... Maybe you have to let some vibration go out, unless you have feedback and... really, dunno!

Somebody?

_________________
Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Yes and no.

Basically, I don't think there's anything approaching concensus on these issues. Traditionally, Gibson's ES series guitars where known as semi-hollows; they're bent sides, F-holes and all. Odd one out is Lucille (BB's signature) which is bascially an ES but without the f-holes. Thinline teles have f-holes, and you don't see those referred to as semihollows in general.

'Chambered' in industry-speak has generally been used to describe weight chambering (like Gibson does on some models), but in guitarmaking circles, chambered and semi-hollow tend to get used more or less interchangably.

Personally, I say I build chambered guitars when referring to my routed chamber electrics. Almost none of them have sound holes. F-holes in a chambered electric (with large chambers) mean a more lively guitar, but also mean higher risk of feedback. Even the electric archtoppy type things I refer to as chambered, F hole or not, although I'll tend to just say 'electric archtop'. I'd call a bent sides thing I build a semi-acoustic, because it tells you a little more about the construction. Semi-hollow just strikes me as a longwinded way of saying 'chambered'.

Mattia

Sorry late to this discussion, but on the Lucille your right, its basically I believe like a 345 or 355 without the F-holes. I have one from 1990 and its pretty sweet sounding. My understanding was BB King wanted that because of the feedback problem, he used to stuff towels in the 335's and others to try to help with that (which I have heard was a old trick used on the 335's to avoid feedback). When Gibson approached him for a signature series guitar that was one of his spec's or so I've read. It seems to work, mine only starts feeding back at louder stage volumes and even then its very controllable. Its not near as bad as a full archtop hollow body like the 40's recording king guitar that I got when I dad passed. Obviously it was a cheaply made guitar for its time, but it feeds back on chords or anything else at moderate volume.

Regards,

Don

It would be much more meaningful to define chambering as a hollowed out but sealed body. Comparing the feedback issue with f-holed hollowbodies is meaningless and really doesn't add to the body of knowledge that the OP is trying to advance.

The large-chambered LP style that I built years ago performs on almost a daily basis and is as feedback free as one that is solid. I have some theories as to why but the proof is in the first hand observation. My first objective in chambering this instrument was to produce a lighter, more balanced guitar which it achieved. It definitely has a distinctively different sound when compared to factory LP's... but there are quite a few other more significant variables in the electronics design as well as shielding. Nonetheless, feedback is just not an issue...maybe I just got lucky.

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

my take on this is...
hollow body=thin bent sides, thin top and back.
thinline hollow body=same as hollow body, but thin.
thinline semi hollow body=same as thinline hollow body, but with solid fill in center.
chambered guitar=could be a lot of things. major routed out solid body, or what i did about 20 years ago, was build a neck thru,
cut ribs about 1/2" thick, top and back about 1/4" thick. the chambers are like horns mounted on the neck plank.
all koa, but painted. headless. that guitar sounds great, is very light, and stays in tune forever.
chambered guitar with f-holes= just that.
solid body=well, !
fender calls the chambered tele a thinline, i believe.
they also called their amps vibro, which is wrong too, it's tremelo.
my 2 cents.