Black guitars, why do they sound "better"

Joe Gorfinkle · Post by **Joe Gorfinkle** » 22 May 2009 7:07 pm

Joshua Grange wrote:Typically the black veneer tended to be the thickest, by over 3/32", compared to the stock mica veneer.
Also for some reason, as I have read on here before, the type of glue required to make the black veneer stick was a different kind of glue then that normally used. It made a stronger bond to the wood resulting in a "deeper" tone.
These reasons make it by FAR the best sounding of all colors, although as everyone knows Lake Placid Blue has a sweeter top end because of its thinness.

I have a bunch of strats and the LPB one does have sweetest top end (other than the yellow '65)

Bobby Hearn · Post by **Bobby Hearn** » 22 May 2009 8:00 pm

Once you go black, you never go back! Maybe the knee levers hang lower?

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 22 May 2009 9:17 pm

There's a cosmic metaphysical resonant linkage between true blackness and the vibrations of a pedal steel guitar. Don't even bother to try to measure it - any physical measurement process will destroy what you're looking for. This is one of those things that you just have to accept without question or suffer eternal dissonance.

Bill Moran · Post by **Bill Moran** » 22 May 2009 10:44 pm

b0b wrote:In truth, a black guitar always sounds better to the player because there is less visual distraction. He is better able to hear the tone. And since the steel guitarist who hears better plays better, the effect of a better sounding black guitar is communicated to the listening audience.

Music is psychological. Black guitars always sound best. Believe it!

Bob:: Would you tell that to my bass player ?
I told the band , last show, I was setting up on the other side of the stage from now on. Away from the bass player. I can not play wide open all night long. With our bass player, the only way you can hear yourself is wide open !!! If he wasn't a great guy , and a long time friend, I would just shoot him and face the jury !! I don't really mean that !

Obama will have my A$$.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 23 May 2009 5:55 am

Has anyone ever asked Jose Feliciano, Ronnie Milsap, Ray Charles, or Justin Trevino?

In truth, a black guitar always sounds better to the player because there is less visual distraction.

Sorry, can't buy that. Most steelers are far too busy lining up the bar exactly with the frets to notice anything but the fretboard!

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 23 May 2009 6:54 am

Most agree that the black steel guitar does sound better than other finishes.
Now, which really sounds better:
Flat Black?
Satin Black?
Semi-gloss Black?
Gloss Black?
I say it's Gloss Black. It reflects more of the sound.

John McGlothlin · Post by **John McGlothlin** » 23 May 2009 7:14 am

IMHO I really think that the listeners should be the ones to decide this because they are the ones who are listening and watching.

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 23 May 2009 7:58 am

My good friend Steve Tufford brought over a Black 77 PP I once owned, that guitar sounded like a million bucks. What was I thinking? A lot of players around here play rosewood mica PP's they seem to us to sound sweeter.

I would go back to a black one in a heart beat if I needed another guitar. I had 3 blacks in the past. I had a rosewood that Jerry Roller has and my current rosewood.

To me the blacks had an edge the rosewood guitars do not have.

(Lynn Stafford has several he is working on, maybe I should call him, he just lives a few miles away. Shhhh - I think I can hear him tuning one now.)

Steve has Emmons pickups in this guitar, complained about the lack of volume and tone on the third string. I played my rosewood with the tonealigners, his jaw hit the floor.

Larry Behm
503-722-7562

admin · Post by **b0b** » 23 May 2009 9:49 am

Those who don't believe it have obviously never played a black steel guitar. All other things being equal, the black guitar will always sound better.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 23 May 2009 10:14 am

Donny Hinson wrote:...Most steelers are far too busy lining up the bar exactly with the frets to notice anything but the fretboard!

I didn't know you had to do that. Maybe that's why my Sho-Bud always sounds out of tune. I always put it down to the fact that it wasn't painted black. Now I can put my spray cans away.

Jack Dougherty · Post by **Jack Dougherty** » 23 May 2009 11:09 am

JACK HEERN wrote:The (BLADE) wasn't black. I guess that's the reason Buddy sounds so shabby when he plays it. As bad as the "blade" sounds it was still listenable

From one Jack to another...

Kelly Hydorn · Post by **Kelly Hydorn** » 23 May 2009 11:57 am

Nah! You guys got it all wrong, Black steel guitars sound better simply because JD Maness said so once at one of the steel guitar jams that I attended, so there you go. Incidentally if anyone wants a black guitar I still have some good old Montana sagebrush that we can smoke them black for you.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 23 May 2009 12:02 pm

Because it looks like black leather? Because you can see yourself in both sides? The real question here is, how much more black could it be? And the answer of course, is none. None more black.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 23 May 2009 12:20 pm

....because everybody says so

FWIW, the black one had the best sound but the lacquer one was the purtiest. Dang, I'd love to have either one or both of them back.

BTW, when you sell a guitar, do you relinquish the rights to the photos as well???? I mean, I still have photos of my old girfriends and ex-wives too

Olaf van Roggen · Post by **Olaf van Roggen** » 23 May 2009 12:48 pm

Frankly, I never wondered wether Weldon Myrick would have sounded better if he just had a black guitar,when I saw him play......

Danny Bates · Post by **Danny Bates** » 23 May 2009 12:57 pm

Bobbe Seymour's girlfriend explains it in detail here.. http://tinyurl.com/ocfcw5

More info here... http://tinyurl.com/qkno6y

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 23 May 2009 3:06 pm

Coooooool Danny! That was great!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 23 May 2009 4:04 pm

Danny Bates wrote:Bobbe Seymour's girlfriend explains it in detail here.. http://tinyurl.com/ocfcw5
More info here... http://tinyurl.com/qkno6y

But she's mistaken in thinking that black and white are colors. Black is the absence of all colors, whereas white is the combination of all of them. When you're mixing colored paint it would seem that black is the combination of all colors, not white, but that's because when you mix paints you're subtracting colors, not adding them. For instance, blue paint only reflects blue, and, because of imperfections in the pigments, some of the colors to either side of it. Red only reflects red, and some of the colors to either side of it. So, if you mix red and blue paint you will come up with a darker color which contains the colors between blue and red. If you continue to add different colored paints you eventually come up with a combination of pigments which will reflect no light, and so is black. Just remember that mixing lights is additive, whereas mixing pigments is subtractive.

John Bechtel · Post by **John Bechtel** » 23 May 2009 4:49 pm

They may seem to sound better because, they're to dark to notice their inherent faults! Figure that one out!

Chris Erbacher · Post by **Chris Erbacher** » 23 May 2009 5:15 pm

okay...looks like there are nothing but a bunch of wise guys on this forum...that being said, i seem to remember an article in the steelguitar magazine in the early 80's that had an interview with maurice anderson and he was talking about the psychological nature of how color affects sound and perception...sound is color at a certain octave (i think like the 58th octave) and this is what i was referring to...i am aware that it is the ongoing joke around the forum about black guitars, but i didn't intend for this to turn into a circus...aloha

John Bechtel · Post by **John Bechtel** » 23 May 2009 5:20 pm

Well then, I guess you'll have to accept Reece's explaination!

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 23 May 2009 5:38 pm

Sorry Chris...no harm intended.

Joe Smith · Post by **Joe Smith** » 23 May 2009 5:49 pm

Well I have a black stomp box and it sounds much better than my gray one.

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 23 May 2009 6:16 pm

a red car goes faster,
could you play faster, on a red steel?

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 23 May 2009 7:01 pm

Chris Erbacher wrote:...I am aware that it is the ongoing joke around the forum about black guitars, but i didn't intend for this to turn into a circus...aloha

I guess you should have used the Search function then. The subject has come up many times and it's never been treated seriously. Let's face it, the color of an instrument isn't going to have any impact on how it sounds. The only possible difference would be psychological. And, yes, the Forum is full of wise guys. The world is too sad a place to be serious all the time.