"Jangly" Guitars

I'm in the getaway vehicle across the street Vic,

It's an old grey Comma Van. The trouble is there are these four guys with leather jackets leaning on it.

Opps! I'm in a 40 odd year old dream arn't I or have I travelled back in time. :wink: :wink: :wink:

Drool! drool! If I could just touch that Vox Amp and the Rickenbacker for just one of your five seconds Vic.

Chris

So does the "jangly" sound come from the length of the neck???

No.

Jangly comes from a number of things, but mainly it's a playing style. The things that promote jangly are ...

Playing style:
Use of open string fingerings for chords and intervals.
No or little muting between chording -- let those strings ring, especially noticable with sparse strumming or use of a chopped strum to kick off a sustained chord.
picking/strumming closer to the bridge, especially on guitars that normally sound "full bodied" or have a lot of natural sustain
Less emphasis on the low E and A strings when strumming chords -- esp when playing on these strings, pick close to the bridge

Equipment contributions:
High mids and treble boost in EQ
Reverb and/or slap-back delay
Guitar with rapid attack and fast decay
Clean Fender and Vox amplification
Single coil pups
Use of bridge pup

Guitar with rapid attack and fast decay

For Byrds jangle it was heavy compression / sustain. McGuinn used two compressors in series with his 12 string.

Guitar with rapid attack and fast decay

For Byrds jangle it was heavy compression / sustain. McGuinn used two compressors in series with his 12 string.

No argument with this. I should have listed electric 12s in the equipment. There really are no hard and fast rules, and not all apply at the same time. The rapid attack -- fast decay emphasizes harmonics, one of the hallmarks of jangly, and also why Fenders often are associated with this ... and the LP is not (despite suggestions above :wink: ). Playing near the bridge and using the bridge pup also emphasize harmonics. A 12-string achieves the same in a different way: by adding octave strings that explicitly produce the 2nd harmonics. Also, as most people don't barre 12-strings, open (cowboy) chord voicings are more common -- providing an inherent ringing of open strings. I'm not sure the compressors really make McGuinn's timbre specifically more jangly, but it is a nice, signature sound, and certainlydoesn't detract. I would guess the Ric 12 element had more to do with it.

Should also mention that most archtop (jazz) guitars have a sharp attack and fast decay to cut through the band, but of course don't sound inherently jangly -- the strings (flat wounds), and the body resonances don't "encourage" harmonics, but produce very round, fundamental tones. So, there are a lot of factors at work. I probably should have listed "solid body" along with the attack-decay characteristic.

i associate jangly with a thin, clean, metallic sound and a bluegrass or c&w folk playing style... banjo-like.

Vox, Fender amps/models - good
Marshall/Boogie/Other High Gain amps/models - baaaad. :wink:

would the lipstick pups sound jangly?

This morning I was listening to Jethro Tull's Aqualung on the radio. Whatever the guitarist was playing, that was jangly!

So does the "jangly" sound come from the length of the neck???

No.
While I agree it isn't as easy as 'long neck = jangle', I do think it's a factor. A longer scale means more tension in the strings for a given tuning, and more tension means more sustain, which is part of 'jangle'.

So does the "jangly" sound come from the length of the neck???

No.
While I agree it isn't as easy as 'long neck = jangle', I do think it's a factor. A longer scale means more tension in the strings for a given tuning, and more tension means more sustain, which is part of 'jangle'.
Not that Rickenbackers are the epitome of jangle (well, maybe they are), but most Rics are 24-3/4", and the 325 (John Lennon's) was more like 21" ...

Check out the Godin Radiators. They are supposed to be the closest thing to sounding like a Rik. They usually go used for under $200 on Ebay. Godins are a great value especially if you buy used. Also check out the lipstick pickups at Guitar Fetish.com

So does the "jangly" sound come from the length of the neck???

No.
While I agree it isn't as easy as 'long neck = jangle', I do think it's a factor. A longer scale means more tension in the strings for a given tuning, and more tension means more sustain, which is part of 'jangle'.

Not convinced, because more tension does not necessarily equate to more sustain. You are picking out one difference of many, as long scale is often associated with maple and maple laminate necks, bolt-on construction, six-on-a-side tuners, different string-nut angles ... Also, consider the obvious counter: LP versus the (hardtail) Strat. Going further, I will propose that jangle is more a function of high harmonic content than sustain. But, even there, it must be a certain harmonic characteristic, not just a lot of any harmonics.

Tension absoutely does equal sustain, that much is physics. Lower the tension in one of your strings by tuning it down an octave and see what sort of sustain you get out of it then :wink:

If one of the other criteria you mention impacts sustain, that's despite the extra tension. I suppose I should have said "all other things being equal", but hey, live and learn. :)

As for high harmonic content, that's a good point. It's an assumption on my part that high harmonics comes in part from sustain.

Tension absoutely does equal sustain, that much is physics. Lower the tension in one of your strings by tuning it down an octave and see what sort of sustain you get out of it then :wink:

That's a pathological example (highly non-linear) -- and I suspect you know that. Problem with invoking physics is it sounds definitive, but this is all a lot more complicated than the various simple harmonic motion equations because of the fairly non-linear, abrupt start-up conditions ("the strum") and the modal complexity of the vibrational system ("la axe").
If one of the other criteria you mention impacts sustain, that's despite the extra tension. I suppose I should have said "all other things being equal", but hey, live and learn. :)

The situation is this: the change in tension to compensate a 3% scale length difference is small enough (a bit over 6%) to be a lesser factor when compared to all these other construction differences, UNLESS the lower tension allows nonlinear effects to occur (buzzing, rattling). Then all bets are off. We don't want buzzy guitars, do we? They may be harmonically rich, but not in a good way unless we are doing the sitar sim.
As for high harmonic content, that's a good point. It's an assumption on my part that high harmonics comes in part from sustain.

Not true. Sustain is determined by the amount of energy dissipated (lost) per vibrational cycle. That energy may be stored in the fundamental or the harmonics -- doesn't matter. Some mechanisms for generating harmonics will sap sustain.

Okay -- enough pedantic crap: Maybe we should agree on what Jangly means. Not sure we are all thinking the same thing.