Building the perfect guitar: Paul Reed Smith at TEDxMidAtlantic

I'm going to try to change everybody's view today on musical instruments all musical instruments I'm going to try to change your view forever I'm going to take a shot at it so the guitars are a combination of four things they're musical instruments something to make a sound to make music with they are art you can see it in Vogue magazine it's part of our heritage they are complex tools for the musician to use to do their job they're also applied physics devices and I'm going to get into that pretty heavy too today so for the most part a very very high percentage of human beings take their information with their eyes but in the end if the guitar doesn't sound unbelievable that guitar doesn't sound unbelievable dead in the water goes under the bed nothing happens right so um the question would be why do the musicians use the instruments why do these musicians use these guitars and for us there's a underlying theory of physics theory that all musical instruments are subtractive devices it's normally thought of that it adds to the sound adds the sound and we believe that it's all subtractive if you have a really loud piano with the same strings of a really quiet piano the quiet piano is subtracting that's the theory and so what I want to do is I want to play with the theory I want to prove the theory I want to mess with theory I want to go into it with you today so I live in a Newtonian world of physics and this is a paraphrased version of Isaac Newton's third law for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction okay and what I'm suggesting is the goal is six in and five point nine out that would be a great instrument a really bad will be six in at one point eight out right so let me take you through a logic train let me take you through a way of trying to get your hands around this and I'll try to prove the theory so if I take that guitar and I put rubber tuning pegs and a rubber nut and rubber bridge on it is it going to sound better or is it going to sound worse thank you okay second question if I put seven of the same sets of strings on seven instruments will it sound seven different ways okay whew I like the assist crowds active the next one you're going to have trouble with does God put any extra energy into a magic instrument or is it only how hard you hit it yes or no now there is God in guitars I've played the guitar that was in Frank Sinatra's band it was played in that band and you can almost hear him sing I've played the guitar that Hendrix played on and shitless circuit and raise the arm on the hair on your arm I have played instruments that were almost portals if you are sitting on a couch with a guitar that you love you are in no pain and when you put it down there's no hangover therefore guitar are sophisticated heroine right all right now answer my question is there any does God put any extra energy you know magic guitar is it only how hard you hit it it's only how hard you hit I'm going to argue all right what I'm suggesting is a magic guitar is you put an energy of six in and you get five point nine out that's what I'm suggesting and I'm going to go about proving it but first this one last question there's about 25 things in my opinion that change the sound of the guitar so let's go through the tuning pegs what are they made of how they attached what's the nut made out of is it glued on how well was it glued on what's the neck wood made out of how much water is in it how much resins crystallized in that wood what's the finish made out of how thick is it how much rubbers in the finish what you finish was made out of what you made the fretboard Adam how much waters are that have much resins crystallizing that did you glue the frets in what's the bridge made it has it attached what's the body count go on and on and on and on and on well you agree there's at least twenty-five things that affect the tone oh now I like that I got three yeses and one I'm not so sure I love it all right so what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to prove one of them without a shadow of a doubt and I'm telling you what I'm showing you is 25 times worse or better okay here's the magic bag of parts all right this is a plastic nut here's a bone nut and here's the nut we use that's made out of the same PVC pipe you hook your toilet to your septic tank with and I can just see this video on youtube Paul drops his nuts on a Florida it's not going to go real well okay so all right so look but you spent three months making a guitar and you put that on it it's trying to vibrate but it can't it's too soft it's trying to vibrate it can't it's too soft boom better the stuff we use better can you hear that okay this is plastic right this is aluminum okay makes a difference what the materials are I'm suggesting you put a better bridge on it it's not that it adds to the sound it subtracts less fair enough okay good we're getting somewhere so now I'm going to play with the theory this is a nun subtractive instrument all right so this is a nun subtractive instrument and it's sustaining longer than most electric guitars can you hear that now I'm gonna start getting subtractive with it okay I'm trying to shut it up and it won't shut up I'm sorry that just makes me happy so what happens is they start to sound symphonic when they're not subtractive instruments do so what I'm going to play for you what you heard just a second ago want to play for me it's about 25 seconds of something that Tony McManus recorded Tony is considered by the BBC the best Celtic guitar player Scotland ever produced he recorded the Chaconne that's Bach's piece for solo violin and I want you to hear how symphonic it sounds alright let's go you I mean it's it's big and it's beautiful but brought the hair of my arms up - he's going like this I brought the hair that's good right that would be that would be music that would be a musical instrument right okay good so I had a very famous musician call me and drill me for about 20 minutes about why did this guitar that he had bought off the internet sounds so good and he was on my ass because his experience was now that his other guitars didn't sound so good and it was changing the way he was playing and he was drilling me and I explained this whole theory to Massa explained how we finished him and I explained how he braced them and I explained all that stuff and I explained to him an electric guitar an acoustic guitar the same animal one's got a speaker cabinet attachment one doesn't so like when you're playing electric guitar these are microphones and this is the strings and the guitar is the singer no matter what mic you put on Barbra Streisand she's not going to sound like Frank Sinatra it is not going to happen right and I was explaining this whole concept to him and he started to get it and it was a it was a really good moment for me once again the goal is an energy of six in and an energy of 5.9 out okay so these are my words but some instrument makers have understood this concept for centuries Antonio Torres who is the father of the guitar I heard one of his guitars once as well as we have to even to talk about it three notes were played I couldn't breathe this thing was only three inches deep it was really small as made out of maple I shouldn't have sounded this good it had more bass and more Viman anything I barely touched a string hello who you know was aesthetic arrest the Joseph Campbell concept right and I want to and I was able to x-ray it and try to figure out what the old man thought he understood the concept there's several instruments that I could quote that understood this physics concept these are only my words right but I this is not new and so it applies to violins it applies to pianos it applies to saxophone it applies to any musical instrument drums I mean you could have a drum hit it really hard in the air connection and it's not very loud and hit the next drum and it's really loud you put the same energy into both of them one of them took your head off that would be not subtractive right alright so there's a sidebar I need to do there are resonances and instruments so you have say a hole in the guitar and it's got a hole kind of loud note coming out of it that energy can't come from nothing so it has to steal it from the bass and the treble above and below so when you have a resonance that energies that it's loud is cool but some other things are quieter you don't get energy from nothing it's only how hard you hit it fair enough ok good at some point the guitar maker or the instrument maker runs out of physics there's a ceiling the string doesn't have enough weight there's not enough grams and the weight of the string to get it any louder and so you hit a ceiling I like being at the ceiling but I know you can't pass it and it's just I think run out of physics you run up against the laws of physics physics you can't get put six in and get seven out it doesn't work that way it just well if you have an amplifier maybe it does but I'm talking about it the acoustic part of the instrument right and so where did this all come from where this concept come from well 12 years ago I wrote a document called the 21 rules of tone and that document said if you follow all 21 rules you'll get a magic guitar as you violate each rule you'll take the magical way and what I'm talking about is the fundamentals of that document the physics the subtractive physics of that document and that thing took us once it was written 12 years to start to implement I'm not breaking the laws of physics I'm living at it that makes sense and um the fundamental simple but the application takes a lifetime and a lot of guitar makers what they do is they they figure out these concepts and they finally get it right and then they do the same thing for the rest of their life it's very very so this is a new program that a computer program that's been patented that shows ten seconds of that acoustic guitar that I just played look how complex what's coming out of the guitar is that's what your cochlea that's what your ear is measuring there's all kinds of little up and down volume things at the bottom times going right to left frequencies going from the bottom of the top and energies how high it is the goal is once you play the guitar your brain experiences it as musical beautiful and powerful that's the goal and that's what we're trying to do and it's it's complicated but the fundamental principle underneath it is completely simple so the thing on your book says start now and what I'm asking you all to do you all on south and mason-dixon line I'm sorry all right is when you have a musical instrument and a musical instrument a bad one is robbing any for energy from you it's taking from you a good one is giving back a great one is giving it almost all back does that make sense okay good I'm not going to get off the stage without playing that electric guitar I'm sure that's true so as a sidebar we've been at war I don't know twice as long as what were - something like that maybe longer and I think that we wouldn't have TED Talks it wasn't for our armed forces from the beginning of this country or even before the beginning this country till now and I want to honor them I think what they're doing is extraordinary and we wouldn't have cookouts without them and we wouldn't hit that dog so I want to honor them with a piece of music and we'll play a little electric guitar Oh you Hey you you Hey Oh yeah Oh you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 847,569

Keywords: PRS Guitars (Organization), Guitar (Musical Instrument), physics, ted talks, ted talk, tedx, culture, Paul Reed Smith (Organization Founder), music, TEDx, English Language (Human Language), ted x, United States Of America (Country), sound, science, tedx talks, english, ted, Acoustic Guitar (Musical Instrument), tedxmidatlantic, tedx talk

Id: sNzJjlV1TOA

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 27 2013