ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA

Vol. 97 (2011) 830 – 839

DOI 10.3813/AAA.918463

Characterizing Classical Guitars Using Top Plate

Radiation Patterns Measured by a Microphone
Array

Rolf Bader
Institute of Musicology, University of Hamburg, Neue Rabenstr. 13, 20354 Hamburg, Germany.
R_Bader@t-online.de

Summary
Three guitars are measured using a microphone array and reconstructing their radiation patterns. All tones up to
the 12th fret of the soundboard are played and analyzed for 20 partials each and back-propagated to obtain the
radiation patterns. Four parameters were calculated from these radiation patterns, the radiating area, impedance,
pressure reconstruction 1 meter in front of guitar top plate and Interaural Cross Correlation (IACC) as a binaural
parameter. The guitars used showed distinct timbre differences, the Wichmann bass-reflex guitar has increased
overall loudness with decreased tone variability, the Hanika concert guitar shows a very stable tone throughout
playing range, and the low-priced Yamaha flamenco guitar has an rather unstable, semiprofessional tone. The
calculated parameters were associated with these guitar characters, explaining the strong radiation and small
variation of the bass-reflex guitar by decreased radiation area, associating the more stable sound of the Hanika
guitar to a stable IACC behaviour, and the more unstable timbre of the Flamenco guitar to a strong variability
over the different parameters used. When correlating the parameters for all guitars it appears that the correlation
is independent of the guitar used and so appear to be a constant in guitar acoustics.
PACS no. 43.58.Fm, 43.75.Gh

1. Introduction
Characterizing musical instruments try to associate phys-
ical parameter to perceived quality aspects. This quality
may discuss fundamental requirements for the instrument
to be used within a musical performance at all. Here, three
main features are of importance. The instruments mostly
need a fast attack to make fast playing possible. If attack
times of 200 ms or more are needed for a tone to built up,
like with low pitched organ pipe tones, only slow melodies
can be performed. Secondly, the instrument must have a
certain overall loudness to fill a performance space or to
be heard in ensemble playing. In recent years, the run for
violins to become as loud as possible is an example. This
requirement was even more important after the French rev-
olution, where big concert halls for the growing Bürgertum
were built. So for example the huge octobass developed by
Felix Savart, one of the first violin researches was a try of
loudness. Thirdly, musicians judge instruments to be inter-
esting, when they shows a big variety of possible timbres
and articulation changes.
With guitars, a basic problem is that of dead spots. So,
e.g. the notes around the 12th fret of the high e-string are
often dying away much faster than surrounding tones. On
Received 2 October 2009,
accepted 22 June 2011.
the other side, placing the Helmholtz resonance too close
to the open A-string causes this pitch to be much louder
than the rest of the guitar making this instrument simply
not suitable for professional use. Also, the overall loud-
ness of the instrument is mostly judged to be poor com-
pared with the violin, drums, etc. So often duo playing is
preferred with the flute or the mandolin, two instruments,
which also have low playing amplitudes.
In case instruments meet the basic quality properties and
therefore are suitable for a professional performance, still
they vary in terms of their character tremendously. This
is caused by the differences in instrument construction of
course which can be associated to different genres, styles,
and sometimes individual musicians. In the sixties and
seventies, two main classical guitar tones were known, the
Spanish tone and the German tone. Basically, these tones
were associated with different top plate woods. The harder
and more colorful ‘Spanish’ sound was achieved using a
ceder top plate, while for the more voluminous and softer
‘German’ tone spruce was used. During the late eighties
and nineties, both sounds were not preferred any more by
most players. The modern tone was called a mixture be-
tween the ‘Spanish’ and ‘German’ tone, where a huge va-
riety of sounds were tried. Here, the description was not so
much one of genre as with the traditional folkloristic asso-
ciations. Modern descriptions of tone quality and character
focussed more on spatial, tactile, or semantic associations.

830 © S. Hirzel Verlag · EAA

Bader: Characterizing classical guitars
Tones were described as ‘big’ or ‘small’, ‘dense’ or ‘thin’,
‘serious’ or ‘free’ etc. Here, the list of adjectives are nor-
mally endless and attempts to built a closed semantic space
often fail or are not accepted by builders and musicians, as
they insist on their freedom to find and create new aspects
of tone character.
Still, results have been reported, where the character and
quality of instruments have been associated mostly with
properties of the spectrum of the instrument body, the cen-
ter of spectral gravity, loudness, etc. Lottermoser [1] finds
fast initial transients and low overall damping as the reason
for high quality of Stradivari violins. He sees the reason for
this behaviour, astonishing at first as low damping would
cause a longer attack time, in a wider distribution of body
resonances with low resonance peaks in contrast to less
and stronger peaks with violins of less quality. He verbal-
izes the quality as ‘Sonorität’ (Sonority) and talks about
the mild gleam (‘milder Glanz’) of the instrument. Dün-
nwald measured 320 violins comparing old Italian with
master and factory violins using sound features of the old
Italian violins like their special spectrum, ‘Tragfähigkeit’
(lit. ‘load capacity’, stability, presence over long distances
and audibility in an orchestra), and ‘Ausgeglichenheit’ (lit.
‘balance’) as aspects of quality [2]. He finds the frequency
region between 1300 Hz and 4000 Hz and a strong bass re-
gion as clearly present with the Italian and not so much
with other violins. Hutchings agreed with Savart that good
violins have higher frequencies with the top plate com-
pared to the back plate before gluing them to the ribs [3].
Schleske reports about ‘tonal copies’ of Stradivari violins
[4]. Meyer also found an influence of the tuning of the
back plate of the guitar to the overall frequency of the two
basic modes of the complete guitar sound box to improve
instrument quality [5].
Also vocality of musical instruments have been dis-
cussed. Lottermoser associates vocals with different fre-
quency regions of the violin and interprets strong reso-
nances around 1100 Hz and 1600 Hz as a cause for nasal-
ity and associates strong high frequencies with sharp and
rough sounds [1]. Mores calculated the vocal quality of
Stradivari and Guarneri violins and found considerable
differences associating them to the vocal character of the
instruments [6]. Ziegenhals investigates guitars, violins,
trumpets and clarinets by analyzing 30 seconds of sounds
using psychoacoustic parameters while changing instru-
ments, musicians, pieces, and rooms. He finds the artic-
ulation of the player much more important than the dif-
ference in instruments [7, 8]. In room acoustics Beranek
associates generally the perception of a warm timbre be-
ing strongly related to a long reverberation time at low
frequencies compared to a shorter reverberation time in
the middle frequency range [9]. Also verbal description of
musical instrument timbre are reported [10, 11, 12, 13].
Nykänen and Johansson find three dimensions of verbal
attributes describing saxophone sounds, warm/soft, back
vowel and sharp/rough [14]. The most often used psy-
choacoustic parameters within this context are loudness
[15, 16], roughness [17, 18], or sharpness [10, 19]. Vibrato
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and damping of violins were investigated [20] to find con-
text dependency of these parameters between single notes
and melodies.
The attempt to directly relate fine structures of musi-
cal instruments to radiated sound is also approached us-
ing Physical Modelling techniques like Finite-Element and
Finite-Difference spatial and temporal discretization tech-
niques [21]. For the guitar strong nonlinear relations be-
tween a linear thickness change of top and back plate and
the spectral centroid of the radiated sound was found [22].
For saxophone instruments the turbulent flow could be as-
sociated to musical parameters [23, 24]. Many other in-
struments have been investigated in this way, too.
Timbre research without direct connection to physical
properties of musical instruments were performed using
Multidimensional Scaling techniques (MDS) [25, 26, 27,
28]. Here, perceptual dimensions are mapped to physical
properties of sounds, where often brightness, synchronic-
ity of partials during the initial transient phase, and addi-
tional inharmonic noise are found as physical reasons for
the perceptual dimensions. Additional reference may be
found to spectral or temporal envelope. The resynthesis
or hybrid instruments according to the dimensions which
could also be verified in listening tests again serves as an
additional proof for such timbre perception [29].
Another approach towards this characterization prob-
lem is presented here for guitars using a physical prop-
erty, where all other parameters can be derived from, the
frequency dependent radiation pattern. As all we can hear
and record of a musical instrument is caused by its radia-
tion, a common ground must exist here, which is not only
able to find physical reasons for the different parameters
by associating them to the radiation distribution. Also, the
connections between these parameters may be found as
they all are calculated from these radiation pattern. A sin-
gle pattern exists for each single frequency of each tone of
each string acting on the top plate, which repeats each cy-
cle of the frequency like a mode shape. Still, mostly these
patterns look more difficult as they are caused by forced
oscillations.
The method can be used with the guitar because the
strings are attached to the body at fixed points and there-
fore the pattern of forced oscillation for one frequency -
although not their amplitude - does not depend upon the
player. This is not astonishing as theory of forced vibration
predicts the shape of one frequency by the eigenmodes of
the plate and the point of impact. Only the overall am-
plitude of the mode shape can be changed. With guitars
this means, that the point of plucking on the string and the
players articulation does change the timbre of the sound
and therefore the overall amplitude of a radiation pattern,
but does not change the basic shape of these radiation pat-
terns. The parameters calculated from this radiation pat-
tern used in this paper are the area of radiation for each
frequency, the impedance of the string on the top plate, the
frequency dependent sound pressure 1 meter in front of
the top plate, and the Interaural Cross Correlation (IACC)
also 1 meter in front of the top plate. The IACC is a bin-
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aural parameter determining, how much ‘stereo’ the tone
appears.
Three guitars with clearly different sound characteristics
are investigated. One high quality classical Hanika gui-
tar with spruce top plate, a Wichmann ‘bass-reflex guitar’,
which shows a very unique construction, and a low-priced
Yamaha Flamenco guitar were used. All three are clearly
associated with different tone characteristics and associa-
tions between these characteristics and the parameters cal-
culated from the radiation patterns are discussed, clearly
showing the reasons for these quality aspects and there-
fore some of the constructional ‘secrets’ producing these
sounds.
The Hanika guitar has a very modern sound which is
described by experts as very smooth and stable throughout
the whole frequency range. So the sound is judged to be
very balanced without any frequency range to be louder or
more prominent than other regions. The guitar is therefore
suitable to be used in professional performance, and many
styles, from Baroque and Romantic guitar to modern con-
temporary music can be played. It is not the first choice
for a Spanish sounding piece and definitely no Flamenco
guitar. This character of stability would need to appear in
the radiation patterns of the instrument. Among other tonal
aspects it could be found, that this guitar shows a depen-
dency of radiation upon string driving point for frequen-
cies around 300 Hz, where the maximum radiation point
for one string was clearly found at the driving point of this
string on the top plate. This pattern could not be found
with other guitars in pre-tests and so a first indication of
a very carefully crafted guitar body using homogeneous
wood was found.
The Wichmann guitar shows a special construction. Its
back plate has a tremendous thickness of about 1 cm which
also holds for the top plate in the upper part around the
sound hole and along the ribs of the lower part. On the
other side, the lower top plate region from the bottom to
the sound hole is a very thin circular plate of a bit more
than 2 mm. This region is acting like a membrane, al-
though still a plate with bending stiffness. The ribs are
also a bit thicker than usual, the overall size of the gui-
tar body is normal. The idea is to have a very flexible re-
gion around the sound hole, where the very thin top plate
is most flexible. This region cannot be too big as then the
top plate would break. The rest of the guitar is only for
keeping the sound in the box making it radiate through the
sound hole rather than letting the back plate or ribs radiate
too much and therefore focussing the radiation into the lis-
teners direction. This construction is based on the idea of a
bass-reflex box, which is built in the same manner. Indeed,
the radiation from this guitar is objectively much louder
than the radiation of any normal classical guitar which is
clearly perceived by all listeners. This feature is much ap-
preciated by players as the guitar is mostly found as too
low in volume for most performance spaces. The trade-off
most musicians report when playing the instrument for a
while is that its range of timbre variations is too low, and
therefore their artistic articulation suffers. Now, for the in-
832
Bader: Characterizing classical guitars
creased loudness, the overall energy of a vibrating string
does not differ between instruments. So the present inves-
tigation looks for the reason for the enhanced loudness as
well as for the reduced timbre flexibility.
The Yamaha Flamenco guitar has a ceder top plate and
is built in a typical Flamenco style. Its sound is reason-
able for practicing but not on the level of professional per-
formance playing. It shows too much uncertainty with the
tone production in terms of loudness and timbre consis-
tency. It also lacks of any typical characteristic like an en-
hanced frequency region interesting to perceive within the
genre of Flamenco playing. So here we need to investigate,
if this unstable character is found in the physical radiation
patterns of the instrument.
2. Method
2.1. Recording
The measurements of the top plate radiation was done us-
ing the microphone array at the Institute of Musicology
consisting of 128 microphones spaced in a grid of 11 × 11
with seven additional microphones at a 12th row. For the
sake of simplicity, all analysis were only performed on the
11 × 11 grid using 121 microphones. The grid spacing is
3.9 cm and so covering the top plate from left to right and
bottom to top. The guitar was placed 3 cm in front of the
plane array.
With each instrument, 78 tones were recorded by pluck-
ing each string pressing all frets from the open string to the
12th fret. So on each string 13 notes were plucked and sep-
arately recorded by all 121 microphones with a sampling
frequency of 48 kHz for two seconds each.
2.2. Partial detection and complex amplitude calcu-
lation
Each of the 78 tones of one instrument were then Wavelet
transformed and the first 20 partials were detected. There-
fore, the fundamental was automatically detected using
the largest peak in the autocorrelation function calculated
from the time series of microphone (6,6) on the grid. This
method showed to be very stable, still all automatically
detected fundamental frequencies were checked for plau-
sibility later. Assuming a nearly harmonic overtone series,
from this fundamental, the next 19 partials were calculated
as integer multiples for the fundamental frequency. To ob-
tain a higher precision, within a frequency range of ±10%
of the expected partial frequency, a Wavelet algorithm was
programmed to seek for the highest spectral peak in this re-
gion with a precision of .01 Hz. So the algorithm in the end
detected all partial frequencies with a high precision mak-
ing it also possible to look at frequency deviations from a
perfect harmonic series. This, of course is a feature more
caused by the string used than by the guitar body and so
no further conclusions were drawn from these deviations.
Playing 78 tones on each guitar and using the first 20
partial of each tone, for each guitar 1560 partials were
found. Each of the 121 recorded time series of each of the
Bader: Characterizing classical guitars
78 tones were then Wavelet transformed for all partials re-
sulting in 188 760 complex amplitude values for each gui-
tar. 121 of these amplitude values compose one radiation
sound field on the grid.
When the back plate and the ribs contribute to the sound
radiated in the normal direction of the top plate they can do
so via the air surrounding the top plate and via the sound
hole. As the microphone array covers the air next to the
guitar top plate, too, these sources are taken into consider-
ation. As the Minimum Energy Method used here, like all
back-propagation methods assume no additional sources
in the room whatsoever to be able to perform the back-
propagation, this is a necessary condition for the method.
Classical guitars normally show frequency components
mostly only up to 4 kHz. The lowest possible tone on the
guitar, the low open E-string has a frequency of 83 Hz, the
highest tone investigated, the 12th fret of the high e-string
has a fundamental of 660 Hz and its 20th partial is there-
fore around 13 200 Hz. Still this tone normally does not
show 20 partials but mostly again only components up to
4 kHz. So in the analysis, 4 kHz was used as a maximum
analysis frequency.
2.3. Back-propagation
The 1560 frequency dependent radiation fields of each
guitar were back-propagated using a Minimum Energy
Method [30, 31], a kind of an Equivalent Source Method1 .
Here, opposite to each microphone, a radiation point is
assumed. Each radiation point is a complex monopole
source with a directivity value α, where α = 0 is a per-
fect monopole and α > 0 narrows the radiation with re-
spect to the top plate normal vector with increasing α. The
j
recorded pressure pm at the jth microphone is simply as-
sumed to be the summed pressure values of all radiating
points pig on the guitar top plate taking phase changes and
radiation loss in a radiation matrix Ri,j into consideration
like
j

N
ij
pm = pig R0 . (1)
i=1
This matrix takes phase changes through wave vector k
and the distance rij between microphone i and radiation
point j into consideration like
1 tude of this shape. To obtain an objective pattern for each
ij ij
R = R0 = ij
eikr . (2)
Γ0
The amplitude drop
 
ij
Γ0 (α) = rij 1 + α(1 − β ij ) (3)
1 For further literature about Equivalent Source Methods see [32], Near-
Field Acoustic Holography [33], Helmholtz-Least-Square Method [34],
a review paper on the field is [35], for sound field reconstruction of the
guitar using poles see [36], for an interferometry analysis of classical
guitars see [37]
ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA
Vol. 97 (2011)
also depends upon the radiation angle β, defined as β = 1
in the normal direction and zero in the direction ±90◦ .
α ≥ 0 is the directivity value. If a monopole is assumed,
which with the guitar would come close to the sound hole
radiating solely, α ∼ 0. With more complex radiation pat-
tern, we would expect the directivity to be more narrow
and α increases.
A linear equation solver is then back-propagating the
measured complex amplitudes to the radiation points on
the guitar top plate using the radiation matrix R. As R
depends on α which is arbitrary, the solution process is
repeated for different values of α. For each solution, the
reconstruction energy is calculated by integrating the pow-
ered pressure values. It appears that for the correct recon-
struction this reconstruction energy has a minimum. This
behaviour can also intuitively be understood easily. If α
is very high, only radiation into the microphone oppo-
site to the radiation point is assumed and the reconstruc-
tion would simply be the measurement. But then no su-
perposition of radiation points at the microphones would
take place, and each radiating point would need to sup-
ply all the energy needed for the opposite microphone.
By reducing α, the radiation points contribute also to the
neighbouring points and therefore reduce the reconstruc-
tion energy. Visually, this can beautifully be seen as a con-
tinuous sharpening of the reconstruction when decreasing
α compared to the blurred recorded sound field. On the
other side, if α is unphysically small, too much influence
of neighbouring points is assumed, and the linear equation
solver tries to balance the recordings, which it only can do
by assuming unreasonable large amplitudes. So the solu-
tion blows up very fast. The point of minimum energy is
therefore also intuitively the correct one and we can very
reasonably follow the reconstruction visually by watching
the solution getting sharper with decreasing α up to the
optimum point.
2.4. Analysis parameter
From the back-propagated radiation pattern, the four pa-
rameters mentioned above are calculated for each partial.
Therefore, all patterns are normalized first, defining the
maximum absolute amplitude found in the pattern to be
one. This is reasonable, as we found the shape of the ra-
diation pattern independent of the driving strength and
therefore from the plucking position and articulation. A
change in the plucking position only changes the ampli-
frequency independent from the plucking position, we nor-
malize each pattern.
2.4.1. Radiation area
The radiation area is easy to calculate from the complex
amplitudes Ai and is defined as

RA = |Ai | dx dy. (4)
i
Here, dx and dy are the grid spacing of 3.9 cm both. Each
amplitude value holds for the area of this grid discretiza-
tion. As we normalized the maximum amplitude to one,
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ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA Bader: Characterizing classical guitars
Vol. 97 (2011)

the radiation area is getting larger with more points of

large amplitude. It reaches its maximum if all amplitudes
would be one, therefore resulting in the total area of the
guitar top plate.

2.4.2. Top plate admittance

The impedance is assumed to depend on the amplitude of
the driving point according to [38]. As all complex vibra-
tion patterns can be decomposed into the normal modes
of vibration of the investigated geometry, and as driving
point impedance depends upon the ability of each mode
to move at this point, summing up all normal modes with
their amplitudes will determine the impedance and admit-
tance of the plate at this point. So the admittance of one
radiation pattern normalized this time with respect to its
Figure 1. Frequency dependent radiation areas as percentage of
energy is simply the absolute amplitude Ad at the string
total top plate area for the three guitars investigated, averaged
driving point like
over 200 Hz bandwidth. The Wichmann bass-reflex guitar shows
smaller values than the two others over most frequencies.
AD = |Ad |. (5)

As the radiation patterns are normalized the admittance where l and r are the time series at the left and right ear. It
does not result in a physical unit but is relative to all other is therefore defined 1 ≥ IACC ≥ −1, where IACC = 1 is a
admittances. mono sound and IACC = 0 is a sound without any corre-
2.4.3. Radiated pressure lation. In room acoustics and concert halls, IACC between
.7 and .5 are often measured.
The pressure which would be recorded from a microphone
As we are only looking at sinusodials, we can simply
1 meter in front of the top plate can also easily be calcu-
use the space relation between the PR values calculated
lated from the radiation pattern by simple propagating the
above for two points 1 meter in front of the top plate,
monopole radiators into the frontal space of the top plate
spaced 20 cm apart to model the human head width like
taking the distances, phase relations and the calculated di-
rectivity value α into consideration like 1  
 IACC = 1 − arg PRl − PRr . (8)
i π
PR = Ai Γeik r . (6)
i So when both PR are in phase and therefore mono, IACC
= 1 as with the definition above. If they have a phase rela-
Note, that due to phase relations, different radiation points tion of π, IACC = 0.
on the top plate may cancel out 1 meter in front of the top
All results for each parameter for each guitar were av-
plate, like a dipole would do in its middle radiation axis.
eraged over bandwidth suitable for displaying the basic
This will be of importance later when understanding the
properties for this parameter. Additionally, the standard
radiation strength of the different guitars.
deviations are given to show the stability or instability of
2.4.4. Interaural Cross Correlation (IACC) these averaging except for the radiation area, where more
or less only the total average is needed for the reasoning
The Interaural Cross Correlation (IACC) is a well known
below.
parameter with binaural hearing [39]. It is psychoacousti-
cally associated with the amount of spaciousness and ap-
parent source width. So with musical instruments, it is a 3. Results
measurement of the width or narrowness of the sound in
the perceptual space. This parameter may be interesting 3.1. Wichmann bass-reflex guitar
with musical instrument perception, as often semantic de-
The most obvious of the characteristics of the guitars is
scriptions of sounds like ‘wide’ or ‘open’ are used by mu-
the increased loudness and reduced vibrational area of the
sicians which could be found in the IACC. Indeed, we will
Wichmann bass-reflex guitar. Figure 1 shows the radiation
see this parameter to be of importance with the guitars in-
area of the different guitars for the Hanika ‘normal’ clas-
vestigated here.
sical guitar, the Wichmann bass-reflex guitar and the Fla-
Mathematically, the IACC is the correlation between the
menco guitar over the frequency range discussed above,
two time series at the left and right ear of a listener of a
starting from 83 Hz up to 4 kHz averaged over 166 Hz
sound source in space and defined as
bands. The results are given in percentage of the total top


l(t) r(t) dt plate area.
IACC = 

, (7) It can clearly be seen, that the bass-reflex guitar shows
l(t)2 dt r(t)2 dt least radiation area nearly throughout the whole frequency

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Vol. 97 (2011)

Table I. Mean and standard deviation for the four parameters used
in the investigation for the three guitars averaged over all 1560
radiation patterns for the frequency range up to 2 kHz.

Hanika Wichmann Flamenco

Area, mean 28% 24% 27%

Area, st.dev. 6.5% 5.4% 5.4%
Reconstruction, mean −12 dB −9 dB −11 dB
Reconstruction, st.dev. 10 dB 9 dB 9 dB
IACC, mean 0.38 0.40 0.32
IACC, st.dev. 0.57 0.54 0.58
Admittance, mean 0.18 0.20 0.18
Admittance, st.dev. 0.075 0.084 0.074

range. Only at very low frequencies and around 2.4 kHz

and 3.5 kHz, the areas are about the same for all guitars.
This reduced area is expected, as the very thick parts of
the top plate around and above the soundhole do not radi-
ate much energy within the normal playing region of the
guitar. With higher frequencies this effect is not prominent
anymore as then also the thick parts of the bass-reflex gui-
tar contribute to the overall radiation. With frequencies be-
low 500 Hz the area of the bass-reflex guitar is also about
equivalent to the other guitars as in this frequency band
with all guitars mainly the sound hole and the top plate
area around the bridge radiate. Only then other parts of the
top plate come in with the Hanika and the Flamenco guitar. Figure 2. Top: Mean sound pressure reconstruction 1 meter in
front of top plates averaged over 166 Hz for the three guitars.
The next parameter we look at with the Wichmann gui-
Bottom: Relative sound pressure values: bass-reflex - Hanika and
tar is the radiation pressure 1 meter in front of the gui- bass-reflex - Flamenco. The bass-reflex guitar is louder up to
tar. Remember, that the radiation patterns were normalized 2 kHz.
and therefore we do not consider any absolute energy here.
So any differences in the pressure reconstruction can only
come from increased or decreased radiation area and from
the phase behaviour of the radiation points, supporting or
cancelling each other to some extend. The reconstruction
pressures are shown for all guitars in Figure 2a, the dif-
ferences between the bass-reflex guitar and the other two
guitars in Figure 2b, and the standard deviations of the re-
construction amplitudes in Figure 3. The bass-reflex guitar
shows increased amplitudes nearly throughout the whole
frequency range. As we have seen before, this is happen-
ing while at the same time the radiation area is decreased.
The increase of amplitude therefore arise because of the
reduced phase cancellation of the radiation patterns due
to the smaller radiation area. This effect is audible as can
be seen in Figure 2b. Up to 2 kHz the bass-reflex guitar is Figure 3. Standard deviation for the sound pressure reconstruc-
louder with a maximum of 7 dB at 1.5 kHz. In the bass tion shown in Figure 2.
region around 300 Hz for the Hanika guitar and around
800 Hz for the Flamenco guitar it shows more than 5 dB
increased loudness which is clearly audible. dard deviation, where this effect does not appear. Within
Table I sums all four analyzed parameters with their the region of 664 Hz–1660 Hz the radiation areas are 25%
mean and standard deviation from 83 Hz to 2 kHz. This for the bass-reflex and 30% for both other guitars, the re-
frequency band restriction was chosen as nearly all effects constructed amplitudes −10 dB for the bass-reflex guitar,
appear only within this frequency range. As can be seen in −14 dB for the Hanika and −13 dB for the Flamenco. So
Figure 2a and Figures 3–5. Here the mean radiation area within this frequency region the effect is most strong as
of the bass-reflex guitar is 24% compared to 28% of the expected from Figure 1 and Figure 2a.
Hanika and 27% of the Flamenco. Note, that here also the This behaviour continues with the admittance curves
bass region was used in calculating the mean and stan- shown in Figures 6 and 7 again for mean and standard

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ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA
Vol. 97 (2011)
Figure 4. Mean Interaural Corss Correlation (IACC) averaged
over 400 Hz bandwidth for the three guitars. The Hanika ‘nor-
mal’ classical guitar shows the most stable behaviour.
Figure 5. Standard Deviation of the IACC of Figure 4. The
Hanika ‘normal’ classical guitar shows the smoothest values.
Figure 6. Mean admittance averaged over 500 Hz bandwidth for
the three guitars.
deviation. It is interesting to see, that the admittance of
the Wichmann guitar is stronger compared to the Hanika
guitar especially around 2 kHz and 3kHz. When looking
at the standard deviation of the admittance, we find this
guitar to the most deviating from the admittance values at
836
Bader: Characterizing classical guitars
Figure 7. Standard deviation of admittance of Figure 6.
least for the frequency range between 500 Hz and 1.3 kHz,
also reflected in Table I, where the Wichmann has high-
est admittance. Still the effect is not as strong as with the
radiation area.
The overall values for the IACC for all guitars are as
expected, starting from IACC = 1 for the monopole ra-
diation of the sound hole then decreasing with increasing
frequencies, as the wave vector is getting shorter and so
phase differences occur easier. Indeed, the linear increase
of the wave vector could be found in an about linear de-
crease of the IACC. Still other factors are of importance
here, as the radiating patterns are complex.
Examining the IACC for the bass-reflex guitar more
closely, the behaviour found above seems to continue. The
just-noticeable difference of IACC is JND = 0.1 within the
range of 1 > IACC > .9 and reduces to JND = 1 in regions
below IACC = 0.9. For the mean IACC values the effect is
not too strong. The bass-reflex guitar only shows an audi-
ble increase around 1 kHz. But is also shows lower IACC
standard deviations from 500 Hz up to 1.3 kHz with the
exception of 800 Hz. A standard deviation of the IACC is
pointing to a more stable behaviour of the phase patterns
as expected from the reduced radiation area. The strongly
decreased IACC between 700 Hz add 800 Hz comes with a
strong standard deviation of this parameter. This strongly
correlates with the radiation strength reduction seen in Fig-
ure 2a again pointing to the phase relations of the radiation
patterns playing the strongest role in the overall radiation
strength.
We can conclude, that the increased loudness of the
bass-reflex guitar is because of the reduced radiation area
allowing for less cancellation as is happening with larger
radiating geometries. The sound is coming from one dis-
tinct area, more like from a loudspeaker than from a com-
plex radiating body. Still, the standard deviation of this
guitar shown in Figure 3 is largest indicating for a strong
frequency dependency of this cancellation.
3.2. Hanika guitar
The situation is completely different for the high-priced
Hanika guitar. Its timbre is described as being very sta-
ble throughout the whole playing range. When looking
Bader: Characterizing classical guitars
through the plots, this behaviour can be found mostly with
the admittance and the IACC curves. The IACC mean
curve is most smooth for the Hanika guitar as shown in
Figure 4 where its negative slope is much more smooth
than for the other two guitars. As the just-noticeable dif-
ferences below an IACC = 0.9 is JND ∼ 0.1 sudden IACC
jumps raising the value to higher frequencies like that of
the bass-reflex guitar around 1 kHz from IACC ∼ 0.5 to
IACC ∼ 0.7 are clearly audible. The Hanika guitar never
shows such jumps below 1.5 kHz, where the mean value
of IACC ∼ 0 is reached. Also its standard deviation as dis-
played in Figure 5 nearly shows a perfect linear increase
up to 1.2 kHz. From Table I we find its IACC mean value
up to 2 kHz to be 0.38 which comes close to the bass-reflex
guitar of 0.4. Still the bass-reflex guitar has such a high
value because of its reduced radiation area, the Hanika
need to have other construction features leading to this ef-
fect. So there is more stability in the Hanika guitar sound
in terms of binaural hearing.
The IACC is a very subtle sound feature not much inves-
tigated before in the field of Musical Acoustics and should
be taken into consideration in further studies. Most sound
editing algorithms used in modern recording and mixing
studios are about to change this value considerably, using
effects like phasing, flanging, but also reverberation and
echoing. So this aspect seem to be important for music
perception, as a stable behaviour of an instrument in its
IACC will be perceived as sound stability.
When examining the admittance patterns of the Hanika
guitar, again we find a overall lower standard deviation
as for the bass-reflex guitar. Its normalized admittance of
0.18 is a little bit lower than that of the bass-reflex guitar
with 0.2 (see Table I). Also its standard deviation of 0.075
of this value is lower compared to 0.84 of the bass-reflex
guitar.
The overall pressure of the instrument 1 meter in front
of the top plate shown in Figure 2a is about the same as for
the Flamenco guitar. With a mean of −12 dB up to 2 kHz
it is a bit less than −9 dB of the bass-reflex guitar, still
around the value for the Flamenco guitar with −11 dB.
So from the parameters examined here, three show an
overall smoother behaviour, the admittance, the IACC, and
the radiation area, where only the IACC and the admit-
tance can be heard directly. The radiation area is only a
transition parameter from the guitar to the listener.
3.3. Flamenco guitar
The most striking difference in the behaviour of the Fla-
menco guitar is its IACC mean value of 0.32 up to 2 kHz
compared to 0.4 for the Wichmann and 0.38 for the Hanika
guitar. As its standard deviation of this value is even a bit
higher than that of the Hanika guitar this is pointing to
large fluctuations of the IACC. The guitar sounds more
‘stereo’ with a wider fluctuation range.
The radiation area shows similar peaks as the other gui-
tars which seem to be a constant behaviour for classical
guitars.
ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA
Vol. 97 (2011)
Table II. Correlations between the different analyzed values for
the three guitars as displayed in Figure 8.
Hanika bass-reflex Flamenco
admittance - 1 m recon. .70 .68 .71
admittance - area .88 .87 .90
1 m recon. - area .71 .74 .72
1 m recon. - IACC .65 .69 .63
admittance - IACC .46 .41 .41
area - IACC .44 .43 .39
Figure 8. Order of correlation between all possible combinations
of parameters for the Hanika ‘normal’ classical guitar. Other gui-
tars show similar results.
The admittance is nearly the same as for the Hanika gui-
tar, still different from the bass-reflex one. On the other
side, the reconstructed sound field 1 meter in front of its
top plate shows a very stable, also very low curve, both for
the mean and the standard deviation values.
3.4. Comparison between guitars
Table I summaries the parameters for the guitars integrated
over all radiation patterns from 83 Hz to 2 kHz as the area,
the IACC, and the reconstruction amplitude converge from
2 kHz on. The most clear differences are obtained for the
Wichmann bass-reflex guitar. Its radiation area of 24% is
clearly less than for the two other guitars, 28% for the
Hanika and 27% for the Flamenco guitar. On the other
side, its radiation strength of −9 dB is more than the -12 dB
of the Hanika and the −11 dB of the Flamenco guitar. Also
its IACC value of 0.4 is more than the 0.38 of the Hanika
and the 0.32 of the Flamenco. As known from the literature
the just-noticeable difference (JND) of IACC within the
0.4 range is JND ∼ 0.1 and so within the overall difference
at least between the Wichmann and the Flamenco guitar.
So this guitar is louder and more mono than the two other
guitars. All other values averaged over the 2 kHz range do
not differ between the guitars considerably.
It is also interesting to look at the ordering of correla-
tions r between the four parameters, admittance, radiation
area, sound field reconstruction 1 m in front of top plate,
and IACC shown in Figure 8 and Table II. The highest cor-
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ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA
Vol. 97 (2011)
relation around r ∼ .9 is for the admittance - area correla-
tion. Two significant correlations around r ∼ .7 are found
between admittance - 1 meter reconstruction and 1 meter
reconstruction - IACC. Not significant with (r ∼ .4) are the
relations admittance - IACC and area - IACC. The corre-
lation between area - 1 meter reconstruction is a bit less
than the stronger three.
First it is interesting to see that the correlations are
nearly independent of the type of guitar. So these corre-
lations seem to be a stable attribute of guitar acoustics.
Although all four parameters are derived from the ra-
diation patterns, the admittance and the IACC seem to be
least dependent parameters. From this standpoint using the
IACC as an additional sound feature makes sense as it adds
new information not easily derived from the admittance.
On the other hand, the correlation between admittance
and the reconstruction pressure is very much related. So
high admittance leads to strong radiation. As admittance
depends upon the strength of the forced oscillation modes
at the bridge, and as the bridge is not moving much be-
cause of its mass, reducing the bridge mass should lead to
increased radiation strength.
4. Conclusion
The method of using radiation patterns of guitar top plates
is capable of explaining basic characteristics of guitars.
This is most clear for the case, where new construction fea-
tures make clear distinctions between instrument sounds.
This method gives insight into the reason for the chang-
ing sound features. With more subtle timbre changes, the
method is able to connect these patterns to the overall
judgements of the instruments. Still, as the features of
these guitars are no physical properties, but judgements of
experts, the connection cannot be as clear as with the phys-
ical parameter changes. Still, the basic properties can be
derived from the results pretty clear, where the Interaural-
Cross Correlation (IACC), the admittance and the sound
reconstruction taking phase differences into consideration
are found to be most consistent with the expert judge-
ments. So including the IACC binaural parameter into mu-
sical instrument research seems to be worthwhile.
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