Talk:Silent guitar

User talk

moved from (User talk:Spike Wilbury) and (User talk:Waldir)

Hi Spike! I saw your edits on silent guitar, and would like you opinion: do you agree that the link that was removed on this revision was advertisement? I think it was pretty informative and useful for the article... Maybe we could rephrase it and insert the info on the article, what do you think? Since I am no expert on the field, I had left the article as a stub when I created it, and linked to the site... Waldir 07:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Btw, is Yamaha the only manufacturer of silent guitars? if not, the "manufacturer" field in the infobox should be updated. If yes, then the removal of the sentence in the same edit i linked above, was wrongful and should be restored. Waldir 07:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello there! As far as I can tell, there are multiple manufacturers of silent guitars. Yamaha makes one, Traveler makes one, and that company Koopal makes one. Really, we probably should not have an equipment infobox in this article because the article is not about one particular guitar but a class of guitars.

The link that was removed was mostly informative but it includes a commercial order link for just the Koopal silent guitar. I would prefer to link the informational pages (for example http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/guitar/silent_guitar/index.html) for each type of silent guitar if we include external links. Does that makes sense? --Spike Wilbury ♫ talk 16:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely! We should list the companies that make silent guitars, and also put them all in the infobox (or use another one, if there's something more appropriate). The link you showed me is informative but clearly promotional. The kroopal one is really good, I think we should link both (I mean, all, from each manufacturer) in the article's external links section, and put some of the information from the kroopal one (and eventually the other, without the promotional tone) on the article.

In another issue, I emailed the author of the image you put there (I created a flickr account just for that =P), asking for a better photo of a silent guitar. I'll inform you of his response.

Third and last: What do you think about moving this discussion from our talk pages to the article's? I can do that if you agree, or if you wish, do it yourself.

Waldir 16:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent ideas - it would definitely be better to integrate the useful information from each external link into the page and perhaps just use them as references instead of "external links". I would love to get a photo of the entire silent guitar; hopefully the Flickr user has one he wouldn't mind releasing. Also, I don't mind if you want to move this discussion to the article talk page. Thanks! --Spike Wilbury ♫ talk 17:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

end of moved section

"Silent guitar"?

Could someone clarify exactly what a "silent guitar" is? Is it basically just a guitar with piezoelectric pickups and a built-in amplifier? I play guitar and have never heard the term. The sites that are linked in this article and its talk page are quite obscure; The Koopal[1] site just seems like a description of a normal electric guitar. The Yamaha[2] site is pretty obscure as well, and in the specifications page it says that it uses these[3] pickups, which to my eye at least, look like piezoelectric pickups.

And I also doubt that a silent guitar would have a hollow body, and neither of the above sites claim this, apart from a few words "or semi-solid" on the Koopal site, which seems to be describing a normal electric guitar anyway. The guitars pictured on the sites do not seem like hollow-bodies either. Could someone add references, and by that I mean good ones, the Koopal page describes an electric guitar. The picture should be changed as well, since the headstock is the same as in any other type of guitar. 85.76.253.210 (talk) 21:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I am in agreement. A Silent Guitar would differ from the general Electric in four respects (five for Yamaha):

1. It has a built in pre-amplifier, to supply headphone level audio from the pickup.
2. A built-in 1/8" headphone jack from the pre-amp for individual listening (different from the 1/4" amp jack.)
3. The rim is almost always just a frame outline of the waist shape, with a "travel guitar" style ultra-thin body. (In some models like the Yamaha and the Koopal, the rim is detachable.)
4. In the Yamaha series, it includes DSP to make the tone more acoustic-like, and it also includes a CD/MP3 input to facilitate playing along to prerecorded music.
5. The combination of all these makes a Silent Guitar primarily built for practice in locations which a "standard" guitar would be undesirable. Most also have an external jack for connection to an amp, but it's the built in pre-amp and headphone jack which makes it a "silent".

I own a Silent Guitar under the brand of "Morelli" - AFAIK not the famous "Morelli." (IMVHO it's a cheap knockoff of a Laurel silent guitar, but plays very well for the $30 I paid for it.) I can't understand how it's in any way, shape, or form a "hollow body." The only hollowness I can see are the carved out spots for the preamp and battery. (Though it may well have a sealed hollow interior for tone or something.) Anyway, I'd agree with editing the article to say it's a "solid body," and let someone else add documentation (besides the Koopal site) to justify any semi-solid or hollow true Silent Guitar. 98.215.48.213 (talk) 19:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

let me try:

yes we have a problem with the definition and the corresponding manufacturers and pictures! either we just talk about the Yamaha model with that name or we establish a category of instruments which can have any form, as long as it does not resonate and sound loud, right? Thats point 5 above. I do not agree with point point 3. "Travel" is a totally different story (and the Yamaha Silent is too long for it).

its so easy to connect a headphone amp to any guitar, that the point 1 and 2 and 4 are not essential either. to distinguish from a common electric guitar, we might leave point 1 because any amplified guitar output can be used for a headphone (and a cable mono-stereo).

the most important distinction from the electric guitar for me seems the intention to create the sound of an acoustic guitar so we could mention first the pioneers like Gibson (the mentioned Chet Atkins possibly was the first in the beginning of the 80ies!), Godin Multiac (probably sold the most of the kind in the 90ies), Paradis Avalon (the first headless nylon 1990), Frame (the first with that detachable frame), and then many more you can get if you google for "solid body acoustic guitar" Matigrob (talk) 12:31, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Picture

The current picture of a silent guitar just shows the guitar's head which seems (to my non expert eyes) to be the same as any other guitar head. Maybe a more representative guitar showing the whole body would be better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.31.81 (talk) 19:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been regularly searching the web for freely licensed images of a silent guitar so we could replace the image, which, as you say, is not representative at all. Today I just found one and replaced the image :) I believe it's already good enough to give an idea of how it looks like. --Waldir ^talk 19:52, 26 June 2009 (UTC)