Tag: Resonator Cone

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Climbing out of the rabbit hole… I compare my National Resonator set-up with a traditional wooden biscuit vs. the new Revolution Biscuit…

Last week I posted a blog entry in which I compared video recordings of me playing my National Reso-rocket WB with the new Revolution Biscuit/Bridge, with and without the addition of a wooden gasket that sits between the biscuit and the resonator cone. The posting can be found here…

As I usually do, I shared my blog posting on my Facebook page, as well as a few other FB guitar enthusiast pages, including one dedicated to National Guitars users/fans. Sharing on Facebook gets my entries better exposure… in fact, people from all over the world have checked in to what I have to say and I am grateful for the time people take to read my articles and to comment on them.

My previous two articles about the Revolution biscuit received quite a bit of attention, but none more so than the most recent one. In fact there was quite a bit of consternation and dissatisfaction about how the guitar sounded with the Revolution biscuit, either with or without the wooden gasket. Someone suggested that the guitar strings may to too light… in fact, they’re quite heavy. There was even a bit of mysticism, one commenter suggesting that the installation of a Revolution Biscuit in a friend’s guitar removed its ghost, thus diminishing its sound quality. Another implied that perhaps my playing was at fault, which may be true, but I think the dominant variable was the Revolution Biscuit itself.

Reso-rocket WB, cone and biscuit removed…

I decided then that it might be useful to explore more closely a before and after comparison of the traditional wooden biscuit versus the Revolution biscuit. I had not done this before. The only other comparison that I am aware of that is publicly available is the one created by Steve James in his workshop, which you can find in this posting. It was hard for me to tell much difference between set-ups in James’s posting.

So, to respond to the sound critics I decided to do my own A/B comparison on the same exact guitar. I recorded myself playing first with the Revolution Biscuit (with wooden gasket deployed), then I disemboweled the guitar and reinstalled the original wooden biscuit and recorded the same tune again. The transition of one to the other was made easier because each biscuit was equipped with its own cone. If you’re interested in my recording technique you can find that information here. I recorded myself playing Muddy Waters’ tune I Feel Like Going Home, which I learned from Tom Feldmann’s excellent Guitar Workshop DVD. The guitar is tuned to Open G and I am using a heavy, solid brass Tone Dome slide.

Well… here are the two recordings:

First, the recording with the Revolution Biscuit installed:

Second, the recording with the tradition wooden biscuit re-installed on the guitar:

After completing the recordings and editing them a bit on my MacBook Pro with iMovie, I did some intense comparisons… I listened, comparing section by section of the tune, on my MacBook speakers, then through some nice Grado headphones, and finally piped it through my very nice Marantz/Paradigm sound system using Apple AirPlay. I also had my wife Annette and my Iowa-all-time-best-friend Grant listen to the recordings too and share their impressions with me.

In sum, everyone, including me liked the traditional wooden biscuit sound far more than the Revolution biscuit. The sonic and tonal differences were quite obvious. I am not particularly articulate when it comes down to discussing guitar tones, but I will try. The traditional wooden biscuit tones were more present, more naturally acoustic sounding, perhaps more resonator twangy sounding. The Revolution biscuit tones sounded more truncated, lacking tonal subtleties, and were flatter and more compressed sounding, with the compression increasing as the strings got heavier.

I’ve decided to climb out of the Revolution Biscuit rabbit hole and leave the wooden biscuit installed on my WB for the time being…

In conclusion:

  1. I was persuaded to try the Revolution Biscuit because it would allow me to improve my set-up in terms of playing action. My strings were a bit too high for comfortable finger-style playing. One of the key selling points of the Revolution Biscuit is the easy raising and lowering of the saddle using set screws to adjust the guitar’s action. Plus it was cool looking… I like the high-tech machined aluminum appearance of the new biscuit… To state the obvious, how a guitar looks is very important, but not near as important as it sounds…

  2. I did not expect a noticeable or negative tonal difference when replacing the wood biscuit, based largely on Steve James’s recording, but detected some immediate difference. Not doing an A/B comparison initially, I was not sure how much difference there really was and at that point I was too lazy to switch back and forth… it was a lot of somewhat stressful work setting up the Revolution biscuit the first time…

  3. Later, I accepted Steve James’s offer to try out the wooden gasket that sits between the Revolution Bridge and the cone mostly because I wanted to see if it would alter the tonal qualities in a positive way. There was some change in tone (positive I think) which I reported on earlier.

  4. In response to “sound critics” on Facebook, I finally did an A/B comparison of the two biscuits and as I perceive the results, the wooden biscuit is more natural sounding.

  5. Caveat: in another lifetime, I was a statistician (having minored in the subject) during my doctoral studies. My conclusions about the Revolution Biscuit are probably best applied for the National Reso-rocket WB… this was not an extensive factorial analysis… there may be other important variables at play such as saddle-type (i.e. wood) and guitar type (i.e. metal vs wood body or size) that may interact and cause noticeably different results!

Please let me know what you think…

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National Guitar’s Revolution Biscuit Bridge: A Modification

In my last posting I discussed the installation of National Guitar’s new machined aluminum biscuit/bridge on my Reso-Rocket WB. You can find that posting here. Just as I was wrapping up that discussion, it came to my attention via a YouTube posting by Steve James that National was now producing a wooden gasket to place between the aluminum biscuit and the resonator cone. Since I had just completed my installation, I was naturally curious as to what purpose the wooden gasket served. To that end, I sent inquiries to Steve James, Mike Dowling and National Guitars. Both James and Dowling are recording artists and they represent/sell National Guitars so they would have the inside scoop. I was interested in their take on the purpose and value of the gasket. I contacted National to see if I could acquire one as the gasket was not yet available for sale on their website.

Biscuit gasket awaiting installation atop the WB…

After receiving a response from all the aforementioned contacts, there were basically two thoughts regarding the gasket. Steve James believed the wooden gasket which was located between the aluminum cone and aluminum biscuit would bring the guitar’s tone back closer to the sound of the older wooden biscuit design, which he thought was important.

On the other hand, Mike Dowling believed the gasket served the purpose of enhancing how the aluminum bridge “seated” onto the resonator cone during installation, particularly when using a “used” cone that had a wooden biscuit removed from it. According to Dowling, the used cone was “dimpled” by the wooden biscuit which prevented a uniform contact with the Revolution biscuit during subsequent installation. The gasket mitigated this problem. In Mike’s opinion the gasket was totally unnecessary when the Revolution biscuit was installed on a new cone. Mike was pretty firm in his recommendation even though he shared that the president of National thought the gasket might “mellow” the guitar’s tonality.

Since I had installed my Revolution biscuit on a new cone, I was inclined to drop the subject, especially after National confirmed, via email to me, Mike Dowling’s same position on the gasket. National Guitars seemed to have more than one opinion regarding the gasket. It is indeed true that two things can be true at the same time!

Almost immediately after hearing from Mike Dowling, I decided not to pursue the wooden gasket any further. Somewhat ironically, I was simultaneously contacted by Steve James and he basically insisted that I give the wooden gasket a try. In fact, he arranged with National Guitars to send me one! Despite the fact that Steve James did not know me at all, he was super nice and exceptionally accommodating during this process. Below you can see Steve’s initial YouTube posting about the wooden gasket:

In just a day or two, the gasket arrived from National… in fact they sent me two! The gaskets were very thin and flexible wooden shim-like contrivances designed to fit snugly into the underside of the Revolution bridge. To the left you can see the resonator cone I disassembled from my guitar with the Revolution biscuit sitting upside down upon it. The gasket is shown fitting snuggly to the underside of the biscuit. You can also see the the gasket is cut away to make space for the center mounting apparatus that is used to screw the biscuit into the cone. In sum, the gasket is sandwiched between the biscuit and the cone. Since it is so thin, it is basically moldable when the biscuit it screwed into the cone, yet it maintains a thin wooden layer between the two.

Revolution biscuit, Maple saddle with gasket…

To the right, you can see the Revolution bridge attached to the cone with the wooden gasket sandwiched between. Also visible is the Maple saddle inserted into the biscuit. Because the gasket raised the height of the saddle, I had to remove it and sand it down to compensate for the gasket’s thickness. Removal of the bridge is quite easy and one of the selling points for the Revolution biscuit. It took a bit of trial and error but I got the saddle sanded down to get the string action that I wanted. If you refer to my earlier posting on the subject you can find the tolerances I was shooting for.

After I reassembled the instrument I made a recording of the guitar with the gasket installed and compared it the an earlier recording that I made after initially installing the biscuit (without the gasket). The clips are shown below. I am playing Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied.” The first two recordings are “unplugged” and the last one is the guitar plugged into my Mesa Boogie Filmont 50 and through a series of pedals:

Revolution Biscuit Bridge – Initial installation without wooden gasket
Revolution Biscuit Bridge with wooden gasket installed
Revolution Biscuit Bridge with wooden gasket installed and guitar “plugged-in”

The tonality differences between the guitar with and without the wooden gasket are, I think, subtle; however, after repeated listenings, I believe the gasket fattens and lends a woodiness to the tone. I plan to keep the gasket installed. Feel free to comment below what you think.