Source of curly walnut and curly maple tenor ukulele neck blanks

Ah, I understand but I am fundamentally out of my depth here. I had to look up what odd-order harmonics are and I'm still not sure I understand.



Harmonics are defined as an unwanted higher frequency component that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. Harmonics create a distortion in the fundamental waveform.

Okay... What you are hearing (I think) are what luthiers call "wolf tones" and are unwanted. There has been much discussion on this forum and others on trying to prevent wolf tones by "tuning" the box to a certain fundamental. Stuff way over my head so I will shut up now.

It's good thinking, although I think a wolf note is more about a resonance making a specific note louder than other notes. Or in the case of an instrument played with a bow, a resonance produces a note that is close to a desired note, and the difference produces a warble.

In any case, my thread hijack has gone off the rails, down an embankment, and into the woods. Apologies to the OP....

Yeah, it's not wolf tones. Odd vs even harmonics is the reason why a tube amp (which emphasizes even harmonics) sounds sweet and smooth when pushed to overdrive, and a mosfet amp (which emphasizes odd harmonics) sounds crunchy and aggressive. I can imagine that a uke that had a strong odd harmonic would sound unpleasant. I'm just not sure what would cause it!

This has been a great hijack but I think you're right and we should probably apologize to the OP!

sequoia said:

Ah, I understand but I am fundamentally out of my depth here. I had to look up what odd-order harmonics are and I'm still not sure I understand.

View attachment 129363

Harmonics are defined as an unwanted higher frequency component that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. Harmonics create a distortion in the fundamental waveform.

Okay... What you are hearing (I think) are what luthiers call "wolf tones" and are unwanted. There has been much discussion on this forum and others on trying to prevent wolf tones by "tuning" the box to a certain fundamental. Stuff way over my head so I will shut up now.

Click to expand...

I don't know if this random fact will help any, but a square wave is made up of all odd harmonics of the fundamental.

I find that square waves are extremely hard to surf.



I think this thread is now officially dead.