the sound of the cue??????

Djay Customs

Djay Customs

Designer for JB Cases
I always ask myself..what make the sound of your cue???
the tip??
the joint??
the wood??
the ferulle??
the shaft??

maybe somebody can explain??
I have tested several cues and I have used the same shaft and all the sounds were different??
 
What makes the sound of a cue? Is it the tip, the ferrule, the shaft, the joint, the wood, and/or the construction method?

The short answer is: Yes.
 
hmmm.

I've been playing around with the tones of wood. I play instruments and being connected to music in that way has given me an entirely different way of putting thing together.

I am under the impression that the cue is a 'percussion instrument'. The best two cue makers who ever lived have very similar 'tones' when their cues are struck. I had the pleasure of visiting with a cue collector who had both an authentic Titlist Balabushka and a Gus in the same bag. I had the pleasure of hitting Brad's Gus before, and it was very crisp, and had a very nice tone to it that simply added to the enjoyment of the game.

Stroking a pure shot releases the cue's tone more fully. It is the exact same thing as hitting the sweet spot in golf, or any sport for that matter, and it is very rewarding to become familiar with this rare quality.

Cues that have no sound, to me, are useless. You might as well be playing with a cue that was 'Made in China' by some factory that knows nothing about pool.

I've been working on matching tones during construction and have had some fantastic results. If the components go together like a chord and it is made to reverberate properly, you will have yourself a real masterpiece. In Buddhism, there is what is called the 'Middle Way'. Tighten the string too much, and it breaks. Too much slack, and it's useless. When the string is in tune along with all the other strings, harmony is co-exists in a beautiful way.

Some notes are in accordance with other notes just the same as instruments that are able to blend together, but Van Halen and Celine Dion do not go together, they cancel each other out which reveals my principle study in the art of cue making.

I would like to also add that some musicians are ugly as hell, but sound very nice and could become a source of entertainment just so long as you're not looking in their direction.

The tip and ferrule have a great deal to do with it, but it is the entire process of how a cue is made that can either 'add to' or 'take away' from the cue's overall performance. Aside from construction, I believe that 'bold imagination' is the most powerful thing a person can have. The decisions you make when nobody's watching will determine the type of quality in the final product.

There is such an innate ability to the creation of true art that one might select from either his cue or his ipod for the same reasons.
 
I have been sitting here diligently listening to my cue for nearly 24 hours. I am giving up. It has yet to make a sound. Is it broken? :(



























Sorry....couldn't resist...... :D

.
 
Hi,

I like to build cues that are quiet with a low resonance tonality. Players who want a high pitched ring can cross me off their list for sure.

Fully cored maple with Poly expansion glue fills the bill for me to get that sound and feel. I appreciate anyone who is into "ping" but it is not my area of expertise. Too many variables for me for sure.

I love to hear Satchmo or Roy Eldrich bast their horns on a break but there is something about sound of Miles Davis's muted trumpet that is haunting to the ear.

JMO,

Rick
 
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SK Custom Cues said:
Cues that have no sound, to me, are useless. You might as well be playing with a cue that was 'Made in China' by some factory that knows nothing about pool.




.
Click to expand...
OUCH!
A cue that does not have an SS collar but has a good ping has good things going for it .
 
I'm pretty sure that every serious cue maker in the last 30 years has worked to get his or her cues to sound the way they want them to sound. No matter what you might hear it isn't anything mysterious or hard or secret. Using a wood that doesn't have a ringing sound when struck sharply is going to deaden the sound as are glues that don't transmit shock and sound waves as cleanly as other glues. Besides these two variables there are dozens of others, any of which will contribute to the feel the cue makes when it hits the ball. The biggest is the tip, then the ferrule and so on.

Last but certainly not least is the bumper which acts as a muffler to dampen vibrations and sound.
 
Paul Dayton said:
I'm pretty sure that every serious cue maker in the last 30 years has worked to get his or her cues to sound the way they want them to sound. No matter what you might hear it isn't anything mysterious or hard or secret. Using a wood that doesn't have a ringing sound when struck sharply is going to deaden the sound as are glues that don't transmit shock and sound waves as cleanly as other glues. Besides these two variables there are dozens of others, any of which will contribute to the feel the cue makes when it hits the ball. The biggest is the tip, then the ferrule and so on.

Last but certainly not least is the bumper which acts as a muffler to dampen vibrations and sound.
Click to expand...

I took the rubber bumper off one of my Kikels once and hit some balls, it was like a completely different cue! Honestly I was amazed and put the bumper back in straight away..
 
Thanks for the reply everybody, I took off the bumper...and the sound was something better..but if I leave the bumper off, do you have any suggestions to protect the buttcap???
 
I haven't made any cues yet, but I know quite a lot about wooden musical instruments since I have been restoring them for nearly 40 years now. There are certain woods that are very resonant by nature. Cocobolo, African blackwood, pernambuco, and Brazilian rosewood all seem to be alive in the hands when struck for a tap tone. East Indian rosewood is a distant second to Brazilian in this regard.

I don't know how this applies to making good sounding cues, but I suspect that these more resonant woods make for livelier sounding cues.

FWIW I know that purpleheart is thought by many to make a good hitting cue, but in my experience it is kinda dead sounding. I once turned a pair of purpleheart claves for my percussionist son. They sounded like a dull thud when struck together. I burned them in my wood stove and turned a pair made from cocobolo. They had the loud, clear clave sound for sure.

Also, not all pieces of the same species or even the same log will sound the same. The pernambuco I used for violin bows (back when I could get it) varied considerably from plank to plank. The ones that sounded the liveliest and rang with one pure tone when struck made the best sounding bows by far. The rest I sold to my competitors.
 
It's funny I came across this thread and maybe I should have mentioned it earlier, but only typed words after thinking about last night. I'm sure all u guys do this, but I bounce every piece of wood I encounter on the concrete. I turned some ebony, ei rose, bol rose, coco, and b.e. to use as butt construction. The ebony as you all know is really dense but not in the same way purple heart is. It's kinda like wenge and splinters really easy. Tulipwood is really nice, but for some reason, it is kind of blah toned and I've never like the hit, but ebony with a wrapless curly handle, or even an eir fullsplice in my short time making cues, I believe is really nice.

Also, I appreciate a cue making veteran like Paul Dayton stepping in and adding his two cents. I'm working on a few sneaky's and a couple of other plain wrapless cues right now. The cue that's in my avatar is coco and has that micarta ferrule and it hits like a champ, but it's pretty much the standard .840 - 12.40 or something like that.

Some of the guys play with ridiculously tiny shafts, and also like the skinny butts. I just made a cue for a guy with a butt that goes from .835 to right under 12 and put an Earl taper on it, and it still maintained it's body during the stroke. The shaft was about 12.30mm and weighed about 18.4 when finished. It had a really crisp, pleasing tone to it and I felt really good about it. I think when the butt is too big it takes away from what's goin on up front where it really matters.

I used to make my shafts euro taper and really fat 4-5" above the joint and down, and that mentality came from this 'LD' era of stiff shafts and low deflection, but I know now that my string was too loose. I needed to tighten it a lot more and I think I've found my taper (which is dialed out by hand between centers)

I know some of the veterans are laughing at me thinking 'been there before', but it's an adventure to me. I'm making a steel joint sneaky somewhere at .800 just to see because someone brought in a Titlist Bushka last weekend and it was about like that and it hit great. The age of the wood won't compare to my cue and I realize that is a factor not to mention the maker, but we'll see. It seems the bolder I get with stuff, and getting away from thinking 'oh shit' maybe the customer won't like it, the more confident I feel in my art.

I've hit Eric's cues before, and they were really nice but all the ones I hit had thick shafts, it seemed, over 13mm but in any case I was really amazed with the Sugartree hit.. very well balanced, simple, and well executed. It was like holding the RC3 that I checked out for the first time last weekend. . . the whole thing was a thoroughly polished masterpiece.

I like 'big butts', and I cannot lie . . . (I made myself a Balabushka wanna-be) but skinny butts are my thing and I'm going to keep tuning my strings until hopefully, one day they can be like all you guy's cues..... it's not easy being a starving artist....

you can do back bends or situps, but please don't lose that butt.....:dance:
 
Sloppy Pockets said:
I haven't made any cues yet, but I know quite a lot about wooden musical instruments since I have been restoring them for nearly 40 years now. There are certain woods that are very resonant by nature. Cocobolo, African blackwood, pernambuco, and Brazilian rosewood all seem to be alive in the hands when struck for a tap tone. East Indian rosewood is a distant second to Brazilian in this regard.

I don't know how this applies to making good sounding cues, but I suspect that these more resonant woods make for livelier sounding cues.

FWIW I know that purpleheart is thought by many to make a good hitting cue, but in my experience it is kinda dead sounding. I once turned a pair of purpleheart claves for my percussionist son. They sounded like a dull thud when struck together. I burned them in my wood stove and turned a pair made from cocobolo. They had the loud, clear clave sound for sure.

Also, not all pieces of the same species or even the same log will sound the same. The pernambuco I used for violin bows (back when I could get it) varied considerably from plank to plank. The ones that sounded the liveliest and rang with one pure tone when struck made the best sounding bows by far. The rest I sold to my competitors.
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIOAn55nMVU
Here's something that might interest you.

Btw, wood tone is just one of the many things that contribute to a great hitting cue. In the end, the cue is as good as the weakest link. Put a nice Braz rosewood forearm and use a low tone maple, it will not have an exceptional tone. Tip, ferrule, joint collars and so on factor in in the end.
Taper might be the most underrated factor of all.
 
i tried,from the same maker, 3 cues, same shaft etc,plain janes. just the forearm wood was different.... but so was the sound, hit and feel of the entire cue! purple heart is not my facorite choice in design... but it provides imho a fantastic hit and sound. leopard wood too.
 
Djay Customs said:
Thanks for the reply everybody, I took off the bumper...and the sound was something better..but if I leave the bumper off, do you have any suggestions to protect the buttcap???
Click to expand...
Have someone make you a bumper replacement out of Phenolic and it will have more sound than the rubber bumper. Maybe not as much as with no bumper, but closer than with one.
 
JoeyInCali said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIOAn55nMVU
Here's something that might interest you.

Btw, wood tone is just one of the many things that contribute to a great hitting cue. In the end, the cue is as good as the weakest link. Put a nice Braz rosewood forearm and use a low tone maple, it will not have an exceptional tone. Tip, ferrule, joint collars and so on factor in in the end.
Taper might be the most underrated factor of all.
Click to expand...

Joey, thanks for that. Yes, very interesting. Linda is the Allison Fisher of the guitar making world. I met her once at a lutherie convention in Montreal. Very sweet and humble considering her stature in the field.

I would hope that every cue maker takes the time to knock on his or her blanks to hear the tone. One of the dangers in using machines to make these things is that you don't have an ongoing feedback mechanism telling you how the tone is changing as the works progresses. When I carve a bow, I can hear the tone changing right while I work on it. Even the sound of the plane on the wood changes as the dimensions of the piece change. I can actually "hear" these changes through my fingertips. These sounds and sensations help to guide me, telling me when I am approaching what I am looking for... and when I am at risk of going too far.

Kinda hard to build a cue without a lathe, however. But I still think it's a good idea to form an initial tonal assessment with any piece of wood where a desirable tone is being striven for.
 
Sloppy Pockets said:
Joey, thanks for that. Yes, very interesting. Linda is the Allison Fisher of the guitar making world. I met her once at a lutherie convention in Montreal. Very sweet and humble considering her stature in the field.

I would hope that every cue maker takes the time to knock on his or her blanks to hear the tone. One of the dangers in using machines to make these things is that you don't have an ongoing feedback mechanism telling you how the tone is changing as the works progresses. When I carve a bow, I can hear the tone changing right while I work on it. Even the sound of the plane on the wood changes as the dimensions of the piece change. I can actually "hear" these changes through my fingertips. These sounds and sensations help to guide me, telling me when I am approaching what I am looking for... and when I am at risk of going too far.

Kinda hard to build a cue without a lathe, however. But I still think it's a good idea to form an initial tonal assessment with any piece of wood where a desirable tone is being striven for.
Click to expand...

Some people think toning woods is a waste of time in cue making.
 
I have to keep my Lucasi in a case wrapped in a blanket in the closet.
If I don't all I hear all night is "Help I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese cue factory"
Seriously I don't hear a sound from any of my cues,maybe I should turn my hearing aid up.
 
Djay Customs said:
Thanks for the reply everybody, I took off the bumper...and the sound was something better..but if I leave the bumper off, do you have any suggestions to protect the buttcap???
Click to expand...

If the bumper stuck loose in your buttend, you can achieve a better sounf by glueing the bumper with cyanacrylate or epoxy.
 
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