Between them Mssrs. SlapChop and Big Jay have covered it: no need to repeat those points.

Essentially, it would be physically impossible for the material the guitar is made from not to affect the decay and timbre of the note the strings produce.

However, hand me a guitar with a solid color finish on it. I'll be damned if I can tell you what wood it's made of!!

Cheers - C

Ha! A good analogy. My attitude to wine: if it makes my jaw bone sting then it definitely ain't good enough.

If that guitar sounds nice then who cares whether it's alder, ash or poplar? What matter if it has a maple cap that's 10 mm thick or just one?

On the other hand, I have a few times tasted seriously glamorous wine and I could indeed tell the difference. Not remotely worth the price (to me) but real nevertheless.

On the other hand (again), I do think ash tends to look nicer than alder and that might influence which guitar I pull off the wall in a shop. How shallow...

Cheers - C

PS: there's a tradition in my family of making really awful homemade wine, and in the last five years I have proudly taken my place in that noble line. I was drinking some of my own stuff last night. A couple of glasses have left me with something of a headache this morning...

It is NOT cork sniffing guys ! Let me give you a good example. I had 2 MIJ RI strats with basswood bodies and rosewood necks. i always used the same pickups in these guitars. So i ended up with 2 strats with identical specs. Nothing was different. One sounded really good, the other sounded horrible, and so different you'd never guess blindfolded they were identical. This isn't some made up scenario, it really happened to me and i had to sell the bad one because it was so sonically worthless i could never have used it for anything. Wood is huge. Wood in fact is everything. there is nothing on a strat that can't be easily and cheaply changed, and if you think a strat that sound horrid can be made great with pups or any other hardware you're fooling yourself. Yes, pickups sense the strings. But the strings vibrate in the way they do because of the design and the wood. this is what 2 strats exactly the same will sound different, sometimes to a amazing degree. Anyone who thinks the design and wood isn't by far the reason a guitar sounds like it does should try putting a single coil in a LP and see how close you get to a strat tone. In fact, put everything you can from a strat on a LP, even route it for a strat trem....EVERYTHING. It will still not sound at all like a strat. Closer, but no cigar.

Nobody is saying that body wood doesn't sound different from guitar to guitar. Obviously it does.

I'm saying that the usual cork sniffing lingo - i.e., "I chose a swamp ash body for its delicate highs and throaty midrange" - is a load of bunk. A guitar is a system of things, the body wood being just one of them, and two mahogany bodies can sound completely different.

Your post doesn't contradict the point: it proves it. Two identical guitars, one awesome, one lifeless. Exactly. So, everyone should stop trying to predict how a given guitar will respond based on component material.

Big Jay,
I have actually took alot of science courses while I prepared to be a dentist and two of my most favorite courses was Physics I and II. So, I understand where your coming from. Most of the stuff I learned I have forgotten because it has been a few years since I've had these courses.

When a body is built in on cheaper guitars I hear it can have as much a seven different pieces of wood. Do they still use one solid piece in the middle where the pickups, strings and bridges are.

In the higher dollar guitars, It seems like there is three pieces alot with once piece in the middle and separate pieces on the outside where the curvature in the esthetics is placed. I wonder with this type can the affect be the most similar to a guitar made with one piece?

Am I thinking too much here? I do have a science background so I always think alot when I'm learning about things I hadn't in the past.

Thanks,

Smiledoc

Some good info from Wikipedia as usual http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwood

Ceri,
You reminded me of an old joke my grandfather told me and one I'm sure most of you have heard before. I think I can remember it so here it goes.

There once was an argument that had been going on forever between a Beech and Birch tree. There was a young tree growing up between them and each one was claiming that it was their son. So one day a woodpecker came and landed on the young tree so they asked the woodpecker to tell them what kind of young tree that was.

So, the woodpecker pecked for quite awhile. They finally got fed up with him and said "Woodpecker what kind of tree is that???". The woodpecker responded:" I don't know if that is a son of a beech or a son of a birch but that's the best piece of ash I've ever stuck my pecker into".

I still think that is a funny joke.

Smiledoc

Never heard that one before but I like it.

See, that's where it falls apart for me. There is no "general rule" that provides a valuable guide. One Strat body made of ash attenuates lows and sounds bright, another one attenuates highs and sounds dull. One chunk of mahogany resonates like crazy across a broad frequency range, another doesn't. We all know this fact is irrefutable.

Furthermore, the effect of body wood is buried under the more important aspects like neck construction, pickups, strings and (most important) the player's touch and intent.

So what is the point of generalities, when the results predicted by them don't occur or can't be reproduced in the real world?

It just isn't that big deal in any case. It's either a good guitar, or it isn't. And you can't build another one exactly like it by knowing what it's made from.

+1 Type of wood doesnt matter as much as the quality of that piece of wood.