Jack White and Mr. Page can get a nice sound out of a cheap plywood and Formica made guitar. Jack even uses a cheap (at one time) Silvertone amp and sounds good with said guitar. So confusing!

To be serious for a second: it's not that I don't believe any of it is real - I do. I have very great respect for everything Mr cvilleira said about wood earlier on this thread, for instance.

It's just that, as Orvilleowner pointed out (in some uncommonly loquacious posts) the mere flick of a selector switch between adjacent pickups makes vastly, vastly more difference. (Nevermind what amps and other signal shaping does.) The contribution of tonewood is tiny - so much so that we can only identify differences when directly A/B'd, and even then only by listening hard.

I guess on some microcosmic level that has to be true of finishes too. But I'll privately admit my guff-radar starts twitching when I hear people holding forth on how nitro helps the guitar's tone breathe... Hhhhhmmmmm...

Haha - C

This was a quick moving post lots of fun. Thank you Niki for getting the cells a thinking. This and the electric shock one are always interesting type post for hearing others thoughts. Some make you think, some giggle, others shock but all the thoughts are welcome and a joy to read.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Absolutely agree with you guys. Have to say never mind about woods/pups/selctor switch whatever I can play a guitar and it will have my 'tone'. Hand it without making any changes to another guitarist and it will have their 'tone'
Not withstanding all that the rosewood as expected has a warmer sound than maple which again I expected to be brighter.

See:

Exhibit A- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5imPpWkZo8

Exhibit B- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMX0Grv ... L&index=50

Two blues songs played by the same person through the same rig within minutes of each other. Form your own opinions.. I say that there is no difference.

Fender themselves said that the only reason that rosewood boards were introduced was because of complaints of dirty maple boards.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

Both those gigs were processed as hell. A strat through a clean amp that is set to all eq in the center position doesnt sound like that.

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No no and no

I agree but the point is that who the hell plays like that anymore? When it's all said and done fretboard wood is very negligible.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

But it does make a difference no matter how miniscule. How many of us have our own sound engineers (not house or band ones) that constantly monitor everything. The point of my test was to produce as bare bones a sound as possible and review it through that sound. If i'd heard no difference i would of worded the begining of this thread completely differently. My objective wasnt to prove a point, just to provide some kind of decent test. I'd tried it once before putting the hotrod neck on the customshop body. The use of my laptops built in microphone negated its use. The sound quality was utter junk, i could of played a les paul then a danelectro u2 and you'd never of known. So i set about using the zoom h2 as a mic for my video capture program.

I completely agree that fender only switched to rosewood because of complaints about maple getting dirty. How many other things got discovered by accident though.

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No no and no

I'm not disagreeing at all- You have no doubt proven the differences. I was just giving a quick comparison of the practical differences.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

[quote="cwpainter"]See:

had a listen to both , "A" - I'm thinking could be maple, could be rosewood,is it , or is it.............and so on
"B" - ITS ROSEWOOD, NO DOUBTS

1. The momentum of the vibrating string is the product of its frequency, amplitude and mass, and depends on the force a player applies to the string ( the attack ) and the amount of energy absorbed by the guitar which explains that the output of a pickup varies in different guitars.

Bill Lawerence

After some pretty in depth conversation with a smart friend of mine, I've come to understand why these questions produce such endless debate.

I'll have to start a thread on the subject.

Oh certainly its of no importance in a real situation. Theres nothing in it that cant be eq'd out.

Now heres the controversial next topic. With all the gumf around valves/tubes, i hear no difference at all between manufacurer. Sovteks sound like mullards to me. Nevermind all the other people who merely rate tubes offering theirs as producing the best tones and dont make them.

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No no and no

Have at it!

Cheers - C