Odd that you can vote for each and it counts

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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

Is Bigjay an expert on the subject?

I believe the knobs marked "Bass" "Midrange" "Treble" and "Master" on my amps affect the tone much, much more than the quality of the wood.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

I value his opinion as a player and user of the strat above many. He will when he see's this thread voice his opinion profusely. Thats all I'm saying.


Nah in truth your going to go with one of two opinions here. Some say a body imparts little if anything. I respect their judgement. Some say its quite important to a guitars sound and have too collected extensive evidence and scrutinized its many facets. To which BigJay belongs.

Myself, I get a usable sound out of most things.

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No no and no

There goes the opposite end of the spectrum.

Whom I wouldnt dare argue with either. His opinon is equally as valid.

Sometimes you gotta chuckle at these threads. Its not how you get it, its that you get it. 'It' being very changable from ear to ear.

howzat for diplomacy.

pffft I'm wasted working constuction.

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No no and no

I saw a video of Paul Reed Smith doing a factory tour. He picked up a block of wood and hit it with the edge of his thumb. The piece of wood just SANG!! You can't tell me that using that piece of wood would not help a guitar's tone.

See now thats the problem Bobster. Suposition based on what we all think should be. As OrvilleOwner stated ages ago their are synthetic material bodied guitars that sound brilliant. One factor doesnt equall great tone. You could slap a load of crap hofner hardware on that body and have junk. Its a culmination of parts in my book. You cant start badly and improve in increments as you build the thing and expect a great guitar, just cos one bit of it is topclass. You can easily lose that parts added benefit with a bad part.

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No no and no

What I believe he is saying is:

Everything has to work together to get the sound you want. Starting with the strings and ending with the amp/speakers. One "wrong" piece and you might miss your target.

Since I am a (one channel) Marshall amp player, my Strats don't sound like the guy who is a Fender amp player or a Mesa Boogie amp player. If I had the wrong pickups (eg, wildly overwound), it would mess up my sound. But whether my Strat has a one-piece ash or 7-piece alder body doesn't make much difference to my sound, IMO.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

no.

pickups, amp, player...only things that affect tone enough to be recognizable

Perhaps a good sound from a piece of quality timber lays the foundation for a tone. Note I said "a tone"

on top of that, you have controls, pick-ups, cable, amp, and then if you want to get into it- tubes (or valves depending on what part of the world you live).

Of course, you have a bolt on neck which would give more tone loss, a pickguard which probably hinders resonancy, and a floating bridge. Add to that, routing, finish.

So this is my stance on this and Ive said it before- and I say this because I have had the opportunity to play a strat made by a luthier years ago that was a maple neckthrough with mahogany 'wings' and a slanted headstock. It was made by a violin maker and it had an oil finish they use for violin/viola and cello necks. The sound from it was just amazing and it sounded like no other strat Ive heard unplugged.

Also, to throw this one out to the mix- a luthier told me that a beautiful piece of highly figured maple for neck does not resonate as good as a plain quarter sawn due to the ripple effect in the grain So are the differences clearly noticable? they are nice quality pieces of timber arent they? . Also, not as strong either as there isnt as much grain traveling down the full length of the neck either. So if there are any good luthiers who can atest to that or add correction please do so

So yes, I think a quality piece of timber lays the foundation for tone. Its what you can do with it and what you plug it to that matters more I think

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great tone = great wood