Tried the tabletop test again, this time straight into my JM4 looper's built in tuner, didn't notice any change in pitch, tried against various wood's all shapes and sizes, still no variation in pitch,
Vallorus did you press the neck any against the table top in any way, even slightly, I did notice a change in pitch if I put pressure on the headstock.

side note - also noticed a change in pitch if I rotate the whole guitar ie strings facing up or facing down, is this just a natural occurance with a floating bridge, gave the neckplate screws a little tweek up but still happening.

man oh man, everybody's comin' up with great ideas, I'd stand on my head and play but I'm have'n enough trouble playing right side up,

gravity, maybe, right side up gravity pulls the strings toward the pups, upside down away from the pups, be like moving the pup height closer or further away, a little, maybe you hit the strings a little different, upside down would be hard, or your head was angled differently to the amp, that would sound a little different as well.

If you push the head stock with any force you change the tension on the strings and the pitch will change, up or down, depending if the force in applied to the front or the back. Maybe that's the upside down impact, a flat guitar facing one way gravity will pull the head in one direct, facing up the string tension will tighten, down the tension will loosen. Asuming the body is held and the neck is free.

I think the sound from yelling into, tapping on, or nylon string has to come from a metal pu cover, like gibson humbuckers have.

My Ventura with the stock pickups with solid metal covers would pickup yells into them, and tapps with my pick on the covers. It had nothing to do with the stings, because it would do it without the strings on the guitar. My EMG's with plastic covers won't do it. A slight amount of sound pressure on the metal cover will cause a microphone effect by cause slight movement of the cover, which disturbs the magnetic field created by the pickup.

I think this is a big reason that most noiseless and active pickups are now using plastic covers. Less potential for noise from external sound sources and impacts to the cover.

Read this:

http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/ele ... /index.php

_________________
Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst

brilliant firstrat, any vibrating metal near the pup will do it.

I've got strats, plastic cover, open hb, no covers and P90's, plastic covers.

many questions answered.

Nik, I think the effect is minute. At least from the body.
My supposition has always been that any effect is dwarfed by the electronics chain. Not just outsized a bit, but massively overwhelmed.

The overall note and timbre from a strings movement is a compound vibration. The wood only dampens these vibrations, and then only extremely slightly more than the total vibration. The overall average vibration is largely unchanged. Subtle might be an understatement.

I have always thought the neck to be more influential to the overall tone of an instrument. being a cantilever it has to shape the string vibration. The biggest and most easily measured effect would be on sustain not timbre, though I suspect angle of headstock, and thus the break angle of the strings (which will determine the amount of downforce, and as a result the rigidity of the coupling of string to nut,) probably has a bigger effect than type of wood, or join anyway.

Also on the point of adding souring notes, it is my supposition that body/neck wood can only subtract energy from the overall situation, and only active electronics can actually add anything. Wood can't add any notes, or overtones, it can only muffle them.

I am not an expert in any way, I am now interested in trying to test this stuff out. Time to find out who has my strobe tuner, and do some measuring.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

ripitup555, yes I guess I did put a little pressure on the guitar when placing it on the tabletop, guess that's were the change in pitch came from..

Anyway, very interesting discussion and I'm glad it's now a bit more civilized than in the beginning of the thread

Something here to think about for sure. I went one better I used a cheaper guitar, so i wouldn't worry about the finish. I played it like you said. Then I actually clamped it tightly to a heavy oak table. Now acoustically it made it much louder, but electrically, no difference whatsoever.

I used my Champion 600 clean.

So if clamping it to oak made no difference, I think my previous assertions must be bunk. You have won me completely over Nik.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Absolutely mate, 100% with you on that one.
It's far more important to be civil and polite than it is to be right in some Internet discussion. We ain't battling for world domination here.




12Bar

My thinking goes like this, please try and follow it, it could be a bit out there.

1 String vibrates and causes wood to vibrate

2 If the string is acting on the wood, and as supposed by some the wood is acting on the string. There must be a conflict in the rate of these vibrations. Simply because of the distance and differing density of materials between the wood and the string.

3 Because of point 2 it will take the returning signal longer to return from the wood to the string.

4 Because of the changes in density that the returning vibration has to pass through, to get to the string. The rate of vibration will either compress or expand. This happens to all sound waves when they pass through different density materials. It's why partition walls have glass fibre wool in them. Remember you have different materials either end of the string too. If you expand a sound wave you will lower it's pitch. If you compress it, you will raise it's pitch.

5 Those above points acting on a string will add a vibration that is out of time (sync) with the original note. And also of a different frequency due to the compressed/expanded sound wave (vibration) passing back to the string. These are not the underlying harmonics that build up every note, whether they be on a trumpet or casio keyboard.

So here's my question.
A pickup can only pick up a signal from the string. Based on how that string vibrates within the pickups magnetic field.
If the body or neck wood of a guitar does act on the strings, it must surely be subject to the above points. How do we not get constantly different, ungovernable variations of other notes out of time to the intended note?
Why don't we constantly hear something akin to wolf notes or stratitus?

Where's BigJay when you need him. He'd have this sorted out in no time. He wouldn't rest till he'd tore that lot apart.

_________________
No no and no

My understanding would be that the following is the problem:



The final product would be a single vibration not two conflicting ones. The add and subtract becoming a new single vibration. This is beyond my scientific understanding though.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

My understanding is that you would actually get 3 different rates of returning vibration. Until the 3 vibrations met and cancelled each other out. Producing a somewhat sharp cut off of the sounds as it was battled out.
You'd still get odd order notes as well as the original note until that happened.

Even on acoustics the wood does nothing except amplify the string in a particular way. I just cant accept at this moment in time that the wood acts on the string.

Not saying I'll always think this way. But I really don't see anything to make me change my mind now.

_________________
No no and no

Amen! LOL! anyhow we took off to a hot spring retreat in the mountains of Montana, so I did not restring my guitar! will do some testing on micro-phonics when I get home. When we did the talking into the pickups they were humbuckers on an old Ephiphone Wilshire guitar.

_________________
Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

[quote="inbalance99"]man oh man, everybody's comin' up with great ideas, I'd stand on my head and play but I'm have'n enough trouble playing right side up,

Yeah I ain't about to pull off any Jimi over my head movements anytime soon, I think you're right though it's just gravity acting on the floating trem.
would have got back quicker but ISP is playing silly beggars at the moment.

+1 on your civilized statement Vallorus

Well there you go Newtons third law. For every action there is a reaction.

The strings action (A) must cause body/neck to have a reaction (A-)
Change any of the properties of the neck/body the reaction will be different but there is always a reaction to a action.

_________________
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

So why don't we get the odd order out of time, out of tune notes from the string? Is it because the string acts on the wood and not the other way round?

The action in this instance is the vibration of the string. The reaction is the vibration of the wood. No one is saying that wood doesn't vibrate. Just that the reactive vibration of wood doesn't act on the string.

If there were any effect of the wood on the string it would only be a raising then lowering of pitch of the note as the body wood vibrated. You'd really have to hit that string hard to notice that above a stringed instruments natural sharp attack, flattening fade. Caused by the arc of the plucked string. There is simply no way any type of wood can make a pickup read a signal differently. It can't react with the strings without causing the afore mentioned problems.

_________________
No no and no

I believe those observations are correct. Timbre would be affected if sustain loss were frequency dependent.

When I liistened to the different tones available at the flick of a switch (neck pickup to middle pickup to neck pickup), I realized the wood tonal effects (heard through the amplifiler) were negligible.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.