Hi BMW-KTM: but nobody has made any such assertion. Personally, I'd be laughing my socks off at them if they did.

Some people on these sorts of thread want the discussion to be between polar opposites: you either think wood is vital for tone, or you think it makes no difference at all. But it doesn't have to be like that. In reality it is a question of degree.

Which is far more interesting.

I have more to say on that in a minute...

Cheers - C

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Hi babar. Your post (page three of this thread) is extremely interesting, thoughtful and well written. Thank you for taking the time and sharing it:

Few of us here are in any way qualified to argue with what you say, and anyway I wouldn't want to. My views are not contrary to what you've written but tangential. I think there's a different issue to all of this and in my circumspect way it's what I'm always trying to get at on these sorts of thread.

I think it is a question of what matters to musicians playing instruments in real world situations.

An analogy. None of us bother to discuss whether there is a difference between double espresso and caffe latte. Blindfolded, we can taste it instantly. We don't need endless debate on internet forums and we don't need guys doing experiments in laboratories to prove that they are or are not different. It's a non-issue and that's why when we go into a coffee shop we order one thing and not another. We know what we like because we can easily tell.

I've never met anyone who couldn't tell the difference between double espresso and caffe latte. I've never met anyone who could tell the difference between a two piece and a three piece Strat body by listening to them. It doesn't mean that there isn't a difference, but it does mean that the difference is very tiny.

Laying my cards on the table, I haven't the slightest doubt that wood, construction, glue... all of these things affect the sound an electric guitar makes. Although magnetic pickups only sense the movement of the metal strings, the behaviour of those strings is influenced by the way they reciprocate the vibrational properties of the rest of the instrument. The total entity of the guitar is a feedback system that governs how the string vibrates.

To prove it, we have only to put the same humbucker in the bridge position of a Les Paul or a Strat. We all know that the sound that comes out of our speakers will be noticeably different, and nothing we can do will make the Strat sound like the LP with the same pickup. That difference in sound is the sum of all the constructional differences between those guitars - wood, glue, neck joint, scale length, bridge structure, etc etc.

HOWEVER. The difference between a Strat body made from one, two or three pieces is so vanishingly small it simply doesn't matter in real life. Nobody can listen to three Strats being played through an amp and speakers and tell which one has which body construction. And if they can't tell then it doesn't matter.

That's the core point I try to get to in these threads.

It is a very simple point - so simple you'd think it wouldn't need saying. And yet these threads rumble on endlessly with people taking sides and getting cross with each other and talking down and trying to make one another feel silly for believing they can or can't hear things that guys in research facilities like the one you described at Gibson struggle to identify.

The bit that I do think matters is that young impressionable players pick up on these discussions and start thinking that they are meant to examine their Strat bodies and discover what wood they are made from or whether they have two or three glue lines and feel good or bad about their instrument accordingly. They suppose that they are meant to be able to hear a crucial difference and they either secretly feel worried that they can't hear it, or they embark upon a career of BS'ing about this stuff, claiming their instrument has some special tonal magic they brilliantly identified in the store because their ears are so fantastic, that it “sings”, it "sustains for days" and all of that other twaddle.

So in these debates I'm not interested in taking sides in some pointless battle over the tonal properties of glue joins or any other such infinitesimal stuff. I am out to reassure younger players that it matters little if at all and they should get on with playing their guitars, not worrying about stuff engineers need oscilloscopes to identify.

Concentrate on making music. That's my philosophy.

Cheers - C

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You may be right Ceri. I honestly have been trying to add a bit of my experiences here musicians to musicians style. I was hoping it wouldn't turn into an argumentative state.

You know, earlier when I was posting in this thread, I did browse the Bareknuckle thread. And when I clicked on the link to their website, I saw this:

"The introduction of a rosewood 'slab' fingerboard in 1959 is a milestone in Strat tone arguably producing a warmer tone than the earlier one piece maple necks."
http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=strats&sub=vintage&pickup=patpend1&series=patpend

These kind of things are all over the internet. Guitar parts people selling their products and using stuff like this as a way to lure you in. Although the word "arguably" is used, it has a sales pitch air to it. Doesn't surprise me. It's part of their job. Remember that thread a while back about the neck inserts claiming they were an upgrade? Stuff like that concerning guitar parts are everywhere.

I guess I personally would rather be a part of a discussion where I know the people involved aren't doing so with any underlying motive or sales pitch. Real musicians telling their experiences as musicians. Not a company pitch. You know what I mean?

Whether I agree with someone or not, which I believe I've stayed pretty open minded to other people's ideas, I trust many people on this site more than I do many of the websites that I feel may be informing people about these things with that air it.

I didn't happen to read Niki's experiment in another thread, so I would still like to hear what he has to say about it, and his views as well. I'm not exactly sure the quick summary of Nik's experiment actually means that wood doesn't matter when it comes to an electric guitar. If that's the case, then why can't a Les Paul sound like a Tele? Or can it? Those kinds of questions are why I'm still participating in this thread.

Earlier I mentioned a Basswood body that I never really liked the sound of. It makes everything sound bright and shrill to me (my opinion of course). High output humbuckers just farted highs out of it underneath a bunch of midrange. BMW-KTM brings up a good point about chambering. I have a chambered bodied Squier Esprit, and it really pumps out the lows (allegedly). Is it possible that I could rout a chamber in it and tame the shrill highs I believe I'm hearing by changing the vibrational property of the strings? Would that work? Maybe. That's why I'm here. Throughout all of that, an idea was sparked rather than me just tossing it aside.

I certainly nobody feels threatened by all of my questioning. But if I ask the Bareknuckles guys, they'd probably tell me they have pickups that will fix it right up for $300. That's not the kind of thing I'm interested in. I have a router, I don't have $300.

Cheers to you too Ceri

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Ceri....you made a very important point about younger players and these discussions and the internet..."infallible web dogma" as Martian puts it....and as a younger player growing up in the '60s,we didn't have anything except records,pictures in magazines and music store salesmen to educate us in much of this or we just usually played the guitars our heroes played...and I never remember any arguments on wood types,even rosewood vs. maple fretboards,just on who the best players were.

Get a les paul body and neck. Elongate the headstock (I won't argue that the headstock should be parallel to the neck, though I could). Put all the tuners in a diagonal line. Put a tele bridge and pickups on it. You'd have a tele sounding guitar.

I absolutely believe that aside from having a good rigid structure, bodywood plays no part in a electric guitars sound at all. If it did, the difference in acoustic sound when performing the table top test would result in a altered sound when amplified. Wouldn't it? If not, why not? It changes the acoustic sound and thats what all the tonewood devotee's seem to think matters. That the acoustic sound of the guitar in some way affects the magnetic field of the pickup.
I honestly can see no reasonable way that timber being acted up by a guitar strings vibration can act upon the guitar string. It is completely against the laws of motion. So talk of energy being dissipated into the body wood, to me, seems very after the fact. In fact wouldn't that mean the bigger and heavier the guitar, the more lifeless it sounds? Well we know that is not the case. Imagine how much energy a glued neck joint must absorb. Why doesn't a Les Paul sound like a banjo? Using that thinking, it should.
How on earth would that energy/'vibration affect the vibration of the string without causing wolf notes, oscillations and both time and harmony distortions? The string is acting on the bodywood, how then would you reverse that effect so the bodywood acts on the string, whilst maintaining the original effect. Do that and you've created perpetual motion, something physicist all over the world would be incredibly envious of. You'd end the energy crisis.
The speed of sound is only 600 odd mph, it's very noticeable when something is amiss. The easiest example of what you'd hear is the beat difference between two notes on a out of tune guitar. Thats pretty much what would happen. The pickup would see the pure signal of the note, then degenerate into a pulsing mess as the return signal from the bodywood affected the string.
It doesn't even happen that way on acoustic guitars. The string noise is picked up through the soundhole, then amplified and projected through the top, back and sides by the vibration of the thin wood used. The bodywood moves in a not dissimilar way to a speaker. It's not that the bodywood acts on the string, its that the bodywood amplifies differently. Whilst doing the job it was meant to do, to vibrate and project the sound that has gone in through it's pickup, the soundhole.
Look at Parker and Viger, both use composite materials for their bodies or necks (Parker use em on both). Neither guitar sounds different from the norm, amplified.

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No no and no

Why?

Does the same apply to Gibson? If so then the Les Paul should have never been released.

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No no and no

I was totally going to post this if someone else hadn't. It cropped up that last time there was a thread like this.

Yes it did and it likely will again the next time and it does not disprove anything anything about tone wood. First off that cinder block guitar does not sound good. It sounds sterile. Proof enough that body material is a factor. Second off did anybody notice the red bandana threaded through the strings behind the bridge? Gee, I wonder what that's for? It's because the cinder block is TOO hard and it needs something to act as a damper in order to sound like a reasonable facsimile of a guitar.

I address this next question to Niki directly since he obliged me by stating in no uncertain terms that he feel the wood is meaningless. I saw you mentioned reshaping a Les Paul to the dimensions and hardware of a Tele and that it would then sound like a Tele. Please explain how the shape and hardware affects tone but the wood doesn't and please also explain the Thinline question I asked earlier. Same shape. Same hardware. Same pickups. Same wood even if that matters to you. Same colour and finish. Different mass/density and different tone. How is that possible?

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Same pickups? By that I mean the pickup from one guitar put into another. Because they all vary.
Probably not.

I believe scale length (the only important factor of dimension) to be of primary importance in the sound of a guitar, whether electric or acoustic. Electric more so.
Why?
Because the length of the string determines that strings tension at concert pitch (for example).
The higher tension in a string, the narrower it's arc when struck. Why 24.75" guitars (Gibson) feel a lot looser than 25.5" guitars (Fender).
I firmly believe that is the reason behind increased sustain (though I've never seen anyone measure sustain accurately). Wider arcs will take longer to dissipate than narrower arcs.
Look at the fabled sustain of the Gibson Les Paul and ask yourself why that is.

Is it because there is glue in between the neck and body of the guitar? That goes directly against everything the set neck fanatics claim to be true. It's not wood to wood contact. In fact look at Gibsons method of shimming a neck to the correct angle, compared to Epiphone's and you'll see exactly how little contact there is.

Is it because of the lack of multi-piece bodies. Well most lespauls are at least 3 piece bodies. 2 bits of maple on a bit of mahogany.

Is it because of tonewood. Well it should be clear that wood can give nothing to a string. Only detract from it (if anything at all, that whole premise smacks of bad construction to me).

Is it because they are string through (as I've seen claimed on these very boards)?
No they are not. If it were down to that the Telecaster would beat em all. It's one guitar that is truely string through.

Is it because of the pickups?
Partly. Humbuckers on my strat sustain longer than the singlecoils do. I can't believe its the whole story though. If it were the sustain would be identical.

So what's left? The only thing I can't rule out is scale length. Now my mission is to find a 24.75" Fender and put some burstbuckers on it. Then measure the note length between that and a LP. After I've built a way to strike the string at the same angle with the same amount of force each time.

For the record I do believe some energy is lost at the neck joint. Just loosen the neck bolts on your strat half a turn each then retune to concert pitch (or your equivalent of it) and hear the difference. Despite Gibson using inferior neck attachment methods, they aint quite that bad.

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No no and no

Your logic on the matter goes right along with my thinking. Very well articulated. Now I hope it does not fall on deaf ears. Case settled for me...

One thing that I have never heard discussing in these types of tone wood threads is micro-phonics. I have never quite understood this and how guitars work with it. I have an old Gibson ES-150-DC. It is just like a ES 335 but a true hollow body. If I crank that up and take my hands off the strings the guitar will start resonating so much that it feels like a electric vibrator! And some notes creates harmonic sympathy with others and they feed on each other and get louder and louder. Now this has something to do with electromagnetic, the movement of the air inside the body and the wood. Some notes will have more harmonic properties than others. What is happening?

Also again with micro-phonics. After reading the things that Niki posted before on other threads, I haven been testing my guitars turned up loud. I can hold the strings and tap on the body and I can here the tapping sounds through the amp, and if hit hard enough I can hear the springs ringing inside the Strat. Odd stuff going on.....

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or the bandana could be there to reduce the noise from the strings behind the bridge. like on an Epi Casino i tried the other day. it could have done with the bandana or foam behind the strings to keep them from ringing.

pretty sure that bandana is blue though?

someone should do a test with an Acrylic body and a wood body with the pickguard swapped between each body. then you would get an answer if wood affects the tone?

i dunno i just try and play them.

Thank you Niki for your response sir. I really do appreciate hearing your views on the subject. As well as the others. It's all food for thought for me. In case you're wondering why I have so much time on my hands these days, I have a staph infection (along with a common cold) and I'm basically quarantined in my house.

If what you say is true, then I should feel better about my latest guitar revamps. 4-of my guitars now weigh between 4-5lbs., I can sing easier as a result, and they sound very good to me.

By that token, I really should pat Squier on the back for producing some nice Basswood bodies for me to utilize for my comfort. Cheapest Fender U.S.A. Basswood guitar goes for somewhere around $1,000 as opposed to $100 (as far as I know).

On the flip side, if it does happen to make a difference in some way, the results don't change. I love the sound and weight of them just the same.

I'm really happy with my live guitar gear these days, and it does seem to transfer into my performance.

Peace.


4.4lbs.

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Mate that is the ultimate truth of guitar playing. Unless you're comfortable with your gear, it's never going to sound good.
Thats a beaut Hamer BTW

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No no and no

Thanks man. The Hamer neck is effing beautiful. Not only is it colorful and grainy, it has more of an Ibanez wizard shape than a Fender shape to it. The body is a new Squier Bullet HH. Very smooth playing guitar.

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What do you mean by a Hamer shape? Is it a flatter radius or wider or? Also I think a point to be made here is "feel". When a guitar feels great it plays great and it going to sound great (unless she has absolute junk pickups in it or something). Nice pict too. Hope ya get to feel'in better man. Staff is nothing to play around with.

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