What's clearly called for here is an agent provocateur......



I soooooo love throwing a monkey into these types of wrenches!



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

This one will sound very ..... transparent, almost translucent. It's like aluminum speakers which always sound metallic. (Irony).

Cheers

David

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"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."

Hi ashtone: some of us tend to avoid these debates because long experience is that they go nowhere and just result a lot of shouting and bruised feelings.

But I have a notion that in some people's minds here I'm numbered amongst the "poo-pooing naysayers", so just for shucks I'll give my real view, if only to put down a marker.

OF COURSE what an instrument is made from and its construction affect the sound it makes. That is because the strings act somewhat like the diaphragm of a microphone to detect and pass on vibration, and that vibration comes from the rest of the instrument, which as a system is a resonant whole.

So what a guitar is made from affects its sound.

HOWEVER. When that sound is then collected by magnetic pickups, fed down a cable and processed through a pre-amp, a power amp and then a speaker/driver, not to mention the possibility of a bunch of pre-amps and processors in FX pedals, then the part of the final sound contributed by the nature of the grain in the fingerboard (say) becomes such a miniscule part of the whole as to be of tiny significance. Not no significance, but tiny.

The central point I'd always want to make - and which seems so hard to get across - is that musical instruments are used in real life playing situations, not scientific laboratories. In real life nobody in a room where an electric guitar is being played in front of an audience through an amplification system and as part of a band can tell with their ears whether its body is made from one piece of wood or five. Nobody can tell whether its flamed maple front is a 20 mm cap or a 0.7 mm veneer. Nobody can tell what substance the lacquer is made from. Nobody can tell whether the fingerboard is slab cut or a veneer. At most, these things have an abstract, interactive meaning to the player and so perhaps contribute to the mindset he/she brings to the performance. In a real life playing situation these factors may matter in that way. Otherwise they make not the damnedest difference.

These are factory production line electric guitars being used to play three chord rock songs to beered up crowds in clubs and arenas. Not Stradivarius violins performing unaccompanied Bach.

Now this is all very well and perhaps diverting material for discussion. However, another significant point is that this is a public forum full of young, impressionable guys at the beginning of their playing experience. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people here worrying about how many bits of wood their Strat body is made from when in reality they've been playing for six months and need to concern themselves with learning how to fret a barred F and not have their pre-amp gain set stupidly high.

Novice players can also be very insecure and when they get talked down to by others about supposed differences they are meant to be able to detect between fingerboard materials or lacquer binders they can sometimes embark on a lifetime of obsessing over things that in truth matter little, instead of concentrating on the part that really counts - the MUSIC.

I love wood: I adore beautifully made guitars. I'm just saying we need to have a sense of proportion about this stuff. I listen to Duane Allman (for example) for the sheer joyous gorgeousness of his note choices and his playing attack which so fabulously convey the spirit inside his personality - not for the number of glue joints in his guitar.

Them's my thoughts.

Cheers - C

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no ceri, actually your not a naysayer in most situations. the times you have been you usually argue a good point with facts that one can go do some research on his or her own with.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Though frankly, after my long wordy post is done, 63Supro's line that you quote in your sig says it all much more clearly.

Cheers - C

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What he said!

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You dig?

you got that right my friend, or shall we say 63 got that right.
best dang line ive ever read when it comes to playing guitar, thats why i copied it.
at first i think my good friend 63 thought i was doing it as a joke. nope not at all,
it rings true and can be used in several situation in guitar playing and life in general.
so i used it as a sig for all that werent blessed to read it when it was said the first time.
if there was a " rules for playing out" hand book writen, it will not be complete until the wise words of our good friend supro63 are quoted at the very end and signed.
real talk right there ceri.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Ashtone,

Yes, that will work. Some things are just better left alone. My best advice at this point is just forget this thread and do not respond. Go and enjoy you guitars and don't let this steal your joy.

Eventually, the thread will develop into a long discussion on the relative merits and uses of some particular food products and die quietly.

Sincerely,
OL

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I remember when we were free!

Baaaaaaaaa Humbug

Glad to see the temperate moderators have stepped in....

As i can see Ashtone, we all have common points of interest and agreements.

I will apologize on my response's, as they were not helpful in their voicing to quell the barrage.

I responded as i did because your 1st post was incendiary and provoked a similar response.
Occasionally we see this thread format where the point is made and leaves no room but to infuriate the reader as the suggestion is that the OP is right and everyone else is misinformed or just wet behind the ears. ( just got out of the shower so that may be true.. )

In the future, I look forward to your input on this forum, but just voice it so that it is clear and does not suggest to the reader that they may be rather ignorant.
We all have something to learn from others and this is why I enjoy this forum.
It is a pleasant refresher from what is at this time for us a challenging difficult times.

Cheers

P.S. Ceri, Thank You once again,
but can you please...please, call back this wet weather we are heading into day 7th of .
I believe it belongs in your corner of the woods or perhaps even Belgium...

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

53mag,

I complement you on your humility. That takes strength of character.

Sincerely,

OL

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I remember when we were free!

Thanks to all for the constructive criticism. I've been on here for all of a month, and it is my first experience with an on-line forum. My sincere apologies to those whom I offended, and I will be much less opinionated in the future, to be sure. Back to build threads and pretty pictures.

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"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

Ashtone,

To be fair to the Stratocaster fourm, the subject of "tone woods" evokes similar responses on other fourms. Its just a topic thats akin to "peace in the middle east" discussions.

You're in St. Louis, whats the water level on the river up there, pretty high? Much of Lousiana is sweating the river levels. The Mississippi at Vicksburg and I-20 is almost up to the upramps. Baton Rouge was on edge but the Corps opened the Morganza spillway and its taken some pressure off, but the folks in the lower basin are getting the run off.

OL

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I remember when we were free!

I drove across the Missouri last Wednesday, about 18 miles up-river from the confluence with the Mississippi. I was surprised that it looked normal. I guess the down-river emergency release of water has contributed to that. Or maybe the surge has passed St Louis, I'm not sure. I Hope you and your family are safe!

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"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

hey man,you're my age so we've got lots of playing behind us and have formed opinions...strong opinions.
Here,this has been argued to no end,along with many other things...there are some good arguments for both sides of tone wood making a difference vs. making no difference.
Don't feel bad about it at all....really.
I don't think you've offended anyone,if you did they have thin skin.
I have several "thin skin" Fender Strats,yep they resonate,then I put some really great pickups in them...then I plug them into vintage Fender amps...sum total is TONE!