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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 7:50 am
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Roadie
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Gravity Jim wrote:
Violins are resonant instruments, highly dependent on the characteristics of body wood for their sound.

Electric guitars are just big transducers. Your sound will be determined largely by how that Pearly Gates (which is a great humbucker, BTW), sounds driving a given amp: the body wood, despite the endless blathering that goes around online about it, will have virtually little effect on the sound of the guitar. Any given piece of any given wood might be more or less resonant, and it's always possible to get a dead one, but trying to predict tonal quality by wood choice is not meaningful.

Seriously. Amp = approx 60% of tone, pickup another 30, almost all the rest is how you play. Pick any body wood you like. That's what Leo did: he bought the cheapest stuff he could get a finish to stick to.

But I know from experience that posting this fact will not stop this thread from growing to 100+ passionate posts about how "warm" or "punchy" or "focused" (my favorite dopey guitar term) a given type of wood will be with that pickup. There was a guy I knew on another forum who built a huge reputation as a guitar expert just by endlessly repeating the conventional wisdom about such things as if it were fact.



Hmmm.....Well, going with that argument, it would imply that even spending money on expensive guitars is a waste, eh? Other than hardware, why not just get a cheap guitar, dump about 300 into it for action and hardware and call it a day?

Based on this argument, is there any reason to buy....an electric guitar over 250 bucks in basic cost? (I'm thinking....get the schematics online for the body, and just build it out of particle board or pine...)


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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:20 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Do you really think that the difference between a $250 guitar and a $1000 is just the body wood?

There's a huge difference between a $250 guitar and $1000 guitar in playability, in durability, in intonation, in all the materials (bridge, tuners, frets) that make much more difference to the guitar's response than body wood does, AND in superior manufacturing and hand tweaking (which is what you're really paying for with a more expensive guitar, not materials).

It would take considerably more than $300 to bring a $250 guitar up to the level of response you normally find in a $1000 guitar.

And yes, pine makes a very responsive guitar: I know several players who's Number One's are pine-bodied Teles. I don't have direct experience with particle board, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.


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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:25 am
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Roadie
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Gravity Jim wrote:
Do you really think that the difference between a $250 guitar and a $1000 is just the body wood?

There's a huge difference between a $250 guitar and $1000 guitar in playability, in durability, in intonation, in all the materials (bridge, tuners, frets) that make much more difference to the guitar's response than body wood does, AND in superior manufacturing and hand tweaking (which is what you're really paying for with a more expensive guitar, not materials).

It would take considerably more than $300 to bring a $250 guitar up to the level of response you normally find in a $1000 guitar.

And yes, pine makes a very responsive guitar: I know several players who's Number One's are pine-bodied Teles. I don't have direct experience with particle board, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.


Ah, it's not that. But, quality parts (aftermarket) that are retro-fitted?

Well, they can be had for a good price.

Let me put it this way: No matter if I bought a Fender or a Squier (right now I'm leaning towards Squier) I'd probably have the neck adjusted and jumbo frets installed on it. (I know we've had this discussion on another forum, but...)

Take the name off the plate, and isn't the argument you can pretty much have something that costs hundreds of dollars less and of a similar quality?


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