Body wood affects tone

Lescaster

Interesting video on the effects of different body woods on tone

WezV

Good vid.  Still won't convince those who think it makes no difference. 

i don't think he did enough to ensure the pickup/action heights were consistent... and you really need to remove the player from the equation.  

I have never been bothered enough to try similar.  I trust my experience and ears through the build process 

ThorpyFX

there isn't a link for me, just an image.

guitarfishbay

The setup sounds different on the pressure board guitar, like there's less clearance for the string or a less stiff setup and it's slapping the frets more so than the other woods when he's picking more strongly.  If that's honestly down to the wood differences well then that's crazy.

Interesting video.  The maple vs mahogany kind of sounded the way I expected to be honest.

mynamesnotbob

I don't think any evidence either way depending on which camp you sit in will convince people. For me it makes a difference, but that could simply be how it resonates therefore how I attack it.

Like so many things I believe it does make a difference, but would anyone on stage tell the difference between tone woods, probably not. But the guitar is a tactile instrument, so feel will always influence how it's played and feel it imparts 

Lescaster

ThorpyFX said:

there isn't a link for me, just an image.

Fixed now I think, I edited it and think it may have broken the link.

guitarfishbay

WezV said:

Good vid.  Still won't convince those who think it makes no difference. 

i don't think he did enough to ensure the pickup/action heights were consistent... and you really need to remove the player from the equation.  It would be nice t

I have never been bothered enough to try similar.  I trust my experience and ears through the build process 

Agreed.  

I've played enough guitars to know there's a difference, but also that there are many many ways to make a difference.

guitarfishbay

Lescaster said:

ThorpyFX said:

there isn't a link for me, just an image.

Fixed now I think, I edited it and think it may have broken the link.

Yeah there's a forum bug - if you edit a post that has a YouTube link in it the link turns in to a picture, meaning you have to re-paste the link again.

Schnozz

I don't understand why people think it's a Myth.

Try a Mahogany J45 and then try a Rosewood J45...

If you can't tell the difference, then we can start discussing whether or not you're denser than Ebony.

streethawk

Schnozz said:

I don't understand why people think it's a Myth.

Try a Mahogany J45 and then try a Rosewood J45...

If you can't tell the difference, then we can start discussing whether or not you're denser than Ebony.

That's because they're acoustics.

Some bloke on YouTube 'proved' tonewood on solid body electrics makes no difference. 

I'm ambivalent, but Trussarts and such would seem to support his assertion. I dunno.

crunchman

Schnozz said:

I don't understand why people think it's a Myth.

Try a Mahogany J45 and then try a Rosewood J45...

If you can't tell the difference, then we can start discussing whether or not you're denser than Ebony.

Or find a PRS Custom 22 with a maple top, and compare it to an all mahogany Standard 22.

If body wood and construction didn't make a difference then a laminate maple semi like a 335 would sound the same as and SG which would sound the same as a Les Paul.  They all have the same scale length, and I'm sure you could find a variant of all three with the same pickups.  They don't sound the same though.

guitarfishbay

It doesn't make no difference.  But then I also think the neck, bridge, and setup also have noticeable effects on tone.

Even with the alleged worst offender for making guitars sound the same, the EMG 81, I've had different results with 2 different alder bodied, rosewood board strats.  Also with two different PRS' which are really the same spec except the body shape and thickness.  I try to set all my guitars up the same way, give or take the limitations of the instrument itself. 

octatonic

WezV said:

Good vid.  Still won't convince those who think it makes no difference. 

i don't think he did enough to ensure the pickup/action heights were consistent... and you really need to remove the player from the equation.  It would be nice t

I have never been bothered enough to try similar.  I trust my experience and ears through the build process 

I've said several times that I think wood species makes less of an impact than other factors but I don't think I've ever said it doesn't matter.
The problem with the test above is it is very ad hoc.
To do it properly you need many more examples of each wood type, because you get variation within each species.
Saying all rosewoods sound x and all maples sound y is demonstrably not true- it is a range of qualities.
I am building two rosewood bodied acoustic guitars at the moment- the backs and sides are the same thickness but tapping them shows they will end up sounding quite different when they are finished.
I'm just going to take that stuff into account when making decisions with the rest of the build.

For the electric test, I'd want to use a computer or an analog machine to pluck the strings- so you can be sure that the pressure is the same, not to mention the same setup etc- all these things matter.

I know someone who did this- he was on my degree and it was his dissertation.
His results were inconclusive and he also suggested that more research was required because even though he used many more examples than in the video he also saw a range of tonal qualities within some species of wood.

So, to conclude, it isn't a case of wood not mattering, it is just that coming up with a control for this sort of test is very difficult, and you would need a much larger number of data points in order to draw a proper conclusion.
Certainly the industry has a vested interest in not doing this and maintaining the status quo.

octatonic

Schnozz said:

I don't understand why people think it's a Myth.

Try a Mahogany J45 and then try a Rosewood J45...

If you can't tell the difference, then we can start discussing whether or not you're denser than Ebony.

Those are acoustic guitars.

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't matter with an electric either, but once you throw on loads of gain and put it through a massive filter (i.e. a guitar speaker) then it matters less than some other factors in the build, especially when you are playing with a full band.

Sporky

I think there's also some confusion in that different people mean different things by "sound the same".

They all sound like electric guitars. None of them sound like bassoons or snare drums or waterfalls. Different bits of wood may well sound different, but it's last 2% stuff, not first 98%.

Schnozz

I blame Gregor Hilden for this debate.

kin

Of course it makes a difference, as does the amount of wax in your ears on any given day

also the weather, the density of the air.
The reflective surfaces in the room, the huge leather couch/ heavy curtains/ deep pile carpeting in your room as opposed to bare walls and floorboards
plus a million other things.

Roland

Wood does affect the tone of an electric, but not as much as pickups and many of the other components.

There is a Chapman video where he compares two of his own design guitars. All components are identical except the wood. The tonal difference is noticeable, but small.

Danielsguitars

If it really was as good as all his guitars he'd flog em off and play those instead

As soon as you start with all the distortion it doesn't matter that much to me anyway, most of his stuff sounds very similar regardless of guitar played

I know i'll stick to the wood and various combinations to get the tone I'm looking for

I don't fancy a plank burst much tbh

Roland

customkits said:

I don't fancy a plank burst much tbh

Which is an excuse to show my builders plank guitar again:

Corvus

There's a comparison vid out there where someone builds identical guitars in mahogany and something else, swaps the same hardware onto each, clear difference in sound. Most of which you could handle with EQ really but the difference is there.

Other differences matter too like attack, the note formation, etc etc which to me matter more than more/less bass or whatever. Don't think those really translate into YT vids though but can certainly be felt by the player.

If you stick a lipstick pickup on a trad Tele bridge, it still has the Tele clang. Stick a lipstick pickup on a resonator, and it sounds like a resonator. Put a Tele pickup on an acoustic and it doesn't sound like a Tele. Some extreme differences in construction & wood etc but the pickup is only part of the total result.