Body wood affects tone

Three-ColourSunburst

crunchman said:

It isn't just whether they are bright or dark sounding - something that could be EQ'ed out.  Some guitars seem to sound more 'alive' than others for want of a better word.  Almost always, these ones also sound a lot more lively unplugged.

And for centuries people said similar things about the qualities of old Stradivarius violins, until recent research showed it was all a product of self-deception.

Perhaps you are right about some guitars being more 'alive' (for want of a better word) and sounding a lot more 'lively' (whatever that might mean).  All I am asking for is some rational explanation that is consistent with the laws of physics as to why that might be, not anecdotes, folk lore, rubbish YouTube demonstrations and so on, just a rational explanation with reference to proper research.

If this were a real phenomenon I can't imagine why there seems to be such a lack of academic papers on the topic. There are certainly endless papers on numerous related topics, ranging from the resonance of acoustic guitar bodies through to psychophysical studies of the perception of timbre. I have now spent days trying to research this whole 'tone wood' thing and I am no closer to finding an answer, which make me think there isn't one and it has more to do with the sort of factors that led people to believe old Strads were somehow magical than anything physical.

To be honest, and with the greatest of respect, the fact that this debate is framed by such woolly, ill-defined terms as 'lively sounding' itself suggest that the real answer is more likely to be found in the realm of psychology than physics!

guitars4you

crunchman said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Similarly, electric guitars are so sensitive to changes in their circuitry that the supposed differences in tone between two instruments that are nominally the same could well be due to normal manufacturing variations the resistance of one of the pots.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to reply to you as you obviously have your own ideas but for anyone else who is still reading it's definitely not purely down to the electrics.

I have two Strats.  One of them sounds brighter than the other unplugged.  Guess what it sounds brighter plugged in as well.

I've had the same with Les Pauls.  My previous one was much brighter unplugged than my current one.  It also sounded much brighter plugged in.

It isn't just whether they are bright or dark sounding - something that could be EQ'ed out.  Some guitars seem to sound more 'alive' than others for want of a better word.  Almost always, these ones also sound a lot more lively unplugged.

I think there is also a case that some want/need to understand the 'text' book side of guitar building as a science - Whereas many builders have acquired a knowledge based on hands on experience - I'm sure many builders will admit that their first build is riddled with errors and the more they build the more they understand - Some will stick to one design, others will try something different, be it woods, scale length, hardware etc and they will learn from that and adapt accordingly - Then there are players who just buy because it captures a mojo they are looking for 

I recall a chat with the late Bill Collings about building the i35LC based on  a great dot 335 - they built close to 40 prototypes before they signed it off - various laminates both number and mix of material - what wood for the centre block and solid v 'chambered' etc etc - many differences wee marginal but they wanted to nail it as against having some based on 'that will do' - I'm sure a cad/cam design could be accomplished quickly but what works on a screen might not transform to the desired results once played

A slight curve ball - My daughter is studying business at school and asks me about various topics and quotes the text book name/approach for a certain subject/principle - I don't know the technical name, but when we get talking about it I know exactly what it is, but I learnt by error and hands on experience and many errors - Unknowingly competent I call it which is far better than knowingly incompetent

Three-ColourSunburst

Ha! This debate has just brought to mind another great example of self-deception. Eric Laithwaite's career-ending championing of the properties of gyroscopes, which he thought lay beyond the explanation of current physical theory. Great stuff, and totally mad!

Ravenous

Three-ColourSunburst said:

<snip>

All I am asking for is some rational explanation that is consistent with the laws of physics as to why that might be, not anecdotes, folk lore, rubbish YouTube demonstrations and so on, just a rational explanation with reference to proper research.

Are you sure you're not googling the wrong stuff?  Do you have any science qualifications? (All I have is a couple of engineering degrees, which isn't quite science.)

But the biggest problem I see here is your tone - you come across as very assertive and certain of your views, so there's not much point linking what I did find.  (For example your acceptance of those recent violin papers as some sort of total proof - that seems a bit premature.  I haven't read those papers but I did hear interviews of some of the researchers at the time and their findings were not so one-sided.)

Sassafras

Three-ColourSunburst said:

I have been doing a lot of reading concernig the claim that the wood of a solid-body electric guitar can have a significant impact on the harmonic content of an already vibrating string. From what I have read so far there are a whole raft of reasons to believe that, if such harmonic variations did occur, they would be totally swamped by other factors.

Firstly, the string material itself imposes strong limitations on just which harmonics will sound with a stiff steel string supporting different harmonics to a supple silk or nylon strings, and as electric guitars always use steel strings the inherent 'twang' they have will persist, whatever the body they are strung across is made of.

The second major determinant of the harmonic content of the note is the player themselves, for example by means of varying the picking position.

Thirdly, in an acoustic instrument, once the string is vibrating almost all of what one actually hears depends on the way the structure of the guitar - and especially the thin wooden resonator of the sound board - responds to the energy of the string, along with the way it is amplified by the air in the instrument, which acts as a 'Helmholtz resonator'. In effect, the main role of the string is to energise the body of the guitar and the air within it, with the vibrations of these and the harmonics they support giving the instrument its characteristic timbre and tone.

A key point here is that the actual wood used, even in an acoustic instrument is, at best, of secondary importance, and is chosen no so much for its intrinsic 'tone', but its strength, flexibility and so on, much as the material of a speaker cone is selected for its flexibility rather than the intrinsic tonal quality of compressed paper. Good demonstrations of the way structure is primary are the many studies of the effect of bracing design on the sound of violins and guitars, and those guitars made out of old pallets by Taylor, who wanted to demonstrate that even if others built guitars from the same wood, Taylor's construction skills still produced a better guitar.

In comparison to the influence the string has on the body, the influence the body has on the string is limited, as even if certain harmonics were damped more quickly on one instrument as compared to another, these differences would likely be swamped by the initial harmonic content of the plucked note, the harmonics preferentially supported by the string material, the more rapid natural decay rate of the higher harmonics, and so on. Then there are the limitations of the human ear to discriminate changes in the amplitude of a given harmonic and the problem that people tend to 'hear with their eyes'.

Still looking for a definitive answer. I must be an optimist!

You'd still argue the point in a rambling, contradictory manner.
I'm rapidly losing the will to live, here.

guitars4you

Ravenous said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

<snip>

All I am asking for is some rational explanation that is consistent with the laws of physics as to why that might be, not anecdotes, folk lore, rubbish YouTube demonstrations and so on, just a rational explanation with reference to proper research.

Are you sure you're not googling the wrong stuff?  Do you have any science qualifications? (All I have is a couple of engineering degrees, which isn't quite science.)

But the biggest problem I see here is your tone - you come across as very assertive and certain of your views, so there's not much point linking what I did find.  (For example your acceptance of those recent violin papers as some sort of total proof - that seems a bit premature.  I haven't read those papers but I did hear interviews of some of the researchers at the time and their findings were not so one-sided.)

I'm not even sure the violin thought pattern is totally valid - it is generally accepted that not all Strads are the be all and end all - Just like a 59 LP - Many other builders from the same area, like Amati were also building many fine fiddles - Interesting that many came out of Cremona so makes you wonder how much discussion took place about violin building, with different staff and luthiers working at different workshops - Furthermore the large majority of Strads have been converted from a baroque scale length to a more 'modern' orchestral scale length that suits today's virtuoso players, so in many ways the Strad is doing a job today that it wasn't built for 

Three-ColourSunburst

Ravenous said:

 there's not much point linking what I did find. 

You link it, I'll read it. I must admit, I have pretty much failed to find any academic papers on the effect of 'tone woods' on the amplified sound of solid body electric guitars. 

As to those papers you haven't read, but still know more about than those who have read them. They were just a selection and there are more recent studies whose design took into account the criticisms made of those earlier ones, which nonetheless came to the same conclusion. I linked to the ones I did because they have full-texts available, whilst many of the more recent ones are abstract-only. For example,

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/21/5395

Three-ColourSunburst

richardhomer said:

That's the worst demo I've ever seen. The absolute minimum expectation I have of these things is that the guitar will be in tune....

And yet, when you read the comments, so many people are willing to take it as being proof that 'tone woods' do have a real effect on the sound of an electric guitar, totally ignoring the fact that he played the maple guitar closer to the bridge than the mahogany one.

crunchman

Three-ColourSunburst said:

To be honest, and with the greatest of respect, the fact that this debate is framed by such woolly, ill-defined terms as 'lively sounding' itself suggest that the real answer is more likely to be found in the realm of psychology than physics!

The problem is that you don't seem to understand enough physics to be able to make a valid judgement.  Your comment I have quoted below is one of several that you have made in this thread that illustrates this:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Ravenous said:

How's about this - the body material must flex slightly at its ends because of the string movement...

No, (as Roland pointed out) the string stretches slightly when you pluck it, with the initial attack tending to make it go a little sharp. The elasticity in the string, along with the energy given to the string by stretching it slightly, is what keeps it vibrating. There is no need for anything it is mounted to to flex.

If you pluck the string, you are applying a force to the mount points. This means that the material will flex.  Google Hooke's Law and Young's Modulus - which you seem to have no understanding of.

There are a lot of people in this thread with backgrounds in physical sciences and engineering (I am one of them), yet you are discounting everything that they say.  It's very hard to avoid the conclusion that you are a troll.

UnclePsychosis

You're misinterpreting the Strad study (which I'm very familiar with - I've discussed it with the author at a conference). 

The Strad study doesn't say that modern violins and Strads sound the same. It says that in blind tests people tend to prefer the modern ones.

It's a fascinating study, and yes, it does help demolish some of the bullshit around vintage instruments---but it doesn't support the idea that wood makes no difference to the sound of a violin. What that particular study tells you is that there is no magic in old wood, not that wood doesn't make a difference. 

I have a PhD in musical acoustics and I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the discussions about instrument material. Nobody has really bothered studying electric guitar wood for two reasons, that I can see: one, there are so many other variables involved that it's very, very hard to do a properly fair comparison that would actually have any rigour to it, and two, that because of all those other variables the effect of the wood is a probably a secondary one at best.

My own (relatively qualified) opinion is that the body wood of an electric guitar probably makes an audible difference to the sound but that it's not enough of a difference to care about. The difference between two pieces of ash is probably on the same order as the difference between ash and maple.

So I disagree with a lot of the tone wood bullshit that people use to market instruments (normally using flawed "experimental proof")  but equally I disagree with the people who say that it makes no difference at all (normally using flawed gcse physics). As usual the real answer probably lies in the middle. 

As an aside---brass instruments. Brass players swear the material makes a massive difference. Proper blind studies suggest that there may be differences, but they're subtle at best. Once your brain knows there's a difference you can't always trust your ears. 

Three-ColourSunburst

crunchman said:

The problem is that you don't seem to understand enough physics to be able to make a valid judgement.  Your comment I have quoted below is one of several that you have made in this thread that illustrates this:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Ravenous said:

How's about this - the body material must flex slightly at its ends because of the string movement...

No, (as Roland pointed out) the string stretches slightly when you pluck it, with the initial attack tending to make it go a little sharp. The elasticity in the string, along with the energy given to the string by stretching it slightly, is what keeps it vibrating. There is no need for anything it is mounted to to flex.

If you pluck the string, you are applying a force to the mount points. This means that the material will flex.  Google Hooke's Law and Young's Modulus - which you seem to have no understanding of.

There are a lot of people in this thread with backgrounds in physical sciences and engineering (I am one of them), yet you are discounting everything that they say.  It's very hard to avoid the conclusion that you are a troll.

Nothing in what I said shows a lack of understanding of physics. I never said that a guitar body does not flex. I said (quote) "There is no need for anything it is mounted to to flex'. That is true, a guitar string will vibrate even if attached to a block of granite. I would further suggest that the harmonics of such a string would, very likely, be overwhelming determined by its length, tension, material properties and where and how it was picked, whether it was fitted to said granite block or a solid body guitar, which is itself made of a pretty rigid material designed to avoid flex and resonance.

If there are academic papers showing that this is not the case, and that the different woods used to make the body and neck of a solid body guitar actually cause a perceptible difference in the harmonics produced by a steel guitar string, I would love to read them.

I would certainly not 'discount' anything on this topic out of hand, on the one condition that it is relevant. For example, if body woods do support certain harmonics better than others, this would still not be relevant if that difference is swamped by other determinants of the harmonics, or the difference cannot be perceived by the human ear.

Ta!

Corvus

If all you want is academic papers, and to continue to ignore all the real-world experiences of people here, and are unable to actually discern differences for yourself, you'd be better spent going here than waffling on this thread.

MartinB

While the academic papers are interesting reading and will be useful to luthiers, I think there's a danger in presuming that their findings supersede all else.  The way in which we hear and interpret music is massively subjective and personal, and to dismiss those factors entirely is to miss the point of music IMO. 
The study Uncle Psychosis refers to found that their group of listeners tend to prefer the sound of modern violins to the Stradavarious in a blind test.  If a lot of the value attached to the old Cremonese violins is in our perception of their cultural and historical importance rather than anything concrete about how the instruments function, that still feeds into the experience of going to hear somebody perform on one.  It's useful to recognise that for what it is, but I would not call it self-deception.  I think I'd still get a kick out of hearing a great player on the Green/Moore Les Paul even if I'm fully aware I might not tell it from a modern copy in a blind test. 
I also suspect that it's very difficult to accurately assess the sound of an instrument while playing it.  The sound of my guitar on recordings is often quite different to how I felt it sounded at the time.  If two instruments sound indistinguishable to the listener in a blind test, but the people playing them consistently regard one as better sounding, there may be something else about the playing experience that they prefer.  Could there be some sort of tactile feedback from the body and neck vibration that affects how the player feels about the sound of a guitar whilst making less difference to the amplified sound than might be expected?  If so, I would still say that the players preference is valid. 

crunchman

The other thing to bear in mind is that the modern violins being used for the comparison are presumably very high quality instruments made with good quality seasoned wood of the traditional wood species used in violins.

If I chopped down the bay tree in my garden and got a violin made from that, I suspect that it would be very easy to tell the difference.

andyp

Can I ask a stupid question from a relative newbie?

What I am reading through this thread is that @Three-ColourSunburst appears to be saying all electric guitars sound the same regardless of body construction. Is that correct? (Assume electronics, pickup type etc. are all a control here, so they are not part of my query).

I'm not going to offer an opinion, but that's what it sounds like I am reading to me.

AustrianJohn

Responding to @andyp I can't answer for @Three-ColourSunburst , but I think there are really two things being discussed here.

First is - does wood make a difference to the tone of an electric guitar. The second topic is something like - does it make a noticeable difference in a real world situation. Indeed, is the difference predictable.

I think (may be wrong) that many people agree that the wood used to make a guitar contributes to the tone, but it may not be predictable, and - in a real world situation with pedals, amps and the guitar players toneful fingers taken into account - the contribution that the wood makes to the tone may or may not be significant.

Even if you have two "identical" guitars, apart from the wood used, they won't be identical.

andyp

Thanks. That's a fair summary I think.

The one thing I think is that no two guitars are exactly the same due to all the inherent variables that are involved in building one, as described through this thread. Wood is one of those variables and being a natural material is one of the less controllable variables. So in my view the reason guitars sound different is partly to do with the wood used, whether it's the same species as the one you're comparing to or not.

I'm completely "unqualified" to justify this view, but that's what I reckon anyway...

EricTheWeary

professorben said:

This reminds me of a recording a guy i used to work with in the music shop played to me. 

3 clips. 
Asked me to choose my favourite, they were French Horn solo sections. 

I picked my favourite much to his amusement. 

2 were vintage (read 1800's classic French Horns, the equivalent of a '59 Burst or pre CBS Strat) 
the 3rd was a length of hosepipe with a horn mouthpiece fitted.

Guess which I picked as having 'the fullest tone and resonance' 

I think it was George Martin who spent a long time trying to capture the classic Buddy Holly drum sound, somehow in Texas they'd recorded a much better drum sound than he could manage a few years later in London. He was dismayed to find out that the secret was cardboard boxes and not drums at all. 

For recorded sound the number of variables is huge, in those days things like the mastering was hugely important and then there's what you listen back to it on and a hundred other things. I struggle to imagine the difference between two pieces of wood used to build guitars making a difference to the end listener even in a more direct environment like a concert. Whatever difference it's pretty much only for the benefit of the player. Which is fine if you prefer the sound, get the response you want,etc, as that ultimately helps you play better. But nobody is going ' listen to the mahogany in that.'

crunchman

EricTheWeary said:

For recorded sound the number of variables is huge, in those days things like the mastering was hugely important and then there's what you listen back to it on and a hundred other things. I struggle to imagine the difference between two pieces of wood used to build guitars making a difference to the end listener even in a more direct environment like a concert. Whatever difference it's pretty much only for the benefit of the player. Which is fine if you prefer the sound, get the response you want,etc, as that ultimately helps you play better. But nobody is going ' listen to the mahogany in that.'

I get what you are saying, but the guitar definitely makes a difference.  Sultans of Swing on Les Paul just wouldn't work.

AustrianJohn

crunchman said:

I get what you are saying, but the guitar definitely makes a difference.  Sultans of Swing on Les Paul just wouldn't work.

Yes, the guitar makes a difference, but not necessarily the wood it's made from.