Body wood affects tone

WezV

Bull shit free if we can manage it

The others would be BSc or BA.  Both can contain a lot of BS

Danielsguitars

I'd like to know people's experiences building with various woods, I would think most wood is good 

I'm interested in weight too as I think that has alot to do with it

GSPBASSES

Anyone who was a member of the UKGB will know that I frequently discussed all the different woods I've used as well as the main three. And I'm more than happy to discuss some of the oddball woods I've used in the construction of guitars. If we do open a discussion on tone woods I will most certainly participate in a BS free.

WezV

customkits said:

I'd like to know people's experiences building with various woods, I would think most wood is good 

I'm interested in weight too as I think that has alot to do with it

I think it's more to do with stiffness and structure, obviously that correlates closely to weight.  My aim is often to try and reduce weight without losing stiffness.

anyway, it's worth building with some woods you don't think will work.  Firstly, to see if your expectations are right, secondly, to see if you can make it work.

Danielsguitars

GSPBASSES said:

Anyone who was a member of the UKGB will know that I frequently discussed all the different woods I've used as well as the main three. And I'm more than happy to discuss some of the oddball woods I've used in the construction of guitars. If we do open a discussion on tone woods I will most certainly participate in a BS free way.

It's not tonewood just plain ol wood, what you choose and why is interesting

Kalimna

In the hopes of a useful discussion, I have started another thread in Making and Modding.

Adam

guitars4you

http://www.prsguitars.com/index.php/blog/post/how_we_grade_our_woods?utm_source=PRS+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a6c2a376a8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d14ebb9eda-a6c2a376a8-518810577

just arrived in on a PRS mail shot - how we grade our wood - good timing

Sporky

WezV said: 

I think it's more to do with stiffness and structure, obviously that correlates closely to weight.  

I think you're right. I have a paper somewhere that suggests there is a band of ratios of stiffness to speed of sound propagation in woods that work well for instruments.

koneguitarist

guitars4you said:

http://www.prsguitars.com/index.php/blog/post/how_we_grade_our_woods?utm_source=PRS+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a6c2a376a8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d14ebb9eda-a6c2a376a8-518810577

just arrived in on a PRS mail shot - how we grade our wood - good timing

Like I said, picked for pretty grain not tone! 

Rabs

customkits said:

I'd like to know people's experiences building with various woods, I would think most wood is good 

I'm interested in weight too as I think that has alot to do with it

I have made guitars from Beech, Oak, Ash, Maple, Mahogany (of various types), Korina and Walnut (and possibly some Iroko )...  Some are solid bodies, some have a cap and some weight relief and all sorts of different pickup types. Some of you may have seen my half and half guitar made with half Utile and half Ash, on the neck and body..

They all sound like an electric guitar.

ThePrettyDamned

I must admit, I'm somewhat sceptical of tone woods. 

I remember playing a Les Paul raw power, maple body, maple neck, maple fingerboard. Should be heavy and horribly bright, right? 

Nah. Even unplugged it sounded quite thuddy (in a good way), lots of resonance. Through an amp, it was a warm, thick LP tone. I wish I'd bought it but I foolishly put it back... It wasn't massively heavy either. 

That may be atypical, but the strat I built from pine doesn't sound like it's made of anything different to a normal strat. And pine is a pretty soft wood!

I'm not saying wood makes no difference, but unless a builder understands the wood (or can somehow tone test it and match the pieces for a particular tone) it's basically a lottery as even custom shop Les pauls are just factory built guitars. They're not going to meticulously tone match woods, then customise the pickup wind (eg this guitar will naturally be very bright so we want to mellow it out a bit). 

It's not really worth arguing over anyway. Danelectro guitars are pretty predictable sounding (largely due to pickups, but also acoustically) as they're made of a very different material.

I've never played an aluminium guitar so can't comment. But if we agree most of the tone comes from playing dynamics, pickups and amp (assuming no pedals) any body wood influences are going to be at the very least fourth on a list of influences? And the amp and pickups will be first and second (not sure which order, but a Tweed champ sounds nothing like a jcm800 and a high output ceramic humbuggy sounds nothing like a vintage style single coil.

That's not to say it's not noticeable of course. 

Three-ColourSunburst

Sporky said:

 I have a paper somewhere that suggests there is a band of ratios of stiffness to speed of sound propagation in woods that work well for instruments.

Acoustic instruments?

Does that paper explain how such difference affect the perceived timbre of a vibrating metal string attached to a solid plank of the stuff, as heard via an electromagnetic pickup? If not, or you or someone else can provide a paper showing this, such differences might be no more relevant than variations in the colour of the wood.

Whatever, I would still like to read it, if you have a link or can post it somewhere.

Thanks!

andyp

Apologies @Roland if my comment above was less than helpful. I was just illustrating that the two sides will never meet and there's nothing can be presented to convince those of opposing views that they are "incorrect" or may want to reconsider their opinion.

Cheers,

Andy

Three-ColourSunburst

A couple of additional thoughts.

It seems that many are ready to believe that what is really important, if not the species, is at least the 'stiffness and structure' or density or some similar property of a given piece of wood.

If this is true, then perhaps the best sounding guitar would not be made out of wood at all, but something that exceeds the qualities of wood in those respects. Perhaps a guitar made from carbon fibre, which can be laid up to give any structural characteristics one wants, tuned to eliminate unwanted resonance - so having no wolf tones or dead spots - and having the optimum degree of stiffness, would sound amazing and have exceptional sustain.

It could also be argued that the most perfect guitar would be one that preserves the pure harmonic balance, attack and so on of the vibrating string, as controlled by the players technique, with no reductive 'selective damping' of individual harmonics, as 'tone woods' are supposed to give. One could then take this purity and fidelity and shape the Eq of the final sound to one's taste.

Perhaps wood is actually a pretty rubbish material to make guitars from, used largely because of tradition, its price and looks. Just look at all the papers discussing the problem of 'flat spots' caused by resonance in the wood of the neck, something that some mistakenly take as being proof that a guitar is 'lively' and will have good sustain, when in fact the opposite is true.

https://www.unibw.de/lrt4/mechanik/mitarbeiter/ehem-mitarbeiter/hfleischer/deadspots-en

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282789912_Fleischer_H_und_Zwicker_T_Investigating_dead_spots_of_electric_guitars_Acustica_united_with_acta_acustica_85_1999_128_-135 ;

GSPBASSES

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Sporky said:

 I have a paper somewhere that suggests there is a band of ratios of stiffness to speed of sound propagation in woods that work well for instruments.

Acoustic instruments?

Does that paper explain how such difference affect the perceived timbre of a vibrating metal string attached to a solid plank of the stuff, as heard via an electromagnetic pickup? If not, or you or someone else can provide a paper showing this, such differences might be no more relevant than variations in the colour of the wood.

Whatever, I would still like to read it, if you have a link or can post it somewhere.

Thanks!

When I woke up this morning I thought this post would died a death by now, but unfortunately not. I will say this as politely as I possibly can. Get a life. Reading papers on wood, guitar making will only give you theory most of the time the theory doesn't match the real world.

 Go to a guitar shop. Play as many guitars as you can your fill difference between the makes the shape, you will learn more in a couple of hours doing this then reading any paper.

Then go to a supplier of tone woods, if you're anywhere near David Dykes that's the place to go. He has got every possible type wood an instrument maker will need, from violins, violas , double bass to guitars in vast quantities. You need to fill the wood smell it tap it. I will say again, you can only learn about woods by feeling it working with it. Experienced guitar makers instinctively know when they are holding a piece of wood whether it will make good instrument. This fill for wood only comes with experience, being in contact with other guitar makers discussing different types of wood. You can read every paper that’s been published but until you get out and work the wood you will learn nothing.

http://www.gusguitars.com/

 

So, stop asking us what papers we've read on the subject get out in the real world and start feeling the wood.

This discussion has now got a bit boring and so far from the point this will be my last comment.

Three-ColourSunburst

GSPBASSES said:

When I woke up this morning I thought this post would died a death by now, but unfortunately not. I will say this as politely as I possibly can. Get a life. Reading papers on wood, guitar making will only give you theory most of the time the theory doesn't match the real world.

 Go to a guitar shop. Play as many guitars as you can your fill difference between the makes the shape, you will learn more in a couple of hours doing this then reading any paper.

Then go to a supplier of tone woods, if you're anywhere near David Dykes that's the place to go. He has got every possible type wood an instrument maker will need, from violins, violas , double bass to guitars in vast quantities. You need to fill the wood smell it tap it. I will say again, you can only learn about woods by feeling it working with it. Experienced guitar makers instinctively know when they are holding a piece of wood whether it will make good instrument. This fill for wood only comes with experience, being in contact with other guitar makers discussing different types of wood. You can read every paper that’s been published but until you get out and work the wood you will learn nothing.

So, stop asking us what papers we've read on the subject get out in the real world and start feeling the wood.

Love it! That is one of the funniest things I have ever read. Particularly like the joke about 'sniffing the wood'. Even better was the one about theory not matching the real world. Sounds like Trump talking about climate change or a creationist denying the evidence of evolution, geology, plate tectonics and so on, or a flat-Earther denying the evidence of astronomy. Priceless!

It all sort of reminds me of this, only with 'tone wood' in place of 'faith'. Away with you and your damn reason and science. We create our own truth and believe in whatever we want to believe in. 

http://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/6/5319/600px-Science-vs-religion.jpg

crunchman

Three-ColourSunburst said:

It could also be argued that the most perfect guitar would be one that preserves the pure harmonic balance, attack and so on of the vibrating string, as controlled by the players technique, with no reductive 'selective damping' of individual harmonics, as 'tone woods' are supposed to give. One could then take this purity and fidelity and shape the Eq of the final sound to one's taste.

I suspect it's the reverse of that.  A pure sine wave sounds a bit boring.  The filtering that the wood imparts probably makes it sound better.

I know I played a Rainsong carbon fibre acoustic years ago that sounded very sterile.

Three-ColourSunburst

crunchman said:

I suspect it's the reverse of that.  A pure sine wave sounds a bit boring.  The filtering that the wood imparts probably makes it sound better.

I know I played a Rainsong carbon fibre acoustic years ago that sounded very sterile.

A vibrating electric guitar string is very, very far  away from vibrating like a pure sine wave.

An acoustic guitar is a very different kettle of fish, as the vibration of the soundboard and the air in the body do add a lot to the timbre, in fact they pretty much are the sound of an acoustic instrument. In contrast, the sound of electric guitar is, essentially, the sound of the string itself, coloured via the pickups, electronics, amp and so on.

Also, does the wood of a solid body actually do much in the way of selective filtering the harmonics of the string in a way that is both consistent across all frequencies and is perceptible, above and beyond generally damping down the energy in the string, especially when the body or neck resonates with the string? That's what the whole 'tone wood' debate is about.

kin

I've heard the word sterile used to describe the sound of Prs as well and they use the traditional woods and construction methods.

It's almost as if beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

Three-ColourSunburst

kin said:

I've heard the word sterile used to describe the sound of Prs as well and they use the traditional woods and construction methods.

Ah (puts on tone wood believer hat) that because PRS only chooses their wood on the basis of how pretty it is. If they were a real builder who tapped and sniffed their wood instead they would be able to make guitars that sounded lively, engaging and resonant, with a tight lows, a rounded bottom end, muscular but still soft and breathy mids and airy and sweet - but not cutting - highs (removes tone wood believer hat).