Body wood affects tone

professorben

NelsonP said:

Hmmm. Still sounds like a tele....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZDWNZmT3c

Tis the devils work!!!

AustrianJohn

NelsonP said:

Hmmm. Still sounds like a tele....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZDWNZmT3c

Is that toneconcrete?

NelsonP

AustrianJohn said:

Is that toneconcrete?

Yep, that's the one. Highly sought after.

Guitars made from toneconcrete were only produced during the golden era before FMIC  accidentally used up all the toneconcrete reserves when building the foundations of the new Fender factory in Corona. Heads rolled.

Ravenous

I bought a guitar made from Shreddies. I had to sell it again, I couldn't keep up with it.

GSPBASSES

I must apologise for the silliness in my last post, I know full well that you cannot make a guitar out of chocolate hobnobs, as the chocolate would melt, you would have to use normal hobnobs.

Megii

GSPBASSES said:

I must apologise for the silliness in my last post, I know full well that you cannot make a guitar out of chocolate hobnobs, as the chocolate would melt, you would have to use normal hobnobs.

Nonsense, there's a video somewhere of a chap playing Status Quo on a chocolate hobnob guitar and it sounds fantastic (and identical to the equivalent boutique "tonewood" guitar of course).

Ravenous

GSPBASSES said:

I must apologise for the silliness in my last post, I know full well that you cannot make a guitar out of chocolate hobnobs, as the chocolate would melt, you would have to use normal hobnobs.

Normal chocolate of the proper 70% dark stuff?

I suppose a guitar made from Red Hot Chili Peppers would be appropriate. (Or in my case, a guitar made entirely of slugs.)

Three-ColourSunburst

NelsonP said:

"I think introducing an amp into the equation is a red herring"

This is your opinion, to which you are entitled. However, the following is from the Scientific American article I previously referred to, "A similar mechanism occurs when amplifying the output of an electric guitar. Structural vibrations induced by acoustic feedback can magnify the signal generated by the sensors embedded in the guitar to "pick up" its sound, which leads to instability.".

  But they are talking about instability and feedback at specific frequency, not a general colouration of the tone due to the wood used. (Which is why the title of the piece is 'What causes feedback in a guitar or microphone?') To continue that quote.

Structural vibrations induced by acoustic feedback can magnify the signal generated by the sensors embedded in the guitar to "pick up" its sound, which leads to instability. Equalization can control feedback by reducing the gain at the frequency at which this problem occurs.

Usually such feedback in an electric guitar is caused by parts of the pickup being able to move in relation to one another, such as the poles, loose windings and so on. As the body vibrates these can move relative to one another, causing feedback and squealing. It is the components of the pickup moving relative to one another that causes such feedback, not the strings, so what the strings are attached to is irrelevant! A pickup that does this is faulty and wax potting, better control of the winding tension and so on are employed to prevent this happening. Such feedback does not lead to great tone, far from it.

( Of course, you can also get feedback by playing so loudly that the air in the room vibrates the strings, but again this isn't anything to do with the species of wood used to make the guitar.)

Three-ColourSunburst

AustrianJohn said:

Is that toneconcrete?

How about a guitar made entirely in tone aluminium? If a concrete guitar can sound like a tele, and an aluminium guitar can sound like a tele, despite the vast differences in materials and construction as compared to a normal guitar, it makes you wonder how microscopic any differences could really be between two otherwise identical guitars made out of wood.

GSPBASSES

On a more serious note, if paper was produced stating quite categorically that the wood guitar was made from had no effect on the sound of the guitar when amplified. Would this make the likes of Fender and Gibson change the type of wood they used, I doubt it very much indeed.

 There again on a more serious note, if a paper was produced by the most eminent acoustic sound engineers, that the wood used in the manufacture of guitars made a tremendous difference to the sound of the guitar when amplified. Would this affect the likes of Fender and Gibson to change the type of wood they used, I doubt it very much indeed.

 Is there any point in making up all these different types of experiments to prove one way or the other, if there is such a thing as tonewood that makes a guitars sound different, depending on the type of wood it's made from? Apart from keeping this post running, I do not see the point. As a builder of guitars the most important thing to me is to make guitars that people want. It's all well and good making guitars out of all different types of wood just to be different, but in the end if you cannot sell them it would all become a bit pointless.

 If a guitarist approaches me and wants a Strat built 99 times out of a 100 he will want it made from the classic tone woods that Fender use. In the same could be said if I'm asked for a Gibson -type guitar, it will either be all mahogany, SG, Explorer, Flying V, Thunderbird, LPJ or if it's a Les Paul mahogany with a maple cap.

 It's always quite interesting making guitars out of non-standard woods, as you will have seen in some of my posts over the years, I have used all sorts of woods, but it is very difficult to try and sell these guitars unless the customer specifically asked the different woods.

Three-ColourSunburst

Amazing how much tone acrylic sounds just like ash!

Three-ColourSunburst

How about a Fender custom shop Strat' made out of cardboard? Still sounds like a Strat!

Three-ColourSunburst

Tone carbon!

Three-ColourSunburst

Tone Lego!

MartinB

Earlier you were dismissing papers that disagreed with you on the basis that they came from undergraduates and not professors.  Now you're incessantly posting Youtube videos that you feel prove your point.  
I think you may not be as objective and dispassionate as you would like to believe.  

bacchanalian

I wish I had stuck with my plywood Hondo.

professorben

bacchanalian said:

Please make it stop!

My life is a lie!!

I wish I had stuck with my plywood Hondo.

What type of glue was used in the ply??

crunchman

NelsonP said:

Hmmm. Still sounds like a tele....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZDWNZmT3c

At the risk of restarting the argument, not the best Tele sound I've ever heard.  Don't know whether that's the guitar, the quality of the sound on the video, or just Youtube sound.

It would be interesting to hear it in the flesh.

Three-ColourSunburst

MartinB said:

Earlier you were dismissing papers that disagreed with you on the basis that they came from undergraduates and not professors.  Now you're incessantly posting Youtube videos that you feel prove your point.  
I think you may not be as objective and dispassionate as you would like to believe.  

Nah, the physics says 'tone wood' can't be real. The 'tone wood' hypothesis has been shown to be false by credible academic research. I'm just having fun now.

MartinB

bacchanalian said:

Please make it stop!

My life is a lie!!

I wish I had stuck with my plywood Hondo.

Hey, I'm very fond of my plywood Hondo!  Though it's a 335 copy, so plywood by design rather than as a cheap alternative to solid wood...