Body wood affects tone

Three-ColourSunburst

impmann said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

impmann said:

If that were the case, everyone would play the same guitars... wouldn't they?

Different guitars present different images, and that is primary for many (most?) players.

Bollocks.

I think you are just being awkward for the sake of it now.

Not all all. For example, I have seen many comments from people saying how, now they they are older, they would feel 'stupid' holding a 'pointy' RG, or who buy a guitar that has the right image for the music they wish to play, as with the number of Jazzers who play a big Jazz-Box, even though you can get Jazz tones from something like a Tele, or who buy a Strat because they love Hendrix, or a Les Paul because they favour Jimmy Page and so on.

WezV

Three-ColourSunburst said:

WezV said:

 I fully agree you could make a guitar out of anything and it will still sound like a guitar. 

Exactly! It will sound pretty much as we expect an electric guitar to sound - that is one made out of wood - even when it is made out of something entirely different. If wood were so important we would expect a concrete guitar to sound like a concrete guitar, a metal guitar to sound like a metal guitar, and only a wooden guitar to sound like a 'normal' electric guitar. However they all sound very, very similar, indicating that the most of the sound of an electric guitar is not a function of the material it is made from.

You are selectively quoting and changing your argument.

Ravenous

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Sorry, but that, in itself, is no explanation at all. One might as well say that 'it should be clear' that the same bell will sound differently, depending on whether it is hung in a stone belfry or suspended from a wooden tower.

Are you related to Sir Axeman by any chance?  (Partly joking...)

There are lots of more advanced physics texts looking at the behaviour of real, vibrating strings and interaction with the things they are attached to.  Beyond the basic GCSE physics and so on.  (I'm not going to bother linking them because such posts on here tend to look a bit antsy.)

The bit you said below is way out, and the beatings will continue until you give up

"Fundamentally, a vibrating metal string is a vibrating metal string, is a vibrating metal string, the characteristics of which are independent of what it is attached to. (Just as a vibrating column of air is a vibrating column of air, be it in a metal or plastic tube.)"

Sassafras

It's not just a question of a string vibrating. Of course any string will vibrate when stretched over any material.
It's the shape of the note that's influenced differently by different materials.
The attack, the type of sustain and how the note decays. 

Three-ColourSunburst

WezV said:

You are selectively quoting and changing your argument.

Not at all. Point is, if even a concrete guitar sounds pretty much the same as we expect a wooden one to sound like, then any differences due to variations in the wood used to build a guitar can be expected to be some magnitudes smaller than those between wood, concrete or metal, which is already not much at all!

Sporky

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Sporky said:

it should be clear that a vibrating string in a GCSE physics problem is very different from a vibrating spring on a bit of wood glued or bolted to another bit of wood, with one end passing over a bone, metal or plastic nut and the other passing over a metal bridge saddle of some sort or other... both ends being secured beyond the speaking length.

Sorry, but that, in itself, is no explanation at all. 

Which is why there was much more of a post, most of which you've cut out in order to pretend that I didn't go through a full, detailed explanation.

Three-ColourSunburst

Kalimna said:

if the pickup *is* vibrating due to being not perfectly isolated from the structure holding the strings, then the vibrations of the pickup itself will produce a signal, albeit a small one.

I agree that a 'small' signal might be generated, but are you saying such signals make a significant contribution to the tone of the guitar, and thereby justify, by a roundabout route, the claim that 'tone wood' plays an important role in creating  the sound of an electric guitar?

Kalimna

Yes.

Ravenous

Sporky

Three-ColourSunburst said:

I agree that a 'small' signal might be generated

Excellent. So you concede that the materials used in the construction of a guitar will affect the signal that comes out of the pickups.

WezV

Three-ColourSunburst said:

WezV said:

You are selectively quoting and changing your argument.

Not at all. Point is, if even a concrete guitar sounds pretty much the same as we expect a wooden one to sound like, then any differences due to variations in the wood used to build a guitar can be expected to be some magnitudes smaller than those between wood, concrete or metal, which is already not much at all!

saying it sounds "pretty much the same" is the same as saying "it's different".  So we agree there..   Yes, we can debate the degrees to which its different, i think that's worthwhile.   writing of the differences as unimportant is overly simplistic for me.

We have not even discussed necks or bridge here - just the vibrating string.  I firmly believe body wood material is less important on a strat than a Les Paul junior.   the mounting method of the bridge changes that interaction with string and body quite significantly - they both still sound  like electric guitars though.   Different electric guitars.

Always start with the string, i agree there - that generates 100% of your tone.  I know this because i took my strings off and my tone disappeared

But you can;t ignore the other items the string is interacting with - it does not exist in isolation

Ravenous

WezV said:

Always start with the string, i agree there - that generates 100% of your tone.  I know this because i took my strings off and my tone disappeared

Well if you have enough different tuning forks handy...

Three-ColourSunburst

Sassafras said:

It's not just a question of a string vibrating. Of course any string will vibrate when stretched over any material.
It's the shape of the note that's influenced differently by different materials.
The attack, the type of sustain and how the note decays. 

But the whole 'tone wood' argument depends on far more than the observation that different systems will have different decay rates due to the inherent damping in the system and so on. (Something I have acknowledged several times.) For the tone-wood argument to be true, each type of wood used in guitar construction would have to selectively damp, in a consistent way across all notes, certain specific and characteristic harmonic frequencies.

Assuming for a moment that this is correct, could someone please put me out of my misery and post to some credible links explaining the physics of how this happens. Given that the whole 'tone wood' debate seems to be never-ending, I have a feeling that such evidence won't be forthcoming. Please prove me wrong!

WezV

What is the tonewood debate?

saying  "mahogany is warmer than maple" is incorrect Or inaccurate  is very different to saying "body material has an affect on tone"

lets not mix the arguments

Sporky

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Assuming for a moment that this is correct, could someone please put me out of my misery and post to some credible links explaining the physics of how this happens.

You've ignored, dismissed or misquoted every explanation thus far. Combined with your use of the weasel-word "credible" and your openly stated prejudice I doubt it's worth the effort.

Wolfetone

Acoustically, there's a massive difference but electrically, it's very very close.

Roland

Three-ColourSunburst said:

From my understanding a vibrating string is a vibrating string, the characteristics of its vibration being determined entirely by its tension, length, mass and the exact way in which it is picked. If anyone knows any physics showing otherwise I would love to read it. 

In addition to @Sporky's explanation about the contact points, and the nature of the material holding the string, we also have to take into account the nature of the string itself.

In order to vibrate the string must stretch under tension. It will get longer when you pluck it hard. That's why the note goes sharp and/or flat when plucked hard. Some energy is lost as the string stretches and contracts. Over time the note will decay as the string loses energy.

Imagine also that the string is not made of a uniformly solid material. Unlike our theoretical GCSE string it will not vibrate evenly. Some frequencies will be absorbed more readily than others by the material of the string. You can hear this in the difference between wound and unwound G strings.

Three-ColourSunburst

Body Woods and an Electric Guitar’s Frequency Spectrum

Keith J. Soper

University of Toledo

ABSTRACT

There are many theories as to what significance particular wood species contribute if any to the overall tone of an electric guitar. In this paper two differing wood types are studied, ash and alder, and a method are investigated to determine their tonal spectrums. Analysis of the data shows that in an electric guitar the body wood type does not contribute significantly to the sound of the amplified instrument.

http://www.stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf

Ravenous

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Body Woods and an Electric Guitar’s Frequency Spectrum

Keith J. Soper

University of Toledo

ABSTRACT

There are many theories as to what significance particular wood species contribute if any to the overall tone of an electric guitar. In this paper two differing wood types are studied, ash and alder, and a method are investigated to determine their tonal spectrums. Analysis of the data shows that in an electric guitar the body wood type does not contribute significantly to the sound of the amplified instrument.

http://www.stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf

Was that published anywhere? Looks like an undergraduate project to me.

Anyway to be fair, it does show only very slight differences between Ash and Alder 50-60db below the peak. (Don't know if that difference would be audible or not.)

Three-ColourSunburst

Roland said:

In order to vibrate the string must stretch under tension. It will get longer when you pluck it hard. That's why the note goes sharp and/or flat when plucked hard. Some energy is lost as the string stretches and contracts. Over time the note will decay as the string loses energy.

Imagine also that the string is not made of a uniformly solid material. Unlike our theoretical GCSE string it will not vibrate evenly. Some frequencies will be absorbed more readily than others by the material of the string. You can hear this in the difference between wound and unwound G strings.

Agreed, but those factors are still dependent on the nature of the string, not the species of wood that the guitar is made from!