Body wood affects tone

WezV

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

Right sort of tests, still limited controls and a very limited sample.  

It still shows a difference, the writers conclusion is opinion of the size of that difference.

i  am more surprised someone would pick alder and Ash as their sample???  Two woods which have been used interchangeably and most would describe as fairly similar... at least compared to other commonly used guitar woods

Ravenous

Three-ColourSunburst said:

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.

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

How's about this - the body material must flex slightly at its ends because of the string movement. That material (like all real materials) has elastic behaviour that acts differently at different frequencies - as seen by tapping different materials and listening to the "thud". The effect of this inelastic behaviour is that energy is dissipated at the string ends(contact points) in some frequency ranges.

Does this sound reasonable in principle?  (I'm not trying to be wear anyone out, just trying to take the conversation beyond simple physics, infinitely stiff materials, ideal string behaviour etc.)

Three-ColourSunburst

WezV said:

What is the tonewood debate?

  The argument that this sort of snake-oil is actually true. 

http://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/1012/tonewood-tutorial-everything-you-need-to-know-about-tonewoods/54628

WezV

Three-ColourSunburst said:

WezV said:

What is the tonewood debate?

  The argument that this sort of snake-oil is actually true. 

http://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/1012/tonewood-tutorial-everything-you-need-to-know-about-tonewoods/54628

Marketing BS Often spouted as gospel.   Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.  I don't accept tonewood as a term for electrics.


my guitars always start from a choice between at least two planks of wood.  I could build bookshelves from them, some have actually been reclaimed from bookshelves.  It's just wood.   I choose the one I will use based on the tonal properties of the individual piece

UnclePsychosis

Three-ColourSunburst said:

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!

-you're confusing what people are saying. Probably deliberately given your behaviour thus far. 

Saying "the wood makes a difference to the sound of an electric guitar" is one thing. And it's true. 

Saying "...and that difference is consistent and easily predictable, so that's why we have tone wood" is another thing, and it's pretty much bollocks.

Being willing to accept that wood makes a (small) difference to the sound of a guitar is not the same as buying into the marketing bullshit that (some) guitar makers like to spout about different woods. 

My own take on it is that it's not worth worrying about - it's such a small effect that I don't care. The only reason to care what wood your guitar is made of, in my opinion, is weight and aesthetic. Yeah if you made it out of a slightly different wood the sound would change very, very slightly but not enough to be bothered about it. 

richardhomer

I should have this ready to copy and paste into this thread whenever recurs....

A few years ago I had two almost indentical 2005 Les Paul Standards at home - one was mine - the other I was setting up for a friend of a friend. 

I set both up indentically - new D'Addario 10s, same amount of relief, action, pick-up height, etc. The inescapable fact was that through an amp they sounded significantly different from each other. One was open and bright - one was darker with a thicker mid-range.

Now it is possible that sample variation between pick-ups and/or pots could account for this - but the tonal difference was the same when comparing them in all three pick-up positions. Perhaps surprisingly, the difference seemed more marked through an amp than it did acoustically - though the brighter/airier guitar did sound brighter and airier unplugged as well....

Chalky

I don't get the tonewood-haters argument. If they sincerely believe it makes no difference they why not just play their cheaper guitars and be happy that they don't need the more expensive guitars? Why such strong feelings?

andyp

This thread is like watching an argument between Flat Earthers and Everyone Else.

octatonic

Chalky said:

I don't get the tonewood-haters argument. If they sincerely believe it makes no difference they why not just play their cheaper guitars and be happy that they don't need the more expensive guitars? Why such strong feelings?

You are correct, it appears you haven't understood what people are saying.

And if you think that the cost of the wood is directly related to the final cost of the guitar then I have some bad news for you.

octatonic

richardhomer said:

I should have this ready to copy and paste into this thread whenever recurs....

A few years ago I had two almost indentical 2005 Les Paul Standards at home - one was mine - the other I was setting up for a friend of a friend. 

I set both up indentically - new D'Addario 10s, same amount of relief, action, pick-up height, etc. The inescapable fact was that through an amp they sounded significantly different from each other. One was open and bright - one was darker with a thicker mid-range.

Now it is possible that sample variation between pick-ups and/or pots could account for this - but the tonal difference was the same when comparing them in all three pick-up positions. Perhaps surprisingly, the difference seemed more marked through an amp than it did acoustically - though the brighter/airier guitar did sound brighter and airier unplugged as well....

To me that shouts component difference- so yes pickups and pots.
The wood might have made a bit of a difference but to put all of the difference towards the wood might be a stretch- not saying that you are doing this of course.
But this highlights the problem with these tests, a lack of a proper methodology and how to you have a control?

Three-ColourSunburst

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.

WezV

octatonic said:

richardhomer said:

I should have this ready to copy and paste into this thread whenever recurs....

A few years ago I had two almost indentical 2005 Les Paul Standards at home - one was mine - the other I was setting up for a friend of a friend. 

I set both up indentically - new D'Addario 10s, same amount of relief, action, pick-up height, etc. The inescapable fact was that through an amp they sounded significantly different from each other. One was open and bright - one was darker with a thicker mid-range.

Now it is possible that sample variation between pick-ups and/or pots could account for this - but the tonal difference was the same when comparing them in all three pick-up positions. Perhaps surprisingly, the difference seemed more marked through an amp than it did acoustically - though the brighter/airier guitar did sound brighter and airier unplugged as well....

To me that shouts component difference- so yes pickups and pots.
The wood might have made a bit of a difference but to put all of the difference towards the wood might be a stretch- not saying that you are doing this of course.
But this highlights the problem with these tests, a lack of a proper methodology and how to you have a control?

I'm less sure, but agree it highlights the issues.

i have shown examples of identical mahogany from the same batch where one plank was literally 50% heavier than its identical twin.  Didn't bother being scientific about it though- I knew which bit I wanted to use where

clarkefan

I have a rosewood neck Strat I bought new in 1989. At the time I also had a Hofner maple neck copy.

For fun one day I swapped the necks. I was younger and poor, I just unwound the strings, switched the necks and rewound the strings.

My memory is that the sound changed significantly.

28 years later I'm looking forward to getting that Hofner back in my hands in a couple of weeks and trying it again.

I've no idea if the metal in the frets made a difference but nothing else did, there was nothing else to make a difference.  Tuners?  The neck fitted perfectly for the record.

Sporky

Three-ColourSunburst said:

 There is no need for anything it is mounted to to flex. 

So you're claiming that guitars are entirely rigid?

Even though you can flex a guitar with your hand on the headstock?

MartinB

clarkefan said:

I have a rosewood neck Strat I bought new in 1989. At the time I also had a Hofner maple neck copy.

For fun one day I swapped the necks. I was younger and poor, I just unwound the strings, switched the necks and rewound the strings.

My memory is that the sound changed significantly.

28 years later I'm looking forward to getting that Hofner back in my hands in a couple of weeks and trying it again.

I've no idea if the metal in the frets made a difference but nothing else did, there was nothing else to make a difference.  Tuners?  The neck fitted perfectly for the record.

I've had two maple necks with maple boards sound somewhat different on the same bass, so I'd be hesitant to pin that one entirely on the fingerboard material.  In my case one of them seemed a little more flexible than the other and they used a different type of truss rod, so that may be part of it.  

OilCityPickups

Whenever this topic turns up I get the same sinking feeling as when 'Mrs Weasel' asks 'Does this dress make my arse look fat?'
There's no comment that you can make that won't damn you out of your own mouth  
 :-)

Three-ColourSunburst

Sporky said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

 There is no need for anything it is mounted to to flex. 

So you're claiming that guitars are entirely rigid?

Even though you can flex a guitar with your hand on the headstock?

No, (just as I wrote) I am saying that there is no need for the body of the guitar to flex in any way in order to produce the characteristic sound of the instrument. In fact such flex is generally a bad thing, robbing the string of energy and creating 'dead spots' which drastically reduce the sustain of certain notes.  This is pretty much the opposite of the way an acoustic instrument works, where energy from the string is transferred directly to the soundboard via the bridge. Here is a paper looking at this.

In contrast to the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar does not radiate the sound itself and consequently there is no intrinsic need for energy transfer from the strings to the instrument body. Therefore, the string vibrations of a solid-body electric guitar do not decay as rapidly as for the acoustic guitar. In the words of guitar players: The "sustain" is better for an electric guitar than for an acoustic one.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helmut_Fleischer/publication/282790879_Fleischer_H_und_Zwicker_T_Mechanical_vibrations_of_electric_guitars/links/5736092808ae298602e09e42/Fleischer-H-und-Zwicker-T-Mechanical-vibrations-of-electric-guitars.pdf

WezV

i think it's okay for builders to be honest about there opinion in this matter.  If they have an opinion and stick to it the results are usually good.  

i like my solid maple John birch les paul.   JB believe wood was unimportant so focused on the pickups and wiring.  His approach reduced the importance of the wood in his guitars

similar to the yam SG's in the other thread.  They were built with a few definite ideas about sustain, and that's what they do.

i chose to focus on the wood and try to bring out the characteristics I hear in the plank.

OilCityPickups

It is worth pointing out here that all guitar pickups are to a lesser or greater degree microphonic ... unless you pot them in a completely rigid medium like casting epoxy ... therefore there is a certain amount of radiating that a solid guitar does of it's own natural sound and the acoustic sound of the strings ... this is totally independant of the sound produced by the string's magnetic interaction with the pickup. This is why unpotted pickups sound more 'live' than potted ones.

Kalimna

Whether there is a *need* or not for string energy to be transmitted is utterly immaterial. Energy transfer will take place. The only question is by how much.