How big a factor is resonance in what makes a good electric?

Philly_Q

WezV said:

FWIW, I hate basses with really resonant bodies.  I used to have one that I couldn't play for more than half an hour without feeling sick.   

I once had a cheap Fender bass called a Precision Lyte, it was the most weirdly unresponsive thing... if I played it fingerstyle, unplugged, not only was there no body resonance at all, no sound came out of it either.  I thought I'd gone deaf.  Playing with a pick was slightly better.

I don't know if it sounded good plugged in, I didn't have a proper bass amp and in any case I wouldn't know a "good" bass from a "bad" one.  It had active electronics, I remember that much.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

I once had a cheap Fender bass called a Precision Lyte, it was the most weirdly unresponsive thing... if I played it fingerstyle, unplugged, not only was there no body resonance at all, no sound came out of it either.  I thought I'd gone deaf.  Playing with a pick was slightly better.

I don't know if it sounded good plugged in, I didn't have a proper bass amp and in any case I wouldn't know a "good" bass from a "bad" one.  It had active electronics, I remember that much.

I've played a few of those.

They were all universally shit whether unplugged or plugged in. The absolute definition of no resonance or tone - they sounded like they were made from damp cardboard.

A lot of the very lightweight Korean basses roughly modelled on the Bass Collection design and sold under various cheap brand names in the 1990s are the same.

I was resisting getting involved in this debate, but there you are...

Offset

Gilly said:

poopot said:

Gilly said:

poopot said:

Gilly said:

To you it may not but to plenty of people it does matter. A guitar can be well set up and play well but if it feels dead and lifeless it won’t inspire me to play it.

Well that’s a you issue isn’t it!.

Personally, I’ve got one guitar that plays really well, however acoustically sounds like there’s a blanket over it… it’s dull… it has a horrible metallic overtone to it… it sounds shit…

plug it into an amp tho’ and it is a beast of a guitar… a beautiful sounding thing!

That was my point. What matters to you might not matter to someone else. But I’m not the one telling people that resonance doesn’t matter lol!

I’m not telling anyone “resonance doesn’t matter”

my point is that when amplified (as an electric guitar would be) the natural resonance of the instrument counts for nothing…

you have pickups through to your amp… everything in between will affect the sound/tone/noise you hear… at anything over a whisper in volume you won’t hear how “resonant” your guitar is, you will be hearing the end product of the amplified signal…

going back to one of my own guitars… it sounds shit acoustically… but it’s not an acoustic guitar is it!… it’s made to be plugged into an amp… and that “plugging in” negates ANY acoustic response/resonance you feel/hear/perceive!…

if an electric guitar is set up well for you and is great to play… what does it matter how it sounds acoustically? Again it’s not an acoustic instrument…

All that sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to say, “resonance doesn’t matter” (for an electric guitar).

It matters to some (eg, me) but not to others (eg, Poopot).  I wouldn't die in a ditch over it - each to his or her own :-)

WezV

poopot said:

you have pickups through to your amp… everything in between will affect the sound/tone/noise you hear… at anything over a whisper in volume you won’t hear how “resonant” your guitar is, you will be hearing the end product of the amplified signal…

if that were totally true, these two guitars should sound almost the same when plugged in and played on the neck pickup.  Scale length is the same and both have the same style of neck pickup made by the same maker.   


Okay pedants, many other factors could account for a tonal difference other than the very different body structure (bridge, tailpiece, inlay style ).  The only ones that can't be linked to a change in the way the structure resonates would be the load of an additional pickups, cover type and extra controls on the signal.  

admittedly it's an extreme example and some people will say it doesn't count because one is hollow... but that only means its an extreme change in body resonance

it sounds massively different, even before you get feedback going.... which is so much easier on the hollow one because the body resonates more.

I don't think the hollowbody is better for resonating more, it clearly makes it unusable for some things.  

I also have great guitars that resonate less than either of these.  Like my solid maple John Birch, which is acoustically quiet and sounds very direct whatever it is plugged into

roberty

Offset said:

dindude said:

poopot said:

Said it before will say it again…

none of it matters for shit once the drummer starts hitting his shinny bits… and no one listening cares!!!!

I really hate this lazy statement

Possibly, but it's fairly accurate :-)

A guitar with a strong fundamental will cut through a mix easier in my experience, they can sound clearer without being louder. Overall in a live band situation EQ is more important. All the little things add up, anyway, 1-2% here and there. If everyone in the band is doing it you are naturally going to sound better

Cirrus

So it's decided. All guitars sound the same, unless you can prove it with a 10 year double blind controlled study - but even if the study shows they sound different, nobody cares.

Mattharrier

Cirrus said:

So it's decided. All guitars sound the same, unless you can prove it with a 10 year double blind controlled study - but even if the study shows they sound different, nobody cares.

Yep. All guitars sound different, no matter how similar the design, materials, pickups or signal chain. We're agreed.

:-D

Gilly

Offset said:

It matters to some (eg, me) but not to others (eg, Poopot).  I wouldn't die in a ditch over it - each to his or her own :-)

That’s the point I was making.

Philly_Q

Cirrus said:

So it's decided. All guitars sound the same, unless you can prove it with a 10 year double blind controlled study - but even if the study shows they sound different, nobody cares.

It's all a matter of personal perception, but some people's personal perceptions are more correct than others'.

To be fair, we've done quite well to get this far without the thread being shut down.

poopot

Philly_Q said:

Cirrus said:

So it's decided. All guitars sound the same, unless you can prove it with a 10 year double blind controlled study - but even if the study shows they sound different, nobody cares.

It's all a matter of personal perception, but some people's personal perceptions are more correct than others'.

This is the point…

my opinion means nowt… as does everyone else’s…

just play the guitars and don’t sweat the small stuff

WezV

Philly_Q said:

To be fair, we've done quite well to get this far without the thread being shut down.

I would really like it if we could discuss some of the finer nuances of guitar design without threads getting shut down.  You would think a guitar forum is the place for it

I think this has mostly been good natured and respectful of different opinions.   

I think most views shown are actually similar, just from different perspectives.  for example, I think everyone can agree body material choice is further down the list than pickup or amp choice

terada

terada said:

Originally posted here

3 Gibson reissues, same mic/amp/cable etc etc

Each in the same ballpark, all quite different at least to my ears.



Clean



Lead



Overdrive

Even guitars that are near identical spec sound different.

Stratavarious

Did you try before you buy before dropping the cash?

Some I bond with immediately on holding them, some I don’t.. the basic feel and resonance must be part of it.   But that does not always translate to the amplified sound.

WezV

terada said:

Even guitars that are near identical spec sound different.

The real question is why?

Variances in the pickup height, wind , magnetic field if you don't believe the materials of the structure make a difference.   Differences in resonance of the structure if you do.

Most likely, a combination of both to some degree


and there is always EQ

WiresDreamDisasters

roberty said:

Offset said:

dindude said:

poopot said:

Said it before will say it again…

none of it matters for shit once the drummer starts hitting his shinny bits… and no one listening cares!!!!

I really hate this lazy statement

Possibly, but it's fairly accurate :-)

A guitar with a strong fundamental will cut through a mix easier in my experience

I don't agree with this in the same way that I don't think a drum with a strong fundamental will cut through a mix easier.

It depends on the fundamental.

A kick drum with a solid fundamental of 40hz isn't going to cut through in a mix if there is very little energy around 1-3kHz.

The same is true for a guitar tone.

"cutting through a mix" is a subjective phrase, and there isn't an objective measurement for it. And there are numerous ways you could get an instrument to cut through the mix that has nothing to do with the actual physical properties of the instrument.

I feel like these discussions always descend into the blind leading the blind.

WiresDreamDisasters

I hear a lot of .. ahem.. opinions in my job... specifically about drum tone. People have all these preconceptions that more often than not don't stand up to scrutiny.

"metal drums are brighter and ringier than wooden drums"
"copper sounds dark, aluminium sounds shimmery"
"Maple sounds more powerful than any other wood"

And when you actually go off and test any of this stuff, you always end up with results you didn't expect.

As it turns out, with drums, the drum skin is one of the dominant things that determines the tone of a drum. If you take a copper drum, a brass drum, and a maple drum, and put the same skin on all of them and tune them the same way, you get very similar tones.

I think the physical properties of most instruments are tertiary factors when taking the final tone into account. The one exception seems to be piano. Because the size of the thing determines how long the strings run for, and how much tension is applied to them, and so huge sound variation is brought about in that situation.

Most guitar bodies just look different. But the actual physical characteristics are very often placed within a narrow range of variance.

EricTheWeary

I've been listening to a bity of Tab Benoit and reading a few things. He has a collection of early 1970s thinline teles and that's all he uses and only takes one on the road. Anyway, gets to a gig and he's snapped a machinehead off and asks around. One of the crew at the venue says no problem I'm a tele player and pulls out a custom shop tele that he's had set up by the best luthier in town. Tab says thank you and plays the gig with it. After the gig he returns the guitar, says thank you again but adds that the guitar was really hard work and it is in desperate need of a set up. 

So there is a lot of different strokes for different folks and if it inspires you and helps you play better that's what counts. I think we often get caught up in internet wisdom that works for someone but not for us. Certainly the resonance thing you hear experienced players like Bonamassa talk about and that they can tell if a guitar is any good unplugged and they can always swap out the pickups later. And I take that absolutely at face value and there are people on here I don't doubt on this at all. I don't have the experience to tell, for me it will be the plugged sound. I rather suspect some of the TGP I just bought a PRS Private Stock and swapped the pickups out type players don't either so we get this blurred line between knowledge and assumed knowledge.       

ICBM

The thing is, both answers are right at the same time. To the vast majority of non-musicians, all electric guitars sound the same to a very large degree. To the vast majority of guitarists, all electric guitars that they're actually playing sound somewhat, or a lot, different. They can even sound noticeably different in a mix.

I could tell the difference between my two PRSs in a recording, even though the only difference between them was that one had a maple cap on the body and the other didn't. But someone else - who is actually a guitarist, although in a very different style from me - couldn't really tell the difference between one of them and my previous guitar, which was a Fender Jaguar...

Everything matters, and none of it matters.

terada

WezV said:

terada said:

Even guitars that are near identical spec sound different.

The really question is why?

Variances in the pickup height, wind , magnetic field if you don't believe the materials of the structure make a difference.   Differences in resonance of the structure if you do.

Most likely, a combination of both to some degree


and there is always EQ

Yeah fair enough, I was holding back on getting involved as it always tends to go the same way.

Just for reference, the above had every realistically possible variable minimised (same pickup heights etc). Obviously can't account for the wind though  . My playing was probably the biggest variable!

To my mind the end output is shaped by every aspect of the instrument, each bit might not have a huge impact, but to me the end tone is the sum of the parts.

I like the variance between guitars, and anything that inspires someone to make some noise, be it perceived resonance or even just the colour, is all good with me.

thegummy

poopot said:

thegummy said:

What if an artist was to tape their performance then make copies of they recording to pass on to others on order for them to listen in the comfort of their own homes?

Ahhhh, so you’re saying what you hear on a recording is exactly what was coming out of the amp at the time the recording was made?

Interesting!

I could have sworn I typed my comment in English...