Does wood matter...

topdog91

snowblind said:

So if wood, being natural and always unique from piece to piece, matters do all acrylic guitars sound the same?

Nah, there's tone acrylic and the generic stuff innit.

Funny how the rarer and more expensive the "tonewood" (ROFL), the better it sounds.

Tex_Mexico

IMHO the most critical factor is the player. I think most guitar players are basically not really capable of telling the difference even when there is one, because it's subtle and the level of playing and listening you need to be at to perceive it is comparatively high. E.g. between two teles that are identical other than one has an ash body and the other an alder body, there WILL be a very slight difference in sound as s result of the difference in wood selection, but most people will not hear it and those who can hear it would probably only hear it when playing the guitar themselves.

And then the difference would be fractionally quantitative, but absolutely not qualitative because it's completely a matter of opinion which wood one prefers. And I bet that in a blind test, even the most seasoned player would not be able to state a consistent preference for one over the other.

Axe_meister

Acoustically I'd say yes. But once you amplify and distort the hell out of it no 
Where the difference does come in though, is two identical guitars can sound different acoustically and in a typical "quiet comparison situation" can make you play differently on each instrument. I.e. you may feel you need to dig in more on one Vs the other, which has a far bigger impact on the tone.

VimFuego

topdog91 said:

snowblind said:

So if wood, being natural and always unique from piece to piece, matters do all acrylic guitars sound the same?

Nah, there's tone acrylic and the generic stuff innit.

Funny how the rarer and more expensive the "tonewood" (ROFL), the better it sounds.

vintage old stock acrylic is the best, it contains more tone per gram than any modern rubbish.

WezV

snowblind said:

So if wood, being natural and always unique from piece to piece, matters do all acrylic guitars sound the same?

If you choose a more consistent material you will get more consistent and controllable results.

Wood can only ever be talked about in species generalisations.  For something  like alder, the range of variation is relatively consistent. things get very inconsistent in the mahogany families, even from the same source.  Acrylic will be very consistent

flying_pie

I will simply point out that several years ago I posted a sound clip of a Tele pickup that someone was asking about. My Tele is swamp ash with a rosewood fretboard. Nobody asked about the wood type. Everyone made comments about the mids being sweet, or shit like that. Not one single person said it wasn't a helpful clip due to the massive influence of the wrong type of wood.

carlos

topdog91 said:

snowblind said:

So if wood, being natural and always unique from piece to piece, matters do all acrylic guitars sound the same?

Nah, there's tone acrylic and the generic stuff innit.

Funny how the rarer and more expensive the "tonewood" (ROFL), the better it sounds.

Everybody knows the original toneacrylic used by Dan Armstrong back in the 1960s was the best.

Jeremiah

Warmoth have made some similar comparison videos... same neck with different body woods, same body with different neck woods, also comparisons of the different neck construction options Warmoth offers.

rossi

carlos said:

topdog91 said:

snowblind said:

So if wood, being natural and always unique from piece to piece, matters do all acrylic guitars sound the same?

Nah, there's tone acrylic and the generic stuff innit.

Funny how the rarer and more expensive the "tonewood" (ROFL), the better it sounds.

Everybody knows the original toneacrylic used by Dan Armstrong back in the 1960s was the best.

Some do say they grew much better acrylic trees in the 60's .

Danny1969

These videos always miss the point. The biggest differences with wood come when the guitar is played loud, onstage with the amp being part of the instrument. Some bits of wood just react better in those situations. You can play some Les Pauls with very little gain and they will sing on for ages. Things like Parisian Walkways are effortless. Other Les Pauls just don't do that. They are kinda "deader" and you need more gain to get close to what the other guitar did with much less gain. 
But I guess that's a harder video to make than DI and re amping etc. 

Harmonics too .. some guitars just have harmonics that really jump out. Others don't, but they can be identical in hardware, just the wood is different. 

I've got some guitars that are very good. Chibson Les Paul, Ash bodied partscaster Telecaster, 1984 Ibanez Roadstar. I always try electric guitars out without plugging them in. If I hear they a good acoustic response then I move on to plugging it in. if I don't then I move on to another guitar. I've never brought a guitar online, only after I've played it. 

Sporky

WezV said:

snowblind said:

So if wood, being natural and always unique from piece to piece, matters do all acrylic guitars sound the same?

If you choose a more consistent material you will get more consistent and controllable results.

Wood can only ever be talked about in species generalisations.  For something  like alder, the range of variation is relatively consistent. things get very inconsistent in the mahogany families, even from the same source.  Acrylic will be very consistent

I'd think (but this is just speculation) that different shaped acrylic guitars might sound different. Certainly different mass or stiffness could affect it.

shaunm

I don’t think it makes any tonal difference. The difference is in weight. 

That opinion is about electric guitars only. On acoustics it makes all the difference as along with the build techniques it’s the only thing that impacts the sound. 

Sporky

Surely body dimensions make a difference for acoustics? 

shaunm

Sporky said:

Surely body dimensions make a difference for acoustics? 

Absolutely, I meant that to be included in build techniques. 

I am no expert by any means (on any guitar) but acoustics have quite different sounds depending on the type of wood. With electrics I can’t hear any difference in wood type at all. If it’s light that’s the indicator that I’m likely to like it. 

Sporky

shaunm said:

Sporky said:

Surely body dimensions make a difference for acoustics? 

Absolutely, I meant that to be included in build techniques. 

Gotcha - I had read a narrower interpretation than you had intended.

ICBM

Anyone who thinks wood doesn't matter in a solid electric guitar is just wrong*. There are *obvious* differences between different examples of the same models, often - easily blind-testable.

Which doesn't mean they don't all sound like the same model - in fact pretty much all electric guitars just sound like electric guitars - but it makes a difference. Both things are true at the same time.

(*This is not opinion, it's provable by proper scientific measurement.)

CarbonCopy

Nerine said:

It matters. But perhaps not as drastically as we see loudly claimed online by “experts” on forums and YouTube. 

I played two “identical” Suhr Alt-Ts when I bought mine. 

One was alder (IIRC) and maple/rosewood. 

The other was ash and maple/maple. 

Pickups etc the same. 

They didn’t sound the same. Guess which one was brighter and more spanky? Yup. 

So it does matter. But it’s not night and day. People will claim it is to help justify their outlay I think. 

Also - YouTubers. Just because they have a platform, doesn’t mean their positions are valid or correct. 

I have two guitars made by Fender, both with maple bolt on necks and boards and brass saddles.

One has an ash body and the other has a mahogany body.

They don't sound the same. Guess which one is brighter and more spanky? Yup.....oh hang on, it's the mahogany bodied one! Shouldn't that be less bright?

To be fair, one is a Strat and one is a Tele, but I was surprised by how bright the mahogany body Strat was bearing in mind what people say mahogany should sound like.

In my opinion, wood is too variable to have a formulaic view on what combinations of wood species, hardware and pickups are going to sound like.

shaunm

ICBM said:

Anyone who thinks wood doesn't matter in a solid electric guitar is just wrong*. There are *obvious* differences between different examples of the same models, often - easily blind-testable.

Which doesn't mean they don't all sound like the same model - in fact pretty much all electric guitars just sound like electric guitars - but it makes a difference. Both things are true at the same time.

(*This is not opinion, it's provable by proper scientific measurement.)

Yes, I agree it matters in terms of pieces of wood matter. However on a Strat I can’t hear any difference between Ash, or Alder for example in any way more than I can hear a difference between two guitars made both from Alder. I don’t think a type of tree has a tonal quality to it on bolt neck on three piece bodies. 

Power_Freak

I always think there are strawman arguments on both sides of this whenever the conversation comes up...

The "anti-tonewood" crowd claims that the "pro-tonewood" side are saying that the species of wood is a deterministic predictor of a guitars sound. Usually accompanied by a "blind test" recording - guitarists still argue whether classic recordings use a strat/lp/tele/etc. so this is a totally unrealistic test. In reality most on the pro side tend to argue that there are general trends: if you made 100 guitars from one wood and 100 from another the average of one would end up brighter/warmer/etc.

On the reverse side you see the "pro-tonewood" people claim that the "anti-tonewood" people say that all guitars sound the same. Again, I don't think that anybody is actually making that argument. Their argument is that species alone won't predict which of 2 guitars is brighter/warmer/etc.

Like most things there's truth to both sides and it's a bit of a false dichotomy.

scrumhalf

If wood doesn't matter why aren't guitars made out of MDF?