Fretboard woods: can anyone genuinely FEEL the difference?

WezV

my above comment comes for something I was told when i started out  - build 20 before you make any assumptions about tone, build 50 before you claim to have found your 'voice'.... but it is important to  make observations from day one. 

for me that applies just as much to electrics as it does acoustics

As a player its easy, just play the ones you like and don't worry about it

As a builder you need to go through the whole process many many times before you start to decided what is and isn't important to you.    @octatonic  you are doing the right thing by being scientific in your approach from the start.   I was never consistent enough for that

Reccently I have made an aluminium top Z style  out of meranti, a pancake style  solid mahogany les paul and  a resoglass kit,- all alternative in a way a 'tonewood snob' would look down on.   I don't really care about that     

octatonic

Hi Wez, 

I'm keeping an open mind and if I come to different conclusions I'll be shouting it from the rooftops.

I'm being as scientific as the process allows.

Wood is tricky though because you can't make the same guitar twice- once you've used a piece of wood you've used it.

Sambostar

But what do they FEEL like?

8-X

Skipped

guitars4you said:

no citation possible - To me my ears are the test

That got my attention.

If a participant in a double blind test  cannot identify between Chicken Curry and Tofu Curry, I am not really interested in knowing that he failed under test conditions. What I want to know is: Did he stop buying Chicken because there is "no point"?   >:D<

When Classical Musicians (in a double blind test) are unable to identify between the sound of their Expensive Player Grade Italian Violin and a recently made replica I am not really interested in the test result. What I want to know is: Did they change their instrument after the test? And then book a Cruise ?

Dave_Mc

WezV said:

Has no-one ever had a guitar that sounds terrible, or had a really dominant tonal characteristic, no matter what you change?

Yeah all my guitars seem to play clichéd blues licks with too much gain...

ICBM said:

I was just looking careful at this yesterday evening while I was playing my Strat-type guitar - which has small vintage-style frets - and even when playing chords with my fingers almost vertical to the strings, the tips of my fingers do (just) touch the fingerboard either side of the string. When playing single notes and very definitely anything involving bending, there's a lot of contact between the pad of the fingertip and the board. I don't press on *that* hard either.

Yeah that's a good point. I play a fair bit of lead (way too much) and I feel the fretboard a lot. I dunno if I press too hard or not, but just thinking about it, I dunno if I feel it as much when playing chords. So if there are some people who don't play much lead who are claiming they don't touch the fretboard, that might explain at least some of their opinions.

I have callouses too.

Sporky

I don't think it's the change in behaviour (or not) that's that interesting; I'd be more intrigued to know if they carry on insisting they can tell the difference. If so then their opinions carry less weight until they've managed to reconcile the disconnect they're carrying around with them.

Changes in behaviour are more difficult; there are habits to break and habits are powerful things. If you shift the scenario slightly and make it that the first participant preferred the tofu and the second preferred the replica then the behaviour after the test becomes more interesting, because their position has been challenged.

WezV

Sambostar;1035235" said:

But what do they FEEL like?

8-X

I don't think I have done an on topic post.


Depends how well they are looked after.

If the fretboard is filthy they all feel the same.

In my opinion nothing beats well polished ebony for a smooth and sleek playing surface. It helps with accuracy for me because its so frictionless. Some would say its fast, I don't play fast . I don't always like the tone though.

I went through a ziracote phase a few years back. Really liked that stuff.

For me grainier woods like wenge or bocote really stand out on the feels chart. But you don't see them too often.

I don't do the BRW thing as most of it is swirly crap.. Ain't got time or money for that substandard wood.

I have repaired a few hundred fingerboard divots, so I know those players definitely felt the board

Sporky

That reminds me that I've got a nice chunk of bocote. Weird looking stuff. How d'you rate it for fingerboards? The bit I have is slightly narrow, but I have been meaning to make that 5-string celloblaster...

Dave_Mc

Sporky said:

I don't think it's the change in behaviour (or not) that's that interesting; I'd be more intrigued to know if they carry on insisting they can tell the difference. If so then their opinions carry less weight until they've managed to reconcile the disconnect they're carrying around with them.

Changes in behaviour are more difficult; there are habits to break and habits are powerful things. If you shift the scenario slightly and make it that the first participant preferred the tofu and the second preferred the replica then the behaviour after the test becomes more interesting, because their position has been challenged.

Yeah. If they like both equally there's not much reason to change- especially (like with classical music) there's pressure from elsewhere to use the "right" thing.

Plus a lot of those blind tests change things a lot from real world use as well- didn't they have to spray those stradivariuses with smelly stuff to mask the natural smell etc.? And I'm guessing they had to be blindfolded (I absolutely agree that being able to see the thing will pretty much negate the entire test, but I'm not sure I'd be that sure of the reliability of the test f I couldn't see what I was playing either ). An awful lot of tests, while perhaps fairer than real world tests, are only models for the real world, and as such aren't necessarily the perfect tests that some people claim, either. Just because something works in a lab doesn't mean that'll translate to the real world.

WezV

Its not my favourite because it can feel a bit coarse grained.. It does polish up nicely. Remember to remove oils before gluing, I had a 3-piece bocote neck which literally fell apart as I was routing to shape, didn't stick at all!!!

Tonally its snappier than indian rosewood.

I find I hear the fretboard most in the attack of the note, probably where the ebony=fast thing comes from.

octatonic

WezV said:

Its not my favourite because it can feel a bit coarse grained.. It does polish up nicely. Remember to remove oils before gluing, I had a 3-piece bocote neck which literally fell apart as I was routing to shape, didn't stick at all!!!

I had the same happen with a cocobolo fingerboard.

Acetone to strip out the oils and then araldite to glue was the only thing that would work.

I've gone off it since then.

Sporky

Hmm. Might use it for boxes instead then. I'm not sure I like it enough looks-wise to stick it onto a guitar neck.

Dave_Mc said:

An awful lot of tests, while perhaps fairer than real world tests, are only models for the real world, and as such aren't necessarily the perfect tests that some people claim, either. Just because something works in a lab doesn't mean that'll translate to the real world.

I think it's important to be clear about what you're testing. Taking your Strad suggestion (not one I'd heard of) if you're trying to test just whether the instruments sound or feel the same or different then that might be important to remove an element which'd enable the participants to identify the difference by other means.

There's a reasonably famous hifi one where the participant managed to beat the test through a flaw in the methodology - they revealed answers after every few tests, and the participant correlated those answers with the different relay clicks for each system. After that they got very good at identifying the systems, whereas before it was pretty much 50-50. Citation required, by my own standards - I'll have a look for it.

Sporky

Ah - and rather than edit my last post (which had some demonstrably incorrect rememberings) here's the article I was thinking of:

http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/bas_speaker/abx_testing2.htm

Dave_Mc

Sporky said:

Hmm. Might use it for boxes instead then. I'm not sure I like it enough looks-wise to stick it onto a guitar neck.

Dave_Mc said:

An awful lot of tests, while perhaps fairer than real world tests, are only models for the real world, and as such aren't necessarily the perfect tests that some people claim, either. Just because something works in a lab doesn't mean that'll translate to the real world.

(a) I think it's important to be clear about what you're testing. Taking your Strad suggestion (not one I'd heard of) if you're trying to test just whether the instruments sound or feel the same or different then that might be important to remove an element which'd enable the participants to identify the difference by other means.

(b) There's a reasonably famous hifi one where the participant managed to beat the test through a flaw in the methodology - they revealed answers after every few tests, and the participant correlated those answers with the different relay clicks for each system. After that they got very good at identifying the systems, whereas before it was pretty much 50-50. Citation required, by my own standards - I'll have a look for it.

(a) Yeah definitely (and don't quote me on that, that's just from my memory and I may have imagined that test ) ). I also have a vague recollection of someone mentioning gloves, but I suspect that was someone on a forum saying pretty much what I did, that if you could tell the instrument from feel that you could make the violinist wear gloves, but by that point it's getting so far removed from the real world that it's near enough pointless ).

Found the test: http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/stradivari-loses-out-in-blind-testing-study-of-player-preferences-for-old-and-new-violins/ (said they used perfume; also apparently not blindfolded but wearing dark glasses in low ambient light- a good bit better than blindfolded I guess, but still probably not identical to real world situations either). Also a later test: http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/blind-tested-soloists-unable-to-tell-stradivarius-violins-from-modern-instruments/

(b) I hadn't heard that one, but that's very interesting- and that's pretty much my point above (and yours). While you obviously have to attempt to eliminate the ability to identify the items by sneaky, outside-the-test methods, you need to be careful that what you do to eliminate them doesn't make the test so far removed from the real world that it's an exercise in futility (that wouldn't be the case in the hi-fi one, obviously, you just don't tell people answers until the end, but with testing instruments some of the things you might have to do may well also screw up the test). Don't get me wrong, I realise it's very difficult, but that explains why a lot of these tests possibly should be taken with a pinch of salt...

EDIT: ^ Thanks for the link, that's very interesting. That's pretty funny that they pretty much couldn't tell.

The author has an awfully unfortunate surname, though. )

Skipped

What I was getting at is: What if the participant smiles sweetly and accepts that they will almost certainly fail under test conditions. At that point there is no Gotcha moment.

Music is a deeply complex thing. It impacts upon mood. If it were possible to show the impact on the central nervous system after 6 months of sustained lower (or higher) res listening - that would be interesting. 
On the traditional test.....If you believe that the short term memory is capable of "filling in the gaps" in a 3 minute low res audio clip then the test is over as soon as the listener has heard the higher res version.
So the higher res version has to be played second. And that is the end of the test.

Dave_Mc

Skipped said:

What I was getting at is: What if the participant smiles sweetly and accepts that they will almost certainly fail under test conditions. At that point there is no Gotcha moment.

That's what I always do. I totally reckon I couldn't tell the difference with most of these things. Plus, as you said, actually having test conditions means it's not quite like the real world either- a lot more pressure etc..

olafgarten

I did a test today although it was far from scientific. I went to Guitar Guitar and tried 2 strats with an ABY Pedal. They both had the same pickups and were specced very similarly but one had a maple top. I was with a friend and without looking he could tell that there was a difference.

crunchman

I saw that Strad study discussed before on a forum.  There was a guy on there who also played violin who went on a major rant about how Strads project better, and even if the player couldn't tell, someone listening out front would be able to hear the difference.

I don't know whether that's true or not but what it sounds like to the player is not necessarily the same as what someone else hears.  I've got a Martin dreadnought and another 12 fret dreadnought from another company.  The 12 fret body is bigger, and from my point of view when playing it sounds louder than the Martin.  I used to take it places where I had to play unplugged because I thought it was louder.  However, one time I put a dB meter 3m away and discovered that the Martin is 3 or 4 dB louder.

Teetonetal

@Octatonic

Well I took the test. I like 2, 1, 3 in that order.

No way could I tell you which was more expensive... but If I was guessing I'd say 1 was the cheapest one.

octatonic

No one else has done it so I guess I'll tell you. 

1 was a Suhr modern- maple on basswood. 

2 was the ash bodied Aria. 

3 was an Anderson alder Strat.