Fretboard woods: can anyone genuinely FEEL the difference?

Sambostar · April 2016

Yes, but what happens when you take it out in the rain?

I really have no bias either way, other than what I feel and what looks nice and of course it's material heritage.

If you can make Plexiglas feel like rosewood that is great, but it's still Plexiglas. A tree just grows, other stuff has to be intensively manufactured. I'm not so worried about the carbon footprint, more the effort involved.

I'm currently making '60's strat fret dots out of flesh coloured Fimo clay. I could have used wood filler I suppose but it only cost me £1.99.

olafgarten · April 2016

Sambostar;1034278" said:
Yes, but what happens when you take it out in the rain?

You sir are asking the right questions.

guitars4you · April 2016

To Octatonic - my comments about resin wood, plastics, carbon fibre etc are not aimed at your or any true luthier - It is a comment to those who disbelief that real tone woods do not exists and cheap wood sounds just as good in an electric guitar as true tone woods

On a blind fold test you can always tell the difference in the natural acoustic tone between a £200 copy and a 2K guitar - granted if you add enough gain and effects you minimize a lot of the differences and level the playing field somewhat once it is plugged in - But I have no issue with those who play with gain or clean - But with a good valve amp you can still hear the guitar breathe and pick up the finer nuances of tone, soul, expression and emotion that is within that instrument

WezV · April 2016

Elx;1034277" said:
Back and sides made of cardboard...

Which tells you just how important the acoustic top is.

It doesn't tell you wood has no effect

Sambostar · April 2016

Sometimes you do get a piece of plywood that sounds spot on though eh or a cheap guitar that out performs it price range.

I think the science is a science of probability and that makes sense to me and I like wood and I like trees. With some things that nature has perfected through evolution and trial and error, it seems nonsensical to challenge them with manufactured materials that take a lot of effort and energy to manufacture and are very often inferior in terms of stress/strain tolerance per unit weight or thickness.

Dave_Mc · April 2016

Sporky said:

Dave_Mc said:

Also if everyone is prone to confirmation bias, doesn't that mean octatonic is too?
(a) I can't speak for Octatonic (his voice is so deep and mellifluous), but I am certainly prone to confirmation bias which is why I don't trust my senses and expectations alone. I'm also prone to over-compensating for it, which again is why I don't trust my senses and expectations alone. This is normal, but it is also arguably better than not knowing what confirmation bias is and thus being unable to deal with it at all.

The first step in avoiding falling into a hole is knowing that the hole is there.
Pretty much the Bulverism fallacy, really.
(b) Not by my understanding of either. Arguments have been presented against the claim itself, rather than just against the people making the claim.
Plus being biased doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong- I'm biased against anyone who thinks the sun revolves around the earth, for example.
(c) That's a false equivalency, surely? Confirmation bias often leads to incorrect conclusions because it distorts the balance of evidence. That is not the same as being biased against a view unsupported by evidence.
Don't forget about the nocebo effect.

(d) How does that apply here?

(a) True, but as you said you have to watch you don't overcompensate. Or get complacent (because of knowing about the flaw). Which can undo all of the good work (and in fact go further and do more harm) in knowing about the flaw.

The other thing is, most people (who are aware of it) are really good at spotting it in other people. They're normally not as good at spotting it in themselves.

(b) I just meant that he's accusing other people of confirmation bias, but if he's predisposed to think there's no difference he's equally guilty of the confirmation bias. Which gets us nowhere. Which is (more or less) Bulverism.

(c) Yes possibly. I guess I should have used a less black and white example. Ok then, the prosecution in a court case is likely to be biased in favour of a defendent's guilt while the defence is likely to be just as biased in favour of the defendent's innocence. One's correct and one's incorrect and the fact that there's bias involved doesn't really help to determine which.

Same thing here, there are the people who think there's a difference and those who don't, and all that matters is whether there's a difference or not.

(d) If you think something won't make a difference you can think it won't, even if it does (e.g. with pain medication where they tell test subjects that it'll increase their pain, they report increased pain). So pretty much the reverse of the placebo effect (and I realise that nocebo actually means inert stuff which can make you feel worse, I just mean in effect, in this specific case, it's like that).

I should probably also point out that I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the arguments that the people who do think it makes a difference are making either.

)

octatonic · April 2016

guitars4you said:

To Octatonic - my comments about resin wood, plastics, carbon fibre etc are not aimed at your or any true luthier - It is a comment to those who disbelief that real tone woods do not exists and cheap wood sounds just as good in an electric guitar as true tone woods

On a blind fold test you can always tell the difference in the natural acoustic tone between a £200 copy and a 2K guitar - granted if you add enough gain and effects you minimize a lot of the differences and level the playing field somewhat once it is plugged in - But I have no issue with those who play with gain or clean - But with a good valve amp you can still hear the guitar breathe and pick up the finer nuances of tone, soul, expression and emotion that is within that instrument

I think people are getting the wrong end of the discussion here so I will say again...

I didn't say that cheap wood sounds just as good in an electric guitar as true tone woods, but I did say (and I stand by) that the pickup/amp/speaker combo are more important.

If you plug an electric guitar into a very clean, linear amplifier, such as a home hifi, you get a sound that is significantly different from what we call a 'normal' electric guitar tone. But this is closest to what the instrument sounds like because it isn't filtering the signal as much as a traditional guitar amplifier.

A guitar amplifier, such as a Fender Princeton, completely changes the sound of the instrument into something that is more like what we know as a 'normal' electric guitar tone- it is definitely not flat.

The pickups/ampflier/speaker make more of an impact to the overall tone of the instrument than changing the species of the wood of one of the electric guitars components- say a maple fingerboard to a rosewood fingerboard, or even an alder body to an ash body.

My point was also that the guitar industry has a vested interest in promoting this idea of electric guitar tone wood as being the be all and end all.

I'm not saying that guitar woods make no impact, I'm just saying that the impact is less than many people would think and less than what the guitar industry would have punters believe.

Sambostar · April 2016

I have good ears. Hands not so good.

Also lightweight Lindon/Lime/ Tillia vulgaris whatever is shite for Floyd rose posts.

octatonic · April 2016

Sambostar said:

Sometimes you do get a piece of plywood that sounds spot on though eh or a cheap guitar that out performs it price range.
I think the science is a science of probability and that makes sense to me and I like wood and I like trees. With some things that nature has perfected through evolution and trial and error, it seems nonsensical to challenge them with manufactured materials that take a lot of effort and energy to manufacture and are very often inferior in terms of stress/strain tolerance per unit weight or thickness.

I can have a stab at explaining this.

When a company makes an acoustic guitar they don't often, especially in the cheaper end of the market, spend a lot of time working on the soundboard.

For instance, you might have a £200 guitar where all the soundboards are thicknessed to, say, 2.2mm.

When I make an acoustic guitar I spend a lot of time tuning the soundboard.

I am trying to get to an optimal amount of flex in the soundboard, where, through the process of tap tone testing, I am trying to make that particular piece of wood to be the most toneful soundboard that it can be.

I'm shaving off small amounts of wood , from the soundboard, the bracing, trying to make it as thin as I can at one end (near the bridge) without it falling apart and thicker and stiffer near the neck.

It is time consuming though, which is why a lot of companies don't do it.

Every so often you will get a piece of wood that is optimally toneful (or at least better) at the thickness that it happens to be made at.

This is why production acoustic guitars vary greatly in terms of tone- because each piece of wood is unique and soundboard thickness and stiffness makes a huge impact on tone.

With a bespoke, hand made instrument the luthier spends more time on the soundboard, thicknessing, tap tuning, altering the bracing.

I don't want to start a massive discussion (argument) about production vs bespoke instruments.

Some production acoustic guitar buildings spend time with their soundboards, usually only the higher end instruments.

I'm talking about the far-eastern built production instruments here- the sub £500 market where it isn't possible to do these extra steps.

Dave_Mc · April 2016

octatonic said:

I think people are getting the wrong end of the discussion here so I will say again...
I didn't say that cheap wood sounds just as good in an electric guitar as true tone woods, but I did say (and I stand by) that the pickup/amp/speaker combo are more important.

If you plug an electric guitar into a very clean, linear amplifier, such as a home hifi, you get a sound that is significantly different from what we call a 'normal' electric guitar tone. But this is closest to what the instrument sounds like because it isn't filtering the signal as much as a traditional guitar amplifier.
A guitar amplifier, such as a Fender Princeton, completely changes the sound of the instrument into something that is more like what we know as a 'normal' electric guitar tone- it is definitely not flat.

The pickups/ampflier/speaker make more of an impact to the overall tone of the instrument than changing the species of the wood of one of the electric guitars components- say a maple fingerboard to a rosewood fingerboard, or even an alder body to an ash body.

My point was also that the guitar industry has a vested interest in promoting this idea of electric guitar tone wood as being the be all and end all.
I'm not saying that guitar woods make no impact, I'm just saying that the impact is less than many people would think and less than what the guitar industry would have punters believe.

I agree with all of that and wisdomed it.

EDIT: Does it matter what wood my pitchfork is made out of?

Sambostar · April 2016

Well exactly. If you pay for an expensive guitar, you're paying for craftmanship, materials, durability and sound quality, perhaps looks as a consequence. You get what you pay for, at least that's the way I understand it. Makes sense to me.

Athough you are starting to sound a bit like Rocker talking about his mains Hi Fi cables eh.

It's the love, time, planning. knowledge, experience, blood sweat and tears and care you put into it, you get 98% success rates. Same with gardens, same with anything.

Although even a blind cat trips over a rat sometimes.

littlegreenman · April 2016

octatonic said:

My point was also that the guitar industry has a vested interest in promoting this idea of electric guitar tone wood as being the be all and end all.

I'm not saying that guitar woods make no impact, I'm just saying that the impact is less than many people would think and less than what the guitar industry would have punters believe.

I've just gone back to my Soundclick recordings from the last few years and I genuinely can't tell which guitars I used on which recording just from the sound/ tone.

Admittedly they're all fairly similar, Squier Strat (humbuckered up), Washburn Superstrat and Ibanez JS. Only time I know it's the Squier is because there's no whammy bar going on (it snapped in the block 20 years ago).

All 3 have different body woods and fingerboard woods, but seem to share a common maple neck thing.

Not really sure if I have a point here, but it seems that regardless of the wood used I always sound pretty much the same. I don't change my FX or amp settings between them either, it's always just plug and play.

My JS sounds better than the other 2 acoustically and plays them out of the park, but plugged in the sound is pretty similar (they all have Freds in though, so...)

Sporky · April 2016

guitars4you said:

To Octatonic - my comments about resin wood, plastics, carbon fibre etc are not aimed at your or any true luthier - It is a comment to those who disbelief that real tone woods do not exists and cheap wood sounds just as good in an electric guitar as true tone woods

But what is a "true tone wood"?

It's just a bit of wood that ends up in a guitar that sounds good. If you'd used that same bit of wood but stuffed up the construction the guitar wouldn't sound as good, and you wouldn't claim that it was a true tone wood.

As for the claim that everyone can tell a £200 guitar from a £2k in a double-blind test, citation most definitely needed.

Sambostar · April 2016

I don't know much about building guitars, but I know a bit about wood. Some wood is shit. I think the point Oct was making was about finessing the soundboard rather than the wood per say anyway. But some wood is still shit all the same.

Teetonetal · April 2016

Hmm,

I reckon for a lot of players there are too many subconscious links that cloud opinion and judgement on this: how a guitar feels, price paid, ingrained marketing hyperbole, personal opinion, personal experience etc will all have an impact.

For electric instruments I have never bought into the tone woods thing, I reckon wood choice makes a small difference, but overall I would have a hierarchy of sound affectors in this order:

1) Player - we are not all equal. some people can make the cheapest squire sing, others sound cack on a £4000 custom made..

2) Amp - by far the biggest component of your sound

3) guitar choice - broken in to a sub group of - Pickups - Design - Wood

Without a doubt imo the Pickups and design of the guitar are way more important than the wood choice. I have a definite leaning towards P90s, then singlecoils with HBs universally sounding too compressed for my taste. But the choice of guitar has to be right too, I want to be able to play the thing comfortably, not fighting it, so weight / shape / fretboard all matter.

Wood choice in terms of how it affects the tone is way down on my priority list, with playing techniques, amp choice, pickup choice and pedal choice you can alter your tone drastically and that's before your guitar with it's hand selected tone woods has then been mic'ed up with an SM57, put trhough a shitty installation PA, operated by a slightly deaf sound engineer...

Nothing wrong with spending money on high end, well made instruments, that feel right (and wood is a factor in that) and therefore make you enjoy playing more, if it's right for you. But my own experience has been that my two cheapest fenders (JA90 and MIM tele with pickup upgrade) are my best two. Neither have high quality hand selected tone wood.

MrBump · April 2016

WezV said:

johnonguitar;1033126" said:
[quote="WezV;1033115"]I always find well polished ebony to feel faster, sleeker... More positive.
Fitter, happier, more productive?[/quote]

Nah, it feels great but the attack can be a bit quick for my tastes

Replacing the maple/rosewood neck on my Charvel with a maple/ebony one completely transformed it. Feel - not so sure, the necks were quite different in their dimension but the tonal differences seemed very pronounced - bigger, brighter. Better in every way.

</subjectivity>

WezV · April 2016

Lets get one thing straight. Saying wood plays a part is not the same as claiming guitars need to be built from tonewood.

The term is useful for determining if a plank of spruce has the right qualities for an acoustic top, but no one would dream of calling all spruce "tonewood". Its a grading within the species, albeit not a consistently defined one.

When you get onto electrics the term is used to describe a whole species, or even group of species. I.e. "mahogany is a tonewood". simply not true. Its a nice marketing term though.

But I still believe wood choice is important, especially as a builder. Has no-one ever had a guitar that sounds terrible, or had a really dominant tonal characteristic, no matter what you change? Maybe I have had more because I have used so many alternative woods over the last 15 years.

Stevepage · April 2016

The frets on my guitars are so big I don't feel the wood. If you've got callus' on the tips of your fingers you're not really going to feel the wood anyway

ICBM · April 2016

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.

johnonguitar · April 2016

ICBM;1034457" 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 I was paying attention to that last night at rehearsal too... Except even though my fingertips are touching the board I can't feel it. Never mind the type of wood. I must have Man Callousess

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Fretboard woods: can anyone genuinely FEEL the difference?

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