Official Luthiers Forum!

OK, I have heard this argument for YEARS - (Way before I built my first guitar) and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this discussion is more of a "space filler" on any of these forums. I know that some of your blood pressure is rising by now and you can't wait to respond with your "deep theories" when I comes to tonewoods on an electric guitar and I would like to settle this argument right now so we can happily go back to our building of guitars.

For the past several years I have not wanted to join this argument, mainly because I have gotten a kick out of how high people are on "Their knowledge of tonewoods", yet have little, if any PROOF to substantiate the argument - it's not that they don't have some pretty convincing THEORIES in this regard, and you all have read those by now. This argument really holds little with me when it comes to electric guitars - especially when it comes to a true test to prove my point. The argument pretty much ends here as far as I'm concerned with some valid points:

1. TOO may variables with ANY species.
2. The combinations of the neck, fingerboard, body wood, bridge material, nut material and body material make each guitar unique, even PRS, Taylor, Gibson, Fender will make 2 exact models, that will have slight tone variations(That you are likely not to hear).
3. Prove to me that the tone is affected by your statement - and I hope it is scientific.
3. (Last but not least) tell me what guitars were used for rhythm & solo on the following songs(Tell me what kinds of wood are used on the guitars as well - that would be awesome!):

http://www.virgilguitar.com/mp3Samples/ArtificialInspiration9.mp3
http://www.virgilguitar.com/mp3Samples/NocturnalOdyssey.mp3

I personally, as a guitar builder, would prefer to spend the rest of my life making each guitar slightly different than the other, this way, each person who buys the guitar, has the "only one on the planet", and gets to make their own sounds, a uniqueness, like our personalities.

In a world full of copycats, be an original:

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"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I've always said, especially with electrics, that scale length and pickups have a greater affect on overall tone than woods. I also maintain that high gain and distortion blurs the distinction even more because of the clipped sinewaves.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

http://www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm

I don't buy into the tonewood mystique myself. I've heard and seen more ebullient claims than I can count from various people who claim to have about a million years experience in playing and building, and have built tens of millions of guitars, so they "know" that wood X gives tone X. And yet, they never offer anything but anecdotal "evidence" to support their claims. Sorry, but I don't believe anything anyone says just because they say it and claim that it is a result of experience. At the end of the day, there are too many variables, like you say. And there are many, many wild inconsistencies in tonewood descriptions offered by different luthiers.

I think the principles of psychoacoustics are the biggest factor in tonewood. If you are told that ebony will produce a dark sound (though some luthiers claim the exact opposite with equal fervour), and you want to believe it, you will hear it when you play it.

I think wood has some manner of effect, but i'd say it contributes less than 5% to the overall transmission or occlusion of specific frequency bands (which is what terms like "dark" and "bright" are really about). I think the wood's primary job is to be hard and rigid so as not to adversely affect the kinetic energy of the vibrating string.

All I have are my ears... and they tell me there are some differences in the tones of woods.

And we (as a group) are prone to splitting hairs pretty fine - even on inlay.

So don't be surprised if I discount your views on tone woods.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Unproven theories are the product of dysfunctional academics, the pastime of fools, and a tool for mystics...none with whom I take tea.

There are far too many mystics in luthrie and far too few people willing to test their own assumptions. It's the willingness to test one's own assumptions that bestows any measure of personal integrity....which is to say that often the one willing to say, "I don't know" or "How can we find out?" is the only honest one in the room.

I have theories which I intend to prove or disprove prior to marketing my guitars. Mostly I'm driven by the discomfort that comes from speaking with people and being on the verge of BS. If wood makes a difference in tone in body or neck construction...given the use of identical pickups...I'll KNOW by the end of my next series of guitars.

I'll post my results.

I've built my current design, so far, with Sapele with Maple facings. My first experiment debunked the theory that chambers do anything to alter the tone of an electric guitar.....they don't.

I'm just now gluing the panels that will eventually be bodies...made of Port Orford Cedar, Maple, Peruvian Walnut, Claro Walnut, and Myrtlewood. Neck blanks are already glued up to match so that I end up with guitars predominately made from the aforementioned woods. So....I have woods ranging from light and soft all the way to heavy, dense and stiff. If this experiment doesn't reveal all the hidden secrets surrounding these discussions....nothing will. In any case...there will be no more secrets...no unproven theories...no BS.

When I was a kid I was into Harry Houdini...not for his career as an escape artist...but because he spent most of his life debunking mystics and mediums. I like a guy whose hobby is...the truth.

That said...my standing theory is that the Port Orford guitars will be warmer in tone than the Sapele guitars.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I think folks like Rick Turner might beg to differ. The wood does impact the tone, comparing species to species. Perhaps not as much as with acoustics, but it does.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks Stuart for the best post I have read all week - it's funny, I am already seeing posts from people that would fall under these same circumstances:

"Why?" the mother said, "BECAUSE I SAID SO" she screamed.

Question Authority.

Don't believe everything you read.

"I STRENUOUSLY object your honor!" Demi Moore in "A Few Good Men"

"I have been building guitars for years" (Ahem, you should be playing them too).

As stated before, I would really like to see proof and yet, all I see is babble. It's nice to know someone as compulsive/obsessive as me is getting to the bottom of this long-time debate. But even so, by the time you go through the pickups/effects/amps, the "wood" is out the window.

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"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I've been thinking about this for over 30 years now,
and my conclusion is,
I DON"T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!
Can't wait for your results, Stuart.
I think that a git made of stiffer, heavier woods
MIGHT have more sustain.

Here's what I know with 100% certainty.

Heavier woods make a heavier guitar (and vice versa).
I like pretty woods on guitars.

For electrical guitars (my opinion being based on my limited experience in luthiery, but lifelong experience as a guitar junkie) it seems to me that wood choice does have an effect on sustain, but as far as tone goes there are so many other factors.

When it comes to the entire signal chain, the one component that I would say causes the greatest impact on one's overall "sound" would be speaker/cab selection (I guess which amp has a bigger impact, but I'm thinking more along the lines of singular factors, like wood type). This would include type of magnet, wattage of the speaker, speaker configuration and cab dimensions (open v closed, size, etc). Even the wood choice on the cab has a huge impact. The amount of variability that brings around, makes wood choice irrelevant, IMO. As long as the guitar isn't made of junk, that is.

Edit: Furthermore; the discussions on tonewood I find to be very similar to argu- err... discussions regarding capacitor selection when discussing the construction of amplifiers. Mainly based on opinion. We all know what's crap and what isn't- the discussion is always "Which great thing is better"

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-—-—-—-—-—-—-
Mike Hoenerhoff
Elderly Instruments

pickups and amp characteristics/effect settings account for 90+ percent, i say.
i have often wished pickups were easily interchangable, as in, mounted on rails and clipped in/out from the back, to make pickup selection a LOT easier.
it would be cool if DiMarzio or some other big maker offered a whole line of different pickups, that could be "quick mounted/released" into some sort of guitar body, using plug in jacks instead of solder, clips instead of screws, etcetera. they could make lots of $ from guitarist tweaking around all the time.
it is prohibitive to have to remove strings, remove pickguard, solder, etcetera, to experiment... i would like to maybe make a body some day that allows for simple and quick pickup testing; it is easy to assign lots of "blame" to the wood when in fact it is likely the pickups that are coloring sound.

just to play devil's advocate: you really should add to the above statement, "....with this particular body shape/contours/thicknesses..."
...because maybe cavities do make a difference under other conditions that you have not explored.

Point taken....but I would add that after 20 years of dealing with vibration traveling through structures I have enough insight to say that the amount of energy required to resonate a small slab of maple constrained on all edges that is .175" thick (the face thickness of my chambers) would be a significant multiple of the amount of energy that a vibrating guitar string can muster.

If one were to taper and shape the edges of each chamber panel such that each chamber had surfaces that could react as does the entire top of an archtop....perhaps resonance could be controlled.

I'm getting a headache thinking about that though.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Don't forget about the wood drying over the years!

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"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Sure! I'll just pop off down to GC and grab one off the wall, heh heh!

Seriously, that's one kewl looking piece of craftsmanship!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Can't help but wonder if the mass and density of the tone bars have more to do with that than wood choice. Anyone have solid aluminum BirdFish tone bars? Or hollowed out brass? Those might be fun to experiment with since it's a quick change guitar.

I have no dog in this fight really as a rank amateur (and a newb on the forum), but this stuff fascinates me, so I'll have a go.

Logically, I would think wood choice can have a difference in a solid body electric... I'm by no means a physics, acoustics or vibrations specialist, but, to talk "theory" for a sec...

The guitar's strings are mechanically coupled with the body where they meet (nut and saddle/bridge). As such, even on a solid body guitar,the strings are going to pass on some energy to the body (i.e. the stings will cause the body of the guitar to vibrate).

I'd also assert then that this means that the physical properties of the guitar body are going to have a 'converse' effect on how those strings vibrate since they're mechanically coupled (i.e. the strings cause the body to vibrate, which can pass some minute amount of energy back into those strings, which pass an even more minute back to the body... the whole thing is a system).

If you buy into that much, then the body wood seems like it absolutely could and would make a difference to me, because it effects the way the string vibrates. And that vibration - with all it's complex harmonics, etc. - is what's picked up by the pickups. That obviously doesn't answer the question of if you can actually perceive the difference in that guitar 'system'. That's an endless argument...

As a related aside though, personally, I think people underestimate what humans actually CAN hear. JMO. For instance, common knowledge says that humans can only hear up to 20kHz. But, I guarantee just about anyone can hear the difference between a sine wave and a square wave at 12kHz... well, if I remember my college math correctly, the odd order harmonics added to a sine wave will approximate a square wave of the wave are what differentiate those wave forms, and the first harmonic of 12kHz is.... 24kHz.

And, just to offer an experiment to test the theory above - it seems like it would be a relatively easy thing to test, analyze and 'prove' if you really wanted to...

Take 2,3,4...'x-number' of strat bodies made from different woods (or any body style w/ easily removable electronics - it'd just be important to control the setup - depth/distance from strings, pot values, etc.).

Put the electronics on the first guitar. Plug it in use spectrum analysis to capture the electrical waveform off the guitar's electronics alone (i.e. no amp/speaker cab, the string(s) are plucked with the same force, etc. - you want to eliminate variables to JUST the wood) Then, move the electronics to the second body. Plug it in - capture the waveform... move to third, ... and so on. Finally you could overlay the electrical waveforms and see if there's any difference. If they're all identical, well... you've proven that wood choice makes no difference on the electrical output of the pups. If they're different... well... you know.

So... who's got a few strat bodies laying around...

"Don't believe everything you read"- Virgil

So true.

Most guitarist may have had the experience of playing
anothers guitar and heard the owner of the instrument say, "I've never heard that guitar sound like that".
It didn't matter if it was an acoustic or an electric.

It starts and ends with the player.
The instrument must have the ability to perform for the player.

The capability of a finely crafted instrument to produce a balanced
tonal range with sustain and a player can take it from there-
they can modify anything from the strings to the speakers to satisfy
their ears.
Naturally with an acoustic guitar they'll make the determination
without many of the factors such as pickups and speakers.

IF a luthier believes that the pine guitar will satisfy the player...go for it.
IF the luthier can state and give audio examples of how that pine guitar will sound
before he builds it and it does after he builds it...my hat's off.

Just for me, I am enjoying the different perspectives on this subject so far on this post - This proves to me the possibilities are endless, but again, there is no combination of "the ultimate tone, because if there was, most people would be building all of their guitars out of that material - there would have been scientific facts available to us all to access (you would think) I am interested to see what Stuart discovers with his research, but then again, it still becomes subjective to one's ears. The Dueling Dragons has an African Mahogany body, a curly maple "soundboard" and an Ebony top... thus far, it is one of the best tonally balanced guitars I have played (toot your own horn here). I have no future plans to use this configuration again, hence it's uniqueness and I am not aware of any other guitar on the planet that has the same configuration. Some say that inlay ruins "tonal aspects" of the fingerboard. Phooey. Again, record something and let's hear it... our ears are the final judge, right?

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I kinda thought this thread answered that comment /theory very nicely

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=30875&p=409807&hilit=concrete+block#p409807

Of course I dont have extremely decerning ears , but I would have to say the average musician doesnt either .. Can it make a diffrence .... possibly ..... can the average musician descern the diffrence .... I doubt it

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Perhaps wood matters, perhaps not. I'm inclined to think that everything matters, but what do I know?
One place I do know that wood matters is in the perception of the buyer/player. We can bandy about all the theories and experiments we want; it still boils down to that.
Players are gonna want mahogany w/ a maple top because of the perceived tonal characteristics. Or Ash, or alder, or{insert wood species here}. In the musician's world, perception is nine tenths of the law. Nothing is ever going to change that.
As builders, we can try to educate them,assuming we actually know what we're talking about, which I doubt. I suggest we have a vested interest, as well as a ton of personal bias, and any luthier/builder's advice on tone wood should be taken with several grains of salt by the buyer. As to building X number of guitars that are all alike except for body woods, or some other such characteristic, I'd posit that you'd have to build dozens of examples of each individual build, not just one of each, before you got any results you could hang your hat on. And even then, I doubt it would do you any good. Wood, even wood from the same tree, is so variable that any attempt to clarify the differences across species, no matter how many different examples you build, would probably be fruitless. MHO, but i don't think anybody is proving anything anytime soon.
As for me, should I happily begin to build for someone other than myself, i plan to bypass all this nonsense, and just build the guitar the buyer wants, with the wood he wants, to the best of my ability, and be perfectly honest about the fact that i just don't know, and probably never will.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

...hey that Teuffel was my idea, he stole it!

Hah, I would also add, go build a guitar out of mahogany, and then one out of mahogany. You'll hear a difference as well.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

My point EXACTLY.... better yet, make the build out of 2 mahoganies & 2 ebonies, record it and have everyone tell YOU which is the best, without letting them see the guitar.

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

...and then pay ME for the patent infringement.

http://www.recordingproject.com/bbs/vie ... hp?t=40311

viewtopic.php?f=10123&t=35169

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic