ash teles vs. teles with other body woods --- your thoughts?

[gtrwiz]

Ash, I've also played some Pine teles that sounded killer

[sonda01]

wood is one of the least important factors when it comes to what is and what is not a tele.

more important are the bridge & and bridge pickup configuration, and the body shape.

with those two things, most people would label the guitar a tele, in looks and sound.

just sayin.

[gtrwiz]

 

wood is one of the least important factors when it comes to what is and what is not a tele. more important are the bridge & and bridge pickup configuration, and the body shape. with those two things, most people would label the guitar a tele, in looks and sound. just sayin.

 

 

 

The only reason I'll agree with this is because most people don't know what the #?*! they're talking about.

 

I've played plenty of teles made of other woods and the only two that sound right to me are ash and pine.

[the Dodo]

Something more for Phil, maybe you can translate it more properly than I can:

 

Das ganze h

[Phil O'Keefe]

but be honest, how can a vibration know which wood it crosses? It has more to do with how thick, heavy and resonant the piece of wood is.

 

I would generally agree with that Robin... sound doesn't really "know" if it's traveling through wood or brick... but the propagation through the different mediums will be dependent upon the characteristics of the material the sound is traveling through. Yes, density and mass and resonant properties all matter, but that's basically my point -- different species of wood have different characteristics. Sure, you might find a piece of ash that has density and resonant qualities similar to a piece of alder, but in general, alder has one set of characteristics (within a certain "range") and ash has a different set. Just one difference? The grain and cell structure. Completely different. And that is going to affect how sound travels through those materials, even if they are of similar densities.

 

In acoustics, we use a very specific kind of foam for absorbing sound. It has to be open-celled. Change the cell structure, and it won't work. The same material, in a closed-cell form, won't have the same sound absorption qualities. The absorption is a function of sympathetic vibration -- resonance. Sound travels through those open-cell fibers, causing them to vibrate, which converts the sound energy into thermal (heat) energy rather than reflect or transmit the sound waves elsewhere.

 

Wood has cells, porosity, density, resonant frequencies... sound waves are bouncing around all through your solidbody guitar as you play it. The neck as well as the body. And some of those waves are going to be out of phase and cancel, and some are going to be in-phase and reinforce. The speed of the sound through the material changes with the density of the material too. All of it adds up to a potential explanation for the differences in sound of different types of materials.

 

I still have not read all of the material, but I am working on it. Your translation seemed good to me, but again, mein Deutsch ist sux.

[the Dodo]

 

Of course you are right! The only missing thing to know is how much a guitar body really effects the overall sound of a guitar (except hollowbodys, aluminium or bodys made out of stone). I can

[Vexed]

I have just flat-out not found this to be true at all, despite these being my expectations. I used to compare the following guitars: '62 Tele Custom reissue (alder), newer American Standard ash Tele, and a MIJ '50s reissue (basswood). The snappiest and most "scooped" sounding out of all of them (by far) was the alder custom (with a rosewood board, no less!), and the most "rounded" and midrangey was the basswood Tele. The ash, shockingly to me, was somewhat dull-sounding in comparison No big highs and lows, and no scooped twangy sound at all. I attributed the differences to pickups, obviously, but it was still interesting how little the wood species seemed to affect the overall sound of the guitar. I know this is not scientific at all of course, but this is what I took away: I would not be able to blindly determine the body wood of a Tele based on sound alone in a blind test. Perhaps other guitars and body shapes would yield different results.

Like I said, some hear a difference and some don't. Or maybe the guitars you compared were anomalies.

[Phil O'Keefe]

But again, how do you know the ashbody on your guitar is of the same "quality" of other ash bodied guitars with plenty twang or your desired sound?

 

Obviously, you don't my friend. At least not if it's got a bunch of paint on it. You can weigh it, but that isn't going to tell you much other than mass. And because there are variations in wood, the light and resonant piece of ash in one guitar may sound great, while the different type of ash in another guitar sounds different.

 

Ask yourself this: If it's the bridge, and the pickups that give the Tele its twang and "sound" then why would two otherwise identical guitars - with the same hardware and materials in the bridge and pickups - sound different?

 

Yes, there could be differences due to tolerances. If one pickup has 5% more winds, that could obviously change the sound, but honestly, they're pretty consistent with that sort of thing these days, and most stock Les Paul or Tele pickups are going to be pretty close to others that were made in the same general time and place. But yes, in order to do a fair evaluation, you've got to take as many of those variables out of the equation as you can, so the only thing that differs between the two samples is the item you're attempting to test. It's very difficult to do that with a guitar, and (just as importantly) do it quickly so the comparisons are more direct.

 

IMO, one of the primary reasons why two new standard Telecasters sitting next to each other on the store wall can sound different is due to the different pieces of wood. And if you can have variations within one species of wood like that - IOW, if one piece of alder can sound a little different from another (all other things on the two guitars being relatively "equal"), then doesn't it seem logical that a completely different species, with different general properties, might have even more variances in sound?