pine as tonewood

[user 2112]

Anyone have experience with pine electric guitars? I've heard a few teles made of pine and I think it balances nice since I generally think they're too twangy, and the pine seems to get rid of that somewhat. But I haven't heard it used for anything else. Anyone have any input on this?

[badpenguin]

Leo used pine in the 40's since it was cheap. Bigsby did also in the same time period.

[mrbrown49]

Gretsch recently had a higher end knotty pine guitar out.

[video=youtube;EENVMpFYDYY]

[badpenguin]

Yeah, that's a re-issue from the 50's if I remember right.

[WRGKMC]

Some pine can be very hard and durable. Some can be soft as balsa wood. Its not normally considered to be one of the better tone woods. it can have allot of knots and they shrink allot with time.

 

If you can get some of the harder stuff, preferably well aged without knots you can probably make a decent guitar out of it. You have to be real careful with wood chipping cutting it. The grain is very stringy and doesn't hold together very well. If its the softer stuff its plagued with all kinds of issues. Most pine cracks easily and can warp allot as the sap dries out. I'd definitely choose something else if the wood is new and less dense.

 

The tone for and electric build isn't bad but its highly inconsistent. It can be much lighter then other woods but other then a low budget guitar there are so many other woods that are better. I'd likely pass on anything pine. Its too easy to dent and crack it.

[Freeman Keller]

My Barncaster is made from pine from a 100 year old barn. I think it sounds as good as cardboard. There was a thread about its construction a while back.

 

 

But then, its a tele and you said you already knew about pine tele's

[Notes_Norton]

Electronics AC Theory 1.01.

 

The iron in the vibrating strings disturb the magnetic field of the pickup which in turn generates a tiny electric current in the windings that goes to the high-reject filter (tone control) and out the jack to the FX and/or amp.

 

The wood has nothing to do with this. Tonewood is for acoustic guitars but has no audible effect on electric guitars. The pickups are not microphones.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[user 2112]

I argued the same point for many years, but I've just seen too much proof that wood changes tone. I think it affects the way the strings vibrate. And although pickups are not microphones, they are all slightly micrpphonic. I've had and made many many high end pickups, and if you were to yell into one, it will pickup the sound.

[1001gear]

The wood is still part of the system. The strings are EQd by the resonance of the woods involved. Also the pickups vibrate too.

[Grant Harding]

Why don't all electric guitars sound identical then? If they don't (and they don't) what is the cause of the differences?

[knotty]

Why dont guitars made of the same wood, with the same pickups, sound identical? Because they dont?

[knotty]

How many times have you listened to a song and thought, " if only his guitar was made of ash, it would have sounded great" ?

Real world, through the amp, in a mix, people are pushed to say with certainty if its a tele or a LP. Let alone if its got a maple cap or not.

Yes I know some will pile in and say they can, but they can't. The super ears guys always say they can but the kings got no clothes. Sorry.

[1001gear]

Most professional musicians are hearing impaired to one degree or another. Just playing their instrument burns in at least that part of the spectrum and then there is repeated proximity to whatever instrumentation occurs in their genre. Bands of any kind are loud.

So there's that. More specifically though, how do you explain that if you grab several fistsful of Strats, they will all sound different?

[Danhedonia]

I have a Modern Player Tele that's pine - it looks nice, and weighs a little less than some of my other Teles. I'm mostly with Notes on how much impact the wood has on sound - it's a $300 Fender.

 

There are a lot of types of pine, as there are a lot of options for Teles. What are you looking at?

[*BLEEP*]

How many times have you listened to a song and thought' date=' " if only his guitar was made of ash, it would have sounded great" ? [/quote']

 

 

 

Don't get me started...

 

 

[*BLEEP*]

Anyone have any input on this?

 

 

Ponderosa pine, white pine, and sugar pine have been the usual choices for pine guitar bodies.

 

Most other pine species have one characteristic or another that does not lend those materials to be good choices for guitar bodies.

 

 

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I recently heard a strat made of cardboard, sounding like a strat.

 

• Why don't all guitars sound the same?
  
• Pickups are different types with different magnets/strengths, and different winding methods/guage/precision.
  
• Scale, and string diameter make a difference on how the strings vibrate.
  
• The amount of iron in the strings also affects the magnetic field, which is why different strings sound brighter than others.
  
• The distance between the strings and the poles on two similar guitars may not be exactly the same.
  
• Add to that the tone controls are made with parts that have 10% tolerance, one capacitor may be 10% hotter than the next, and the resistors are 10% as well.
  

 

 

I have a Gibson, an Epiphone, an ESP, and two Parkers. I can dampen the strings so they don't vibrate, and shout as loud as I can at the pickups, nothing comes out of the amp at all. If your pickups are microphonic in any way at all, they are probably wound too loosely.

 

Granted the wood on the guitar vibrates a bit. Compare the tiny amount of vibration of the guitar (that you can't even see) and the amount the string is vibrating (which you can see) and it's obvious that for all practical purpose the wood vibration is zero. It must be a millionth of the string vibration.

 

Again, the pickups are not microphones. They are affected by moving magnetic material in a magnetic field. The sound is in

 

• The type of the pickups (Humbucker, Single Pole, P-90)
  
• Physical size and placement of both the magnet and the coils in each design
  
• Strength of the individual magnet (no two are exactly alike)
  
• Number of windings
  
• Tightness of windings
  
• Type of wire used
  
• Distance from pole to string
  
• Placement of the pickup (different parts of the strings have different harmonics which is why the bridge pickup sounds brighter)
  
• Length of the string (scale)
  
• Material the string is made out of (how does the physical structure lend itself to vibration and how the iron content affects the magnetic field)
  
• Individual tone control components (10% tolerance)
  
• Player (attack on the string, pick or finger, any muting, etc.)
  

 

When you buy "tonewood" on an electric guitar, you are buying a marketing device.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[Grant Harding]

How about the attack, sustain, and decay of the notes being produced? I presume ALL guitars sound exactly the same in this regard and the woods make no difference?

 

If you can provide a compelling answer to this while sticking to your story I'll be surprised, especially since those characteristics are audible.

 

Sometimes you need to use your senses when your brain can't figure out why something is the way it is.

[billybilly]

All the above says to me is that I have much better hearing than you.

[1001gear]

Lol. ^ Guitars are mostly wood. If the molecular values in guitar parts are so influential why is wood so irrelevant? And on pickups, simply tapping on them causes a strange tapping response in the speakers.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Good as cardboard....great quote:)

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

 

 

Ponderosa pine, white pine, and sugar pine have been the usual choices for pine guitar bodies.

 

Most other pine species have one characteristic or another that does not lend those materials to be good choices for guitar bodies.

 

 

 

 

Indeed, and tone apart for those who've ever fashioned timber into a guitar body, you'll know that the end tone is not that high in the builders mind.

 

I've used commercial pine and it's **************** for guitar bodies, soft, splits if you look at it too long, small knots appearing just where you don't want them.

 

There was a very capable builder on here a few years ago, and sugar pine was his wood of choice.

 

After cutting up some Douglas fir and Scots pine for firewood yesterday, I'd love to make a Scot's pine body, beautiful wood.

[Quarter]

How about the attack' date=' sustain, and decay of the notes being produced? ...[/quote']

Definitely some of the subtle attributes that are in part influenced by wood choices.

 

The bottom line is that the voice of a guitar is the product of the total sum of its parts and construction. Pickups and electronics supply the lion's share to the end result. In an electric guitar, I think of woods as more like a spice in the recipe. The influence can be subtle, but is real. Bolt a good P90 on a nice hunk of mahogany and the result is very predictable. Bolt it on a piece of hard rock maple and the character of its voice is quite different.

 

[WRGKMC]

You want to hear the guitars acoustic tone, stick your ear against the body and strum. Its there, it just doesn't project across the room like an acoustic does.

 

A pinecaster will still sound allot like a Tele because of the neck. I've built dozens of guitars with tele necks. I've built just as many with strat necks too. I've used everything from Oak, Rosewood, Walnut, Popular, plywood aluminum plastic and steel. I've used completely different pickups bridges nuts etc and the guitars retain a good deal of the fender tone because of the neck wood. .

 

One end of the string is attached to the neck and the string will get half of its tone from the neck and half from the body. Vibration does not end at the nut and bridge. A good amount of body and neck's resonance gets reverberated back up into the string and colors the sound.

 

This is how we identify the difference between a Tele, a Strat or Paul or something else. The neck does as much for the sounds as the body does. Much more then many realize. The rest comes from the steel string itself.

 

The string generates a pitch vibrating side to side but it also conducts sound end to end. A reverb tank is a good example of that. A reverb spring is no more then an old fashioned string telephone. You talk into a tin can on one end and listen on the other. They just fancied it up using a transmitter and pickup. Sound can pass from one end to the other quite well. Guitar strings do an even better job because they are shorter, and have more tension.

 

Another example. I just changed the pickups in a stock strat to three mini Humbuckers the other day. When I dial up a clean tones the signature Strat tone is still there and clearly heard. The pickups add some more bass and drive but that can easily be dialed back. If anything the sharpness is dulled a bit because the magnet poles are wider and less focused on a small area of the string.

 

If pickups were the main source of tone, Why does the guitar still sound like a Strat?

Shouldn't it have Gibson tone if a Gibson pickup is put in it? Of course when you gain to them it drives more like a Gibson which only goes to prove, distortion erases the parts of the signal that help the ears identify the wood tone.

 

So anyone on either side of the argument is right to some extent. It simply depends on whether they compare instruments using clean tones or they flatten all the overtones turning the sine wave into a square wave.

 

Wood tone only matters when you have a healthy percentage of clean tones dialed up, and it does affect how the instrument feels when you play it. I judge my instruments both by how they feel, and how they sound. When both are there I have an instrument that truly inspires me to play it. When one or the other lacks its not what I consider a great instrument no matter how much it costs.

 

It has nothing to do with the amplified sound either. That's an added science layered over the instruments acoustics. Saying pickups are responsible for good tone is intellectually shallow at best. Its like saying a microphone gives a person a good voice.

 

We all know you can put a mic in front of someone who has bad voice tone. It doesn't matter if the mics good or bad its still going to sound like someone's strangling a cat. It fact their voice may sound worse with a good mic then a cheap one because the details are easier to hear. You can also have a singer with good vocal tone sound decent, even through a low fidelity mic.

 

Its occurs because the mic isn't the source of sound, the voice is. The mic is just a transducer. If the transducer has good fidelity it will faithfully convert the physical vibration into an electrical copy. If the source of vibration is sucky so will the copy be.

 

The reasons the electronics and acoustics get mixed up is because people like simple answers and don't fully understand how the two sciences work together and they put too much faith into what a pickup actually does. Both involve waves, but they are different kinds of waves. The strings are the source of those waves. The pickups create a fairly good copy of the wave but they aren't perfect. Pickups have their own levels of capacitance and inductance, which colors the sound.

 

If the string tone needs coloration then you can say the pickups ability to remove frequencies and dynamics is good for the ears. But its not better in fidelity. If anything the inductance dulls the dynamic response with and compresses many of the natural overtones in the strings. Electric guitarists like this. Its the key to getting higher sensitivity from the strings so performance details playing with a light touch are clearly heard.

 

I'm not saying its bad, I love the fact it occurs. Its just not higher fidelity, its the opposite. Its reduced fidelity which is what electric guitar is all about.

 

If you want to know if an electric guitar has good wood resonance, simply stick your ear against the body and listen when you strum it. The wood tones there. It just doesn't have a way to excite the air around the instrument like an acoustic guitar does. I always do this when buying or building guitars. Good wood is often highly transparent. When you use the ear trick the sound isn't much different playing plugged in or unplugged. It sounds like it feels. Good.

 

Bad wood tone can be heard too. When you put your ear against a bad piece of wood (or a bad build) its like picking up a phone with a bad receiver. You hear nasty resonances, especially on certain notes.

 

This isn't that hard to explain. I like using the analogy of a Xylophone because it is made of wood. You cut wood blocks to certain sizes, and you get specific pitches. Hard woods resonate better then soft woods and you have everything else in between. What happens when you have one block that's too long or short? Its out of pitch with the other blocks and when you strike it along with others it creates dissonance.

 

A guitar body does have a natural resonant tone just like any wood block does. The instrument will produce its loudest vibrations with the longest sustain when the strings are in phase with the bodies natural resonance. Because the body is fairly large its resonance is low in frequency. You feel it more in the bass ranges then you do with the higher notes.

 

Some may not understand what I'm talking about here but it is a critical detail for electric guitarists, who like playing loud and getting the strings to self resonate from the guitar speakers. With a good build you can tap the body and the strings will begin to self resonate and ramp up in volume. If the acoustic guitar tone sucks you can forget about getting good self resonance like that.

 

Without that rich acoustic resonance against your chest that's working with the strings, you miss half of what makes them pleasing to play. Of course even a bad chunk of wood can still sound relatively good even if it sucks for feel. The difference is when you play a good instrument you know it.

 

Its exactly what many seek in buying a good instrument and when they find one they cant even tell you why it has the mojo over others. The feel and the sound of the instrument work together to create that magic vibe. You often find it in vintage instruments have it because those guitars have been fine tuned by the owners many times to focus in on the instruments natural wood tones.

 

I don't think any of this is new to an acoustic player. They feel and hear the instruments without amplification. Adding amplification is simply an add on to what you already have. It can add additional manipulation to what you already have but can do little for an instrument that's got poor acoustic tone. Pickups don't make instruments feel good acoustically. They simply duplicate or degrade what the strings produce.

[guitarcapo]

In my opinion the species of wood that an electric guitar is made out of is WAY down the list of things that effect the sound you get from an electric guitar. Stuff that come ahead of it:

 

Type of pickup.

Location of the pickup along the guitar strings scale length.

Value of the pots and wiring scheme of the electronics.

Alloy of the strings.

polepiece and height adjustments of the pickups.

The amp.

Any effects in the signal chain.

The speaker cab, speakers and combination of speakers.

 

 

I would venture to offer than moving the pickup one inch along a guitar's scale length probably makes more difference in sound you hear than the entire sweep of wood species that it's possible to make a guitar out of.

 

Pine is light but it doesn't hold screws well. If you can get around the problem of anchoring hardware the guitar will sound fine.

 

As far as acoustic guitars go, the species of wood that the back and sides are made of probably makes little difference as well.

Stuff that effects sound more:

 

Box volume

Box size

Top species

bracing pattern

scale length

soundhole size and position

Bridge size (footprint)

Bridge species

saddle material

Age of guitar

Strings used

 

Why do luthiers build guitars out of expensive exotics? Because you can sell them at a higher profit for the same labor.

A gold watch is more valuable than a steel watch...even though they both are exactly the same tool for telling time.