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What woods is your favorite guitar made from?


knnr

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It REALLY depends on the tone I am shooting for.

Classic 70's rock? Gotta have maple over mahogany. (Think Gibson.) 

80's pop/shred? Need that basswood. (Ibanez all the way!)

Do I need something on the brighter side, with loads of sustain? Maple is the way to go.

Want something darker sounding? Mahogany, pure mahogany. (Think SG)

Then there is the Hollow and semi hollow sound, and that's laminate maple. (335, 330, guilds, D'Angelico.... et al)

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15 hours ago, garthman said:

I only have one electric guitar: a Yamaha Pacifica 112. I have no idea what wood it is made from and don't care because I have much more faith in the properties of the electronics and amplifier.

I played a Pacifica 112 for a few years, afaik most of them have bodies made from alder. They're solid guitars and probably one of the best for its value. They're also perfect guitars for modification because of its universal body routing. 

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17 hours ago, davie said:

I played a Pacifica 112 for a few years, afaik most of them have bodies made from alder. They're solid guitars and probably one of the best for its value. They're also perfect guitars for modification because of its universal body routing. 

Thanks. Yes, I agree that the Pacifica is a very good budget guitar - probably the best - and the HSS pickup configuration is very versatile. But it is those PUs and the amp you play through that counts: the wood that an electric guitar is made from is pretty much just of cosmetic value.

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On 8/3/2022 at 3:49 PM, garthman said:

Thanks. Yes, I agree that the Pacifica is a very good budget guitar - probably the best - and the HSS pickup configuration is very versatile. But it is those PUs and the amp you play through that counts: the wood that an electric guitar is made from is pretty much just of cosmetic value.

A guitar is mostly wood. So that is the primary tone generator.

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12 hours ago, knnr said:

A guitar is mostly wood. So that is the primary tone generator.

Well that is partly true for an acoustic guitar where the primary sound of the strings passes through the guitar body which vibrates and causes more of the surrounding air molecules to vibrate hence amplifying the sound. In this case the wood of the guitar body can play some part in influencing the tone.

However it is not the case for an electric guitar where the amplification of the "sound" of the vibrating string is achieved by the magnetic pickups of the guitar converting the vibration of the string to a small electric current that is then amplified and reconverted to sound by the amplifier and integral speaker. Any vibration of the wood body of the electric guitar is not detected by the pickups which only react to a vibrating ferrous metal.

Actually, when you "hear" the sound of an electric guitar what you are really hearing is the sound of a loudspeaker.

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This is a somewhat controversial topic among guitar circles, but here's my take.

The wood/material/finish of an electric guitar does have some impact on the sound it ultimately produces. In many cases its subtle, but the difference is there. Strings will vibrate differently because the material will attenuate/accentuate certain frequencies. The body does vibrate too which feedbacks back into the string's vibration. I used to occasionally put my ear up against my electric guitar's body and it could give off a different sound when compared to my friend's guitar, which was the same model but had a different body wood.

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57 minutes ago, davie said:

This is a somewhat controversial topic among guitar circles, but here's my take.

The wood/material/finish of an electric guitar does have some impact on the sound it ultimately produces. In many cases its subtle, but the difference is there. Strings will vibrate differently because the material will attenuate/accentuate certain frequencies. The body does vibrate too which feedbacks back into the string's vibration. I used to occasionally put my ear up against my electric guitar's body and it could give off a different sound when compared to my friend's guitar, which was the same model but had a different body wood.

If you listen to the sound of an electric guitar without it being plugged in, viz. playing it as if it were an acoustic guitar, you will certainly hear some differences between different electric guitars because your ears detect whatever slight influence the wood has on the acoustic sound - and, indeed, that is the main reason that people claim the wood of an electric guitar makes a difference. But a magnetic pickup does not detect those differences because, as I said earlier, they only react to a ferrous metal.

 

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18 hours ago, garthman said:

If you listen to the sound of an electric guitar without it being plugged in, viz. playing it as if it were an acoustic guitar, you will certainly hear some differences between different electric guitars because your ears detect whatever slight influence the wood has on the acoustic sound - and, indeed, that is the main reason that people claim the wood of an electric guitar makes a difference. But a magnetic pickup does not detect those differences because, as I said earlier, they only react to a ferrous metal.

 

I've always maintained that the pickup shaking along with the wood, filters the transmission of string to pickup. This effect is probably amplified as the stage volume goes up, especially if the guitar is getting blasted by a spread of its resonant frequencies.

No one's ever concurred.

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3 hours ago, 1001gear said:

I've always maintained that the pickup shaking along with the wood, filters the transmission of string to pickup. This effect is probably amplified as the stage volume goes up, especially if the guitar is getting blasted by a spread of its resonant frequencies.

No one's ever concurred.

Yes, I've heard that theory but there is no scientific eveidence for it being so. And, if you think about it, in all the Fender strat and tele guitars - and in all the many similar types of guitar - the pickups are sitting on a sheet of plastic. 

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