Any way to predict the tonal character of a body before a build?

[Eddie]

That would just make it out of tune. "Tone" is not the frequency at which the strings vibrate, it's the time dependent, relative magnitude of the harmonics plus the drone and interference effects caused by the resonant frequencies of the other parts of the guitar. And yes, wood makes a difference until you plug the pickups into an effects chain, into an amp connected to a speaker sitting in a cabinet sitting in a room/bar/hall. Pretty much everything apart from the fundamental frequency is lost or so diluted by the rest of the chain that the wood is so irrelevant that it's not worth fussing over. The shape of the guitar is just as important - that determines the Chladni modes of the body as much, if not more than the wood. And all pickups will be microphonic to some extent. They are mounted in a flexible way to a flexible thing so they will move when hit by sound waves in the air. Put a string over them (which will also move when shouted at!), then you will get a signal out of them. This says nothing at all about wood. I could go on, but I have a beer waiting for me.

 

 

That's not 100% accurate. Consider that using eq. can change the timbre of the instrument. It will not make the guitar sound out of tune, but can certainly change its tone. And it can be applied to the fundamental, harmonics, and overtones.

 

Regarding wood, I've played a few guitars that used the same components in terms of pickups, electronics, etc. Same brands. Identical models. In some cases the tone from the instruments were noticeable different from each other. I'm sure that there are variations due to tolerances in the electronic components, but wood can definitely make a difference, not only across different types of wood but also within the same species.

[PlectrumPete]

That's not 100% accurate. Consider that using eq. can change the timbre of the instrument. It will not make the guitar sound out of tune, but can certainly change its tone. And it can be applied to the fundamental, harmonics, and overtones. .

 

 

Eq does not change the frequency, it just selectively amplifies or attenuates the different frequencies produced. Certainly using Eq will change the tone - that's the point of it!

[sinnerx96]

I find it fascinating that so many people refuse to believe this. I don't care what kind of physics are at play. I know that there is certainly a big difference in how each and every guitar can sound, regardless of model. I know this from experimenting with it for years. It can in fact mean the difference between a great sounding guitar, and a {censored}ty sounding one. I would go so far as to say that the wood has a bigger impact than the pickups do. I try and match the right pickup to the guitar. Pickups can't fix a {censored}ty sounding guitar.

 

I've also done numerous experiments with my current guitars. I've swapped the same pickups around in all of them, I've swapped the necks and bodies on my Fender Strats, hardware, etc. I've actually found that the neck has a bigger impact on tone than the body does. What I'm talking about here are not just tiny differences either. I don't have super hearing. Anyone I've ever done these experiments with, have all agreed how obvious it was.

 

I play higher gain rock/metal so different things are important to me than say, a blues or jazz player. I like a guitar to be resonant and have a tight controlled bottom. These things are more apparent to me when testing guitars with my style. A jazz player might not care, or notice, how tubby a guitar's low end sounds, as an example. A tubby low end will be very obvious when you chug on a distorted & palm muted E chord, though.

 

There doesn't seam to be too much rhyme or reason to it that I've noticed. My mahogany strat body sounds more plinky and thin than one of my alder bodies. My strat neck with maple board sounds more full than my strat neck with rosewood. There are some general tones you can expect from certain woods, but there can be a lot of overlap and you can never tell how a guitar will sound until you try it.

 

I've always been curious why this is. My best guess would be varying levels of moisture content in the wood.

[PlectrumPete]

.. I've always been curious why this is. My best guess would be varying levels of moisture content in the wood.

 

 

There is an easier explanation.

[sinnerx96]

 

There is an easier explanation.

 

 

What is it?

[PlectrumPete]

What is it?

 

 

 

Well you say yourself that you don't see a pattern, yet you seem to be looking for a reason as to why you don't see it.

 

The simplest explanation is that there isn't one.

[sinnerx96]

 

Well you say yourself that you don't see a pattern, yet you seem to be looking for a reason as to why you don't see it. The simplest explanation is that there isn't one.

 

 

What are you talking about? I said that there doesn't seam to be much rhyme or reason to it that you can rely on. I meant that I haven't noticed any particular thing that you can rely on, to tell how a guitar will sound without trying it out.

[PlectrumPete]

What are you talking about? I said that there doesn't seam to be much rhyme or reason to it that you can rely on. I meant that I haven't noticed any particular thing that you can rely on, to tell how a guitar will sound without trying it out.

 

 

Right. That's because there is no reason. You need no reason. There is no reason. There is nothing to explain. Forget about moisture.

[Eddie]

Eq does not change the frequency, it just selectively amplifies or attenuates the different frequencies produced. Certainly using Eq will change the tone - that's the point of it!

I never said that eq. changed a frequency.

Just pointed out that timbre is related to frequency content. A trumpet playing an A above middle C and a guitar playing the same A are both playing 440 Hz. Same frequency, but different tone or color. Or same pitch, different timbre. Or different harmonics, overtones, attack, decay, etc.

I think that 59humbucker was probably thinking about frequency content -and not frequency- when he wrote: "Absolutely everything connected to the guitar's construction will change the frequency that the string vibrates at"

I do agree with you that changing the frequency would just make it out of tune. And also agree with the impact that the guitar's shape has on tone.

[Meowy]

Why did I ever start this thread? I should have known better

Oh well. What is done is done

[Eddie]

...There doesn't seam to be too much rhyme or reason to it that I've noticed. My mahogany strat body sounds more plinky and thin than one of my alder bodies. My strat neck with maple board sounds more full than my strat neck with rosewood. There are some general tones you can expect from certain woods, but there can be a lot of overlap and you can never tell how a guitar will sound until you try it. I've always been curious why this is. My best guess would be varying levels of moisture content in the wood.

 

 

Yes, there are variations between species of wood, as well as within the same species of wood. I don't know if anyone has done an extensive test, but I doubt it.

I don't know what the effect of moisture is, or whether it affects tone or just long term stability, but different companies use different approaches when drying their wood, like kiln vs. air drying. Even companies using the same approach can have different standards. IIRC, Hamer kiln drying process is longer than Gibson's. Hamer also rejects a lot of the wood they receive.

[sinnerx96]

 

Right. That's because there is no reason. You need no reason. There is no reason. There is nothing to explain. Forget about moisture.

 

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you dancing around something? Just say it.

 

There obviously is some kind of reason for why wood varies in tone.

[PlectrumPete]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you dancing around something? Just say it. There obviously is some kind of reason for why wood varies in tone.

 

 

How old are you?

[sinnerx96]

 

How old are you?

 

 

Once again, I'm not sure what you're getting at. But, it's not hard to find if you're so interested.

[PlectrumPete]

Once again, I'm not sure what you're getting at. But, it's not hard to find if you're so interested.

 

 

Well if you were under 18 I'd try and explain further, as you're not I don't think it's worth either of us wasting any more time.

[sinnerx96]

 

Well if you were under 18 I'd try and explain further, as you're not I don't think it's worth either of us wasting any more time.

 

 

I was just giving you an opportunity to come out and say what you've been passively hinting at with your replies to my posts.

[JamesPeters]

That's a perfect experiment right there. Seems the only people who argue against it are those that havn't really looked for it, or don't have the ears/hands/amp to tell the difference.

+1

[Umbra]

I never said that eq. changed a frequency.

But an eq does change frequencies unless the eq is perfect and no eq is perfect, it also tends to affect phase as well.

 

And there is a sympathetic component to the sound of a guitar. Just plucking a single string causes a sympathetic effect in the other strings causing them to ring and vibrate. Is that due to the wood? Not really more due to the waves comming off the string next to a string that is vibrating. It's a common factor in piano's as well which is one of the latest features to be modeled in electronic piano's. Some guitars show this affect to a significant degree. I have a schecter that sometimes requires muting the other strings in order to get it to tune properly because there is so much sympathetic effect. It's enough of an effect that I can hear it when tuning accousticly as well (the guitar is a solid body electric).

 

I'd say by far the factors in how a guitar sounds are:

1. person playing

2. amp

3. pickups

4. strings

5. wood

[ihavenofish]

*skips to end of thread*

well, didnt really need to ready it, garthman posted, therefore it is destined to unfold the same way as always.

in terms of predicting tone... weight will be a small indicator, hardness might too. tapping i dont know if its useful because the bodies so thick you mostly get a muffled tone when you hit it.

generally though, i think you gotta play it to find out for sure.

and of course, the differences will be pretty small anyway, so i agree with the "stop worrying" part.

[Eddie]

But an eq does change frequencies unless the eq is perfect and no eq is perfect, it also tends to affect phase as well...

How exactly does an eq. change a frequency? It works by boosting or cutting the level of a range of frequencies, but changing them?
An eq. will not make an A note sound like an Eb, for example.

In addition to phase, other artifacts include ringing, lobes, and ripples.
Artifacts are more noticeable when boosting. As a side note, a linear phase eq. addresses only the phase issue, but that does not mean it is a better choice.

[corporealJigsor]

No proof, huh?

It actually has been proved, in a very simple experiment. A string mounted on a board of wood, with a pickup attached. Same string and pickup, change the wood. Frequency spectrum of resulting sound analysed. Big obvious differences.

I dont know why you think the coupling effects between the neck/body vibrations and the string vibrations would be small, but they certainly arent.

[PlectrumPete]

It actually has been proved, in a very simple experiment. A string mounted on a board of wood, with a pickup attached. Same string and pickup, change the wood. Frequency spectrum of resulting sound analysed. Big obvious differences. I dont know why you think the coupling effects between the neck/body vibrations and the string vibrations would be small, but they certainly arent.

 

 

I'd be very interested to see the write up of this experiment. Is it published anywhere?

[scolfax]

On the one hand very interesting how this became more of a discussion of guitar physics by a knowledgeable few and a bunch of ill-informed pseudoscientists ...but (except for Soloways's posts) lacking in practical, anecdotal information (not a knock on anyone, but it is just where the discussion went)

 

+1. Jim Soloway's posts are always informative - one of the true gem's of HCEG.

 

For the pseudoscientists out there, people can tell if you're answering based on experience, speculating based on facts, or "experting" about things that you're not an expert on.

 

Love this BTW:

[YOUTUBE]hFyQXy74xz4[/YOUTUBE]

[robertkoa]

Everybody gets SOOOOOO complicated about it.

 

Have you ever heard a real plinky tinny sounding guitar that just sounds HUGE and FAT and WARM when you plug it in?

 

Neither have I-the pick ups only "pick up" what the strings AND the guitar are doing anyway.

 

The UNPLUGGED SOUND of the guitar is the basic tone of the guitar- it is of course MODIFIED by the pickups and AMP and your Grandma singing a high E really loud while you are playing but the guitar played clean thru low to medium output pickups especially will lean strongly in the direction of it's unplugged acoustic tone.

This is why there is NO MAGIC PICKUP to Make a Strat sound exactly like a Les Paul.

 

"Only strings in a magnetic field"- did you ever hear a set of strings or type of strings that sound real real dull unplugged but when you plug them in- they sound really really bright ? Neither have I. What a coincidence that the strings that sound brighter to the EAR UNPLUGGED also sound brighter plugged in.

 

Pickups pick up tiny variations in pitch or tension, pick type, pick angle, flesh or nails etc etc AND any technique that sounds FATTER UNPLUGGED tends to sound FATTER plugged in, or brighter,or louder etc. etc.-NOT a coincidence.AND if there's a wood type or hardware type you can hear UNPLUGGED- you'll tend to hear it plugged in.

 

So if a guitar leans in a certain direction tonally UNPLUGGED it will lean in the same direction plugged in.

 

So if the guitar made of Mahogany is fatter and warmer unplugged it will be plugged in also- listen to the unplugged tone of the wood and hardware-simple.

 

This is why there is no "Magic Pickup" to make a Strat sound exactly like a Les Paul or vice versa.

 

Of course your pickups and Amp are extremely important( sometimes they are the most important things-especially as gain gets higher) - but ideally you'll have the basic tone of the guitar working WITH the pickup type and amp type to get where you want to go tonewise.

[garthman]

Precisely - and that is a piezo pick-up which does detect vibration - in any material (the peizo crystal in the pick-up converts vibration into a small electric current) unlike the magnetic PU which only detects a ferrous metal).

Anyway - you good folk who wish to believe in all the rubbish about wood in electric guitars are quite entitled to do so - I shall just tweak my tone knob a tad.

PS. Has anyone considered what effect a Strat scratchplate (to which the pick-ups are attached, of course) has on the sound?