A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

[Archer250]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

I'm interested in seeing how much the frequency response differs between different types of wood, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity, but I'd like to do a good enough job that the results would reasonable useful, objective and worth sharing.

All I'm interested in determining is how much variation in tone can be observed simply by swapping out the pieces of wood in a simple test rig, and it seems to me that it shouldn't matter much that the test rig contain all the features of a working guitar, so with that in mind, I have a few questions pertaining to the complexity or, preferable, the simplicity of the experiment:


1) could I use a simple 2x4s, 2x8 or 2x12 board, or is there a compelling reason that the wood be the shape of a guitar and have a proper neck?

1.2) is there a compelling reason to have a typical metal saddle and nut, or it is enough that both ends of the string be firmly attached to a single piece of wood?

2) could I simply use different species or types of wood (wood scraps), or is there a reason I should only test common guitar woods, such as poplar, ash, etc. in order to get a worthwhile result?

3) is an ebow an OK source for constant input, which to say, a uniform method of vibrating the string?

for all these questions, I'd add "if not, why not?"

My problem lies with the no. 1)

We are not 100% sure whether wood type has an audible effect; we wouldn't be speaking of this test if otherwise. Furthermore, don't know for sure if the saddle and nut negate said theoretical effect or amplifies it.

That's my input, at least.

 

[DreX]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

My guess is that it's nothing to do with pick attack, but is instead to do with the way the samples were cut from the original recording. He says in the article:


Assuming that to be a precise, but arbitrary, cut point, there is no guarantee that the signal was at 0dB there; it could be anywhere between 0dB and whatever the max signal strength is for that recording. Anyone with any experience in cutting up samples will know that you cannot just select an arbitrary point in time, you have to get right into sound wave and cut at the point where the signal crosses 0dB - using the Strandberg article as an example, that may or may not be at 2 seconds. The practical effect of not doing this is that you get something of a click as the sample is played - the amplitude of the click is very much dependent upon how close to the 0dB point the wave was where is was cut.

I was under the impression the pick attack was in the recording and that it was only the fft image that was two seconds in.

 

[Stratman]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

The following picture of Les Paul's original hum bucking guitar says it all, and disproves any notions about specialness of different woods species in electric guitars.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

The following picture of Les Paul's original hum bucking guitar says it all, and disproves any notions about specialness of different woods species in electric guitars.

Actually this proves nothing at all.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Isn't there already a modern electric guitar called the Teuffel Birdfish that has bars of wood that are exchangeable to alter the tone on the fly? Anyone explain that? I mean the strings and action and pickups and everything else would be literally identical as you are unscrewing and screwing back on different bars of wood that come with it to get different tones out of it. No need to slack the strings or move anything, just A and B, even easier than changing a pickup. Point of the design, if it didn't matter enough, why bother with the bars? Why bother shipping it with a set of alder and a set of maple to double up or mix and match? Why bother with the design if it DIDN'T change? Getting a hold of someone with one of these would finish the debate once and for all wouldn't it? They could even do a demonstration. Like this one you can download from their site with the HB3 with both the maple and the alder bars exchanged playing the same riff.

http://www.teuffel.com/english/sales/soundcheck.htm
3mbs go ahead and download so you can have a listen. Even under all the gain, I can notice a bit more of a scoop and more subdued low end to the maple, which isn't something I necessarily expected as I thought maple would make the notes sound more pronounced all around, but it actually surprised me and that is probably the best thing I can say about it when it comes to scientific results. There's even a guy on youtube who captured the wave forms and noted the different peaks.

Of course, nobody here will be convinced unless Robocop was the one playing the guitar and he went back in time so he could play it at the exact same time so the earth was in the same place in the universe and the humidity was just right while Neil Degrasse Tyson, Eddie Van Halen, Charles Xavier, and Jesus discuss it for weeks afterwards in an isolation chamber at the bottom of the sea by consistently erasing their own memories and rerecording themselves giving their opinions on it each time and then discussing those opinions until they reach a consensus on Groundhog day. That way they can see if the Groundhog sees his shadow; if he does that means 60 more years of debating this topic.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Yeah put that up your science pipe and smoke it while blindfolded.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

The following picture of Les Paul's original hum bucking guitar says it all, and disproves any notions about specialness of different woods species in electric guitars.

Somebody made a functional guitar that (maybe/probably/I've-never-heard-it) sounded good. This doesn't prove that all pieces of wood or wood-like material contribute identically to the perceptible tone of a guitar. That's what we're talking about here.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

So redundant a subject. What.....nearly 70 years of electric solid body guitar engineering and the science trolls want to re-invent the wheel. Reading about the properties of tonewoods, actually tapping and listening for resonance, we already have what our ears tell us so what would be the point of spending multi-thousands of dollars to do research of already pleasing tones? Mojo is what it is and over-thinking it isn't going to change the recordings that are milestone. No matter what the outcome of ANY scientific study is going to change how the big guitar manufacturers do business. Here's how I see it...........science wasn't what got Leo Fender involved in amplifier and guitar making..........it was trial and error and using his' ear. So you think Les Paul used scientific protocol to achieve multi-tracking or was it that he had an idea an how to blend the same voice and different guitar parts onto one track? Isn't it the sound waves we listen to with our ears while we pluck the strings and enjoy the tone? You need a visual display to satisfy your tone nirvana? Nonsense.

Also not helping.

 

[Archer250]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Isn't there already a modern electric guitar called the Teuffel Birdfish that has bars of wood that are exchangeable to alter the tone on the fly? Anyone explain that? I mean the strings and action and pickups and everything else would be literally identical as you are unscrewing and screwing back on different bars of wood that come with it to get different tones out of it. No need to slack the strings or move anything, just A and B, even easier than changing a pickup. Point of the design, if it didn't matter enough, why bother with the bars? Why bother shipping it with a set of alder and a set of maple to double up or mix and match? Why bother with the design if it DIDN'T change? Getting a hold of someone with one of these would finish the debate once and for all wouldn't it? They could even do a demonstration. Like this one you can download from their site with the HB3 with both the maple and the alder bars exchanged playing the same riff.

http://www.teuffel.com/english/sales/soundcheck.htm
3mbs go ahead and download so you can have a listen. Even under all the gain, I can notice a bit more of a scoop and more subdued low end to the maple, which isn't something I necessarily expected as I thought maple would make the notes sound more pronounced all around, but it actually surprised me and that is probably the best thing I can say about it when it comes to scientific results. There's even a guy on youtube who captured the wave forms and noted the different peaks.

Of course, nobody here will be convinced unless Robocop was the one playing the guitar and he went back in time so he could play it at the exact same time so the earth was in the same place in the universe and the humidity was just right while Neil Degrasse Tyson, Eddie Van Halen, Charles Xavier, and Jesus discuss it for weeks afterwards in an isolation chamber at the bottom of the sea by consistently erasing their own memories and rerecording themselves giving their opinions on it each time and then discussing those opinions until they reach a consensus on Groundhog day. That way they can see if the Groundhog sees his shadow; if he does that means 60 more years of debating this topic.

Interesting.

 

[Archer250]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

But come on, folks! Why be so antagonistic about this? If someone wants to make an experiment for the sake of science, why not let him do so?

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Hypothetically or otherwise, how does someone say the test was invalid because there wasn't enough extraneous elements, such as frets or a specific body shape? Would they claim that these elements alter the wood's ability to behave like wood?

I think the question for us is not so much, "Does wood make a difference?" as, "Does the wood a guitar is made from make a difference?". Toward that end, I think the vibrational & acoustic properties of a guitar body, neck, fretboard, etc. are directly in the line of fire. I'm not going to condemn an honest effort to set up one-string electric logs made from different materials, but I would prefer to see the materials tested in sizes and shapes that approximate familiar solid-body electric guitar dimensions.

We all know that, when you start taking wood, metal, glass, plastic, etc. and presenting samples in different sizes and shapes to the knuckle-wrap test, you can plainly hear different audible responses to those impulses. A telephone pole doesn't resonate like a baseball bat, which doesn't sound like a chair leg, a yard stick, or a toothpick.

I'm not saying we need to replicate every contour of a '54 Strat body with stunning accuracy -- just that I think we should give the material a chance to behave the way it would as part of a familiar guitar design. I suspect that for a body, a blank of guitar-like thickness and approximate length and width should be close enough.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Which has a bigger impact on guitar tone:

A.) Spending six months of your life designing a triple-blind test rig to try to eliminate all extraneous variables from a tonewood experimental rig

…or…

B.) Spending six months of your life actually playing your guitar?

Enquiring minds endeavor command of this information.

 

[Davii]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

I think the question for us is not so much, "Does wood make a difference?" as, "Does the wood a guitar is made from make a difference?". Toward that end, I think the vibrational & acoustic properties of a guitar body, neck, fretboard, etc. are directly in the line of fire. I'm not going to condemn an honest effort to set up one-string electric logs made from different materials, but I would prefer to see the materials tested in sizes and shapes that approximate familiar solid-body electric guitar dimensions.

We all know that, when you start taking wood, metal, glass, plastic, etc. and presenting samples in different sizes and shapes to the knuckle-wrap test, you can plainly hear different audible responses to those impulses. A telephone pole doesn't resonate like a baseball bat, which doesn't sound like a chair leg, a yard stick, or a toothpick.

I'm not saying we need to replicate every contour of a '54 Strat body with stunning accuracy -- just that I think we should give the material a chance to behave the way it would as part of a familiar guitar design. I suspect that for a body, a blank of guitar-like thickness and approximate length and width should be close enough.

Would they not need to be of equal mass, rather than size/shape? It's been a while since I've indulged in this sort of thinking...innit

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

This; Beaubrummels.

Frequency response of anything should be tested with pink noise. What would be the right device to stimulate the surface, and what would be best to pickup/measure the results would be a whole other set of arguments.

Half a dozen different wood types cut to the same size. Attach a transducer to feed the signal, attach another at a different point to read the signal. A possible method.

If you search online there are many discussions on building speaker boxes and the resonance of wood , wood types and even people who have documented signal tests and resonance. Once again there is debate about the relevance and there are many camps.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Would they not need to be of equal mass, rather than size/shape?

In fact, they would have to be all three: of equal mass, size, AND shape. Hence the supposition that (otherwise) identical instruments constructed out of different (density) tonewoods will have different tonal response.

Serendipity doo dah!

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Which has a bigger impact on guitar tone:

A.) Spending six months of your life designing a triple-blind test rig to try to eliminate all extraneous variables from a tonewood experimental rig

…or…

B.) Spending six months of your life actually playing your guitar?

Enquiring minds endeavor command of this information.

This isn't about improving guitar tone. This is about being right on the Internet. We already know our guitar tone is awesome; unfortunately there is some amount of disagreement as to why.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

In fact, they would have to be all three: of equal mass, size, AND shape. Hence the supposition that (otherwise) identical instruments constructed out of different (density) tonewoods will have different tonal response.

Serendipity doo dah!

A tangential question (and, do we want to take it on?) is whether heavier and lighter guitars have specific tonal properties as a result of those differences in density.

Also, how do you make several guitars (or guitar-shaped testing thingies) all the same size, shape, and mass? You might get lucky once or twice, but how to you make sure it happens every time?

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

A tangential question (and, do we want to take it on?) is whether heavier and lighter guitars have specific tonal properties as a result of those differences in density.

Also, how do you make several guitars (or guitar-shaped testing thingies) all the same size, shape, and mass? You might get lucky once or twice, but how to you make sure it happens every time?

Get Stratman to do some on his CNCmachine.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

...Also, how do you make several guitars (or guitar-shaped testing thingies) all the same size, shape, and mass? You might get lucky once or twice, but how to you make sure it happens every time?

Easy - just wear one of these while you build it:

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: A few specific questions about testing wood influence on tone

Get Stratman to do some on his CNCmachine.

I think that still limits us to using materials of identical density.