Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

Eh all dem pedles in da world wont' cjange der bad gitar from soundin' bad....
Anyways....I don't give a sh1t...I just play these days :D
As long as the guitar has a pleasent voice and it is not horrible to play...I don't really go banzai elite snobbish mind melting beserk over it!
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

Clint 55 said:
I can't deal unless I'm happy with every component on my guitar. I didn't spend years perfecting my guitar so I can have wood that sounds like crap and then put effects on it. The effect that wood has on the ampd tone is so easy to hear it's ridiculous. The fact that there's variation within species, you don't care, people are deaf stupid and have the distortion box on 24/7 is irrelevant.
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I'm the same way with trying to get my guitar 100% perfect, but sometimes "bad" wood presents an interesting challenge and you get the chance to use pickups are parts you normally wouldn't use. Like let's say you have a Bullet Strat with a thin body, a crap bridge, and a wimpy acoustic tone. I might use that to test out the Invader single coils, which probably wouldn't be to my taste on any other guitar. The body would also be too thin for a full sized Strat bridge, so I'd get the chance to test out a new top loader bridge, which I usually don't use on Strats.
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

I've been playing for 60 years. I built my first guitar 50 years ago. So, I'm a player AND a builder with a lot of years of experience. From my perspective I wouldn't say that wood has no affect on tone, but I would say that it has less affect than many give it credit for. I wouldn't give the wood (body, neck, and fretboard combined) more than about 5-10% of the credit for the tone of an electric guitar and that's even pushing it. However, that being said, I would admit that a lot of the subtleties of the tone come from the wood.

If the wood was sooo important to the tone, Metalcaster would be out of work.
 
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Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

The guy from GAL is talking about acoustic guitars.

Wood does affect the tone. But the biggest element is the construction of the neck.


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Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

GuitarDoc said:
I wouldn't give the wood (body, neck, and fretboard combined) more than about 5-10% of the credit for the tone of an electric guitar
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That sounds very accurate to me. But when I'm listening to hear if a guitar sounds elite to me, that extra 5 or 10% of magic is what I'm listening for.

About metal, a guitar doesn't have to be wood to sound good ampd, but it still must be acoustically sound.
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

Chistopher said:
I'm the same way with trying to get my guitar 100% perfect, but sometimes "bad" wood presents an interesting challenge and you get the chance to use pickups are parts you normally wouldn't use. Like let's say you have a Bullet Strat with a thin body, a crap bridge, and a wimpy acoustic tone. I might use that to test out the Invader single coils, which probably wouldn't be to my taste on any other guitar. The body would also be too thin for a full sized Strat bridge, so I'd get the chance to test out a new top loader bridge, which I usually don't use on Strats.
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I was actually really impressed with the basswood and maple of my bullet. The hardware was the mess.
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

mxaniac said:
I didn't read through all of this, but I know a smidgeon about this. Energy through the strings is lost into the rest of the guitar. What frequencies are transmitted the most depend on the guitars natural frequency. Beyond geometry natural frequency is dependent on mass, stiffness, and inherent damping. Yes the wood will make a difference, how much? Hard to say, I think as a player it gives some feedback you feel that can inspire you but I'm not sure just how much difference an audience would hear from two identical guitars except for the wood. I also suspect that even different sections of the same tree will have different properties which would explain a lot of the variability we see in the same model guitar.
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Yep.

Another fun piece of information: a study in France pretty conclusively proved that bolt on necks have more sustain ....... wait for it ........ for most notes, however some notes have hardly any sustain. I suspect the notes with hardly any sustain is because all the energy goes straight into the body and out of the strings.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00810874/document
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I heard of this study, but I haven’t read it yet.

I build bolt ons as well as set necks and neck throughs. Here’s my thoughts on it:

Name a bolt on guitar. People will probably say a Strat or Tele.

Name a set neck. People will think Les Paul. You’d be hard pressed to say the LP has less sustain, but what’s the main difference here?

Most bolt on guitars have maple necks. Maple is stiffer and harder than mahogany. So I’d expect more sustain and a brighter tone.

I did a set neck Tele style guitar and it sustains just fine.

Regarding dead notes: this is a common problem with Fender bolt on necks

This can be cured by gluing carbon rods in the neck. This shifts the resonant frequency up out of the fundamental range of the notes that are commonly dead (often around the 7th fret).

What you don’t want is the neck resonating on those pitches and pulling that energy out of the string.

Multi laminate necks help too. One piece necks are the most problematic.

I use two graphite bars and a dual action rod in my necks.
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Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

scottish said:
that pretty much echoes what the guys at USACG have told me. basically that the pickups, bridge and electronics of an electric guitar will define about 75% of the sound. everything else is a combo of so much that changing from mahogany to alder for example will have almost no audible difference
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I think thats cause they sell replacement necks and work to convince people that a new neck on an old favorite is better than a fretjob

Anybody who has swapped two different non-messed-up necks onto a partscaster would disagree
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

Adieu said:
I think thats cause they sell replacement necks and work to convince people that a new neck on an old favorite is better than a fretjob

Anybody who has swapped two different non-messed-up necks onto a partscaster would disagree
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As someone who has swapped more than two different non-messed-up necks onto partscasters I agree with USACG's statement. Tonewood is about 85% placebo, and three quarters of the remaining 15% is purely in the contact of the neck joint.
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

^ Sorry Chris you're incorrect. Changing wood can make as much of a difference as the difference between an ssl1 and surfer. The same basic sound is there, but the tone character is verifiability different.
 
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Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

Clint 55 said:
^ Sorry Chris you're incorrect. Changing wood can make as much of a difference as the difference between an ssl1 and surfer. The same basic sound is there, but the tone character is verifiability different.
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I fail to see how we disagree.
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

I thought you said it was just the neck joint.
 
Re: Check out this "tonewood" statement . . .

I guess we can just agree to disagree, unless one of us actually manages to prove where the "magic" wood of a guitar is.
 
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