Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

  • Total voters
    44
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

So if putting a big chunk of plastic on your guitar doesn't affect tone, then what about wrapping it in tolex, or indoor/outdoor carpeting? That wouldn't affect the tone either, right?
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

PaulReedSmith said:
Well think of it this way...



If you took a piece of plastic and screwed it onto the front of a les paul, do you think it would affect the sound in a good way? I think not...
The sound energy (sound is really energy) from the strings, which travels through the air to the body, would be dampened by the pickguard, and thus affected, most likely in a bad way.
Click to expand...


Dude, get OVER the idea that the strings vibration gets into the wood of the guitar throught the air...IT"S NOT TRUE...the Vibrations go to the body from the bridge mounted into the wood of the guitar, be it acoustic or solid body electric!!!
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

PaulReedSmith said:
Another Analogy...

On an acoustic guitar, the strings vibrate which creates sound waves which travel to the soundboard of the guitar. They thus vibrate the top of the guitar (and the back, but to a much less extent) and cause us to hear the sound of the guitar amplified by the body, etc.

Do you think the guitar would have the same resonance and sustain if someone covered about 60% of the top of the acoustic guitar with a pickguard? I think not. The plastic would dampen the vibrations and cause a loss of tone. Major tone suckage.

I know this is probably an extreme example, but the physics related principles still hold true with solid body guitars.

And if you have the argument that "oh, the vibrations of the strings just go into the sound hole, etc blah blah" well, there are a few guitar makers that locate the soundhole AWAY from the strings, so yeah...the top of the guitar is in fact being vibrated by the energy from the strings transmitted through the air, the bridge, and the nut.
Click to expand...

Like someone else said, no. On an acoustic guitar, the string nut and bridge transfer vibration into the body, which then resonates the air inside the guitar, producing tone. The main vibrating piece in an acoustic is the sound board, i.e. the top.

As for electric, the strings do transfer vibration to the body through the string nut and bridge / tremolo, but the sound is made electrically using pickups.

The electric guitar is not going to vibrate that much when you strum. It will vibrate/resonate, yes, but not much. Neither does an acoustic guitar. Yet for how little they vibrate compared to the strings, it's the transfer of vibration through direct contact that causes the sound.

Still, the point is that the electric guitar won't make much sound: it's not set up to play acoustically. Sure, it can, but it's not meant for that as a main goal.

Air transfers vibration much more poorly than direct physical contact. Case in point: try punching someone, but so that your fist does not touch them but comes within 1" of them or less. That doesn't hurt at all. But then punch them and contact them. That hurts. Transfer of energy is best when it's direct contact. Your ears work the same way: while the sounds they hear are through the air, internally they use direct contact to transfer the sound energy because it's much more efficient. Your ear uses liquid and bone to move the energy.

Anyways, hope this helps you. Maybe, like me, you need to read up on engineering. It's good stuff to at least know, even if you're not an engineer. Psychology is another good read, so that you can understand people and such, but anyways, I digress....
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

I don't know about Strats, but the pickguard on my Les Paul certainly does.

That's why I removed the stock pickguard, and upgraded it to a SD Seth Lover pickguard, for that authentic PAF tone.

Now, which guitar strap fabric gives the best sustain...

Seriously though, don't the pickups detect the magnetic vibration of the strings? There is no 'sound energy' (sonic vibrations) involved in the input / output process of an electric pickup....?

Jim :)
 
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Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

Well Caparison uses special paints for different guitars.Natural finished guitars allways sound differen.So why shouldn't a big pickguard effect the tone?
I am shure it effects!

BTW ,we all talk about wood types ,and hear the diffwerent woods and their effects...And when somebody ask about the effect of a plastic piece , we say "It's all about the PU..."..Well ,it's just not right!
 
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Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

daemon barbeque said:
Well Caparison uses special paints for different guitars.Natural finished guitars allways sound differen.So why shouldn't a big pickguard effect the tone?
I am shure it effects!

BTW ,we all talk about wood types ,and hear the diffwerent woods and their effects...And when somebody ask about the effect of a plastic piece , we say "It's all about the PU..."..Well ,it's just not right!
Click to expand...

We didn't say "it does not affect", we said "the effect is very, very, very small". I mean, if I said "does not affect", I apologize, but for the sake of discussion, its effect is so small that you might as well not worry about it.

I'm with the others who say that instead of worrying about the very minute affect of pickguards, pot knobs, and pickup rings, we should be playing guitar.
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

Twin is right. So is everyone else. What do you care how much/little your guitar sustains if you aren't putting it to good use? Don't strats sustain enough to be fun to get out there and play with?

Well, I'm off to play some metal.

Catchya
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

So has anybody tried shaving down their pickguard or replacing it with a thinner one to get more sustaine yet?
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

Dan Armstrong lucite guitars sustain quite well....and they're just glorified plastic.:omg:
 
Re: Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone?

TwinReverb said:
Like someone else said, no. On an acoustic guitar, the string nut and bridge transfer vibration into the body, which then resonates the air inside the guitar, producing tone. The main vibrating piece in an acoustic is the sound board, i.e. the top.

As for electric, the strings do transfer vibration to the body through the string nut and bridge / tremolo, but the sound is made electrically using pickups.

The electric guitar is not going to vibrate that much when you strum. It will vibrate/resonate, yes, but not much. Neither does an acoustic guitar. Yet for how little they vibrate compared to the strings, it's the transfer of vibration through direct contact that causes the sound.
Click to expand...

There's a world of difference in the manner which an electric and an acoustic vibrate.

You can play a slew of electrics unplugged and the ear and hands and body will only pick up the most major of differences. At most you're likely to hear mid-range and some highs. Resonance you'll hear but will also feel in great part just by holding the instrument.

If you walk into an acoustic room and line up a dozen different acoustics the differences between all of them are significantly more noticeable. Even the most uninitiated can define and classify the EQ and tonal characteristics between that many instruments.

The differences in acoustics are significantly larger when you're dealing with a situation playing them unplugged. The major tonal differences in an electric you really are unlikely to hear until you plug them in and get a chance to listen and hear the overall components working together.

I've never totally understood the logic and mindset of those that place the world of importance on playing an electric guitar unplugged to evaluate it. The fact that so many folks get great sounds out of instruments that are "dead" sounding in the unplugged respect just blows the entire theory that it's everything right out the door.
 
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