Does wood make a difference?

[frankfalbo]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

Unfortunately I'm not doing a comparison between common guitar solid body woods to say "mahogany sounds like X, while ash sounds like Y", I'm just testing a few different varieties of wood boards to answer the question "does the pickup care what kind of wood it's attached to?" and what the degree of variation between them. I'll measure the difference with spectral analysis as well as set up an A/B blind sound test to see if someone/anyone can even tell that the boards sound an different from one another. That result will be useful to me, even if it doesn't satisfy some people.

Please do two things unless you want vague results with the intent to stir up the hornet's nest: First, it sounds like you're making some kind of replaceable plank with pickup(s) on it. Please make the plank of wood bear the load of the strings. I assume you're not going to just anchor the strings to one end or the other and hot swap the piece of "tonewood" without having it bear the load and therefore influence the strings. Also don't bolt it down to some other fixed plane, as to squelch the vibrations. I suppose I should also assume you're using strings. Strings are among the most sensitive element that can be used to give and receive information in this kind of situation. Driving a plank of wood with another stimulus will skew the results, much the same way as when iconic guitarists trade rigs with one another, each guitarist still sounds like themselves.

Second, please have an amp of some kind in there, fairly loud, loud enough to create a feedback loop. I don't know what you're planning but the differences will not appear as large on a scope, as they would if an amp was there, feeding the signal back to the wood as SPL. Here is where you'll realize that although you can't detect much of a difference in a direct signal, in real-world, play in front of an amp situations the smaller differences are exponentially magnified by having that content delta fed back to the piece of wood mechanically. Sure, if the amp in question has a strong midrange frequency peak, woods that are strong in that range would seem stronger in the test, while woods with contradictory peaks would seem duller or weaker. And while a dead flat amplifier would seem more accurate, it could miss out on validating the reason someone might like Alder Teles through a clean Fender type circuit and 1x12, but prefer Ash through a broken up Marshall circuit and a 4x12.

If sound waves can put out a fire, they can surely exacerbate string vibration deltas.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

^^^I like fire.

Also great advice from Mr. Falbo (again).

 

[dominus]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

As someone that typically has numerous guitars of the same make/model at a time, wood absolutely matters....

... but it's more along the lines of each individual piece. Yes, you can guess what a tonewood *may* sound like, but you're better off playing it and then balancing the sound with your pickups after it's assembled. I had 4 identical guitar bodies a few months ago. (Even the same colors.) One body weighed an entire pound more than the rest. That body was the most dead sounding block of wood I've ever heard. (I've had a few plywood guitars, they all sounded better.) The rest all sounded pretty close to each other.

 

[DreX]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

Please do two things unless you want vague results with the intent to stir up the hornet's nest: First, it sounds like you're making some kind of replaceable plank with pickup(s) on it. Please make the plank of wood bear the load of the strings. I assume you're not going to just anchor the strings to one end or the other and hot swap the piece of "tonewood" without having it bear the load and therefore influence the strings. Also don't bolt it down to some other fixed plane, as to squelch the vibrations. I suppose I should also assume you're using strings. Strings are among the most sensitive element that can be used to give and receive information in this kind of situation. Driving a plank of wood with another stimulus will skew the results, much the same way as when iconic guitarists trade rigs with one another, each guitarist still sounds like themselves.

Second, please have an amp of some kind in there, fairly loud, loud enough to create a feedback loop. I don't know what you're planning but the differences will not appear as large on a scope, as they would if an amp was there, feeding the signal back to the wood as SPL. Here is where you'll realize that although you can't detect much of a difference in a direct signal, in real-world, play in front of an amp situations the smaller differences are exponentially magnified by having that content delta fed back to the piece of wood mechanically. Sure, if the amp in question has a strong midrange frequency peak, woods that are strong in that range would seem stronger in the test, while woods with contradictory peaks would seem duller or weaker. And while a dead flat amplifier would seem more accurate, it could miss out on validating the reason someone might like Alder Teles through a clean Fender type circuit and 1x12, but prefer Ash through a broken up Marshall circuit and a 4x12.

If sound waves can put out a fire, they can surely exacerbate string vibration deltas.

I have three different boards, each the same size, different types of wood, each has its own anchor point bolts and a tuner to get a single string up to pitch. I'm starting out with tests that don't involve wood comparison in order to find a test procedure that gives a comprehensible result. I have rig that will pluck the string in a consistent manner, which works pretty good, and I have an ebow. I'm in the midst of trying different things out, and I can't guess how things will turn out yet.

I can definitely put a loud amp in front of the rig. I would try it without the amp, and then with the amp at a few different volumes to see what difference it makes, before trying it with the different boards.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I have, several times, and I'm honest enough to admit I could be fooling myself if I were to opine one way or the other. Does it sustain longer, or do I want to believe it does? Does it retain more high end clarity, or do I just want to believe my money and time were not spent in vain?

I have a test rig which will eventually allow me to put this to the test, but I'm still in the refinement stages of measuring things in general. The problem with measuring these barely discernible audible differences is that they make for barely discernible visual differences in turn.

I noticed a huge improvement in sustain going from a small alloy block to a solid big brass block. The tone was a little fatter but not as much as I would have liked. But for my guitar there definitely was a huge improvement in sustain.

 

[greekdude]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

^^^ unless it is proven with a waveform it is hard to convince. How did you measure sustain and on which frets? One should measure sustain for all 7x24 fretted notes, first plain normal and then bended one tone. That would be 336 measurements. Then do the same for the new trem block, or for any other parameter that he changes. All under same exact setup, same picking technique, same pick force, same fretting, same amp settings, guitar distance from amp, trying to maintain same conditions, even moisture, temperature, even time of day, since there would be EMI around at certain times in a day.

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I have three different boards, each the same size, different types of wood, each has its own anchor point bolts and a tuner to get a single string up to pitch. I'm starting out with tests that don't involve wood comparison in order to find a test procedure that gives a comprehensible result. I have rig that will pluck the string in a consistent manner, which works pretty good, and I have an ebow. I'm in the midst of trying different things out, and I can't guess how things will turn out yet.

I can definitely put a loud amp in front of the rig. I would try it without the amp, and then with the amp at a few different volumes to see what difference it makes, before trying it with the different boards.

Ebow will not get you there. There's a lot of data in the immediate return of information to the string after the shock of the transient. Slowly rising the string to vibration ignores the wood's ability to skew the vibration pattern of the string after having been plucked at high velocity. Furthermore, the ebow tells the string how to vibrate! You could assume that an ebow takes over, and mitigates the wood's affect on string vibration.

Also, using one string is not likely to deliver adequate results. Think about it: You've just reduced the stimulant by a factor of 6. Any result you get has the potential to be 6 times more insignificant than the real world example. I suppose you could think the other way, and say any differential should be multiplied by a factor of 6 to obtain the maximum differential experienced on a 6 string guitar, but the problem there is that one string could leave your results in the noise level, or inconclusive whereas 6 strings, struck with ample velocity might produce visible results.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I have three different boards, each the same size, different types of wood

In the tradition of this forum, I request pics, please.

I'm starting out with tests that don't involve wood comparison in order to find a test procedure that gives a comprehensible result.

This borders on bad science. Good practice would be to perform a consistently repeatable test. Gather data first. Analyse, interpret and comprehend your findings afterwards.

If you propose to publish your results, make your test method(s) known so that others can independently verify them. (AKA peer review.)

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

Good practice would be to perform a consistently repeatable test. Gather data first. Analyse, interpret and comprehend your findings afterwards.

I devised a test awhile back you may find interesting. I play my guitars and listen to the sound that comes out of the speakers. I repeat this for various amounts of time,and at various volumes. Typically, the amount of time and the volume level are directly proportional to how happy the sound from the amplifier makes me. If I play really loud for a long time, I classify this sound as "good."

I'm a little bothered that people who seemingly dedicate a lot of time to playing a musical instrument aren't willing to trust their ears. If you can't hear the difference a certain wood or steel bock makes, who cares what a device measures?

"Hey, guys! Listen to how great my swamp ash strat sounds with this oversized block!"

Or...

"Hey guys, look at the different sine waves on my oscilloscope when I use an ader body instead of ash, and when I switch from zinc to a steel block!"

 

[DreX]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I'm a little bothered that people who seemingly dedicate a lot of time to playing a musical instrument aren't willing to trust their ears.

If you don't care about precision, you can trust your ears. If you care about precision, you can't. Maybe a better question is "why care about precision?", and I care because I want to have confidence that I factually "know" what the difference is between woods or pickups or metal types, I don't want to just believe I know the difference.

A lot of people say things like "DiMarzios tend to sound like X, Duncans sound like Y". That's the kind of observations you get from people who trust their ears. Frankly, I would be utterly astonished if DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan were able to maintain any semblance of a "sound" across so many product offerings over the course of 30 to 40 years.

 

[DreX]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

Ebow will not get you there. There's a lot of data in the immediate return of information to the string after the shock of the transient. Slowly rising the string to vibration ignores the wood's ability to skew the vibration pattern of the string after having been plucked at high velocity. Furthermore, the ebow tells the string how to vibrate! You could assume that an ebow takes over, and mitigates the wood's affect on string vibration.

I realize that, I was going to use the ebow for non-wood specific testing, but I didn't mention that.

Also, using one string is not likely to deliver adequate results. Think about it: You've just reduced the stimulant by a factor of 6. Any result you get has the potential to be 6 times more insignificant than the real world example. I suppose you could think the other way, and say any differential should be multiplied by a factor of 6 to obtain the maximum differential experienced on a 6 string guitar, but the problem there is that one string could leave your results in the noise level, or inconclusive whereas 6 strings, struck with ample velocity might produce visible results.

The test is only proof of itself, it proves what is true when you have a single string attached to a rectangular piece of wood, and doesn't account for what happens when you have a body and neck, or multiple strings, etc. How the results relate to a guitar is a matter of interpretation, because the principles will be the similar, if not the same, and certainly more informed than taking a wild guess, which is what we're reduced to now. If, say, the difference between covered and an uncovered humbucker are only observable when you pluck two or more strings at once, this test will be blind to that fact, this test will only suggest what is or isn't true when a single string is plucked. Making a constant-attack strumming device and involving several strings is a bit more work, and I don't see a lot of people volunteering to do these experiments, or any experiments for that matter, which is incredible when you contrast that with the holy wars that people wage over these issues.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I realize that, I was going to use the ebow for non-wood specific testing, but I didn't mention that.



The test is only proof of itself, it proves what is true when you have a single string attached to a rectangular piece of wood, and doesn't account for what happens when you have a body and neck, or multiple strings, etc. How the results relate to a guitar is a matter of interpretation, because the principles will be the similar, if not the same, and certainly more informed than taking a wild guess, which is what we're reduced to now. If, say, the difference between covered and an uncovered humbucker are only observable when you pluck two or more strings at once, this test will be blind to that fact, this test will only suggest what is or isn't true when a single string is plucked. Making a constant-attack strumming device and involving several strings is a bit more work, and I don't see a lot of people volunteering to do these experiments, or any experiments for that matter, which is incredible when you contrast that with the holy wars that people wage over these issues.

I understand where you are coming from on the subject and I think it's great you are putting in a solid effort to get something scientific rolling. However, I have to admit Frank Falbo brought up some great points.

At the very least the data you collect under your current test parameters you have planned will start to scratch the surface, but all it really will be is the tip of the iceberg. Any thoughts on waiting for someone else to work with or trying to gain some momentum towards a more conclusive testing method that does relate to a guitar?

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

If you don't care about precision, you can trust your ears. If you care about precision, you can't. Maybe a better question is "why care about precision?", and I care because I want to have confidence that I factually "know" what the difference is between woods or pickups or metal types, I don't want to just believe I know the difference.

My dad is an engineer, and we get into this debate a lot. He sees a lot of value in the ability to express things in numbers. I say sometimes it matters, others it does not. He is also a semi-pro bluegrass musician, and surprisingly, shuts off a lot of the engineer brain when it comes to music. We talk a lot about stuff like wood and specs, but agree that if it sounds good, it really doesn't matter why.

Until you can produce organic substances like wood in a nearly 100% consistent manner, where each piece has identical grain structure, moisture content, etc... the only thing you're testing are the characteristics of that particular piece of wood.

A lot of people say things like "DiMarzios tend to sound like X, Duncans sound like Y". That's the kind of observations you get from people who trust their ears.

What does making a generalization have to do with trusting one's ears? If you have such apparently little respect for people who criticize sounds with their ears, music really is an odd choice of hobby.

 

[DreX]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

My dad is an engineer, and we get into this debate a lot. He sees a lot of value in the ability to express things in numbers. I say sometimes it matters, others it does not. He is also a semi-pro bluegrass musician, and surprisingly, shuts off a lot of the engineer brain when it comes to music. We talk a lot about stuff like wood and specs, but agree that if it sounds good, it really doesn't matter why.

Reproducibility is the reason. Imagine if Seymour Duncan wound the first JB and forgot to take note of how many times he wound each coil, because it sounds good and who cares why? That would probably be the first and last JB there ever was. Suppose you can't get two pieces of wood that are 100% identical, but maybe you can select cuts with tighter rings, or of a certain density, knowing what sort of sound will result from having been selective. The Americans guitar makers supposedly select the "best" cuts of wood, what criteria do they use?

Until you can produce organic substances like wood in a nearly 100% consistent manner, where each piece has identical grain structure, moisture content, etc... the only thing you're testing are the characteristics of that particular piece of wood.

You have to back up, some of us are still on the question of whether wood makes aany audible difference at all from the magnetic pickup's perspective, let alone what qualities of wood might lead to which audible differences.

What does making a generalization have to do with trusting one's ears? If you have such apparently little respect for people who criticize sounds with their ears, music really is an odd choice of hobby.

I don't think you understood the point I was making. You chose not quote the most relevant part, which is that while the belief that larger brands of pickups all share a similar sound is very unlikely to be true, if a person allows brand perception (or any other kind of perception) to color their hearing perception, you end up with people who are convinced it's true, because they have no factual basis for believing otherwise. That's at the heart of why people used to (or still do) believe in magic, because something seemed to be true, and they lacked a factual basis to prove otherwise, and so they assumed it was true.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

Reproducibility is the reason. Imagine if Seymour Duncan wound the first JB and forgot to take note of how many times he wound each coil, because it sounds good and who cares why? That would probably be the first and last JB there ever was. Suppose you can't get two pieces of wood that are 100% identical, but maybe you can select cuts with tighter rings, or of a certain density, knowing what sort of sound will result from having been selective. The Americans guitar makers supposedly select the "best" cuts of wood, what criteria do they use?



You have to back up, some of us are still on the question of whether wood makes aany audible difference at all from the magnetic pickup's perspective, let alone what qualities of wood might lead to which audible differences.



I don't think you understood the point I was making. You chose not quote the most relevant part, which is that while the belief that larger brands of pickups all share a similar sound is very unlikely to be true, if a person allows brand perception (or any other kind of perception) to color their hearing perception, you end up with people who are convinced it's true, because they have no factual basis for believing otherwise. That's at the heart of why people used to (or still do) believe in magic, because something seemed to be true, and they lacked a factual basis to prove otherwise, and so they assumed it was true.

Rather than derail this thread further, I'll say that I'm interested in hearing what your test shows, and that if all the commonly held beliefs about guitars turn out to be myths, you're the one who debunks them.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

The problem with wood, is that you can't see whats inside it. You might choose two bits with similar rings that can be vastly different in weight, bits of varied grain which are tonally similar, or any number of combos.

The 'American makers' work on $$ first, then weight, blank size or grain. Its not actually selected by the company either, but by the mills. Any top company is going to have a strict budget per board/ft, and that strict set of characteristics. The 'really' good stuff will tend to go to the boutique buyers - either furniture or guitar, as the mills can charge much more for them than the contracted main buyers. Gibson and Fender for example will not buy the absolute best as the budget doesn't go that far. Small buyers like luthier wood companies, maybe PRS and high-end furniture will get the most pretty.
In my time of buying fretboard and body blanks for scratch builds, I have consistently got timber which would be good enough for a select Fender or a Custom Shop R9. Not a single of my solid LP builds has come out over 8 1/2 pounds.
But wood selection criteria is only half of the battle - because as we know NONE of these are based on tone of a final instrument. There is no way to predict this. That is why the 'quality' of the wood and the tone it produces are separate criteria. Its why you can get the odd MIM that beats a MIA - the chances are less of course - as you have to mate 6 or 8 bits for the body, and getting 100% compatible slices drops for each bit added, but the wood itself is the same - the same supplier and the same plantations as the masterbuilt line.

 

[DreX]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

Its why you can get the odd MIM that beats a MIA - the chances are less of course - as you have to mate 6 or 8 bits for the body, and getting 100% compatible slices drops for each bit added

I don't think more pieces of wood necessarily results in a tonal quality that's undesirable. Laminated wood tends to be stiffer and stronger than solid wood, and that involves many different pieces of wood.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I don't think more pieces of wood necessarily results in a tonal quality that's undesirable. Laminated wood tends to be stiffer and stronger than solid wood, and that involves many different pieces of wood.

But what does stiffer and stronger do to the sound? Is there any audible effect from multi-piece bodies? Ive always made the assertion that the glue seems done right make little difference on the sound. But at issue is still the pieces that are used. My theory is that 5 pieces of consistent well cured wood will sound better than 5 pieces of internally stressed, inconsistently weighted wood.

Many people make the assertion that a guitar that is more resonant and vibrates more sounds better. But i dont always believe this to be true. Particularly with high gain. Those small resonances that some people love become white noise and sound odd and muddy up a good high gain tone. In this case a guitar that is less lively sounding acoustically is better when played with high gain at high volume.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

I don't think more pieces of wood necessarily results in a tonal quality that's undesirable. Laminated wood tends to be stiffer and stronger than solid wood, and that involves many different pieces of wood.

You once again deliberately skew what people mean to suit your own ends.

As you have no doubt seen, guitars have different tones. As we all seem to agree here, some of this comes from the wood. Somehow certain bits of wood make great guitars, others make 'meh' guitars, and others yet are absolutely dead no matter what. Just looking at the wood, weighing it, testing its 'grain' doesn't explain why some are good and others aren't. Given there is a variability with wood, by putting more different bits you increase the chances that you might have a poor bit in there - no questions asked. Its like having many many queues to choose from........the more the queues the less likely you are to pick the quickest one.

So no matter what, I am not saying more pieces = bad tone like you seem to think. What I am saying is that as soon as you put more and more wood bits together the chances for all of them to play nicely together drops accordingly.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: Does wood make a difference?

You once again deliberately skew what people mean to suit your own ends.

As you have no doubt seen, guitars have different tones. As we all seem to agree here, some of this comes from the wood. Somehow certain bits of wood make great guitars, others make 'meh' guitars, and others yet are absolutely dead no matter what. Just looking at the wood, weighing it, testing its 'grain' doesn't explain why some are good and others aren't. Given there is a variability with wood, by putting more different bits you increase the chances that you might have a poor bit in there - no questions asked. Its like having many many queues to choose from........the more the queues the less likely you are to pick the quickest one.

So no matter what, I am not saying more pieces = bad tone like you seem to think. What I am saying is that as soon as you put more and more wood bits together the chances for all of them to play nicely together drops accordingly.

I can hop on this train.