Re: Pickups for mahogany Tele???
I've got quite a few duplicate guitars - made by the same factory, same materials, same electronics, same brand of strings, same setup sensibilities. I'd be happy to record some clips of various "identical" guitars, but I don't know if that would prove anything either way.
This would not be adequate as they would be far from identical guitars. Electronics, for example, have wide-ranging tolerances. Two pickups of the same model by the same manufacturer will have different capacitance, DC resistance, output and voicing. See jumble jumble's previous post for the standards that would be necessary to really set up such a test. For the results to tell us much, sample size would have to be larger than any single person could handle without funding and additional help, but the test jumble jumble suggested would be a good start. Ideally a mechanism would need to be set up to strum the strings at a fixed velocity as the person striking the strings would insert an additional variable to the mix...
We could test two different things with the recorded results. In an identification test, tonewoodologists would attempt to identify the woods of the sample clips. This would tell us, with a large enough sampling size, if there is any practical difference whatsoever. A spectrographic analysis would tell us if there is any
actual difference, and I suspect there would indeed be the slightest of differences that the most discerning of ears would never pick up on.
I do wonder, though, how many of the folks who don't think tonewoods matter ever spend time playing their electric guitar(s) unplugged? Or clean?
Just in case you are referring to me, you'll note earlier in this thread I said:
Don't worry about the wood. It makes no difference in a solid-body electric unless you intend to play it acoustically and not through an amplifier.
It certainly matters acoustically. It doesn't make any discernible difference to the output of the pickups.
If you recognize that all these variables would affect the purity of the experiment, how can you not concede that the wood used in the construction of the instrument is one of those variables? Please lay some *actual* science on us! So far, your arguments have been made without any kind of evidence to back them up. Otherwise I shall be forced to smite you with a lethal dose of Frank Zappa.
First, I needn't necessarily recognize that all those variables actually affect the results. However, having multiple variables
still affects the quality of the experiment, so I would seek to eliminate them as a matter of sound methodology.
There are variables we know matter--they make a discernible difference in tone that anyone could pick up on: strings, for example. There are also variables that science tells us MUST matter: potentiometers of different resistance. A 1 MOhm volume pot will allow more of the signal to leave the guitar's output, most obviously resulting in the preservation of more treble (for treble is lost disproportionately.) A 1 MOhn pot that tests 850 KOhm (which is within the 20% tolerance that most pots boast) will allow through less treble. A guitar with a 500 KOhm volume pot and 500 KOhm tone pot that is in the circuit for all pickups will result in a 250 KOhm load and allow less of the signal to reach output, and so on... As I said earlier in this post, the characteristics of pickups vary even within the same model from the same production run. One more example: we know scale length matters because it results in a difference in shape of the vibrating string of the same pitch on the same fret being played on two guitars of different scale. These are things that undeniably affect tone.
With so many things proven to affect tone, why must we give the unsupported "tonewood" so much credit? When judging two guitars, why would someone pinpoint the wood as the
decisive difference? It reeks of sentimental traditionalism to me. Because we consider our guitars to be essentially wooden objects, we identify closely with the wood and attribute it far more credit than it deserves for shaping the output of a solid-body electric guitar when there are so many more variables of
proven significance.
There is no reason to believe that the resonance of the body vibrating the pickup and somehow subtly changing the way the strings vibrate has any significant effect on the output of the pickups.
It is easy to prove these other variables matter. The onus is on others to prove that
tonewood actually matters.
Again I suggest you read the Calkin article. It touches on many things outside the scope of my own argument and is in many ways more radical than my message.
(I've survived nastier things than lethal doses of Zappa.)
