What feels like the dumbest question ever

Jackylope

Jackylope

New member
...but am still going to ask it :cool2:

Have been doing as much reading/learning/asking as I can for a while before I start a Warmoth build so I could get exactly what I want, and I thought I knew where I was going with it. Then I had a convo today with a very talented guy I've known for 30+yrs and knows more about guitars than anyone I can think of, and this came up... I know tonal qualities vary greatly with the body woods used, anybody can hear that, but does SHAPE have any impact at all? To put it more clearly... using the same pickup config, whether EMG 81/85, JB/Jazz, Texas Custom SC's, etc... let's assume we have a maple neck with rosewood fretboard, and a solid Ash body with the exact same finish and bridge - be it a Flying V, Strat, Soloist, Tele, or whatever solid-body... can the sound really be that much different between them if they're all built the same? (To be fair, I would think that an all-Ash LP would have significantly more mass due to it's size, but I would have to assume would only affect sustain?) This is pretty much what I would have always thought, but this guy I trust said there would be significant differences, so I have reason to question it.

I just don't understand how or why...? Why wouldn't a Tele or Strat sound exactly like a Soloist or V or really anything else? I don't see how it wouldn't.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

Jackylope said:
does SHAPE have any impact at all?
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Banned former forum member, DreX, argued that it did.

Even amongst, say, Fender Stratocasters, some would argue that the traditional SSS pickup routing pattern versus the Eighties "swimming pool" makes a detectable difference. Same goes for hardtail versus vibrato and spring cavity.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

Funkfingers said:
Banned former forum member, DreX, argued that it did.

Even amongst, say, Fender Stratocasters, some would argue that the traditional SSS pickup routing pattern versus the Eighties "swimming pool" makes a detectable difference. Same goes for hardtail versus vibrato and spring cavity.
Click to expand...

I could see the swimming pool route, I guess, because it takes a lot of the body away. Is still a stretch to me, but thanks.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

As far as shape is concerned, I think what really makes the difference there is pickup location (where the pickups sit under the strings) and body mass. There is plenty of variation in where the pickups sit in relation to the strings on a V vs a Strat, never mind the differences in scale length, wood, mass, even -type- of pickups. The rest would be the physiological affect of actually HOLDING a different shaped guitar, feeling how it balances, plays, etc...

That being said, don't downplay the psychological at all. Different guitars inspire different music out of people from just their appearance. It's an important factor.

I don't think I'm using the word "physiological" right. Hope you get my point lol.
 
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Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

I play badly on any shape guitar
But different shapes do make me wanna play different
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

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Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

Jackylope said:
I could see the swimming pool route, I guess, because it takes a lot of the body away. Is still a stretch to me, but thanks.
Click to expand...

The biggest thing for the swimming pool route for me is the odd hollow sound when you tap the pickguard with your pick.

Bridge makes a difference (Strat style trem vs Tele) but you're going to see far more a difference from one piece of wood to another than the shape of the body.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

Everything makes a difference. Well before the guitar is an electrical instrument, it is matter in the physical world. All matter operates under the physical laws......specifically mechanical physics. Its all to do with physical energy (vibration of the strings) and how that mechanical energy is transferred between anything physically touching the vibrating string.

Without going into confusing details, physics tells us that energy is transferred from the string via the hardware into the body. The same laws in operation then means that energy in the body gets passed back into the string contact points. As these points are the only reason that the string can freely vibrate in the first place, there is a degree of both positive and negative filtering into the string itself (think of the timing of 2 people jumping on a trampoline as a real world example of this).

As the pickup can only replicate how the string vibrates, this is how the structure affects the string. We all know that the type of material effects the sound of it when struck, and this is just a symptom of the way a given input affects the output of with different physical elements. And if you change the shape or mass of something of the same material then you also change the output.....a tuning fork is proof of this.
So these two proofs combine to mean that the shape and material of the guitar will affect the way the 'given input' of plucking a string will change the way that the energy of that vibration will sound after the initial input of energy.

But save for the theoretical, there is NO WAY you can provide physical proof.....why - well you need a baseline.

As there is no single piece of wood that is identical to another, there can be no 'typical' or baseline' bit to compare like ones to it.
As you cannot tension a string without having it attached to something, you cannot test what the string would sound like just by itself.....it is immediately coloured by the energy lost to its anchors.
Adding to the 'no bit of wood is identical' every time you make a change, any change observed is unique to that precise plank.
Guitars are 'sums of parts'. Adding in other bits of unique wood multiplies possible effects. For example, a change in something like tuners might make no difference with one guitar. Put that same neck on another body and that change might be big now, even though the hardware was not directly attached to the bit that changed.


The whole is the sum of the parts...........always
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

Jackylope said:
...but am still going to ask it :cool2:

Have been doing as much reading/learning/asking as I can for a while before I start a Warmoth build so I could get exactly what I want, and I thought I knew where I was going with it. Then I had a convo today with a very talented guy I've known for 30+yrs and knows more about guitars than anyone I can think of, and this came up... I know tonal qualities vary greatly with the body woods used, anybody can hear that, but does SHAPE have any impact at all? To put it more clearly... using the same pickup config, whether EMG 81/85, JB/Jazz, Texas Custom SC's, etc... let's assume we have a maple neck with rosewood fretboard, and a solid Ash body with the exact same finish and bridge - be it a Flying V, Strat, Soloist, Tele, or whatever solid-body... can the sound really be that much different between them if they're all built the same? (To be fair, I would think that an all-Ash LP would have significantly more mass due to it's size, but I would have to assume would only affect sustain?) This is pretty much what I would have always thought, but this guy I trust said there would be significant differences, so I have reason to question it.

I just don't understand how or why...? Why wouldn't a Tele or Strat sound exactly like a Soloist or V or really anything else? I don't see how it wouldn't.
Click to expand...

Choose some shapes/woods combos, and then play as many guitars from each combo unplugged. The average tone you get from each shape/wood should be close to what you'd expect.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

Take a Les Paul or a Telecaster that you are familiar with, and remove some wood on the bass side of the upper bout to create a cutaway simlar to the existing one on the treble side. Will you hear a difference ?

My opinion is that if you have decent ears, you will.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

I don't know why it would matter, really. What matters is if I like the way it sounds. I would imagine changing the metal the bridge is made out of affects the sound, same as wood type and size. However, efforts to put numbers to what we might hear aren't exactly accurate, or predictable.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

The attempt to answer the unanswerable is an interesting exercise. I'd give it a shot but right now I'm still trying to understand the meaning of existence.: popworm:
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

IMO, everything makes some difference. Now I would think that if you take 1 piece of wood and cut it into any shape, I dont think you'll notice much difference as long as you use the same scale length, pups are same position, etc. But if you were to say, put a maple cap on it, or change pickup location or anything.. those make a diff. Routing alot of wood from the cavity or making a small body shape, you may lose some resonance and or sustain.. Also, if you use active pickups, they tend to give guitars a more common tone.. It becomes alittle less about the wood's tonal quality.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

I'm going to jump in and make one point that I don't think anyone else has: you strum and pick at different points on the scale based on the shape of the guitar. Every shape hangs differently on your body, putting the bridge at a different place relative to your joints. So that alone could make a pretty big difference. I've paid attention to this and I definitely play closer to the bridge on some of my guitars than others. This, of course, makes them sound brighter and have a sharper attack. So even if the physics of body resonance weren't involved there is still the matter of human physiology. Look where the bridge is on a Strat compared to a Les Paul compared to a V when it's hanging on a person. Very different.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

^^^ that's mostly due to badly designed guitars with imbalanced placement of the strap locks. Good guitars should be neutral and allow equal easiness to all frets along the fretboard.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

greekdude said:
^^^ that's mostly due to badly designed guitars with imbalanced placement of the strap locks. Good guitars should be neutral and allow equal easiness to all frets along the fretboard.
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I'm not talking about fret access, I'm talking about where the bridge/pickups/neck are relative to comfortable hand positions. I hold a Jaguar or Jazzmaster very different from a Strat from a Les Paul, which means my hands and arms are in different positions for each of those three shapes. Look how far the bridge is from the rear of the body on an offset Fender vs. Strat vs. Tele. Which of those guitars is balanced??

This is also probably why I like the guitar shapes I like: they hang in a way that feels "right" to me. I've noticed in photos of Strat players that their hands are in a very different position than mine when I play an SG or Les Paul. I think that, in turn, shapes tone quite a bit. So it's all interconnected.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

I disagree with the shape affecting hand placement. I think the bridge itself determines where you pick, regardless of the body shape, because you are used to picking a specific distance from the bridge, especially if you palm mute to any degree for any style of music. The only variable is the type/design of the bridge - TOM vs Fender 3-saddle (3 barrels with a string on either side) vs Fender 6-saddle, Floyd, low-profile Floyd-style, etc.

No matter the type of bridge, you will place your hand on/near it as you are accustomed to on any body shape. The only thing that changes is where your arm rests on the body, and not all players rest their arm on the body.


There was a Guitar Player article I read many years ago (87 or so) where the author had a custom-made fork-shaped guitar for his band called Mack the Fork, and covered this very concept of shape influencing tone.


Of course, as always, this discussion must completely disregard the fact that if you had a slab of any wood that was 8" thick and you precision-cut 4 Strats out of that one slab that were each 2" thick and put the same bridge on them and the same neck and same pickups you'd yield 4 different tonal characters.

In my own personal first-hand experience, having owned real USA Les Pauls, import Les Paul copies, Les Paul "inspired" designs that were less than half the thickness and weight of a USA Les Paul, Flying Vs made by Gibson, Jackson, and Vantage, Strat-shapes made by Fender (USA, Mexico, and Japan manufacture), Warmoth, Charvel, and Jackson, Explorer shapes made by Gibson (USA) and Jackson (USA and Import), Star shapes made by Warmoth and Charvel (USA and import), with all manner of bridges and various woods, I can safely say body shape influences tone just as much as body wood and bridge type and pickup and scale length, and that your hand will always sit in the same position in relation to the bridge.

A mahogany-bodied Flying V, Explorer, and Les Paul Standard, all with a mahogany set-in neck and rosewood fretboard and stopbar/tuneomatic bridge/tailpiece and the same pickups and controls, have very distinct tonal differences when plugged into an amp (which is the only tonality of an electric solid-body guitar that matters).
However, a USA Gibson Flying V sounds just like a USA Jackson KV2T (both 24 3/4" scale with tuneomatic bridge, and all mahogany construction) because of how the body shape influences the resonance and in turn the tone of the strings at the bridge.
Even a Floyded King V has a similar tonality to a non-Floyded King V.

The acoustic differences are obviously obvious, which is why they are discounted in this discussion, as are the differences between pickguarded and rear-loaded Strats, SG Standards that have a large pickguard vs the batwing, covered pickups vs uncovered, routing beneath a pickguard, and finish type. All of those directly pertain to acoustic properties of sound reflection off of surfaces, not the conversion of string vibration into electrical impulses.

Since you specifically reference a Soloist, Jackson uses identical neckthrough blanks for the Soloist, KV, Warrior, Kelly, and Rhoads, with the only differences being the body wings that are attached, yet each one has a distinct tonal difference. However, every Soloist sounds equally different from every Rhoads. While the Soloists may not sound identical to each other due to the inherent tonal qualities of any 2 random pieces of wood, their shapes determine their tonality, and so they sound similar.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

crusty philtrum said:
Take a Les Paul or a Telecaster that you are familiar with, and remove some wood on the bass side of the upper bout to create a cutaway simlar to the existing one on the treble side. Will you hear a difference ?

My opinion is that if you have decent ears, you will.
Click to expand...

Sure it will sound different. Offending? Not in any way, Double Cut LPs sound great.
 
Re: What feels like the dumbest question ever

BloodRose said:
IMO, everything makes some difference. Now I would think that if you take 1 piece of wood and cut it into any shape, I dont think you'll notice much difference as long as you use the same scale length, pups are same position, etc.
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Well, no this is not correct. Think of EVH's old Destroyer. He hacked a chunk of it out from behind the bridge and it was tonally ruined.......there's an example (and in this case proof) of the fact that different shapes with quite literally everything else the same makes for a change.
 
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