You guys need to watch Jim Lill's videos here on KZread. No blahblahblah, just a solid scientific approach to answering the question--coming from a pro country guitarist. He really does an amazing job testing what matters.

@DJBuglip

5 ай бұрын

Yeah. I don't care about anybody's opinion. I've been playing since 1973, I have my own opinion. I care about testing and verifiable results. I had HOPED I was going to see somebody pull spectral analysis graphs up to visually PROVE this. Until somebody does, Jim Lil has the best evidence I've seen personally.

@AppInventorCode

4 ай бұрын

Right, too much blah blah blah on this video. 10 mins in and they are talking about different configurations but not same configuration with diff wood. That to me means “not really any difference”

@joseandresgalarza531

3 ай бұрын

(out of date comment, but still...) Absolutely, lots of blah and no actual tests. Also, they make some very unaccurated "geeky" assumptions, pickups are equal to microphones?? seriously?? what THE F***? a mic captures the air waves generated by voice or instrument vibrations which are conditioned by environment ACOUSTICS, pickups capture magnetic pulses from a metallic string, thats why if you put nylon strings on an electric guitar it will not sound AT ALL, this guys and many others who play guitar manufacturers game should stop it.

@Sobchak2

2 ай бұрын

@@DJBuglip Some people did. Did you search it?

So...this guy is having 2 guitars with totally different pickups, pickup positions... And he is saying it's the wood?

Some very reputable manufacturers are building great sounding guitars out of pine now, so my guess is no- it doesn’t matter as much as we thought.

When you're talking about a thick solid body slab of wood, the difference in wood type is negligible. Swap the material completely to something like metal or hollow it out, obviously different story, but only switching between two types of wood while perfectly controlling for other factors, basically imperceptible.

@GCKelloch

Жыл бұрын

Some properly conducted tests show the difference is significant enough to matter. Damping is also dynamically dependent, so an eq can't technically reproduce the results, but a dynamic eq could.

@pablete777

Жыл бұрын

@@GCKelloch I'd love to see these tests, would you be able to link to them please?

@gregcoomer1775

Жыл бұрын

@@pablete777 Yeah, I'd like to know this also.

@nedim_guitar

Жыл бұрын

​@@GCKelloch But that's not tone. That's sustain etc.

@HaridevV

Жыл бұрын

The answer is that, it is wrong to assume the wood and the string as different components. In fact, they are mechanically bound. And hence, when the wood resonates, it imparts boundary motion to the string, which itself is resonating. This changes the fundamental frequency of the system. The factors that influence the fundamental frequency are : the relative stiffness of the wood to the string, the damping coefficient of the wood, the stiffness of the joints (nut, tuning post etc), the direction of vibration (whether the string was plucked longitudinally, or at an angle), and some others too. The important point to remember is that the wood is significantly stiffer than the strings. So the effects are small, and present themselves in the upper harmonics. But the harmonics actually make a big difference to what you hear and how you perceive the 'tone' of the sound. So yes, wood makes a difference to how an electric guitar sounds.

Good discussion gents. Enjoyed it :-) Balanced and insghtful

One thing I can say is this: I own two strats, both have the same pickups because I love them very much. The hardware and the pots are pretty much the same. But one has a good body and neck while the other is a Squier cv (which isn’t bad). They sound totally different. So whoever says it’s just the pickups is wrong in my opinion. Other woods seem to change the tone just like all other components.

@predigr

Ай бұрын

They don't. What matters is the electromagnetic field which depends only on pickups, and everything around them: position in x,y,z, rotation, distance between them and between chords, and distance with respect to the beginning and end of the chords. A Gibson will never sound like a fender because it is not possible to place the same pickups at the exact same location, and probably your two fenders the same. Minor variations can produce bigger differences. Finally, the whole set of electronics will also change the sound. Anyway, just buy the guitar you love playing and love looking. And those guitars will be expensive always hahaha

@user-iv7yp1qs6v

Ай бұрын

Now switch all the electrics from one strat to the other and compare the sounds of the donor guitar to the sound of the receiver guitar, do it blindfolded with a mechanical device doing the picking, throw in two placebo strats, then you would be approaching a credible approach to answer this question.

Wood definitely matters for playability because of weight. If you have a heavy neck and light body, neck dive might be a problem. But tone is in the pickups, amps, pedals, and fingers.

@torjusjohannesopheim9390

Жыл бұрын

erre gutten

@pablete777

Жыл бұрын

It also matters because some finishes and colors look better on certain woods. And for sustainability too, let's not drive ebony to extinction.

@joseandresgalarza531

3 ай бұрын

yeah, because of confort and playability, because of the looks, even because of tuning stability, it will matter, but not because of tone.

@victorloquendoful

18 күн бұрын

@@joseandresgalarza531 There are studies that contradict what you say, search for "Vibroacustical Study of the Solid-Body Electric Guitar" from Yo Fujiso of the Chalmers University of Technology (2009) or "Body Woods and Electric Guitar's Frequency Spectrum" from Keith J. Soper

I'm sure it makes a difference, but I don't think it makes a big enough difference to fret over it (haha). The percentage of difference has to be like single digits in my opinion.

This is a great video I never really thought of this before. I'm currently learning how to play guitar. I have a Gretsch G5220. a beautiful guitar, I was told when picking out my guitar buy something that makes you want to pick it up as long as you can afford it lol. Thanks for the amazing videos I have watch countless reviews and who knows how many hours. Keep up the good work gentlemen.

As I age, the most important part is will I be able to play the guitar neck for hours without my injuries cramping the hand? Top tied 2 would be a Martin 000-28e Modern Deluxe VTS Spruce with E Indian Rosewood tied with the Chris McKee unsigned Taylor Signature 914ce LTD Engelmann Spruce top with EI Rosewood, 2nd would be an Iris OGe Adirondack top with Mahogany then a Martin CEO-7 (same woods as Iris) a Martin Custom 0000-28 short scale 12 fret with woods like the Chris McKee and aged satin finish. Then a Martin 00 Adirondack top EI Rosewood. I really like how I sound singing with an Adirondack (or VTS), Engelmann Spruce or Lutz top acoustic guitar. I haven't used electric guitars in 49 years.

The "List 10 Items in Order of Import to a Guitar's Tone" sounds like an episode for Paul Davids, Taylor Guitars Primetime, and/or Keith Williams, too, also featuring Dave Onorato, Chris & Matt at Driftwood Guitars, Rhett Shull, Rick Beato and on and on we go... I'm glad Chris never got lost in the maize maze, but it's too easy to get lost in attempting to define the colors and textures of sound in words. Time to go play! 🤠🤔 Charles Kaman's composite helicopter blades for his company led to the formation of Ovation guitars, and I received a Rainsong Guitar box, which was the outer box for a Breedlove Organic Concert shipped to me in January. Carbon fiber, fiberglass, vinylester resin bodies? There's always room for experimentation and innovation...

the wood is connected to the strings, it influences how the strings vibrate, thus influencing feel and sound, the question doesn’t have to be complex, the simple answer is yes, but like with any complex system, wood is not the only thing that can influence the sound of a guitar nor the most important

Everything affects tone to a certain degree. Everything either enhances or dampens vibrations in some way. As mentioned in the video, pickups, scale, hardware, etc all have an impact. Much more so than the wood. The only fair comparison is to play a Les Paul with one wood composition, then pull all the electronics and hardware out of it and put it on a Les Paul with a different wood. It'll sound slightly different but not nearly as different as if you put different pickups or pots into it. But let's be honest... Amplifier and pedals are far larger tone influencers than the wood or pickups. The only time I care about guitar wood is when I'm considering acoustics.

Gary Moore would choose his guitars by the sound they made unplugged from an amp, if it didn't have a certain amount of natural sustain and natural tone, he would walk away. Yes, electric guitars make sound even when not plugged in! Try it sometime! Just from my experience when shopping for Telecasters I played ones with ash bodies vs alder unplugged back to back and the swamp ash bodies are louder, more sustain and have a growl which everyone calls "twang". Maybe do a comparison of Tele's of the same model and year, pickups etc and see.

@rexrathtar3893

2 жыл бұрын

At the same time, that unplugged sound, in my experience, has no correlation to the amplified tone.

I started with a third hand strat and saved up 3 months to get a used aml. I thought my tone was great. Maybe this can be over ghought?

I think the main factors are the body shapes and scale lengths, the electronics and the player also influence the tone of course

I've always just said "no" because its easier than a 27 minute video saying "I mean... kinda...", but I agree, lol. I'd rank electric tone wood around the same importance as string brand: It matters more to the player than the listener. I'd like a T5z made of urban ash, but that's just because I love the concept of urban ash. Its not gonna be much different than the maple one I have

I have tried a lot of different models over the years - got my first Electric guitar in '1973 a Swedish Levin - with DeArmond pick ups .. the next was a Gibson ES 330 '65 ... Both single-coil but very different .... For years I played a Gibson SG ... I loved the brown woody sound of it.... When I try an electric guitar out I listen to the sound UNPLUGGED and how it sustains and sound with a cowboy D cord - then an E chord ... Because that is what matters to me, if I can make it sing and ring .... How it sounds through a distortion pedal ... or more I don't care about ... the way the guitar sound that way - is the sound of the pedal ,,,

My favorite tele to grab is basswood. MIJ and stock pickups, everything stock. It absolutely rocks. My 6k custom shop 335 in the same Swart AST same settings, sucks. I use a different amp for different guitars. Guitars pair well with some amps and not so well with others. So it can effect the tone yes, but is that bad, well that depends on what you want to hear. If that certain wood sound the way you like through a certain amp. If that pleases you. Thats the right answer.

A good test would be to put nylon strings on an electric guitar and see how much of the "tone wood" comes through the pickups.

Comparing a longer scale triple single coil against a shorter scale dual humbucker and saying they sound different... genius. Check out Darrell Braun's jigsaw video for about all the proof you need as to how important the wood in an electric guitar is.

@drewdavis2392

2 жыл бұрын

That's not at all what the video is about. They don't even play those two guitars; they were chosen simply because they're a maximally contrasting pair, Illustrating the many ways other than wood in which guitars can differ.

how i rank in just amp + guitar rig no pre/post process: how hot the amp is running for tube (attenuator?), pickups, how u pick thumpy light heavy pick vs light pick fingers?, amp tone controls, palm mute & pinch harmonic, which pickup, where you pick bridge or neck, solid state vs tube, neck through, body weight, string guage, tonewood (body), number winds per pickup (how hot), neck girth, scale length, speakers, guitar shape, tonewood (neck) wood, pickup height/angle, cab wood, multiple pickups or single pickup (les paul jr/esquire vs les paul/tele), bridge, cable quality, key E is loudest, fretting sympathetic octaves/fifths thirds while playing a note, types of string, neck muter thing, type of cable curled or no, type of lacquer, color (0%)

@ravenecho2410

Жыл бұрын

my exhaustive list (ranked 13th), maybe 3-5% of the sound?

Since these folks are dealers I’m gonna go ahead and predict a lukewarm “wood matters but maybe not that much but it depends and only you can decide. I think there might be something to the tone wood thing but who can say”

A pickup is not a microphone. Pickups detect disturbances in the magnetic field. How does the wood change the magnetic field?

The angle of the headstock is a big part of tone also

What about an Osage Orange body or neck?

I'd like to see a visual analysis of the sound with different body materials (wood, metal, plastic) but identical pickup/electronics. You should be able to see a difference in the waveforms. I saw a video of a guy who took the same electronics a solid body wood guitar had and put them on 2 pieces of wood separated by air - no body whatsoever underneath and they sounded identical. Personally I think it's an emotional affect and not a physical one.

@paulw.3967

Жыл бұрын

That was Jim Lill (search for his videos on YT). He's pretty well debunked the idea that tonewoods matter much in a solidbody electrics, as well as much of the BS about tube amps. It matters that you have a reasonably solid bridge attached to something passably dense around the bridge, but beyond that, other factors matter a lot more.

@seanmcghee2373

3 ай бұрын

@@paulw.3967 I can dig that.

As with most things, I think most if not all of us rely quite heavily on the instrument's price to judge its sound quality. I would even include pickups & microphones in that. I say this because what we hear is entirely subjective and, as both musicians & aspiring musicians, we don't want to just please ourselves. And for the very best musicians, it's quite likely that they regard the pleasure of others even higher.

He says a pickup is just a microphone like all microphones are the same. Any guitarist that has recorded in a decent studio knows how crappy or good ur guitar tone can be depending on the microphone, mic placement, mic pre amp.. A shure sm57 is a staple in recording guitars they sound great, can record other things too but nobody really uses them to record vocals and mics used to record vocals usually don’t get used to record guitars. There are so many different microphones used for so many different things just like pick ups! You can put an EMG pick up in any guitar and it will sound good you can make a guitar out of plywood and it will sound great. Even passive high gain pickups will sound great in many crappy guitars not to the point Emg’s will but they will typically sound good. Now clean guitar tones, using low gain, just a little fuzz, like that 70’s classic rock tone different woods are much more noticeable. The body of the guitar is definitely more responsible for the tone but the neck does effect tone too I’ve actually noticed a difference when the paint is cleaned off the body where the neck bolts on. Playing a les Paul with a big fat neck like a baseball bat will be different when playing the same guitar with a thinner neck but again it’s much more noticeable when playing cleaner I’m not saying you can’t notice when using high gain I’m just saying it’s much more noticeable when playing cleaner.

Quick google check: Maple Acer is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae. There are approximately 132 species, most of which are native to Asia, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America. Mahogany There's South American, Cuban. African, Indonesian, Australian and New Zealand varieties etc. The point is that, even if tone wood DOES make a difference, if it sounds good you got lucky, because if you want to replicate that sound, good luck finding what species your piece of wood is, where it grown and what climate it was grown in. The variety of species within particular tree families and the different geographical areas they can be grown in, makes the whole issue a pointless exercise. Anyone who says they prefer the sound of Mahogany, or Maple or any other type of wood, is simply deluding themselves.

@pecatum666

8 ай бұрын

THIS!

There's been so many blind tests and experiments at this point demonstrating the neglectful difference wood and amount of wood makes to the sound that's the thing is more or less settled. The fact that the opposition can't present anything but rhetorical rebuttals, anecdotes and have vested interests and biases in is enough to tilt the scale massively for one part here.

I love it when you guys geek out.

The Rail ....Dan Armstrong..a pickup on a plank of driftwood (see also : jack White) ......the tiny differences only matter on scopes not on r3cords or concerts. Tone is the strings, pickups and pots.

Great video

Chris, exactly how do your calloused fingertips "feel" the different fingerboard wood? I'm serious. My thought is you are "feeling" the fret material and not the wood. Aesthetics are obvious but I seriously doubt anyone would be able to tell the wood if they were blindfolded. Just my opinion of course...

@rexrathtar3893

2 жыл бұрын

I agree with what you are saying -- the string never touches the fretboard, so I don't see how your fingertip should be feeling it.

I'll concede that 2 otherwise identical guitars made from different woods might have minute difference in sustain and tuning stability because wood is organic and they have different hardness and swell and shrink with temperature changes and humidity changes depending on species. I doubt anyone listening blindfolded would be able to tell the difference.

A great comparison is found through Tom Anderson Guitarworks. Taking Strat and Tele designs and creating a Hollow Body makes an extraordinary difference in tone. As well you can hear the difference between Ash and Alder... at least unplugged. Related to "being in the zone," I would submit that the major difference on especially a bolt-on neck electric, is the inspiration of the player. My TA Classic Hollow T Swap Ash inspires the country sound and look I'm going for, while the TA Classic Solid Alder inspires the Blues sound. One aspect to consider between a Maple Neck and a Rosewood, relates more to Maple being one piece (usually), and Rosewood being glued on. The glue is dampening and solid maple has a more direct transference.

@kentl7228

Жыл бұрын

Jim Lil used the same brand to show tonewood is utter bullshit Pickups, pickup height, highly tolerance variable pots and capacitors matter. That's it. kzread.info/dash/bejne/oGRm1qumk8iZcag.html

@gnatiu

10 ай бұрын

Play unplugged then.

As guitarists/artists we way over think this stuff. Sometimes we 'hear' with our eyes and touch. Some guitars do resonate more than others but when you plug it in you don't really hear a discernable difference. As a custodian of Gibson, fenders and MIJ Jacksons and many other cheap guitars there is a difference in feel for sure but once you change the pickups the sound difference at reasonable volumes are very maginal if at all. Scale makes a lot of difference and the pickups. Pot rating too. But after that it's splitting hairs. Once you get a decent tube amp nearly anything intonated properly will sound good if you are good.

Even if it makes a difference, that’s probably the last thing that comes to mind when I’m working on a mix…

Hearing that comment about "plugging in and you feel like your tone is off = not playing well" is definitely something I can sympathize with. And in a way, I think that's the magic of playing amps with minimal controls/Guitars with one pickups. I own a Mesa Mark V, and I notice that I spend A LOT of time fiddling and getting the "tone", and then there's the added factor of playing a guitar with two pickups with coil taps, etc. But plugging into my Orange Dark Terror (volume, gain, and shape controls) is just so liberating. I don't feel this need to fiddle around, and I just go straight to practice mode. I think this is one of the major charms of playing acoustic guitar. It's just you and the guitar. You can't mess with the tone. The only things affecting the tone are the guitar itself, and your hands.

It absolutely does along with scale neck, pick-up, semi hollow, strings etc. Is it significant enough that it warrants saying that one is superior than other because of some crazy noticeable difference? Absolutely not. I can hear it enough with say my ora CE 24s vs custom.

I think Les Paul would beg to differ. Considering he played the "log" on some recordings.

The whole point of a solid body electric guitar is to minimize the body's impact on the amplified signal, which in turn minimizes feedback.

idk about “tone woods” but i do know soft crappy woods and neck joints will affect your tone tremendously. I’m more about construction quality, which includes wood, but as far as wood species and all this crazy stuff idk.

@triax7006

Жыл бұрын

That is what the manufacturers should concentrate on. Provide consistent high quality instruments via good design & not the BS "tone wood" & actually start producing composite material guitars to drive that home. The cheaper manufacturers have already caught up due to CNC machining, once they start to realise that composite materials can be made to even higher standards due to the very nature that they are not wood & that wood is only used as a traditional thought process then the big manufacturers are going to be in trouble.

I judge all of my guitars on how they sound unplugged. If I can't play it unplugged and like it then I don't want it.

People that say tone wood is a sound factor on an electric guitar re usually people trying to justify an expensive purchase or a manufacturer trying to justify charging an expensive price.

My experience after playing electric guitar for 40 years teaches me: It absolutely matters. When you play an electric guitar just acoustic, that tone its what the pickups will pick up. and there are huge differences in tone. I former had a Fender road worn MIM Strat, wich i graded up with a set of high end Kloppmann pu`s. I played that guitar and an original 50`s Strat with the same pickups with the same cable and the same amp and the same amp settings. It was like hearing a completely different instrument. That made me hate the tone of my guitar and I sold it.

You know, I can see an argument to possibly be valid for the wood making a sonic difference on a plugged in solidbody guitar upon which the pickups are screwed right into the wood. The wood vibrates and thereby vibrates the pickups. That might affect the sound. Maybe. But what about a Strat, for instance, and most other solid guitars. Their pickups are mounted on plastic pickguards or on plastic holders like a Le Paul, etc.. Especially regarding a Strat where the pickups are so far removed from the wood. What then? Is it that the bridge, etc. is vibrating with the wood? Is that what makes the difference in sound, if any? So, if the wood type makes a difference, how? Please someone tell me in reasonable and scientific terms how different woods effect the tone of a plugged in solidbody guitar.

My favorite part of the whole video lol 22:23

the wood on a solidbody only contributes to its acoustic sound, but thats not , what we look for in a solidbody, right?

My gut tells me that everything matters. I imagine if you were given 10 identical Les Pauls you would find differences between them and find one or two that you liked better. It might be hard to assign a percentage to each variable. You might want to look at the Oberlin Acoustic Workshop videos on KZread. They are dealing with violins but the testing is applicable.

@chucklee347

Жыл бұрын

Wood does matter in an acoustic that's been proven. But it has to matter. All the research I've done and God it's been years. Soon as you put pick ups in a solid body then it wouldn't matter if the sum bitch was made out of crayons. And that's actually been done. But if you have a semi hollow or a full hollow body electric. Then your allowing a little air into the guitar. Solid body. No more sound goes inside a solid body than the air does which is none.

@triax7006

Жыл бұрын

@@chucklee347 True pp have made solid body guitars out of all sorts of materials & it has always been down to the pickups & as long as the hardware & basically it is all fixed down securely then nothing else can effect the vibrations of the strings. Of course this is very dangerous to the big manufacturers, that cheap materials (not that wood isn't a cheap material it is just perceived as such) can be used.

You would have to have microphonic pickups for the wood to even have a chance to make a difference in sound.

@CalJennings

Жыл бұрын

@@1450JackCade in your mind.

The kind of wood used is small compared to pickups, electronics, and hardware. Add your amp, pedals, even where your amp is sitting in relation to where you are standing. But of course it makes a difference, although not a huge one. The people who say it makes no difference are just people who can’t hear the difference. That’s why they normally sound angry about it. They actually don’t believe it’s there.

Damping, not dampening. You aren’t making the frequencies wet. That’s when you add reverb, lol.

Basswood guitar body, is the best ever.🤘🏼😎

Justin Jefferson’s 3 string shovel that he played voodoo child on with a utility knife for a slide says no. Steel spade body, hickory D handle neck with sharpie lines for frets.

I tend to say "I dont care if it does or not". Its a liberating feeling to just play a guitar and not go around worrying "hmm, maybe not the right tonewood for this song". TONE IS IN THE FINGERS. For me the important thing is if the guitar has a humbuckers or singelcoils depending on what I need to play at the moment.

It only matters on an acoustic. Ive seen. a guy play an electric shovel that sounded as good or better then most guitars Ive heard.

Everything in the universe either produces a frequency or responds to a certain frequency. That is what Einstein and Tesla said some 100 years ago. So on guitars we might have different woods with different shapes, different densities, weight etc...I think it doesn't need more explanations. What comes after the wood is complementary, even though it can have a mayor impact on the finale tone too.

That Gibson Les Paul is my dream

A pickup isn't a microphone. A piezo system is though

I'm interested in a more nuanced conversation: wood QUALITY. Everything else being the same: paint, lacquer, finish, pickups, hardware, does a Squier Classic Vibe with a poplar body and a maple neck grown in China sound different than a Fender American Performer made of Ash/Alder with a maple neck grown in America? You're seeing this argument play out right now over the PRS SE Silver Sky which is made of poplar, but if you swapped the pickups with the ones in the American Silver Sky I don't think anyone could ever tell the difference.

Pickups are NOT microphones. A pickup will work in a vacuum. A pickup will not work with nylon strings. A pickup works by setting up a magnetic field and running a steel wire through it, the vibration of which effects that magnetic field, causing a small electrical current to be generated in the wire coil. A pickup is a generator. When you sing into a microphone, you cause a membrane to vibrate, which by a few different methods, generates a small electric current. Try singing into a pickup with no strings on the guitar and see how it works. When you strum the strings, they transmit vibrations into the guitar body and neck. This would necessarily cause the pickups to vibrate sympathetically, moving the magnetic field in reference to the strings, and voila--tone wood. When the tone wood is 1/8" thick on an acoustic guitar, it absolutely makes a difference. When the the sound comes from a speaker several feet away, and the tone wood is a 1 1/2" slab, the difference is miniscule. We ought to be more interested in the tone wood of our speaker cabinets.

Here's the truth guys -- If you think it makes a difference, then it does! For those about to rock.. ! 🎈

Great video but I don't agree because I don't think Americans received any visit from aliens to leave exactly the wood that would give all that tone to the music they say about wood, in other words, selling the American dream that they are better until they find wood in the back of the house to be better!!

Increased mass doesn't damp more highs. It damps less lows. Decreased rigidity damps more highs.

A 27min video ended with "maybe/kinda"

It’s about stiffness/hardness, Chris, not lightness

So, if I am getting this right - In the process of finding your electric tone identity, you could use trash can as body and concrete for neck and if that's your thing, go for it.

The answer to the question is at 1:02 😂 In all seriousness, I am not sure anybody has done rigorous scientific experimentation and analysis to answer this. And I am not sure that you would ever be able to answer this completely as each situation will be different enough that you would need to perform a very rigorous scientific analysis of that situation. Just go with whatever makes you happy and you can afford.

do trumpet and piano players go thru all this bull shit to make music and sell it?...like what color the keys should be and the quality of brass???...amazing that people can still make music with out Brazilian Rose Wood??

But Les' log sounded no different than his later Pauls

It's incredible that in the 21st century the answer is still relegated to the usual useless blablabla, there are people online who have demonstrated with facts what the real situation is. Even Mr. PRS, with an internal factory behind him, didn't bother to demonstrate this with facts and this is the best demonstration that wood matters very little in electrical instruments tone.

I can't take what you're saying seriously with that headstock poking out from the top of your head. I therefore conclude the wood makes no difference worth worrying about if it is a solid body.

Yes, the pickup was and is the one thing that makes the sound. Watch Jim Lills excellent videos. The most dramatic difference would be no wood guitar against a mahagony guitar, but there was none. And it’s totally logic once you know the physics. You guys can think and talk about it dozens of hours, but just do science and experiments then everyone will see and hear. It doesn’t matter which angle, what rubs or scrubs as long as the pickup doesn’t care and a pickup only sees magnetic fields,

@triax7006

Жыл бұрын

It's so difficult for the perceived look & feel of an electric guitars which were only made from wood because the first guitars were simply acoustic guitars like the jazz guitars with the pickups fitted. It takes a long time for people to get over that attachment that it isn't the wood that play a part & it is just the pickups that change the tone. As long as there is enough mass to create sustain that is suitable (and people do not need sustain for 30 secs or more in reality) then guitars made of non wood materials will be successful. As guitars now are starting to be made more & more of composite materials hopefully this whole "tone wood" debate is destined to the dustbin of history.

"Pickups are microphones"

@5701111659

4 ай бұрын

Yes, but electromagnetic, not dynamic

I cannot believe this subject is discussed by two professionals who do not think electronic/electric components matter in electric guitar sound. Why did not you two experts put the pickups from one of these guitars on a kitchen counter and measure the spectrum difference between the kitchen setup and the original wood? As the bigger guy says...it's complicated, because we paid so much money for the quite primitive instruments. We better be happy/

My dog says so, but he don't play guitar, so fu...

this isn't the first "does wood matter in solidbody electric guitars" discussion, and it won't be the last, but many of us still watch it and comment, so it's good to get views and likes. my Gittler is titanium, no wood. works and sounds great, so do my guitars with wood

Nope!!

It does in terms of cost, that’s for sure.

if you have no idea about physics then you'll think tonewood is a thing.

@che2335

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/oGRm1qumk8iZcag.html

Microphones pick up the vibrations in the air. Pickups pick up vibrations in a magnetic field. So, there's that.

@triax7006

Жыл бұрын

Yes, microphones use diaphragms which pick up sound waves & change that to electrical energy & a signal. Pickups detect the changes in the electro magnetic field & then change that to electrical energy & a signal. The whole argument is can the wood have any effect in the vibrations which the pickup detects via the magnetic field changes. Apart from sustain which is just amplitude then the answer is no.

Absolutely not

Short answer: it does not. Long answer: watch Jim Lill's video testing that in the only proper way I've seen. Fixing everything else and trying it out. From all similar videos I've watched: the only things that REALLY matters in tone and sustain is pickups and amps. If you really thing about how an electric guitar works and produces sound, it makes perfect sense.

@stephanematis

2 жыл бұрын

and speaker/speaker cabinet, per Johan Segeborn's videos

@edwinrebece9832

2 жыл бұрын

So cheap guitar but modify pickups like Seymour Duncan?

@AboutThings_byTarif

2 жыл бұрын

@@edwinrebece9832 playability and feel would suffer or be noticeable. But not sound or "tone" if using same Seymours put in a more expensive guitar with more "resonant" wood. Pickups and amplification. Rest is look and feel.

@AllCarsUnited

2 жыл бұрын

Sorry but everything factors into it Much more than just a amp and pickups. Like PRS said if it were just the pickups you wouldn't notice a difference between a regular solid body and semi hollow and sure enough, voila, there's a noticeable difference.

@GeoffBosco

Жыл бұрын

Jim's video is interesting and I'm not saying his results are meaningless, but there's nothing in it to suggest how rigorous his tests are. It's way to easy for a single person to set up and execute their tests to get the exact results they wanted.

The answer is absolutely NOT. Just watch Jim Lills video on where does tone come from. The end is absolutely amazing.

Vibrato Chris.....

Google electric violin and then tell me wood matters for an electric instrument. Violin builders are known for their high preference in tone woods with acoustic violins, but for an electric, it hardly matters what it's made of, you see some that are essentially just a stick with strings but they work and sound just the same.

"Tonewood" is a marketing term, which is used as a reason to charge more money. I understand exotic woods are more expensive, but to say they have any effect on the tone of a plugged in electric instrument is silly. I can play electric guitar and electric bass sounds from my Roland Integra 7, but it's all digitized...where is the tonewood? The MIDI keyboard I use is plastic - again, where is the tonewood? The sound is 100% digital, but the tone is great; I can even use EQ to shape my tone. PRS is nothing more than a modern-day snake oil salesman. He comes off as an uptight know-it-all who can never be wrong, and I hate that attitude. Humble yourself a little bit, dude. Bottom line for me is that I couldn't care less about "tonewood" on electric guitars.

Build quality 🧐

It’s simple, it does matter. Off course, it’s not a black and white difference like some may want but wood definitely has a tone, vibe, feel, a mojo to it. If you when playing a guitar can’t hear it/feel the difference that’s ok, one individual can’t be good a everything 😉

No. The answer is no.

Played expensive and dirt cheap guitar, wood matters, money payed do not matter that much. All my best guitars have been, are made, of "mahogany". The depth, richness and sustain that mahogany creates is to my taste not for everyone but for me. Back in the days builders and manufactures they picked wood by experience and knowledge but one can make an axe of about anything that is right, it will work... So any wood ore non wood aka technical wood made of bits and pieces and of that what will come out of an soarpipe boiled down to an paste and made bricks of will do very fine if one belives it to. And as today we do belive. This is not something new so when we are looking back on premium and classical they must have been stupid pulling all that effort in as they could have used just something easy to get wood as wood or non wood.

The answer is not complicated. Aluminium guitars sound ~ the same. Toanwould is a grade of wood. It needs to be stable. It needs to be easy to work with (why don't we see a lot of oak guitars... (NO THIS IS NOT A QUESTION, I'm a joiner/carpenter, in my spare time, when I'm not harassing the interweb. And sometimes I also play my guitars). It needs to look nice (flamed maple sounds the same as a plaintop). The voicing of a guitar is dictated by the distance between the bridge and the P.U. Anything else is B.S. Anyone claiming "resonance" etc. is talking out of their soft and dampening beerbellies and sausagefingers. Try a tuning fork on a piece of rubber and hear the resonance.... :s

I'm 5.50 in and the guy on the right is so very wrong, Pickups arn't microphones, there is no diaphragm. The string is part of generating the eletromagnetic field. Pickups are transducers, part of a microphone is a transducer but that doesn't make them the same thing. All that 'fundemental' stuff is just silly, 'The pickups are amplifiying the strings' Ummmm no! again, not microphones, not amplifiers either! (there's a good reason we don't call them microphones or amplifiers, can you guess what it is?) A moving piece of metal causing a disruption to an electromagnetic field being transduced into an electrical signal, turns out the wood that the pickups are attached to (a somewhat non ferrous material) has nothing to do with any of that. Start by getting straight in your head what each part of the guitar actually is, then learn what they do, then watch Jim Lill and get over yourself.

I'm originally a sax player, born again musician on guitar. Absolutely the wood matters: size, thickness, and density. In acoustic wood instruments as well as 'brass' the higher end instruments are made with denser materials. Even an electric sax, the higher end it is, the more and better the material it's made out of. Already knowing this, it's obvious to me on electric, solid body guitars as well. With a Stratocaster or the like though, the wood is selected primarily for strength. It would be more technically challenging to make a Stratocaster with softer woods. They would warp or perhaps even break apart. On describing tone, I describe it physically as well, but not because of a readout on a screen. A deeper voice typically comes out of a larger person, whereas you can probably tell by the tone of someone's voice if they are petite or even a little person, much moreso male or female, adult versus child. Both my sax and Stratocaster have a fat tone with chimey highs that still maintain that heavy sound. Sure, the Stratocaster sounds better after I changed the pickups and pots, but the tone is still characteristically the same as I designed it by modifying everything from the heavier gauge strings, nut, bridge saddles, and even the springs in the back. Every time I upgrade the materials on the guitar, it changes the tone. Next I'm going with a bigger, heavier tremolo block and probably replacing the neck with a roasted maple one. Bottom Line is to me, as a trained and experienced acoustic musician, it's the same with solid body electric guitars. If it was mostly about the pickups, then you could put Stratocaster pickups in any other make or model of guitar, it would sound the same, and obviously that's not true.

@che2335

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/oGRm1qumk8iZcag.html

And I'm sorry, but holding a Les Paul and a Strat and then saying the difference in their woods matter is just insulting to the concept of comparing shit.

@rexrathtar3893

2 жыл бұрын

Did that sentence make sense in your head?

@griviere42

2 жыл бұрын

Well it does in mine 🙂 the comparison he did at the beginning just doesn't make any sense

@AllCarsUnited

2 жыл бұрын

They literally said all the components matter. Did you watch the video?

I must say that i also assumed that the neck on an electric guitar has minor influence on the tone up until i changed my full maple neck to a roasted maple neck with rosewood fingerboard. The guitar changed so much that it blew me away.

The answer is yes, but no one will notice

This has always been an interesting topic to me. I'm of the mind that your electronics and hardware are probably 80% of the sound. Tonewoods color the sound about 15%, and the last 5% comes down to the finish. Since the strings are anchored to the guitar and cause the wood to vibrate, certain woods can dampen certain frequencies while not affecting others as much. This changes the sustain of certain notes and certain strings. I don't think every piece of mahogany, maple, or ash acts the same as another piece because it was a different tree with different density and composition. Each individual piece of wood dampens different frequencies to a greater or lesser extent, affecting the sound of the guitar. If an electric guitar has a 1mm thick coat of polyurethane, that will also dampen certain frequencies much more than a .005" coat of polyurethane or nitrocellulose would. So the 15% that tonewoods contribute is what makes one guitar sound better to me than another of the exact same model with all the same specs on paper. If you're playing metal through a 5150 or a Soldano, pickups probably are the only thing you need to worry about though. Thanks for the great content! Keep up the discussion!