Always nice to see someone with enough balls to sacrifice some gear and conduct an experiment. Respect!

That worked out great my friend! I love how you used the tub! Taking the neck out was a great touch since so many of the GUITARDED folks actually think that the neck matters at all. So.....as stated from the beginning of it all, NOTHING makes any difference with a plugged in electric guitar. Just how you set the knobs on the amp or guitar. No more, no less. What it's made of makes zero difference on tone, sustain, resonance feeding back into the strings or any of that mumbo jumbo. The guitar is nothing more that a piece of SOMETHING to hold the hardware, neck, pickups etc. together. Nothing more. Great demo!

You ROCK mate, great work and thanks for uploading this info.

& Jaw dropping moment for me when you removed it. It totally challenged my concept of the way an electric guitar works. Pretty fundamental evidence of what you are saying is true. It is always an education spending time with you. And thanks for the many hours of hard work you put into these videos, it is totally worth it.

Interesting demonstration. I won't bombard you with thousands of words like I did for the body wood experiment, just thank you for the effort. :)

thank you for doing this! it is simply the pickups and amps and effects that make the tone change. woods selected are just preference....great video!

This is a fantastic comparison, it has changed my perspective entirely. Thanks a £ot!

Thanks for taking the time and effort once again ~@~. I must admit, I did cheer a bit when you took that neck out, that was pretty inspired. Looking forward to the next experiment. Cheers, Robbo.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I'm glad you liked the neck bit...I wanted to keep that as a surprise!

@robbolandsvids

10 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom Dammit, I ruined the surprise with my comment...I was gonna edit it , but then realised most other comments have also ruined the surprise as well. Oh well, it obviously made an impression on us viewers.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

robbolandsvids Don't worry...I think most people will watch before they read the comments

@ I understand I'm way behind the curve here but this was incredibly interesting and was neat to actually see put into operation. Thanks for taking the time to do this and share.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

Rich Ruzylo It's a HOOT, isn't it! Cheers Rich

That's a very creative way to go about it. I was already convinced that wood doesn't matter a bit as far as sound is concerned when plugged in so it's not like I'm going to argue with this.

Very clever with the symbol at the end :) Nice. $$% As for the experiment itself. As a physicist I must say the string itself is a standing wave and it must be affected mostly on the two ends - bridge and nut. The vibrations "bounce" off those two so to speak, so the bridge and nut material should in theory make greatest difference. And so the material and thickness of the frets (when you fretting and the frets become the other end of the standing wave). As for the wood - theoretically it should make a little difference again in the points of interaction because it's related to what the waves on the string bounce of (indirectly). But it is negligible and for an amplified guitar should be close to zero. That are my thoughts (I'm also a guitar player with around 10 years of experience).

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Zackstork, another with a scientific background, said it best that no equation concerning the interaction of a string between two fixed points takes the material that those points are fixed to into consideration. The ball is in the other side of the court now for those who can show that there is a difference.

Good to know that there are level headed individu@ls in the guitar world, afterall. Thank you for this video. I look forward to seeing your work.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Me too!

Taking my hat off ... this is outstanding :-D

Brilliant video mate ¬

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Thanks Ricky

You went above and beyond. Good job. ‰!¡!

Great stuff thanks. I've been wondering about this and as it relates to the tonewood debate. Your videos are the best on the subject. People should be buying your guitars, as you actually know what makes them work.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

jduncanm3golf Cheers, Fella

So this kinda proves, in a way, that wood types and density/weight do effect tone and sustain in a subtractive way. Which is what Paul Reed Smith has been preaching. More resonant light would subtract or interfere with the string's vibration more, thereby changing its sustain and tone characteristics slightly. Really comes down to preference. Metal player may like more sustain and brightness from a denser heavier guitar, while the country or blues player may like the tones the more resonant wood gives with certain frequencies amplified or subtracted. Because every tree is slightly different, even in the same wood types, it really comes down to the actual trees that the guitar is made from(as weight and cell structure vary from tree to tree)and the sum of its parts effect on the subtracted frequencies. Get this formula right, waalaa....perfect guitar for you. Cheers awesome vid. You rock.

@BlackLocustMusic

9 жыл бұрын

No.

@WybjornVR

9 жыл бұрын

BlackLocustMusic This doesn't qualify as a response.

I enjoyed this video very much! Thank you! ♫ ♪ ♫

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Lol! Love the notes!!!!

Man all the wild Pitch/harmonizer/Octave effects etc touchy but dialed in right with slight delay/reverb that's where it gets really interesting with bringing out/coaxing all the amazing resonance/sustain/Harmonic's/overtones etc

GREAT VIDEO

Awesome! I build my own electric guitars and really appreciate this information. Thanks for putting in the effort to make this video and to share it with us. £££

@DKGCustom

8 жыл бұрын

+Namin Nooman Ha ha...you watched it till the end.....not many do recently based on the comments Cheers Namin, nice to meet you

Great experiment. You clearly showed that dampening the body of the guitar had little effect on the sustain of the guitar, however, you also clearly showed that it destroyed the input energy as well (aux string), which in turn (if you watch my experiment) has a double effect -- not only are you ruining the tonal effect (sustain aside) of the "wood's influence" on that string -- but -- it stands to reason that there is less vibrational energy available for what I will call (and demonstrated) the "microphonic" effect. So your experiments provides evidence that if we attach a tub of water to the body and mess with its ability to freely resonate, we also ruin the chance for the effect of the wood to enter our signal path. As for sustain, I'll give you that... apparently the wood in a guitar really has little bearing ... well done. Very interesting any way you look at it. Thanks. I will attach this to my video, I believe it is in peoples interest to see both sides of the debate.

great experiment!

I think this could be a good theory: I took my guitar and played it without the amp, I couldn't hear it that well, I then put my ear to the back of the guitar and it was like having headphones on. the wood acts like an amplifier, and pickups are basically microphones. well I posted in another video that my stomach growled when I stopped playing my guitar the other day, my hands were on the strings muting them and the sound went right through the wood and to the pickups and out the speaker. so two things are going on, the pickups get most the sound from the strings, and the pickups also pick up some of the sound from the wood, those TWO sounds are then picked up at the same time and are blended together to create one sound image, so I think wood does make a difference.

Loved it... :) Great video, Thanx

#^ I watched your entire video.. and loved the experiment.. Looks pretty solid to me.. Thanks for the effort.!!

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Actually pretty soggy. Thanks. Pretty solid results though.

α - Haha, You're the Gyro Gearloose of Guitar experiments - Ω I actually never thought about the resonance of the body interfering with the sustain ...but of course, it makes perfect sense. The neckless part was also quite hilarious. Thank You for this astounding demonstration!

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I had to look up the Gyro Reference, Thanks Buddy

@DerEchteBold

10 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom Not before posting that It came to me if the name actually could be an offence of any kind, I hope not. It's german version (Daniel Düsentrieb) is known to everybody as synonymous for genius and it's always a big compliment!

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Danke Schön!

After watching this video in its entirety I feel a comment is in order. To complete this survey I will watch the Paul Chapman vid and see what all the hubbub is about. If I was even considering purchasing a Wes Montgomery replica guitar, I now realise, after watching these informative, thoughtful and philosophic videos of DKG Custom, that the hollow body Gibson, single pickup (like a Gibson ES175) has nothing to do with being a hollow body, therefore, and for that reason, special properties of the electrified sound of the resonating strings in a magnetic field, and more of a homage to a truly great black man and his favourite guitar. In my quest for a proper electric guitar I choose to shun the solid body guitars for this reason alone.

# Thanks for doing this! Rock on!!!

The Sound of 3D Printed Guitars I think you have done a fantastic job of objective thinking . tThe above clip from July 1993 would appear to support yopur results John

Sorry for all the comments, but I have to tell you that this makes me want to design and or build a few custom guitars for myself being that I think I can make them from different materials and or smaller and make it sound just fine! I've been wanting to make a travel guitar that actually sounds good and is lightweight and easy to play. Your video's might have just been the spark I needed. God speed to you and your efforts sir. From Indiana. USA

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Comment away Tim. Yep there are some great travel guitars out there that are not much more than a neck with pickups on it. DESIGN AWAY safe in the knowledge that you can pretty much any material you want. Be aware though extreme materials could introduce other factors, like rubber and aluminium, though there are some great examples of extreme too.

@hoosierdaddy2308

10 жыл бұрын

Thanks sir. I'd still use wood probably, but maybe some other stuff added for visual effect is all. I personally still like wood's feel. Like my favorite shotgun, or a woman! You have to have the right feel.. LOL. Thanks again.

@AlexPractical

10 жыл бұрын

Tim Smallwood I saw a neat guitar made from a 3d printer not too long ago on KZread. Might want to check out 3d printer guitar or something. There were a few of them and they all sounded great. (Like, exquisite.)

@hoosierdaddy2308

10 жыл бұрын

I've seen them too. Thanks so much. Yeah, they were cool. I'm going to make a neck thru guitar I think that's small.. Should. be interesting

Excellent video my friend.....*£*

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

Im Guitar Nuts Thankyou...you have excellant taste, Sir!!

The guitar resonates as a complete guitar, but the resonance can be stopped when you attach it to a bag of sand to the body or substitute the neck. Did I miss anything?

# Thank you for doing this!

Wow man... I don't know what to say and this after just watching a video yesterday with Mr. PRS declare how much those things make a HUGE difference. Thanks for doing this m@n. I'm just blown away over here.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

Cliff Warren Thanks Cliff...welcome to the roller coaster

Hi Duncan, I would have expected more views on this video by now. What I have noticed in this video is the guitar sounds darker than in the previous video. I feel that if any difference is going to be detected it would probably be in the area between 5khz and 10khz. I know you look at me as someone who believes wood does have an effect but really I am undecided even to this day. Honestly if wood were to be found to have an effect. That effect is going to be far out weighed by everything else like amp tone, effects, cable length, the style of the player (where and how they strike the strings) and if that isn't enough with recordings mic EQ and what the engineers and producer do to the EQ and compression of the guitar track. Despite my small critique of this video I feel that you have made significant contributions to the subject, probably more than anybody else. @ All the best, Paul

I knew I wasnt crazy about the sustain!!!! :)

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

That sand guitar's out back if you want it... not sure if I ca get a case for it

@AnonymouseZillenial

10 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom lmao :) Id take it though play slide

£$ - Where to go next indeed! Just brilliant, I wonder how many people will still try and sell the "tonewood" thing..................... Many thanks for the great experiment. Now get on with your guitars and the web page, I want to see you up and running. Much luck. (Send this to Scott Grove.)

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I know, I know. Sorry about the website.

The lighting of this piece, along with your jacket, makes me think you're hiding out after a zombie apocalypse or a 28 days later scenario. I see it as a You Tube video about guitars that power a tube that send projectiles to destroy the brain or remove the head of a zombie. It is a wonderful public service to the few remaining survivors who happen to have a guitar. Imagine if people still complained that a maple body guitar will propel the projectile straighter or farther than a mahogany body guitar! Or if they wanted to know what string gauge you're using for your guitar zombie cannon?

Thank you. Brilliant. )$@& i really enjoyed this. The no neck was brilliant on your part. €£¥ I have learned a lot from you and Will over the past few days since I found your videos. Excellent stuff and well done. I love your effort and passion. As far the negativity towards you ...People adhere to the strangest ideas as if it was loyalty to God and country. It's a flipping guitar! Have fun and play. Choose the one you like and play it!. Enjoy the ride. The magic is in the music not the instrument. I loved the neckless guitar. Maybe your on to something for slide players. I was listening to some Roy Rogers on the train ride home today from the office.

I'm just waiting for somebody to complain you haven't used the correct "tone sand". Removing the neck was genius as you've basically got a guitar made from a giant sandbag :D

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

***** The pipe and box are just plastic. When filled with sand, the sand takes precedence over the plastic. It did exactly what I wanted it do do, remove the resonance. It is a back of sand....more than anything else. With some hardware fixed to it. I was thinking about this. You could drive a couple of stakes into the sand on a beach and attach a bridge and headstock to them, and get the same result.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

water is a great medium for transferring sound etc. And besides, it was the easiest thing to test first, and I could easily tell that it would not cutdown on the resonance. The addition of sand makes for a superb dampening medium.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I think you're over-thinking what was essentially a very basic test. The sand and water mix dampened the resonance to nothing, which is exactly what it needed to do.

@mattsworld7943

10 жыл бұрын

If you want the best sustain possible you surely want no body at all? You want all the energy you put into the string to vibrate until the mechanical movement of it vibrating eventually makes it stop, plus the drag effects of the magnetic pickups. If you look at any electric guitar there is minimal contact with the body of the guitar through the bridge. A large solid body of a guitar is going to absorb more of the energy in the strings when placed against your body. Almost any guitar will sustain much longer if held away from the body while being played, hence the reason acoustic guitars sound better when played resting on your knee rather than standing upright :-)

Are you filming this by the runway at Heathrow or something? For a Vid about the subtletys of sound this is the noisiest thing i've fecking heard.

@joselcruz81

3 жыл бұрын

I know I'm 7 years late but I wanted to congratulate you on this comment. It made my day lol!

Nice video. *% I don't think I understood what your conclusion was. Did you conclude that you get any significant amount of more sustain of notes (through the pickup) with the sand and water, or that the sustain was essentially the same?

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Hi Nick. Yep, it certainly seems that the sustain is longer without the resonance. Glad you're enjoying the vids.

The background noise in this video sure resonates.

&Physics - absorption of vibration due to density of materials. The string will vibrate (sustain) almost infinitely when tightly suspended between two HUGE blocks of VERY dense material in a vacuum. Your experiment, in my opinion, demonstrates a version of that principal. The denser the materials (the nut and bridge saddles in particular) the longer the string vibration will sustain because the materials will not absorb as much of the energy generated by the string vibrating. (Imagine if you made the nut and saddles out of foam). I don’t think it has as much to do with the waves of the body and string interfering with one another, but that is an interesting thought. I suggest it has more to do with the absorption/transfer of the energy. As your experiment also demonstrated, the density did not seem to make any difference in the tone (which is expected as the pickups are electro-magnetic, not micro-phonic). Well done.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

Matthew Grose Thanks Matthew

🕳🔑 great demonstration of all the fallicies Thankyou

I'm trying to figure out your conclusion. You have done a good job of confirming theory. If a string is tied to something infinitely dense and massive, all the energy put into the string will stay in the string. Neglecting things like the resistance of air, it should ring forever. Anything less will cause energy to be transmitted to the body where it can be fed back to the stings and dissipated. You only plucked one string. That may or may not be the frequency of peak resonance. In any event, you found that by increasing the mass of the object to which you're connecting the strings, you've decreased the level of energy lost to the body (at least at the particular frequency of the E string). I was under the impression you were trying to prove that the body connecting the strings is immaterial. If that was the objective, it seems you disproved your original conclusion. I'll give you a more real world example. I have an SG that came with Classic Humbuckers. I hated the sound of it clean. Sounded very metallic and ice picky. Put P90s in in and I love the sound through my amp. More recently, I picked up a traditional Les Paul that weighs a ton. It has very similar though not exact humbucker pickups to the originals in the SG. It sounds wonderful through the same amp the SG sounded ice picky. I don't disagree that pickups play a much larger role in sound than body material, but it's going to be a task to prove that none exists because it obviously does.

+×÷= Just to make sure I understand some of the results...a decrease with body resonance decreases the contention between the body and string resonance, increasing overall string sustain?

Wish I would have seen your and will's videos before I had acquired 24 guitars, bases, 12 strings. #I am not a woodworker$&^%*? (Electronics tech/machinist-been playing with wires over sixty years- guitar and bass maybe fifty). I have assembled 8 of these myself teaching me it's the setup and the guitar player themselves that make all the difference. I find that heavy swamp ash- is just heavy and uncomfortable after a while- doesn't really change the sound. I'm finding that those thinking they need exotic and expensive guitars to sound good maybe ought to learn to practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more because a good guitar player can make any guitar sound alright and a great guitar player does not rely on "materials" for their great sound. Love the videos keep them coming. ( Spike said this.)

@DKGCustom

8 жыл бұрын

Cheers Spike

ΨΩΨ Thanks for that extremely informative video and all the effort you went through to make it! I am still left with room for thought though... I have informed myself that wood does not make a difference in the sound of an electric guitar and am very willing to believe it. I was pretty surprised though when I visited a guitar shop lately and tried two identical p basses (Cheap copies, house brand) just one with maple fingerboard and one with rosewood and they sounded different. So I argued with the salesman that this must be due to production tolerances. He insisted that it was the wood so I had him fetch another instrument of the same model. It happened to have a rosewood fingerboard again and, to my surprise, sounded basically exactly like the other rosewood fingerboard instrument. Might or might not be coincidence... They had no more instruments like this to prove it. So what I think is this (and please share your thoughts on this, I am definitely not trolling but really interested in the truth): A really good guitar will have a very rigid support for the string, so the fixing points (bridge and saddle or fret) basically do not move at all. You cannot improve the tone anymore by making it more rigid, not even with a set of heavy-as-hell-mud-containers that are far too heavy to be moved by the oscillating string. But if you have a less well-built instrument like the chinese p bass copies I tried, the neck can oscillate in a way that takes frequencies away from the sound. This is obvious when you have a dead spot on the fretboard. And there seems to be no discussion about their existence as far as I can tell, which does not go together with the claim that the neck does not make a difference to the sound. (There seems to be a consensus that dead spots do not normally occurr on headless instruments or instruments with a carbon neck, for example.) So my conclusion (again, please correct if I am thinking wrong): Good guitar with rigid construction => no influence of wood or construction, but a soft construction of the neck might lead to dead spots and other influences to the tone. Seems to make sense to me and seems not to be debunked by the video, supposed that your removable-neck-guitar is well constructed with a stiff neck, - and probably an additional support from the pipe even before you removed the neck. And the pipe construction is also very stiff. Seems also to be consistent with the WillsEasyGuitar video "what does change your guitar's tone?" where he says that there is a point from which a soft construction will be detrimental to the tone. And might explain why some people - who maybe have worked more with crappy than boutique instruments - still believe that wood makes a difference.

"." You put an awful lot of effort and time into doing what you've done there which is going a lot further than people who spout theory all day long will ever do. You also have the humility to point out that its not cut and dry myth busting. It was interesting to see that when you removed the neck the sympathetic drone string started to register vibration again... what would you say caused that? Also would you mind me asking (you may have answered this in other videos if so apologies)... was the guitar straight into a sound card or into a high impedance instrument input? Were the tone controls down? You've certainly proved a lot at the fundamental vibration of the string, I'm just trying to gather what I can about the higher frequency content. Thanks for your time!

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I can answer all those questions really easily. As for the signal on the Aux String, If you notice earlier in the video I have a thick lump of brass between the neck and the Aux String pickup. That's because the Faraday Cage I built around that pickup was not enough to shield it from the top E string. I simply forgot to put it back, hence you see the small peak. The signal from the guitar was using iMic guitar USB interface directly into Logic Pro. The signal from the Aux String using a C-media Jack to USB. Tone and Volume controls fully open.

@PoJoWo

10 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom Thanks for your reply. Its hard to comment with a background in physics and electronics and not sound critical. I wouldn't want to elicit a negative response, you seem quite emotionally involved in the whole thing, understandably with what youve invested. You've gone to a lot of effort and are clearly talented with your finishing and practical skills. Did you use any kind of eq on the main signal? Most guitar amps have a fairly strong eq slope in favour of high frequencies. Much steeper than you'd expect. This is mainly to counteract the psycho acoustic effect of low frequencies washing out higher ones (because of the relationship of their wavelengths). Most of what we perceive as electric guitar tone is overtones due to the standing waves in the strings and this high frequency emphasis. Its hard to perceive any changes at upper frequencies in your experiment taking this into account. Increasing mass raises resonant frequency so we would not likely hear any change at the pitches you were playing unless using the right eq/filtering. Reducing mass lowers resonant frequency so to hear much change in the fundamental low e string tone you would need to significantly reduce mass, not increase it. If you wanted to shield the pickup to the vibration of the e string then you would need to use a mu-metal... brass is not ferrous and will not prevent the magnetic field of a pickup from interfering with a string. Faraday cages are effective for high frequency electromagnetic radiation, the stuff that gets into coils and buzzes, but not for eliminating mechanical/magnetic interaction. When you play the high e individually the aux string doesnt register... when you play all the strings it does so clearly the high e isnt the issue. I'm sure with your will power and eye for finish you will continue to do a great job of what you do, it would be good to see someone with your determination involved in a more scientific and controlled study.... most theorists just dont have balls to pull their finger out and do anything. I will hopefully be able to do some videos soon when i have the gear needed and I'd hope you will have a look when Ive done and that I havent said anything you find too negative. Keep asking questions and experimenting you may find a way to tweak the instruments you work on into giant killers.... clearly the industry has its spin doctors and their marketing sells us a lot of stories that inflate the facts and have us spending money just to rub our egos. Its scary how snobbery sells. cheers for now

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

PoJoWo You're right, but a 'Faraday cage' seemed like a good description. As for the brass not working because it's not ferrous, that's a fair comment. The fact is, it worked, and did shield the aux string. If you do some tests, let me know. If there's any conclusive findings of any kind, I'll put them on my wisdom page on my website.

DKG! To be honest You sir REALLY grabbed my attention with You experiment! I was thinking how I would add humble contribution in the field of science! I do believe science sometime gets completely disconnected from the reality! For example that thing with sand ...... water??! Please! Where it happens in real life?!? How about moving the "white outfit" laboratory in the real environment conditions? For example! Let's say! Different sizes Beer bellies filled with different kind of beer instead of water ;-) So now .... dats what I would call real life experiment :-) Could beer belly add acoustic properties to the solid body guitar?!? What is the ultimate size beer belly ?! Good questions ;-)

Just put a maple cap on thing and be done with it! The guitar will sound better and much brighter! You don't have the thank me. I'm glad to help ya out!

Thank you £$$$

#% nice, watched it all. interesting experiment. I'm wondering if the black resonator cavity behind the strings that is serving as the neck, makes a difference. the output wave without the neck looked quite harmonious to me, better than the one when the neck was in. maybe any solid neck actually takes away from the sound, but when there is no neck, all the vibrations are absorbed in the body where the pickups are. but clearly the pickups are mounted in solid body, and that is the biggest factor. so would that mean the body wood and shape of the cavity the pickup is in, makes a lot of difference. a tight pickup cavity shaped specially could help concentrate the sound around the coils.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Paul Smyres The pickups are only affected by changes in the magnetic field. They would ignore sound as though it was a beggar with a cup out!

Landfill Harmonic Amazing and Inspirational

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Guitar Maker at Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi

Do fretted notes make a difference?

if you did say, then sorry, but wh%t was the body attached to the box with? i would imagine this would govern the impact of the effect of the sand slush

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

It was bonded with a resin and car body filler mix to it is nice and tight. Yes the effect would have been affected by the bond if there was any gaps.

@leavemealoneyouprick

10 жыл бұрын

i'm afraid that for now i will remain unconvinced, but haven't written it off.

Though I do not have the funds to do so... I'd love to take wood planks. Some would be 2x4's others would be similar, but would have a body (square block). SO in essence, build one from mahogany, maple, one from pine, one from steel perhaps, plastic, and have the identical bridge, pickup, nuts, strings, and perhaps only bother to put one fret at a given distance, perhaps the 12th, the octave. And just really compare if any of them would be "sound different" than one another, and if any of them actually sounded good. My guess is that they'd be hard to tell apart but that there would be certain distinctions, especially after watching this experiment - where you prove certain body and neck configuration kill the "back signal" if you will. My guess is that the steel would sound tinny (why not, dobros with single coils do), that the plastic would be very dead sounding, and that you'd have about 3 discernable differences with different woods (if you chose 3 say mahogany, maple, and alder -- ill bet youd get bright medium and warm, but no matter how much you played with exotic woods you'd never get any real discernable "beautiful extra tone" cheers

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I don't have the funds either Kyle, but it looks like something like this is on the cards. I'll let you know so you can get involved with the testing, even its just consultancy.

Resonance of a solid body guitar depends mainly on the weight of the body, or more precisely, on the inertia of the body. The higher the inertia, the lower the resonance, the greater the sustain. The resonance you hear at the end is the transferred energy from one string to the other. This transfer occurs through physical work, which is only done when the body moves, or more precisely, when it vibrates. Therefore, less energy is absorbed by the body when it is heavier. In this way, less energy can be transferred from one string to the other. Therefore, the resonance will be lower. On the other hand, the sustain will increase, because due to the inertia of the body, the energy will not be able to leave the string so easily.

@Si-Broadway

4 жыл бұрын

With your reasoning, a floating bridge would prevent the transfer of energy from the strings to the body better and thus increase sustain. But there are experiments showing the faster energy is transferred into the body (decked bridge verse floating on an S style) the longer the sustain.

@valueofnothing2487

2 жыл бұрын

The question is if the nut (or frets) and bridge are all the matters, and the actual guitar body (or neck) is irrelevant. And then there is the question as to the type of material these things are made out of differ much.

Nice Video*%

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Edited? Not much to edit. Thanks bud.

Guitar resonances generally result in damping of the note. The effect is like a resonant bass trap in airborne audio. The resonance feeds the energy into the wood where it encounters loss and is damped. What you want from an electric guitar is no energy going anywhere other than the pickup. Depending on the geometry and masses of the various parts of the guitar, you will find "dead" frets where the not dies quickly. On different guitars, the frets where this happens will differ. I've done the experiment, but I can't find the results. When I do, I will post a link. The effect is not a subtle one.

Great experiment. I still believe that the material does make a difference. A 'G' will still l@@k like a 'G' on a frequency analyser. But it's the harmonic frequencies under the root and there differing volumes that make a tone "dark" or "thin" or any other descriptive word you want to use. If this was not the case a saxophone and a guitar playing the note 'G' would be exactly the same. I agree the electronics make the biggest difference. But the guitar it self still plays a part (in my humble opinion).

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

***** You are falling into the trap of considering acoustic properties. The timbre of an instrument is dependent on it's structure and material. The solid body electric guitar is the way it is because early attempts to create the amplified sound of the guitar used acoustic instruments. The acoustic timbre of the electric guitar is useless and ultimately irrelevant once you plug into an amp. I have a recording of Django Reinhardt playing with a solid bodied electric guitar in the early 1950's and he had clearly developed his technique at this point- his aggressive acoustic technique came about bcause he needed to play hard to be heard. A microphone in his Maccaferri caused him real problems because of feedback. The soild body did not have that problem. Leo Fender and Les Paul both knew the value of the solid body and that it's interference on the amplified sound was minimal. The Frying Pan showed them this. Yet, 60-odd years later we are talking about tonewood in electric guitars,- it's a fallacy.

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

You said -"Nope, the resonating system attached to the strings affects the string vibrations, which are transduced by the pickup." Prove it then.

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

Some of that stuff is excellent; I'm not going to pretend I understand the mathematics involved,- whichever way you look at it these studies show that the structure has a bearing on sustain and that is a given. However, the influence of the tonal quality of the output cannot be proven to have a discernible effect that is of any use to the player or listener. This statement *The pickup it also seems has a smoothing effect on the spectrum and minimizes the differences that body materials may cause." coupled with this in the Chalmers conclusion: "Throughout all these vibroacoustical measurements and simulations, it appears that the material of the body of an electric guitar has indeed an influence on the tone of the instrument. But this influence is subtle and complex to characterize, and even more complex to correlate with the way the instrument is perceived by its player." It seems pretty obvious that the influence of the wood on the output of the electric is at best negligible and not something a player can concern himself with for anything other than the sustain.

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

***** Well done. As a musician that doesn't concern me, I already told you the maths is not my forte and I'm not going to pretend it does.

Naysayer here, this proves that the neck doesn't matter. Which I agreed with all along. It is the body that matters. IF the entire area behind the pickguard was entirely hollow vs. filled with lead, it would sound different. I'm convinced of it.

@MravacKid

10 жыл бұрын

Obviously, the next experiment should be fitting the tuners, nut and bridge to a metal construction with pickups on a completely separate support rig and seeing what happens. ##

@pinheadgringo

10 жыл бұрын

Sure, you're convinced of it, but that doesn't make it true.

% ... good test. I liked the neck surprise too. Check out the concrete/cement guitar videos on youtube (one is cast cement body with wood neck, another is more lap-steel because it's all cement neck and heavy, the other is a standard cement construction block with wood neck).

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Believe me, these sort of crazy things are the first things I've looked at. There's a fantastic video (Impossible Guitar: Concrete Block & Piezo) of an ACOUSTIC guitar made from a breezeblock that has a fab piezo pickup. Glad you enjoyed the test. Pretty astonishing, eh?

How about an experiment on mounting the bridge on a rubber base onto the guitar which should change how it resonates and use a rubber nut :)

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

A rubber base would isolate the bridge fro the body, so the there'd be no resonance from that end. It would be down to what energy is transferred down the neck. A rubber nut, though I suspect you're joking, would deaden the strings. I do like the idea of building a guitar entirely of hard rubber, but a pretty tricky thing to make a one off.

@CypFlyer

10 жыл бұрын

Perhaps a rubber nut would deaden the strings, but the string slots where the strings go through the nut could be made like little metallic saddles (U shaped) for the string to sit on. The rubber body would be interesting but it does not have to be shaped just square; question is where do you get a hard rubber piece that size...

Sorry...i left thumb down by mistake..luv your thorough experiments ....

$ I learned from this video so it was worth watching,albeit long and drawn out

!!! & Hello. Very interesting comparisons. However, I still think wood has to have some effect, if only the way the pickups are mounted, or over tones. Not much though, and probably less than 1% I'm guessing. Although I could be totally wrong. I say this because I built my own strat / frankenstrat out of parts. The first body I had sucked in color as it was pink and this guitar didn't sustain much at all. I couldn't figure it out as I had the same pickup in another strat and it sounded great. So, I go on ebay and buy a Mexican strat body for 60 bucks I think it was. Use the electronics, neck and all other hardware. Only changed the body, and now the guitar screams. Explain that too me? Maybe the effect is in my mind. I don't know, but I play that guitar all the time now! :-) But, I'm sure that wood doesn't have the effect that marketing and many folks would have you believe. I mean a solid body guitar. I could be wrong though. I have a hard time believing that soo soo many folks would believe it's partially the wood. I think that mounting pickups directly for sure helps. I again, did this experiment on older guitar after hearing EVH speak about it. Sure enough, I was able to get a tad more sustain and harmonics were better. I think it's because the pickup doesn't move around now. I've also seen pickups in all graphite guitars work fine, and in guitars such as Steve Vai's acrylic Gem on a DVD I have. More solid and can pickup the string vibration better, but that's just an uneducated guess on my part! Anyway, thank you for the vid's. Great stuff. One can't ever stop learning and needs to keep trying! Thank you again. God speed from the USA !!!!! &&&& *** $$$ ###

from my point of view , tonewood as brighter or warmer tone out of wood in a solid body guitar doesn't do anything just looks pretty or gives you more sustain thats what i learned so far and its depressing, for sustains there is lots of tools you can use but we musicians were made to believe that wood does but it doesn't, it all comes from your fingers more than anything.

I am concerned that the output was not tested and comparisons all had to be done by memory. And, the input was all done haphazardly. I found it difficult to hear and compare anything. For example, a test for sustain might be like x db for y seconds. Or set up an aparatus that plucked a string the same way, then compare graphs. #

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

He posted the guitar audio separately. Scroll down for the link.

Hah! So amazing.... Just incredible. $ Cool, man

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Bonkers, ehh?

Just the Audio of the Guitar here: Guitar Resonance Audio

@bIindjake

8 жыл бұрын

+DKGCustom Egyption sand is better for Minor keys. Great video

I find California sand has a much warmer tone to it than east New York sand, i swear by it, wouldnt use any other sand

Is that tonesand you're using?

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

Fouter B Available from Stewart MacDonald

@fouter81

9 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom Of course :)

@BlackLocustMusic

9 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom Don't forget to buy the special luthier's shoes. ; )

With Neck: 9:47 Without Neck: 24:08

Very interesting, sir! But i do believe that results that you've got could be misinterpreted. Tonewood, and all the things you've tested DO affect the sound BUT in significantly less principal way compared to a) pickups b) amp c) strings material d) strings tension/gauge. f) construction of guitar (beginning from wood thickness and type of strings mounting, ending with hollow/semi-hollow types of body). Resuming all above said and recalling the modified Chaos Theory: If you don't understand the exact ways EACH of the above mentioned parameters affect the sound of exact guitar, the resulting sound would be pretty much random to expectations.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Absolutely right. I think misinterpretation IS one of the biggest problems of "guitar science". And yes, your list of things that effect tone, that's not questioned. Although it should be. Question everything that has come before and your own beliefs. Then we start to discover the truth.

@yrussq

10 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom I'm drummer. And the problem of how the drum would sound is much more actual when you're dealing with tonewood, shape, thickness, etc. There's major parameters too, that affect sound more than, for example, type of wood. I've heard maple drums sound like birch and reverse. BUT in a laboratory test with the same environment i do believe you'd never make a mistake distinguishing birch drum from maple. So the minor problem is to distinguish the same with noname mic, used head, random drum size, in a shitty club with shitty acoustic, through the roar of fuzzed distortion guitars and the vocalist dying on stage screamin' :)))) Sir, thank you for your video! Really appreciate when people get to fundamentals which help us to get out from the darkness of ignorance.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

yrussq "So the minor problem is to distinguish the same with noname mic, used head, random drum size, in a shitty club with shitty acoustic, through the roar of fuzzed distortion guitars and the vocalist dying on stage screamin' :))))" I think I've seen that gig!!!! Keep whacking them skins, good and loud!!

¬ ` ~ Sound with and without the neck... in both cases, you had the headstock connected to the pipe, so the pipe damped the whole neck. The pipe was, in both cases, effectively the neck. Removing the neck would, therefore, not make much difference in tone. But this does confirm my experiments with necks on various aged instruments and swapping them around. Good call! :)

$&@& Les Paul was right. The best tone seemed ( by his estimation) to be a length of railroad track. This is why les Paul's are so heavy.

Rate this video: "I can't. I have no idea what this was."

Looks like Im getting a couple of seymour duncan for my cheapo les paul 100 which I love

i loved this and your first video, but the ambient noise along with your quiet voice makes it a bit hard to understand you.

@# There's no doubt in my mind, that models of the same guitar have subtle tonal differences even when plugged in. People account for this by the tolerances in the volume and tone pots. While it's true that there can be a 20% discrepancy in a pot, I'm wondering how much of a difference it really makes. Maybe you could wire up a guitar with a switch that goes from a 500K pot to a 300K pot and let us see (and hear) how big the difference really is.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Good thought, That sort of video is certainly do-able

#Won't leave a novel like last time#, and I'm not saying there aren't some interesting dynamics/points hereisn't true, but I think there are a lot of variables here #...I may be left with more questions than answers#. What is the precise question(s) being addressed again? (That's not to be snarky...that is a legit question) With regard to the wave shapes, This may have disproved your other video on tonewood?# The general shapes are the same, but they are minutely different w/sand bag/neck on/off...hmmmm....

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I wasn't sure what I was going to be able to conclude from this either. I just wanted to create drastically different situations, trying very hard to make a guitar 'sound different', which it seems I failed and in doing so debunked pretty much any myth concerning the use of exotic materials to 'improve your tone.'

the heavier your guitar the longer the sustain, less resonance means less energy leaks out of the string and it goes on longer (pedalsteel vs banjo). a box and pipe glued to a guitar should work as a resonator and if you fill is up with water and sand it won't resonate and it will be way heavier.. simple physics(instead of this poppycock)

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Well yes....erm that was the point....I don't think you get the point

Sounds pretty good. I want to buy a guitar made of soggy sand. ##

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

That guitar is waiting to go into the skip...help yourself. You can have the sand too. I'd hate to think what kind of strap you'll have to get!!

Time to d@ different bridges, saddles and nut$. Love the videos.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I hear you, but I'm not sure there's any myths to be busted there, because these do have an impact on sound. I'm not sure that there's a decent comparison though. I'll ponder on this one.

Check this out for acoustic instruments...

But how does the guitar sound when it's not clamped to a metal pipe? Since it's clamped to a pipe the whole time most of the resonance will occur in the pipe. Sounds to me like the resonance of the wood does make a difference. I can hear a difference even from the compressed video. There's no single resonant frequency to shoot for because everybody's taste is different, and it would be nice for it to resonate along most of the spectrum, not just one or two frequencies, but on every note you would play, otherwise your guitar tone would sound different when you played in different keys.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

The pipe is plastic. And then it is filled with sand, so it doenst resonate at all.

@JustinHallPlus

10 жыл бұрын

It would still resonate, at first a lot when it was just the plastic pipe, and then very little when filled with sand and water. The fact that the body isn't resonating at the anchor point of the test string just means the tension was being held primarily by the pipe instead of the guitar itself.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Justin Hall Well, no. When the neck is complete, the pipe is doing nothing. It's only there for when the neck is removed. Tension does not decide where it's placed. The tension is in the string, and not it's anchor point. Force is exerted in equal proportions at the body and the headstock.

@JustinHallPlus

10 жыл бұрын

How is that true if it is clamped/cemented at both ends? The pipe (and the guitar) are two force members (speaking from an engineering statics perspective) The tension of the strings acts throughout the medium of the guitar AND the pipe, you can't have tension in the strings without having that tension distributed throughout the guitar, and the pipe, and that distribution between the pipe and guitar is decided by the structural properties of the two. Unless you don't have the guitar body and headstock clamped to the pipe (I thought you did, but I could be wrong) it is automatically going to absorb the tension and energy of the strings to some extent. That's just what two force members do. When the pipe is empty it must be resonating, in fact, since it's a hollow PVC pipe, it would be resonating a lot.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Justin Hall I think you're trying to get a bit anal about the physics involved with this set-up. The fact is that there are three wildly different builds going on, and the vast majority of people can't tell one from the other. If you want to talk physics and mechanics, theres other peoples comments here that deal with that sort of thing. I just tried something thats just bonkers, and like I said, only a handful of people claim they can hear a difference.

^ nice one well thats life i guess

Ok, found it. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55973013/dead%20frets.jpg These are notes on a Gibson SG, from the 9th to the 14th fret on the G-string. On the tenth fret (second note) you can see clear evidence of coupled resonances as the note pulses. Above that point, the resonance is coupling slightly differently into a lossy part of the body forcing the energy out of the note and making it decay quickly. By the time we get to the 14th fret we are back to normal. Resonances in guitars can cause gross effects like this, but mostly they are subtle. They are most certainly there, though. You just won't find them in over-simplified physics. You need to go deeper.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

This resonance test is very simple, if not daft. Both my tests are to be treated as the beginning of understanding, not the end, like some people seem to take it. Dead spots are a specialised area of debate. I think that this proves that wood, being a heterogeneous material is not the best for neck construction, and something like carbon fibre would be better.

@donepearce

9 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom The fact that the effect centres on a single fret, with diminished effects above and below tells us that it is a resonance at work. If the frets were closer together I could even measure the Q of the resonance. As you say, your tests are the beginning of understanding. My problem is that there are those who dismiss resonance out of hand on the basis of the simplest of equations that come nowhere near close to describing a guitar note. And this resonance effect is intrusively audible - not only does the note die quickly, it sounds different too.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

donepearce I won't argue with your points on this topic. I don't think I have the right to do so. However, I can offer you a possibility. Having seen a bezillion videos regarding building guitars that a badly seated or glued fret can cause dead spots. I'm not saying that's what you're experiencing, and I'm not dissing your guitar...it can happen with very expensive guitars too.

@donepearce

9 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom I would tend to agree, but this appears to be a common feature of the type. I did perform one more experiment in confirmation of the resonance, and confirmed it to be associated with the neck. Touching the headstock lightly against a solid brick wall turned the phenomenon off totally. I'm not trying to put you down - I'm extending the experiment and opening up further lines of study - I hope. I get the feeling that your position on the subject is not a dogmatic one, and you genuinely want to explore this.

@DKGCustom

9 жыл бұрын

donepearce so what you're saying is that when you reduce the necks resonance, the dead spot problem from that fret goes away?

¥€$. We'll done, great experiment just goes to show that as long as you have great sounding electric's in your guitar it really doesn't matter a rats backside what it's made of.....

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Thanks Buddy

I laughed %^&*() through most of the video so might have missed some of it )(*&^% You have proved, conclusively, that resonance in solid body guitars does exist and it does cause detectable vibration in the strings. You also seem to show that a lack of resonance gives greater sustain. This is less conclusive as the amount of sustain is likely to be frequency dependant. My opinion however is that there almost certainly is always less sustain on a resonant instrument. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you prove. Maybe you prove that a guitar made of wet sand and plastic could technically function? I'm not sure anyone claimed it wouldn't. Most of the tonewood arguments are set in the context of music and how the instruments respond musically. I believe it is possible to hear the difference in sound between rosewood and maple fingerboards. I believe this because I visited many music shops to try Strats and Strat like guitars. Back to back, The maple boards added a "springiness" to the sound and this was audible (to me) across different brands, different amps and different shops. It's an experiment anyone can do with only the risk of irritating shop staff! Eventually, I ended up with a sunburst, maple boarded Strat when I had in my mind a blue, rosewood boarded one! I will admit to not being able to hear a difference between the solid painted (alder) and sunburst (ash) bodies. Another aspect worth considering is that of volume. Stage volume also causes a guitar to resonate. I think this is why some slightly dull sounding guitars seem to wake up when played in anger. While I don't really agree with your conclusions, I do appreciate the time and effort you have spent in doing both this and the chipboard tonewood experiment. Thank You.

ok now I want a guitar that does not resonate at all

Very interesting, of course if resonance, energy transference was important to the sound, then a big fat man would have a different tone to a little skinny man. Because the big slushy bag of atoms man, would have more mass, and as the wave makes its way from the string, through the hands, arms and down through the big gut resonance chamber, bounces around a bit, and back through the arms, hands, and interfere with the wave in the string, then "magically" turned into an electromagnetic wave, that creates a current, that is picked up by the "pickup". But we don't hear a tonal difference between the fat man and the skinny man, because if we did, then we could start buying "tone sausages", or "tone beans", lol, and ponder the question does beef have different tonal properties to biscuits, because these questions would become relevant, So, I think the conclusion is, that resonance makes no difference. hmm "tone chocolate", maybe there's a market, because with clever marketing, the uneducated will buy anything. peace ##>

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Well some would say that Jack Black and Jimmy Hendrix sound totally different. Tone Sausages must exist. Yummy

@frostyboo2

10 жыл бұрын

Hmm, maybe I didn't think my message through enough, because as you say there will be those that may well use the, Jack Black and Hendrix argument, lol, but those people don't concern me, for I trust you know exactly were I'm coming from.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

I like sausages. :)

People hear and see with theyr brain, not with theyr eyes or ears. In other word, people hear what they wished to hear, and see what the wanted to see.

Who'd have thunk it? Ding ding round 2! ;-) *"*

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Strangely, I think it hits harder at the fundamentals that the Tonewood vid. If a same-ish guitar can sound pretty much the same whether it resonates or not, what difference can the wood really make. The latest video from Crimson Guitars eventually touches of this subject of mine and SG's videos and promises a counter video. I really look forward to seeing that. At last someone doing something other than just blowing chunks!

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

DKGCustom Excellent, 50% of the tone he said! It's a shame about the smug nature of his comments on the issue BEFORE he does the experiment. I can't understand the reaction that a lot of people have when relating to this issue.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Mike G I don't think he gets that no-one doubts the acoustic properties of wood. We are only talking about how anything affects the signal from the output jack. HIS experiment is going to analyse the Sound of the wood. DUH. I considered commenting on his feed to remind him what we're all about, but I'll leave that to someone else.

@MikeGgeetar

10 жыл бұрын

A lot of the arguments have related to that -acoustic properties I mean. Maybe guitars of the future will be tagged with a resonance value. Oh, er, electric guitars that is.

29 min video should’ve taken 15 minutes. Cool experiment though

Is that tone water?I think your all not getting it ,this is a real scientific test .Stand back!Don't forget to put your safety glasses on.lol,hahaha.Your video has been funny as hell! Where's the waterfall!#¥¢£Good points,I mean how far do they want to go to prove that a guitar is the sum of all parts not just wood!

Fender masterbuilt and Gibson Custom shop Lp 59 vos vs late 70s lawsuit era Chinese copies in a blind sound comparison with results revealed after voting. Now that will stir up a hornets nest. As for the test. When I was 18 I bought the heavist? guitar the store had,a Explorer E2 because I was always told heavy=sustain.So for the better part of 30 years it had the best sustain of all my guitars.That was until youtube came out and I was told different.Then almost instantly,it did not have the best sustain but was just heavy.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

Did you actually watch this video? It had nothing to do with weight and sustain. Although, if you apply the results to a heavy guitar that doesn't resonate so much, then sustain may be increased. A not so hot bridge would negate result though.

@JIMJAMSC

10 жыл бұрын

Yes I watched. I have around 40 guitars from a ones made from acrylic,a aluminum Jackson Roswell, a steampunk custom,basically a guitar covered in metal with nuts,bolts,chains and weights 17 pounds.The typical Fenders,Gibsons....Guitars that resonate provide a tactile feedback and feel lively.Especially in front of a loud Marshall that in itself will vibrate a lighter guitar and many might mistake that "feeling" for longer sustain.I always wondered if woods really mattered turn a LP on its side and look at that tiny bolt used to secure the bridge to the wood.You would think if it was so crucial the bridge and bolt would be really a area being explored for improvements.Maybe thats next?BTW-With a $120 10 band MXR eq I can with a few tweaks with the sliders make just about any tone one could imagine.

@DKGCustom

10 жыл бұрын

you should do a video of that!

@JIMJAMSC

10 жыл бұрын

Nah, Nasa could spend 20 million $ and 10 years doing a detailed study and musicians are more likely to believe a drunken Slash rambling with a bottle of Jack betreen his legs.I do not even pretend to try and sway anyone.Like I said in your other vid.If you think a flamed top sounds better.It does.If someone thinks his original 59 LP is worth every bit of the 1/2 million he dropped on it, it is. Good luck and look forward to your next vids.