This is how my new guitar sounds

[fra77x]

I don't know about that stuff. From discussions in forums i understood that it is a controversial subject.
With my minimum research on that field i tend to believe that the most crucial factors except the player is strings, coils, overall construction and not the wood.
I know little physics and i can understand the resonance modes etc. but i don't believe they modify drastically the sound.
Of course i'm talking about electric guitars. Another fact that makes me think about it is that there are a lot of electric instruments bodyless in our days (violins, guitars etc).
A physicist i have read his opinion, said that the whole subject is to capture through the coils the most energy... and that chromaticity of the sound by the body is neglitable or not desired (or can be simulated with filtering)

[hubird]

That would say there's not much notable difference between a Stret and a Les Paul in example.
But then they use different pickups (single coin/humbuckers).
Hm, dunno, maybe you're right

at a sidetrack:
http://www.flabber.nl/linkdump/video/st ... reld-14080

[Nestor]

does anyone have an opinion about how much the body of the electric guitar influences the sound? Because the body is wood and it is not a magnetic element.

Rather than giving you an opinion, I give you unpretentiously my own experience with instruments, which is pretty long already, and a little extract of what I have learned from some restless luthiers out there, that have made very interesting experiments to find out what is all about in terms of materials.

Conclusion:

It is extremely important the material a given guitar or bass has been made of. If you have the ears to hear it, you will notice that there is a big difference in fact. However, you’ll need good pickups and a good amp to hear it in detail.

Now, there is a distinction between using distorted or natural sounds. Distorted guitar sounds tend to blend much more getting undistinguishable in some heavy tracks like it happens in hard rock groups, but even distorted, a guitar sounds pretty different from another guitar with the same hardware but with different woods, the characteristics of the timbre changes particularly in the middle range tones.

For instance, my Tele is made of mahogany, and it gives you a much softer tone than a Tele made of ash, which tends to sound much more “twangy” and aggressive.

As I suggested, there are tones of experiments already made by many people out there, changing bodies, fingerboard, pickups, strings, people, materials, etc., so saying that there is a big difference, rather than being an opinion, it is a fact.

Among these experiments we have the amazing "Fodera Team" experiments on basses,and they will tell you materials are critical to the sound of the instrument. Well... they know a real super lot about it, and then some...

[hubird]

for a good comparing test you must use the same mechanics, p/u elements and electronica on both instruments.

[fra77x]

at a sidetrack:
http://www.flabber.nl/linkdump/video/st ... reld-14080

i could not understand. Somethimg about the best guitarist in the world?

there's not much notable difference between a Stret and a Les Paul in example

I'm not saying that there is no difference. The les Paul i have used in germany had very different sound than my fender strat.
I just try to think about what is the amount of the body influence.
Can you explain me the reason behind the bodyless el. instruments?

Nestor it's a known fact that guitarists are fetihists with their instruments so even talking to them that "the wood is not important" is an excuse to crosify you. The discussions i have taken in mind is mainly from producer forums.

For instance, my Tele is made of mahogany, and it gives you a much softer tone

So all that noise for some low filtering?

tones of experiments

it is a fact

By what i read the subject is controversial. No facts, no repeatable experiments...

I don't have a problem to understand that the wood affects the sound even for 80%. I just want a scientific explanation for that. Because the wood is not a magnetic material.

[Mr Arkadin]

Wow, I now feel respect for Teles..., it's a new feeling for me...

I hope you can get one soon, you will not regret, but yours looks great!

Sadly money is tight at the moment. Also my new live project doesn't involve baritone so I have no recordings of it yet.

Some notes on the modifications. This was a standard Mexican Tele baritone:
1. Fernandes Sustainer pick-up. Actually sounds pretty good as a standard pick-up too, which was surprising. I bought the guitar with this mod (partially influenced by the fact I already have another Sustainer guitar).
2. Earvana nut fitted. I always do this, it actually helped in intonating the low E that some have had problems with because the saddle can't go back far enough. The Earvana changes the intonation point - luckily in the right direction to give more saddle movement.
3. Remaining pick-ups changed from stock to Catswhisker pick-ups, with a humbucker-sized Wide Range pick-up replacing the standard humbucker.
4. Greasebucket tone circuit added to tone knob.

Oh, and it has a tummy cutaway as standard round the back which you can't see which helps the comfort factor.

It's certainly a flexible instrument, although it doesn't quite have that Tele feel because it is a baritone, hence my desire for a proper one.

As to the woods thing, well I've even heard some guitarists say there's a tone difference between a maple neck and one with a rosewood fretboard. I can't believe anyone would hear a difference in tone there.

[Nestor]

fra77x, in that case, you need to get deeply into the field, hire a laboratory and then experiment. For me, ears are more than sufficient to assure you that materials are critical in the timber of any instrument, so it is a fact, for me

[hubird]

at a sidetrack:
http://www.flabber.nl/linkdump/video/st ... reld-14080

i could not understand. Somethimg about the best guitarist in the world?

rightly interpret. It says Santana and who again did say that.
Halfway my above post I stumbled on it while searching the net for some english terms etc.

[fra77x]

bass ad.jpg

here we can see clearly that aesthetics surpass any physics functionality

[garyb]

there is a difference, but depending on the sounds used, it might not matter.

there's nothing controversial about the effect of different woods on the sound. it's well documented. if you worked at a music store long enough to see 100's of strats, you'd see that the one's that had the best piece of wood, that is, the one's with the best acoustic tone, have the best electric tone regardless of pickups. pickups, strings, nut and setup all have their effects, however.

in fact, a test for tone acoustically is a very good way to decide which guitar to plug in.

of course, with heavy distortion, tone of the instrument itself is not that important. that's why Floyd-Rose trems became so popular a while ago. for metal leads and dive bombs, tuning is stable and it doesn't affect the quality of tone, because clipping a signal that hard emphasises harmonics that aren't usually heard in the acoustic tone of the vibrating string anyway. then heavy eq will scuplt the sound more than choices of wood etc. no player that mainly uses clean sounds and slightly dirty sounds wants a Floyd guitar for his/her first choice.

for a clean to mildy distorted sound, the wood, bridge, pickup, strings, amp, speaker, cables, etc are critical. of course, the player is the most important. a bad player on a good guitar sounds bad. a good player on a bad guitar still sounds pretty good.

even electric guitars are acoustic instruments.

if you think guitar pickups only pick up the string, try yelling into a pickup on a guitar with the amp turned up. guitar pickups are all microphonic to some degree. they hear the wood.

[hubird]

But a difference to what degree?
2, 4, 8, 16, or 80%?
two guitars with different wood bodies, same build on, and preferrably amplified, as that's what we are talking about.

[garyb]

think whole.

you can't divide a thing that is the result of a combination of factors and still have the original reality. the whole thing is required. who cares exactly what percent? even if it's only miniscule percentage, it's important.

[hubird]

a lot of people care...it's a topic, according Fra77.

you can divide al those things, it's a matter of a good test setup.
Plus a blind listening test...

I agree the details can be important tho, for a musicion.
Actually they are equally important for a scientist, or for an emulation software programmer, as they are just after
the facs or need to know them

[fra77x]

I don't want to argue on the matter i'm just searching.
I'm writing this as i hear the Portishead live in NY, fluxpod suggested to me.
Thanks Fluxpod it is what i was looking for. It reminds some of the past but it's cool.

//

you'd see that the one's that had the best piece of wood

Most possibilities want the most expensive instrument to have the "best" wood but also the best craftmanship.

Can you explain me why the stratocaster signature model my friend bought, with mahogany something, was on purpose made to look and feel "old".

I don't know the english term to express it. You know it had (on purpose) scratches on the fretboard, broken "old" colors on the body.

He's Shur guitar was a lot heavier. It's construction feeled a lot more new and polished. But the stratocaster had the "you know" sound.
That happened the first day. We were sure that the new stratocaster was fabulus. Like it transformed you to clapton immediatelly.
But after some days, and after i have expressed my friend my "investigation" about the body influence, my friend records his three guitars and he is trying to find which one is which. And he is confused. (all three are stratocaster like in design, coils etc)

think whole.
you can't divide a thing that is the result of a combination of factors and still have the original reality

That's right way of thinking.

even if it's only miniscule percentage, it's important

I don't say that it is not important

a lot of people care

That is also true.

you can divide al those things, it's a matter of a good test setup.
Plus a blind listening test...

Definately true

emulation software programmer

of course
For an example what is more difficult to emulate? The strings behaviour, or the body filtering? The strings are way crucial.

[hubird]

think whole.
you can't divide a thing that is the result of a combination of factors and still have the original reality

That's right way of thinking.

you can divide al those things, it's a matter of a good test setup.
Plus a blind listening test...

Definately true

Sorry, you can't have both, they are contradictional, or you must build in extra, causally intervening, factors to give it a reason.
Like: for a musicion it's true, or for the perception of music it's right, etc.

Would really like to see the results from a decent laboratory setup as Nestor mentioned, including digital signal analysis as well as subjective but 'averaged' listening experiences.

[fra77x]

garyB //in fact, a test for tone acoustically is a very good way to decide which guitar to plug in.

ok but perhaps it's the combination of factors and not the wood mainly

if you think guitar pickups only pick up the string, try yelling into a pickup on a guitar with the amp turned up. guitar pickups are all microphonic to some degree. they hear the wood.

I will do it, but i doubt. The coil captures the electromagnetic interference of the metal string. If you use plastic strings on the guitar you 'll see why is that case. No metal - no electromagnetic induction. No sound. Physics law.

but
from wiki:

In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sounds we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.

and from wiki:

Because in most cases it is desirable to isolate coil-wound pickups from the unintended sound of internal vibration of loose coil windings, a guitar's magnetic pickups are normally embedded or "potted" in wax, lacquer, or epoxy to prevent the pickup from producing a microphonic effect.

Because of their natural inductive qualities, all magnetic pickups tend to pick up ambient, usually unwanted electromagnetic interference or EMI. The resulting hum is particularly strong with single-coil pickups, and aggravated by the fact that many vintage guitars are insufficiently shielded against electromagnetic interference. The most common source is 50 or 60 Hz hum from power transmission systems (house wiring, etc.). Since nearly all amplifiers and audio equipment associated with electric guitars must be plugged in, it is a continuing technical challenge to reduce or eliminate unwanted hum.

Here it is not clear if they capture only EMI or the "microphonic effect" gets also mechanical disturbances. Tomorrow i'll have to yell into my coils....

Hubird
You can't have both, they are contradictional, or you must build in many extra intervening factors to give it a reason.
Like: for a musicion it's true, and the like.

True reality is the first case. (can't really split the whole, the whole is not only the addition of the parts but something more)
But in science and in practice we are using abstractions and simplify the reality so to get to know it. It works.
We don't replicate the true reality but we understand the ways it behaves or we are trying to do that.
Contradiction logic is a way of thinking and compose arguements. But there is also another way of thinking -strongly philosophical- that accepts the existence of contradictory terms.

Ok for me it is clear. The body influences the sound but not a lot. I would not say 2 but 10 percent. strings 40% coils 40%, overall construction + electrics etc 10 %. The player counts 100% on its own.

[Nestor]

there is a difference, but depending on the sounds used, it might not matter.

there's nothing controversial about the effect of different woods on the sound. it's well documented. if you worked at a music store long enough to see 100's of strats, you'd see that the one's that had the best piece of wood, that is, the one's with the best acoustic tone, have the best electric tone regardless of pickups. pickups, strings, nut and setup all have their effects, however.

in fact, a test for tone acoustically is a very good way to decide which guitar to plug in.

of course, with heavy distortion, tone of the instrument itself is not that important. that's why Floyd-Rose trems became so popular a while ago. for metal leads and dive bombs, tuning is stable and it doesn't affect the quality of tone, because clipping a signal that hard emphasises harmonics that aren't usually heard in the acoustic tone of the vibrating string anyway. then heavy eq will scuplt the sound more than choices of wood etc. no player that mainly uses clean sounds and slightly dirty sounds wants a Floyd guitar for his/her first choice.

for a clean to mildy distorted sound, the wood, bridge, pickup, strings, amp, speaker, cables, etc are critical. of course, the player is the most important. a bad player on a good guitar sounds bad. a good player on a bad guitar still sounds pretty good.

even electric guitars are acoustic instruments.

if you think guitar pickups only pick up the string, try yelling into a pickup on a guitar with the amp turned up. guitar pickups are all microphonic to some degree. they hear the wood.

I have to second everything you have said here, everything, it's a fact

[Nestor]

True reality is the first case. (can't really split the whole, the whole is not only the addition of the parts but something more)
But in science and in practice we are using abstractions and simplify the reality so to get to know it. It works.
We don't replicate the true reality but we understand the ways it behaves or we are trying to do that.
Contradiction logic is a way of thinking and compose arguements. But there is also another way of thinking -strongly philosophical- that accepts the existence of contradictory terms.

Ok for me it is clear. The body influences the sound but not a lot. I would not say 2 but 10 percent. strings 40% coils 40%, overall construction + electrics etc 10 %. The player counts 100% on its own.

Well..., that's pretty cool, good chain of thoughts and understanding. I don't know if it could be broken in such exact proportions, but it is pretty cool already, but materials, just guessing, would take about 40% I think.

[hubird]

Hubird
You can't have both, they are contradictional, or you must build in many extra intervening factors to give it a reason.
Like: for a musicion it's true, and the like.

True reality is the first case. (can't really split the whole, the whole is not only the addition of the parts but something more)
But in science and in practice we are using abstractions and simplify the reality so to get to know it. It works.
We don't replicate the true reality but we understand the ways it behaves or we are trying to do that.

Yes, if you wanne know the influence of wood on sound you do a laboratory experiment, not a performance on a stage
There wouldn't be a claim to say anything about 'true reality', let alone it would be part of the hypothese of the experiment.

[fra77x]

There even is no claim to say anything about 'true reality', let alone it would be part of the hypothese of the experiment.

You are not wrong...