The Guitar Wood Myth - Emperors New Clothes???

[WezV]

I think the lack of published research to date is shocking when you think about it...After almost a century of electric guitars, no one has proved beyond doubt that the wood makes a significant difference to tone, and instead the topic is left to speculation on a pickup forum...after almost 100 years of design and research, we are left putting forward personal impact statements.

Taking out all speculation, we have zero evidence that wood makes a difference to tone of an electric guitar, just allot of people believing in the wood god.

most of us dont need the research to know wood makes a difference.  Not saying it wouldnt be interesting to see more definitive proof.   But i dont need research finding to tell me the sky is blue either, i experience it everyday

personal experiences is enough evidence for most of us - so i dont find it shocking that nobody has felt the need to research it properly.  but i am sure we all also except this is not objective proof of aything

but if proper research was to be done you need a way to change teh structure of the body without changing anything else at all - not even retunign if you can get away with it.   If someone buys me a tufnell birdfish i will set up a proper experiment on how the different wood blocks affect its tone

Why dont Gibson/Fender have a page that shows "click here for mahogany tone with X pickup" "click here for basswood tone with X pickup"?

because then you would complain when your mahogany bodied guitar sounded different to the clips.   If you accept wood makes a difference, which most of us do.  You also have to accept its a natural and incredibly variable resource.   not all pieces of mahogany will sound the same, but their is a tonal range where most mahogany fits into, and this can actually overlap with the tonal range something like swamp ash fits into.  You just cant make specific tonal claims when talking about the tone of certain woods because it can vary so much

[blue]

i think one of the best examples to refute this is the "les Paul buying trip".  i know that i personally sat in one single shop, with a Marshall combo and a tuner, and went through half a dozen Les Paul standards, all with the same woods and pickups, some were even the same colour!  the only difference was that some had a '50s neck, and some a '60s.  every guitar sounded different, usually just a slight difference, but a couple quite dramatically so.

i do feel that a pickup gives it's own distinct voice to a guitar, but i think the wood gives that voice it's timbre (no pun intended)  and tone. a low output pickup in a Les Paul will have a girth and thump to it that the same pickup will not have in a Strat. i've found myself that fretboard wood seems to have the greatest single influence, followed by how big the neck is, and maybe then how thick the finish is. 

[Zaned]

Taking out all speculation, we have zero evidence that wood makes a difference to tone of an electric guitar, just allot of people believing in the wood god.

I don't need evidence of the wood making a difference in tone. Or evidence that this day is (lightwise) darker than yesterday :) I hear it and I see it.

EDIT: I was sloooooow.

-Zaned

[darkbluemurder]

I just think the conclusion that because an electric guitar does not have a significant air resonance (as an acoustic guitar has)its woods are neutral to the tone is flawed, unless conclusive proof to the contrary is presented. Guitar wood, hardware and construction all affect string movement, the absorption or non-absorption of specific frequency bands, the attack and the sustain. This string movement is then picked up by the pickup (no pun intended but accepted) which turns it into an electric voltage signal which is then further amplified.

One thing has not been discussed yet - unless I missed it. The electric guitar is only part of the instrument. The other part is the amplifier. The amplified sound waves get back to the guitar and strings, and you will find that different guitars react vastly different to such soundwaves. Take e.g. a guitar made of very dense and heavy wood. It will not nearly be affected as much by the amplified sound as a guitar made of light and resonant wood. This is confirmed by my personal experience, noting that some guitars feed back easier than others - even with the same pickups in them.

I must say though it speaks for the forum members here on this board that the discussion - which could easily turn into ugly emotional rants - stays civil and focussed.

Cheers Stephan

[Zaned]

Guitar wood, hardware and construction all affect string movement, the absorption or non-absorption of specific frequency bands, the attack and the sustain. This string movement is then picked up by the pickup (no pun intended but accepted) which turns it into an electric voltage signal which is then further amplified.

That pretty much summarizes the electric guitar tone production in an easy to read form :) MDV's post was excellent, but some readers might not get through it alive, no offense though  :lol:

A fun video giving audible differences between maple/rosewood fretboard material. Rosewood vs Мaple
Identical electronics.

[DaveyHoran]

I must say though it speaks for the forum members here on this board that the discussion - which could easily turn into ugly emotional rants - stays civil and focussed.

Cheers Stephan

Agree with that :-) which is why I feel comfortable saying that this seems like the God debate to me...Its like you 'don't need any evidence' to believe in something, but unless someone comes along with irrefutable scientific test based evidence gained under in extremely controlled conditions which you have personally supervised, it wont be good enough...like this dude is the first person I've heard of attempting to measure the woods effect on guitar tone and the believers out there are already to stone him.

Are you guys saying that you don't think any big corp like Gibson have looked for scientific evidence under ideal conditions?
Or are you saying research was probably done but didn't come up with anything that would help sell more of their guitars...

Because if I was in the guitar making business and I could scientifically prove that a mahogany/ebony combo beats a agathis/plywood combo hands down I would be publishing that research and influencing people to buy my quality instruments rather than leaving it open to debate.  :-)


That video of Maple Vs Rosewood is ok but newer strings or pickup height could easily account for the slight tonal differences.... but based on that sound clip I'd go with the cream strat as personal preference.

[FELINEGUITARS]

I think what's happened is that the electric guitar evolved from an acoustic instrument that depended purely on the body/neck material for its tone, and a myth evolved that electric guitars depend just as much on the wood...but the wood may be the least important element of an electric guitar...

Wood is certainly less important to the electric  sound than intonation, tuning, pickups, working electrics, action... I'm beginning to believe that wood and body shape only play a part in the physical feel, shape, balance, weight and look of a guitar... (all important considerations when buying a guitar but not in terms of tone).

I think the lack of published research to date is shocking when you think about it...After almost a century of electric guitars, no one has proved beyond doubt that the wood makes a significant difference to tone, and instead the topic is left to speculation on a pickup forum...after almost 100 years of design and research, we are left putting forward personal impact statements.

Why dont Gibson/Fender have a page that shows "click here for mahogany tone with X pickup" "click here for basswood tone with X pickup"? etc... Pickup manufacturers like BK are able to produce distinguishable sound clips.

Taking out all speculation, we have zero evidence that wood makes a difference to tone of an electric guitar, just allot of people believing in the wood god.

I think buying a guitar is like buying a piece of art that also serves a practical function, and we tell ourselves that somehow the beauty of the instrument transcends the more modern elements.

I disagree hugely - the wood makes a big difference, but so does the hardware, the pickups, string gauge and type, scale length, construction style  etc.

Acoustically guitars are a SUBTRACTIVE instrument
The wood absorbs part of the frequency spectrum based on it's own resonant characteristics.
What is left after the wood takes certain frequencies out is what you get to hear
Two pieces of the same species of wood can react differently, so it is hard to exactly say wood A will always sound like this and wood B will sound like that
Of course the hardware can play a part in that through it's own inefficiency too.

This is what many players call the character of the guitar, and the choice of pickup can be made that will add to the frequency filtering to give the desired effect

Carbon fibre guitars like the Steinberger tend to not cancel many frequencies as the resonant frequency of the composite is outside the audible range.
This means that you get to hear the full frequency range of the strings, with much less subtracted from the original sound.
A combination of that and the use of the original EMG - H humbucker which sounded more like a wide frequency response single coil resulted in a sound that some players referred to as sterile (whilst a more accurate term was probably uncoloured)

To say that the wood plays no part is a real wrong step, but I agree that a lot of other factors play their part too.

[WezV]

like this dude is the first person I've heard of attempting to measure the woods effect on guitar tone and the believers out there are already to stone him.

Anybody who does any kind of research has to be prepared for their work to be torn apart by others.  That is as much part of the scientific process as the study itself.  it serves an important purpose to ensure the findings of the research are both reliable and valid.   Cant make any conclusions without that and i would expect the researcher to point out most of the things we have done, and hopefully show how they have eliminated them as variables   its just how good science is done

I think gibson will have researched it, they have certainly tried alternative materials over the years.   But i bet they spend more time researching 'what people want' than they do looking into 'what sounds best'.   But talking about good science again, would you trust gibson to take a value-free approach to studying this issue?   


anyway, I dont think he is the first person to study it but like others that have he seems to have some fundamental issues with his approach - too many uncontrolled variables

now i have never done an objective scientific study into it because i understand what a massive undertaking that would be to do properly - but i have made guitars from more types of wood than most people have ever played and i have also swapped pickups many times on many different instruments and this real life experience tells me the wood makes a difference.   its not like a religious belief based purely on faith, its a practical belief based on experience

[DaveyHoran]

Anybody who does any kind of research has to be prepared for their work to be torn apart by others.  That is as much part of the scientific process as the study itself.  it serves an important purpose to ensure the findings of the research are both reliable and valid.   Cant make any conclusions without that...

This is part of my point: according to you he cant make any conclusions without scientific study but the Wood side can make claims without any scientific conclusions... which is fine so long as you acknowledge that for the moment, without scientific study, your view remains opinion, and not fact.

[WezV]

which is fine so long as you acknowledge that for the moment, without scientific study, your view remains opinion, and not fact.

i do recognise my opinions as just that - but its a strong opinions based on experience.   OK, that is not as strong as a conclusion based on scientific testing - but probably the next best thing. 

also, be careful using woods like 'proven' or 'fact' around scientifically minded people.   The good thing about proper science is it allows room for itself to be wrong.  proof and truth are not the same thing.  scientists present evidence to support hypothesis and make conclusions based on this, they allow room for later evidence which may alter those conclusions.   They always work on the best possible theory with the evidence currently available.

No our observations are not very scientific. But they are the best evidence currently available, and support the theory that the materials used to make a guitar will affect the way it sounds

[Twinfan]

You make a fair point Davey, in that we have no conclusive scientific proof of either view.

What we're objecting to is that his own scientific research is flawed, and that it cannot be used to prove his assumption categorically.  I would like to read his final findings when they're written up.

EDIT: beaten to it by Wez  :)

[Dmoney]

This is getting silly.

Without giving the details of his study then what this guy is on about is pretty much his own opinion too.

I've had two les paul type guitars. Same timbers, slightly different hardware. Same scale length etc and I had nailbombs in both and i measure pickup height and adjustable pole height on both and set them up identically. Not only did they both feel different to play (not neck shape and playability but the feel of the string vibrating under the fingers) but they also sounded noticeably different. Same again with a nailbomb in an ash bodied maple necked strat and again with a nailbomb in a mahogany body maple neck rosewood board prs.

Also... this discussion about what is 'best' is also nonsense. I know what I prefer from all the guitars I've played. I know if I pick up a guitar and I have an idea of what woods it's made of then I have a good idea what the chances of me liking the sound will be. Other people might prefer alder bodies or basswood and think one or the other is 'better'. As has been said, there are so many variables in all kinds of bits of wood (probably even from within the same tree) that it's hard to suggest anything is better just based on it's list of timbers. I mean, does a £30,000 guitar made of rare woods sound £30,000 'better' than a guitar made of common materials? I kind of doubt it but I'll concede it would probably sound different.

I don't mind the guy doing the test and it's vaguely interesting but again, my personal experience says leads me to argue what is being suggested. I also believe water is wet. I haven't done a scientific test to prove this, but experience tells me it is.

[Kiichi]

Anybody who does any kind of research has to be prepared for their work to be torn apart by others.  That is as much part of the scientific process as the study itself.  it serves an important purpose to ensure the findings of the research are both reliable and valid.   Cant make any conclusions without that...

This is part of my point: according to you he cant make any conclusions without scientific study but the Wood side can make claims without any scientific conclusions... which is fine so long as you acknowledge that for the moment, without scientific study, your view remains opinion, and not fact.

I think he will be with you on, I for one am, but the thing is that "woods make a difference" is the exepted law of the land kind of thing. It is widely exepted as fact and it will remain as (the as is important here) fact until disproven (our understanding of gravity is no fact but rather a threory too). Now supporters could cement this fact with research, but it is mainly up to the other crowd to disprove.

The supporters need to keep an open mind though, even if initial doubt is of course very acceptable and questions like the ones raised in this thread are, as said, essential to the scientific process, ensuring that a conclusive result is produced.

[WezV]

I am not adverse to questioning the accepted viewpoint.

see the recent discussion on tone capacitors in the tech section

[AndyR]

I don't think there's a "sounds best" or "beats hands down" anyway.

It's all personal preference. In some cases, lots of people share the same preference, but it's still personal preference.

And those preferences will have been formed by a whole load of factors. Some of them might have been based on misconceptions, but it doesn't matter, they're still preferences.

And if a load of folks all have the same preference, and the material is rare, then the material is worth more.

EDIT: Ah, Dmoney was banging the same drum just before me :D

I've still not read the article or even followed the link - but as long as it's what's needed to get him his BSc or whatever, then fine. Otherwise, he's kind of wasting his time. If he does do a thorough job, he'll probably find vague indicators that point to supporting what many have "known" for years and years from practical experience. If he doesn't (especially if he's starting his work with a preferred conclusion - don't know whether that's the case), then he'll come up with some vague indicators that the whole world is wrong, some will listen to him, some will argue with him, most won't give a monkey's :lol:

EDIT: Love the gravity analogy.... nearly all facts we have are theories based on observation, theories that have yet to be proved wrong. I can't even prove to myself that I'm really here!