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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 18:47:27 GMT -6
Without trying to open up a can of worms (I left out the topic the last time for this reason), but definitely, in a solidbody instrument, it is all about how well made it is, the strings, the nut, the bridge, the frets, scale PUs and their position. NOT the material, no matter, what is said over and over again. I had been into this hole of wood believers. It is simply untrue from a physical point of view. You might love the feel or weight of an instrument, the look makes a lot. Maybe the surface of the fingerboard does something to you. Optics to a lot for most people to be comfortable with an instrument. But what some people here already mentioned - don't buy into the "tonewood" fairy tale for solidbody instruments. Don't buy into guitar makers knocking on the wood to demonstrate it's tone. Because this is utterly wrong in the context. You don't build a xylophone, but a string instruments. The resonance frequency these people want to show you has nothing to do with what comes out of the pickups. Absolutely nothing. Except your PU ius microphonic and you love knocking on wood while playing.
There is a huge standard book about the physics of the electric guitar. The principle about what makes tone and sustain is very simple. It is not the wood and not the weight of the guitar. The mass of the guitar is by far greater than the mass of the string, and by no way this makes any mentionable difference.
Yeah, I know. People tend to believe things. But you don't need to believe. Read a physics book and do the math by yourself. That is the good thing about science. You can verify or falsify. And the people who sell you the idea of the tonewood in solidbodies can not give you proof of their claims in a scientific manner. They argument with vague ideas of what they think is going on in a solidbody. Because they can not argument the physical reality in a proper scientific manner...
Sorry to say it that hard, but there is an objective truth about physics, no matter what postmodern philosophers say...
If someone has a serious interest in the physics of electric guitars, I search for the link to the only fully sufficiently done compendium about this topic, so you can read up everything in detail.
The holy bs war about this really got much too far in the net.
I just saw, that obviously all luthiers that got pissed about the channel "Will's Easy Guitar" managed to put it down, it is blocked now on youtube, because he debunked the myth of what is the biggest advertising content of most of them. "Tonewood". IF they would have had valid proof of him beeing wrong, why do they need to kick his channel into nirvana? Because his explanations were absolutely right, in a scientific way, and described how solidbodies really work. This is so sad. Anti-scientific opinions count way too much in our world nowadays...
Sigh.
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Post by Ward on Oct 8, 2019 18:34:51 GMT -6
@smallbutfine I'll mark you down as 'dubious but there's still hope for conversion' at this point.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 8, 2019 19:45:06 GMT -6
Without trying to open up a can of worms (I left out the topic the last time for this reason), but definitely, in a solidbody instrument, it is all about how well made it is, the strings, the nut, the bridge, the frets, scale PUs and their position. NOT the material, no matter, what is said over and over again. I had been into this hole of wood believers. It is simply untrue from a physical point of view. You might love the feel or weight of an instrument, the look makes a lot. Maybe the surface of the fingerboard does something to you. Optics to a lot for most people to be comfortable with an instrument. But what some people here already mentioned - don't buy into the "tonewood" fairy tale for solidbody instruments. Don't buy into guitar makers knocking on the wood to demonstrate it's tone. Because this is utterly wrong in the context. You don't build a xylophone, but a string instruments. The resonance frequency these people want to show you has nothing to do with what comes out of the pickups. Absolutely nothing. Except your PU ius microphonic and you love knocking on wood while playing. There is a huge standard book about the physics of the electric guitar. The principle about what makes tone and sustain is very simple. It is not the wood and not the weight of the guitar. The mass of the guitar is by far greater than the mass of the string, and by no way this makes any mentionable difference. Yeah, I know. People tend to believe things. But you don't need to believe. Read a physics book and do the math by yourself. That is the good thing about science. You can verify or falsify. And the people who sell you the idea of the tonewood in solidbodies can not give you proof of their claims in a scientific manner. They argument with vague ideas of what they think is going on in a solidbody. Because they can not argument the physical reality in a proper scientific manner... Sorry to say it that hard, but there is an objective truth about physics, no matter what postmodern philosophers say... If someone has a serious interest in the physics of electric guitars, I search for the link to the only fully sufficiently done compendium about this topic, so you can read up everything in detail. The holy bs war about this really got much too far in the net. I just saw, that obviously all luthiers that got pissed about the channel "Will's Easy Guitar" managed to put it down, it is blocked now on youtube, because he debunked the myth of what is the biggest advertising content of most of them. "Tonewood". IF they would have had valid proof of him beeing wrong, why do they need to kick his channel into nirvana? Because his explanations were absolutely right, in a scientific way, and described how solidbodies really work. This is so sad. Anti-scientific opinions count way too much in our world nowadays... Sigh. I'm sorry, but no. Just no.
The resonace of the body absorbs frequencies and DEFINITELY has an effect on the tone. Admittedly, there's a lot of BS floating around the Internutz about how this takes place, but it very definitely has an effect.
The one thing that's certain is that the effect is always subtractive - choice of wood will not "boost" frequencies. Resonance absorbs vibrations at the resonant frequencies. Talk to anybody who designs studio acoustics about this. It's essentially the same thing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 11:54:51 GMT -6
Without trying to open up a can of worms (I left out the topic the last time for this reason), but definitely, in a solidbody instrument, it is all about how well made it is, the strings, the nut, the bridge, the frets, scale PUs and their position. NOT the material, no matter, what is said over and over again. I had been into this hole of wood believers. It is simply untrue from a physical point of view. You might love the feel or weight of an instrument, the look makes a lot. Maybe the surface of the fingerboard does something to you. Optics to a lot for most people to be comfortable with an instrument. But what some people here already mentioned - don't buy into the "tonewood" fairy tale for solidbody instruments. Don't buy into guitar makers knocking on the wood to demonstrate it's tone. Because this is utterly wrong in the context. You don't build a xylophone, but a string instruments. The resonance frequency these people want to show you has nothing to do with what comes out of the pickups. Absolutely nothing. Except your PU ius microphonic and you love knocking on wood while playing. There is a huge standard book about the physics of the electric guitar. The principle about what makes tone and sustain is very simple. It is not the wood and not the weight of the guitar. The mass of the guitar is by far greater than the mass of the string, and by no way this makes any mentionable difference. Yeah, I know. People tend to believe things. But you don't need to believe. Read a physics book and do the math by yourself. That is the good thing about science. You can verify or falsify. And the people who sell you the idea of the tonewood in solidbodies can not give you proof of their claims in a scientific manner. They argument with vague ideas of what they think is going on in a solidbody. Because they can not argument the physical reality in a proper scientific manner... Sorry to say it that hard, but there is an objective truth about physics, no matter what postmodern philosophers say... If someone has a serious interest in the physics of electric guitars, I search for the link to the only fully sufficiently done compendium about this topic, so you can read up everything in detail. The holy bs war about this really got much too far in the net. I just saw, that obviously all luthiers that got pissed about the channel "Will's Easy Guitar" managed to put it down, it is blocked now on youtube, because he debunked the myth of what is the biggest advertising content of most of them. "Tonewood". IF they would have had valid proof of him beeing wrong, why do they need to kick his channel into nirvana? Because his explanations were absolutely right, in a scientific way, and described how solidbodies really work. This is so sad. Anti-scientific opinions count way too much in our world nowadays... Sigh. I'm sorry, but no. Just no.
The resonace of the body absorbs frequencies and DEFINITELY has an effect on the tone. Admittedly, there's a lot of BS floating around the Internutz about how this takes place, but it very definitely has an effect.
The one thing that's certain is that the effect is always subtractive - choice of wood will not "boost" frequencies. Resonance absorbs vibrations at the resonant frequencies. Talk to anybody who designs studio acoustics about this. It's essentially the same thing.
Sorry to say this, but no, it is not the same thing. The solidbody gets it's tone from the pickup. Only what is picked up by the pickup is relevant to the tone. The quality of the 2 end points of the string, the string material, where the pickup is and how it's electrical parameters are, how the string is made swinging ... it is all about oscillation of the string between 2 end points and magnetic induction. Actually the whole point of the solidbody is to take the resonance of the body out of the equation. This makes it by far easier to produce a good tone - you don't want the body to resonate at all in a solidbody.
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Post by Guitar on Oct 9, 2019 11:59:46 GMT -6
I fear this is off topic. But the body of a solid guitar DOES resonate and it IS connected to the strings. That's my take on this "debate."
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 13:48:24 GMT -6
I'm sorry, but no. Just no.
The resonace of the body absorbs frequencies and DEFINITELY has an effect on the tone. Admittedly, there's a lot of BS floating around the Internutz about how this takes place, but it very definitely has an effect.
The one thing that's certain is that the effect is always subtractive - choice of wood will not "boost" frequencies. Resonance absorbs vibrations at the resonant frequencies. Talk to anybody who designs studio acoustics about this. It's essentially the same thing.
Sorry to say this, but no, it is not the same thing. The solidbody gets it's tone from the pickup. Only what is picked up by the pickup is relevant to the tone. The quality of the 2 end points of the string, the string material, where the pickup is and how it's electrical parameters are, how the string is made swinging ... it is all about oscillation of the string between 2 end points and magnetic induction. Actually the whole point of the solidbody is to take the resonance of the body out of the equation. This makes it by far easier to produce a good tone - you don't want the body to resonate at all in a solidbody.
You're missing something - something that's subtle but essential.
What you're missing is that the vibration of the string is affected by the energy absorbed by the resonances of the body.
Body absorbs energy at the frequencies it resonates at > those resonances become deficient in the vibration of the string because they're being absorbed > since those frequencies are lessened in the string they aren't present (as much) in the signal detected by the pickup > since they're not there to be detected (as much) by the pickup, they're less present in the output of said pickup. Result? the material of the body does, in fact affect the tone of the signal.
It's simple physics.
It can also be proven fairly easily, just replace the standard low mass bridge on a P-bass with a high mass bridge like a Leo Quan Badass. The high mass bridge isolates the vibration of the string from the resonance of the body. The result is a change in tone and an increase in sustain, since energy is not being lost (as much) to body resonance. Same strings, same pickup. The only thing that has changed is the isolation of the string from the body resonance.
This is more obvious if you're using roundwound strings which have a greater, wider harmonic content (of the signal) than flats, but it occurs with any type of string, it's just less obvious with strings with less harmonic output.
As the song goes, "The neckbone is connected to the thigh bone..."
FWIW, I've been a guitar tech (both touring and for stores) for approximately 40 years and have more than ample experience with this. I've even built a few solid body instruments, although I would not call myself a luthier.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 16:26:05 GMT -6
gitec-forum.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/sustain-magazine.pdfThis is the book I talked about. It is the most regarded scientific work about the physics in electric guitars. It has around 1300 pages about all aspects of the physics in electric guitars and there is no more complete work available on this topic. It debunks a lot of the myths about esp. solidbody guitars and the most regarded scientific magazines and institutes of musical instruments manufacturers are d'accord with academic institutes in the field of electroacustics, physics etc. that it is scientifically correct with it's conclusions and it has been revised quite a few times. There were efforts made to translate it to english language since a few years, I am not sure about the actual progress, but the gitec-forum has an english section where this might be discussed. The original was available for free for quite a while on the server of the University of Regensburg but has been transferred to the gitec forum. The author Prof.Dr.Ing. Manfred Zöllner might be contacted about how to obtain copies over this forum as well. The only people to still argue against the scientific conclusions are luthiers, who rely on the myths for marketing and see the book as a threat to their business. I don't understand it, because there is nothing to say against using nice wood for instrument manufacturing even for solidbodies, because this is not only a matter of sound, but of optics, haptics, prestige etc.. Instruments are more than their sound.
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Post by Guitar on Oct 9, 2019 16:29:42 GMT -6
Was the scientist also a guitar player? haha. And how good?
This is the first I have heard of this book, very interesting.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 16:41:50 GMT -6
You can't do this many years of research and write a book about it, if you don't love guitars deeply.
The book also covers non-solidbodies and goes deep into the much more complex influence of wood in these.
Obviously there is not that much interest in physics by musicians that play string instruments. Musical instruments are a business that works a lot with emotions. Not unlike hi-end audiophile stereo market.
Yes, it is sad that there is not much more interest in such an important research work, but that's how it actually is. And of course, you can play string instruments up to master class without even knowing the basics of the physics behind it, that is totally legit. (No irony/sarcasm!)
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Post by Guitar on Oct 9, 2019 16:46:57 GMT -6
I agree. An understanding of the instrument itself is not really required at all to play that instrument itself. This cuts across almost all audio "tools" and explains a disconnect between a designer and a player, maybe a little.
I understand that tone is in the player, not the guitar. I had that epiphany a while back. Now the burning question is "How much tone is left in the guitar?" When you record it, becomes even that much less than it was in the room.
It really does seem to have everything to do with the player, what the player is feeling and hearing, what the player likes or wants.
I am not saying that I think tonewoods are meaningless, I am just questioning how much meaning, really. It can't be that much.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 16:57:19 GMT -6
Oh, just found the vid by "Will's Easy Guitar" again. He is a luthier who actually did the physics and math and converted himself from a tonewood believer to a guy who makes great guitars out of good wood without needing to rely on myths. It needs some balls to question your own believes and use critical thinking and actual physical knowledge.
Especially, if you know, that other luthiers will hate you for publishing videos like this...
As I always say - I encourage everyone to not take my word for this, but go into it and research the facts by yourself, do the physics and the math and prove your believes by yourself.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 17:12:56 GMT -6
gitec-forum.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/sustain-magazine.pdfThis is the book I talked about. It is the most regarded scientific work about the physics in electric guitars. It has around 1300 pages about all aspects of the physics in electric guitars and there is no more complete work available on this topic. It debunks a lot of the myths about esp. solidbody guitars and the most regarded scientific magazines and institutes of musical instruments manufacturers are d'accord with academic institutes in the field of electroacustics, physics etc. that it is scientifically correct with it's conclusions and it has been revised quite a few times. There were efforts made to translate it to english language since a few years, I am not sure about the actual progress, but the gitec-forum has an english section where this might be discussed. The original was available for free for quite a while on the server of the University of Regensburg but has been transferred to the gitec forum. The author Prof.Dr.Ing. Manfred Zöllner might be contacted about how to obtain copies over this forum as well. The only people to still argue against the scientific conclusions are luthiers, who rely on the myths for marketing and see the book as a threat to their business. I don't understand it, because there is nothing to say against using nice wood for instrument manufacturing even for solidbodies, because this is not only a matter of sound, but of optics, haptics, prestige etc.. Instruments are more than their sound. The only people who argue with the so-called "scientific" conclusions are luthiers and guitar techs who actually have to deal with these issues on a day to day basis. Oh, and quite a few of the musicians who actually play them.
Scientists can be, and often are, wrong*. This guy is. And some of the most egregious of the "scientists" spreading and perpetuating bad information are the self-styled "debunkers".
All I can say about this guy is that either he's writing to justify an existing bias or he's missing something. Something that's pretty obvious, actually. My guess is that it's probably both.
My guess also is that either he doesn't play or he's tone deaf. Most electric bassists with any degree of experience have encvountered instruments with bad "wolof tones" and those are most definitely NOT caused bythe pickups or instrument electronics.
I can't read the book because I don't understand German and words more than two paragraphs long give me a headeache.
Note that I'm not talking about using "nice wood" - some of the worst guitars I've heard (in my opinion) were made of very "nice wood" indeed. And I've built a few very nice sounding (but amazingly ugly) guitars out of scrap wood from dumpsters.
* - I grew up as a "university brat" spending my entire early life around academics and I am far more familiar than I'd like to be with the (often extremely nasty) politics and backbiting that surrounds academic publication. There are cases where legitemate scientific breakthroughs were suppressed and delayed for decades due to academics politics and incompetance. Do you want to know what is of supreme importance in determining what gets accepted and what doesn't?
Grant funding. Who gets the grant. And the people who generally get to decide are the members of the "old boy club" who have the most tenure and connections/alliances in university politics.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 18:49:10 GMT -6
This is pretty much like a definition of "anti-scientific opinion".
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 19:48:39 GMT -6
You can't do this many years of research and write a book about it, if you don't love guitars deeply. The book also covers non-solidbodies and goes deep into the much more complex influence of wood in these. Obviously there is not that much interest in physics by musicians that play string instruments. Musical instruments are a business that works a lot with emotions. Not unlike hi-end audiophile stereo market. Yes, it is sad that there is not much more interest in such an important research work, but that's how it actually is. And of course, you can play string instruments up to master class without even knowing the basics of the physics behind it, that is totally legit. (No irony/sarcasm!) I'm not a "master class" musician but I've been playing since the age of 12, attempted to build my first solid body electric at age 13, from scratch - including winding the pickups (made lots of mistakes, which were very educational) and have had a keen interest in the sciences since before grade school ( I taught myself to read by the age of 3 - dumb mistake, after that my parents made me read to them instead of reading to me.), due to growing up in an academic/university environment. Spent a good part of my life as a tech (as my day job), servicing electric guitars and all manner of audio equipment.
I seriously doubt that any college "lab coat" understands guitar construction enough to take into account all the variables involved.
Furthermore, having grown up with academics, I strongly suspect that, like most academics, this guy started out with a hypothesis instead of starting out with observations, as a good scientist should.
I'm not impressed by people who "write books". Ethan Winer wrote a book in which he proclaimed himself to be "The Audio Expert". Anybody with the patience to sit at a keyboard long enough can write a book. I would have written books if I had the patience. Probably should have, it probably pays slightly better than music.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 20:00:16 GMT -6
I agree. An understanding of the instrument itself is not really required at all to play that instrument itself. This cuts across almost all audio "tools" and explains a disconnect between a designer and a player, maybe a little. I understand that tone is in the player, not the guitar. I had that epiphany a while back. Now the burning question is "How much tone is left in the guitar?" When you record it, becomes even that much less than it was in the room. It really does seem to have everything to do with the player, what the player is feeling and hearing, what the player likes or wants. I am not saying that I think tonewoods are meaningless, I am just questioning how much meaning, really. It can't be that much. The instrument affects how well the player plays. A great player can do well on any instrument but will always be better with a great instrument than if he has to be fighting a dog. And yes, it IS "that much". It's just that with a really great player the level between a medioocre performance (for him) and a great performance is elevated significantly above what a mediocre player can do between an "acceptable" performance and a "better" performance.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 21:00:59 GMT -6
This is pretty much like a definition of "anti-scientific opinion". Wrong.
It's the opinion of somebody who grew up in the intellectual morass of academia.
Dig it, I grew up around real scientists. My favorite uncle and his daughter were both research biochemists. My uncle became involved in a serious problem when one of the people he worked with (cancer research for Upjohn) faked data to try to prove his viewpoint. Yes, some (many?) scientists are not above faking data to "prove" their faulty hypothesis. They're not gods, they're humans just like everybody else.
My favorite cousin ran her own biotech firm until she retired a couple years ago. My dad actually knew Einstein (I have a photo to prove it*), as well as a number of physicists at Princeton (Including Oppenheimer, at the Institute for Advanced Study) during the late 40s. When I was a kid the heads of the chemistry and physics departments at OU were frequent guests at our dinner table. My childhood hero was Nikola Tesla.
I'm the last person to have an "anti-scientific opinion" (which, BTW, os EXACLTY when Ethan says when his BS is challenged. And then he fakes evidence.)
Like I said, I'm not really interested in what somebody publishes in a book if it directly contradicts proven empirical data. It's pretty simple. Listen to the output of a bass with the strings acoustically coupled to the body through a conventional bridge. Then on the same bass, with the same pickup and the same strings decouple the strings from the body with a high mass bridge. Listen to the difference. If you will, measure the difference with a spectrum analyzer. Or better yet, a distortion analyzer that can give you a readout of the ratio of the individual harmonics to the fundeamental. Simple.
If you want to get more elaborate, move the neck, pickup, strings and bridge from a (resonant) wooden body to a (totally non-resonant) Lucite body. Observe the difference.
You will find that the addition of body resonances do alter the tone.
Where many (or most) musicians get it wrong is the belief that wood resonance adds something. It doesn't. Resonance is subtractive. It ABSORBS energy. Every acoustician knows this. But sometimes subtracting harmonics "adds" something to the tone, psychologically and/or artistically.
I'm sick and tired of pseudo-scientists telling us that we don't know what we're hearing.
I gave you a very simple experiment you can try to verify my position. Have you tried it? I have.
* - Dad was the Jewish campus chaplain at Princeton for some years after WWII and got to know many of the leading nuclear physicists (who were Jewish) quite well, as he had had an interest in experimental science from a quite early age. His close friend, Harold Cherniss, was instrumental in helping Oppenheimer keep his job when he got it trouble during the Red Scare.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2019 2:02:48 GMT -6
You grew up around scientists. I studied physics at university and did not grew up around scientists.
The book is a research paper based on empirical data. Tons of measurement data. That it was not written in english does not make it invalid. We are talking solidbody only. The work of Zöllner covers all electric guitars. Just as a reminder. And he is by far not the only one to come to this conclusion. The physics arount the body having little to no effect on tone in a solidbody is not that complicated. But people always need serious references, which I posted. If you think a little about it, you might get the flaws in "simply change the body material" in a guitar without changing ALL other parameters that might have a distinct influence on sound. It is not trivial. It is easier to cut away something from a guitarÄs body without changing anything else and repeat a measurement and listen to tone. I suggest this as a better experiment.
OK, this escalated quickly. I am not into holy wars and will stop at this point arguing, I am pretty sure, everything important has been said already.
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Post by Ward on Oct 11, 2019 20:20:06 GMT -6
Why does a pine Tele sound different to a swamp ash Tele. All other elements being identical??
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 11, 2019 21:31:41 GMT -6
You grew up around scientists. I studied physics at university and did not grew up around scientists. The book is a research paper based on empirical data. Tons of measurement data. That it was not written in english does not make it invalid. We are talking solidbody only. The work of Zöllner covers all electric guitars. Just as a reminder. And he is by far not the only one to come to this conclusion. The physics arount the body having little to no effect on tone in a solidbody is not that complicated. But people always need serious references, which I posted. If you think a little about it, you might get the flaws in "simply change the body material" in a guitar without changing ALL other parameters that might have a distinct influence on sound. It is not trivial. It is easier to cut away something from a guitarÄs body without changing anything else and repeat a measurement and listen to tone. I suggest this as a better experiment. OK, this escalated quickly. I am not into holy wars and will stop at this point arguing, I am pretty sure, everything important has been said already. Except that easily performable experiments prove that what he says is not true.
You can tell me that the sky is green all you like but if it isn't tornado time in Oklahoma it still isn't so*.
And if the published paper is in an incomprehensible language it's meaningless for this discussion. I can't pick it apart and refute it point by point if I can't read it.
But again, do the experiment I proposed. There's nothing likle real, empirical evidence to refute "intellectual" papers.
I'm sorry, I really don't care what the "paper" says if the ears say different.
And I have offered real empirical evidence that can be easily replicated by anybody who cares to.
I've seen many, many "scientific" papers that weren't worth the paper they're printed on.
What's important is being able to duplicate the experiment.
* - and if it is you'd best find a hole to hide in, fast.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 11, 2019 21:39:59 GMT -6
Why does a pine Tele sound different to a swamp ash Tele. All other elements being identical?? Because the "paper" says they must be the same? |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2019 23:33:21 GMT -6
I have a simple thought to check out. If only ONE test showed no difference with two absolutely identically shaped bodies of completely different wood (say Mahogany and Esh) using the exact identical other parts and exact identical setup, this would be a proof of the thesis that tonewood does not matter. This test would be of bigger relevance than any test that seem to show the opposite, because, if tonewood DOES matter in the body of a solidbody, this would be impossible, right? While it is easy to get any of the other parameters even slightly wrong, exact positions and heights of pickups and thousands of other very small differences that can change tone much much easier, esp. in the electric realm...
Will from Will's easy guitar is a very good luthier and had this test up on youtube and it had been blocked due to massive complaints of tonewood believers, esp. luthiers who rely on this belief in their marketing. I ask you, why those, who believe in the difference are those who get massively emotional about this. It is, because nobody wants to be proven wrong and give up a believe they had their whole life. In fact, like Will himself, I believed in tonewood myself until I had been proven wrong! I had the assumption that wood matters in solidbody, because everyone told me and guitars and basses sounded different and I was told that it is the wood. But it is extremely easy to make two guitars sound different. Once I questioned the assumption, it was much easier to follow the explanations why it doesn't. And when somebody explained the physics behind it, it was easy to admit I was wrong for 2 decades ... despite beeing well educated in physics, which made it even more embarassing...
People who know, that there isn't such a thing like tonewood for solidbodies, don't have to be emotional about it. For them it is knowledge. I get why people get this upset about the topic. Doesn't change reality though.
I am pretty sure that personally I am not a good enough luthier to make a valid test. Keeping all parameters equal is NOT trivial or easy at all. It is easy to make a test where 2 guitars sound different. Very easy.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2019 0:23:24 GMT -6
Well, actually, that it is SO easy to change the tone of a guitar with everything else, esp. the electronics, should already be enough reason to NOT care about which wood the body of a solidbody is made of, right?
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 12, 2019 22:48:59 GMT -6
I have a simple thought to check out. If only ONE test showed no difference with two absolutely identically shaped bodies of completely different wood (say Mahogany and Esh) using the exact identical other parts and exact identical setup, this would be a proof of the thesis that tonewood does not matter. This test would be of bigger relevance than any test that seem to show the opposite, because, if tonewood DOES matter in the body of a solidbody, this would be impossible, right? While it is easy to get any of the other parameters even slightly wrong, exact positions and heights of pickups and thousands of other very small differences that can change tone much much easier, esp. in the electric realm... I'm sorry, but you have that backwards. In your test there's nothing to say that two particular pieces of totally different woods might not, by coincidence, have similar acoustic properties. Unlike plastics and metals, wood is an organic material that exhibits considerable variation frfom specimen to specimen, even within the same species. By the same token there's nothing to suggest that specific samples from wildly disparate specioes might not, b y sheer coincidence, exhibit similar or even identical characteristics.
HHMmmmm......? (raises eyebrow and scratches head.....)
I'm not "massively emotional"..... in fact I'm not emotional at all about the subject, only slightly quizzical about this discussion, and somewhat slightly but chronically annoyed with compulsive "debunkers" who chronically get it wrong. Why is it that so many people think they're James Randi?
Sorry you were misled. Genuinely.
PART of it is in the wood. How big that part is varies from instrument to instrument. That's the part that wood pimps tend to gloss over. It's not that there's not no truth in what they say, but it's not the whole story.
SURE it is. Of course. HOWEVER there are many, many ways to make electric guitars sound different (without even considering external devices) but you wanna know a secret? Yes? The secret is that all those variables have somewhat different effects, tonally. You can't use EQ to simulate a differernce in pickup position. You can't use a difference in wind to simulate a difference in the geometry of the magnetic circuit or pickup placement. Or vice-versa. The resonance (or lack of) in the body is another of those several variables. And how much it matters depends on what other design choices have been made. If the instrument has a bridge that effectively decouples the body from the strings, as do high mass bridges and many floating vibrato tailpieces you might hardly notice any difference at all if any, because those devices decouple the strings from the body. OTOH if the instrument has a hardtail or stop-bar bridge you'll notice considerable instrument to instrument differences even with completely identical setups. That's because those bridge types directly couple the strings to the wooden body. There's a reason that a lot of well known players prefer hardtail Strats.
And Ethan's insistance that a Soundblaster card was as good a converter as a Lavry Black seemed to make a lot of sense to a lot of people who didn't fully understand the subject, too.
If you studied physics you should know that you can't prove a negative. That's what you're trying to do.
When you strip off all the extraneous claptrap, you get down to the essential question - does body material resonance affect the tonal characteristics of a solid body electric guitar or bass in any discernable or measurable way.
And the easiest way to do that is by changing the bridge from one that decouples the strings to the body to one that provides a solid acoustic coupling.
The instrument should be chosern for one with a body that appears resonant in a basic "knock test". Not much point in using a body that has no resonance to decouple.
The listeners should be ones trained to differentiate tonal quality (tambre) from frequency response.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 12, 2019 23:02:15 GMT -6
Well, actually, that it is SO easy to change the tone of a guitar with everything else, esp. the electronics, should already be enough reason to NOT care about which wood the body of a solidbody is made of, right? Nope. The change you get with different wood (often even within the same species) is of a different tonal character than anything you can do with electronics. Now, it's at least theoretically possible to come up with a processing algorithm that does something kinda similar and is based of roughly the same principles, but it won't be the same. And it's a lot of trouble to go to for something that's not that big an issue.
Which particular piece of wood, now, that might be a different story depending on the piece. It's one of the main reasons that a few individual guitars are magic and an apparently somewhat larger number of guitars are real dogs.
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