Humbuckers for alder?

Sporky

impmann said:

If wood mattered not, then we'd all be playing cheap planks and nobody would spend large sums on guitars made of 'tonewoods'.

Yeah, they still would. Just like audio nuts spend thousands on mains cables - and they can be (and have been) proven to have no effect.

BloodEagle

Just dropping in to laugh at the 'wood has no effect on sound' theory - such complete bullsht. Anyway, carry on 

Philly_Q

As soon as I saw the first few replies on this thread this morning I knew it was going to kick off.

Kalimna

To say that the substance a guitars' body is made from has no impact on the sound, is, as has been mentioned. a little bonkers. Of course it has an impact - it acts to filter in some way the vibrations from the string to the pickups. However, how much impact it has is perhaps less clear. 
Having spent a fair amount of time on another forum populated soley with people who build guitars rather than players/buyers/sellers, the consensus is that there is often as much difference between two pieces of the same species of timber as there is between two different species. The trick is to select the piece of timber and work with it to get the best sound from it.
In short "mahogany sounds dark" or "alder sounds light" or "maple sounds bright" are gross generalisations and far from absolute.
Can't help with a pickup choice, but I have some BK Abraxas in a padouk bodied guitar that sound immense

Adam

guitarfishbay

Philly_Q said:

As soon as I saw the first few replies on this thread this morning I knew it was going to kick off.

Jack_

Suhr Alderich.

Rox

carlos said:

BTW, the wood in your guitar is also 

dead, so let's give up the arguments of something sounding lifeless.

Your gif is very apt, actually.

The term "lifeless" is a descriptive term.  Someone or something that's alive can be described as "lifeless" - surely you know this?  Taking the term lifeless so literally is a bit silly.

"Good lord Marjorie, your husband just sits there watching repeats of Top Gear!  He's so lazy and lifeless."

Metal isn't alive, but some brass instruments can sound lifeless depending on the quality of manufacture.  This goes for a lot of instruments.

So far, I've never met a sentient musical instrument - there's still time, mind - but heard plenty that sound full of life, and others that do in fact sound "lifeless".

You can get an expensive, super duper collector's edition Les Strat Plus Deluxe Limited Edition Martian Rosewood Private Stock Custom Shop Relic '59 Reissue guitar that sounds like shite, and a cheap made-in-Kuala-Lumpur with chopping boards guitar that sounds ace.

It's the variance in the wood itself that can make that difference, which proves the point.  You can get some lively basswood in comparison to some lifeless alder.

The Custardcaster I have which is made from various Fender parts from different eras (Mexican body, Japanese neck) is the most resonant strat I've ever played.  The body resonates beautifully.  I've had a few other strats that didn't have that same 'zing'.

You only have to strum a few electric guitars acoustically to hear the difference between ostensibly identical guitars.

In conclusion, let's give up criticising people for calling some guitars lifeless.

Flanging_Fred

To be fair, it must be hard to hear the difference in tonewoods with all those goats "trip trapping" over your bridge.

WezV

Sigh.

wood makes a difference.  If you doubt it, go play some guitars.  How much that difference matters to you is up to you to decide

there is variation both within and between species and lots of cross over. Some species vary more than others.  For example, rock maple is relatively consistent and predictable.  Honduran mahogany can vary massively.  I have a thread somewhere where I show how much mahogany from the same source can vary.


many suggest the generalisations should be rejected because of the variation within species.   I think they are still useful if you accept them for what they are.  They get you in the right ball park.

as a builder it might be the generalisation that points me to a certain species before I chose the individual bit.  

for buyers it should be the same.  If you know what tones you like it pays to start by looking at the woods that produced those tones.  It's the starting point, not the final solution. you still have 101 other variables to consider.


the risk is people often use the generalisations to reject species.  You literally can make a good sounding guitar out of almost anything.   Try a wild card every so often, you may just like it

Kalimna

I think any discussion on the merits/demerits of various wood species is far from complete without mentioning Benedettos' scrap pine archtop

http://benedettoguitars.com/2011/09/16/flashback-friday-knot-so-bad/

Of course, Bob Taylor did something similar.

Slightly digressing from the OP, but what species would you recommend for an all-UK guitar, both electric and acoustic?

Adam

WezV

Sycamore and Douglas fir perhaps.  English walnut is also pretty special


i think many people miss the implication of Benedetto's.  It's not that you can make a guitar out of anything and it will still sound good/the same.

Bob has demonstrated that after years of hard carving and tap tuning tops he is able to respond to the qualities of a piece  of wood to get the voice he wants.  It reportedly still sounds just like a Benedetto even when using substandard wood. But the dimensions of that piece will be purposely altered to get that voice, precisely because the wood sounds different to begin with

WezV

I always wonder how many pallets taylor and Benedetto went through to find ones they were happy to build with.

earwighoney

@WezV what is your new Mojo GF HB like?  I saw the picture.  It looks beautiful! 

earwighoney

Kalimna said:

I think any discussion on the merits/demerits of various wood species is far from complete without mentioning Benedettos' scrap pine archtop

http://benedettoguitars.com/2011/09/16/flashback-friday-knot-so-bad/

Of course, Bob Taylor did something similar.

Slightly digressing from the OP, but what species would you recommend for an all-UK guitar, both electric and acoustic?

Adam

For acoustics for the back and sides, there are a lot of great options.  Sycamore, Yew, Cherry, English Walnut, American Black Walnut (UK grown) - the latter being my favourite.  

For fretboards/bridges, Bog Oak works very well. For a soundboard there isn't much,  I had a guitar which had a UK grown Port Orford Cedar soundboard but that was taken from the maker's front garden - no chance of finding it sold commercially!  

DefaultM

I've got Cold Sweats in my other PRS. I'm considering trying those even though they're supposed to be quite trebly because I didn't think they were at all in my other one. Doesn't cost anything to experiment I suppose.

WezV

earwighoney said:

@WezV what is your new Mojo GF HB like?  I saw the picture.  It looks beautiful! 

Not installed yet, I was all ready to do it when the wife remembered she was supposed to be at work so I am on kid duty.  Maybe later, I have a thread a few below this one

guitars4you

WezV said:

I always wonder how many pallets taylor and Benedetto went through to find ones they were happy to build with.

I recall a while ago a budget Yamaha Pacifica 112 - the bog standard model - that had an awesome acoustic character - very vibrant and certainly outperformed its price range - So yes some 'cheap' pieces of wood can possess that mojo, but it could well be 1 out of a 100 or more

I'm not  a builder but I have touched plenty of raw planks in various workshops, plus a few times in Paul Reed Smith's private collection and you can find some exceptional pieces and some good pieces from the same species - Tap and listen to this 'block' of wood and easy to hear what has potential and which is 'dead' - I recall a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard blank in Paul's collection that was toneless, so all wood needs to be judged accordingly - A good piece of wood is like a Glockenspiel in that it rings

Alegree

If you're not playing any lower than D, an air zone is my all time favourite fat sounding humbucker for blues and hard rock. 

StormshadowGuitars

carlos said:

Non-scientific bollocks. And of course a builder and a guitar seller would tell you it makes a difference. Please look up how a pickup actually works and what is being captured by the transducer, then ask yourself why nobody seems to care about the type of plastic in a pickguard, or what material goes into neck inlays. 
Here's a bit of science, very simple experiment - http://stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf

Through the course of this research it seems that there is proof to the statement made by

Halliday in that the body of an electric guitar does not have resonance. Of course this is both

correct and incorrect. From the stand point of the electric guitar’s purpose of being amplified the

statement is correct. However, the guitar body does in fact resonate and when it is not plugged

in, the body is noticed to color the sound. This observation explains why some would say they

can hear a difference in the wood. When playing an electric guitar unplugged the tonal qualities

of the wood are apparent as the ears perceive what the microphone “hears”. These perceptible

variations however, appear to get lost when the volume of the amplified signal takes over. 

A big bowl of wrong!!

OilCityPickups

carlos said:

Non-scientific bollocks. And of course a builder and a guitar seller would tell you it makes a difference. Please look up how a pickup actually works and what is being captured by the transducer, then ask yourself why nobody seems to care about the type of plastic in a pickguard, or what material goes into neck inlays. 
Here's a bit of science, very simple experiment - http://stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf

Through the course of this research it seems that there is proof to the statement made by

Halliday in that the body of an electric guitar does not have resonance. Of course this is both

correct and incorrect. From the stand point of the electric guitar’s purpose of being amplified the

statement is correct. However, the guitar body does in fact resonate and when it is not plugged

in, the body is noticed to color the sound. This observation explains why some would say they

can hear a difference in the wood. When playing an electric guitar unplugged the tonal qualities

of the wood are apparent as the ears perceive what the microphone “hears”. These perceptible

variations however, appear to get lost when the volume of the amplified signal takes over. 

All conventional guitar pickups are to some degree microphonic, so one could argue that rather than being lost these variations are incorporated in the overall sound. Movement within the components of a pickup (which can never be completely damped out by potting with anything other than epoxy or similar) cause sound, as well as just the vibration of the string, to be relayed to the amplifier. Turn your gain right up and tap your pickup as a test.
Most people when they hear an epoxy potted pickup say it sounds 'cold' and a bit sterile, that is because the microphonic element has been dialled out.