Body wood affects tone

ThorpyFX

GSPBASSES said:

 You're wasting your time @ThorpyFX  as there are none so deaf as  those  who do not want to hear.

Agreed, I’m out. I can’t prove my argument but I can play my guitars and enjoy them. 

koneguitarist

ThorpyFX said:

koneguitarist said:

Yet you can tell which wood! 

I didn’t say that I could tell which wood type on a randomly selected batch of four Guitars. I said that the wood type makes a difference and i can hear the difference.

I personally cannot in a blind test differentiate what the type of wood is. But I’d be able to hear they are different. This is made easier with woods at the extreme ends of the tonal range. 

So basically you can hear the difference of sound between different guitars? Wow well done, we all can no one disputes guitars sound different, but why? Is it the wood because you play 5strats all made of Ash and you will hear differences between them, but is it the wood, what about each volume pot, what values are they, as that will make a difference, are they all using same strings, and gauge, same action height, how about pickups, exact same windings on each? 
Now tell me which accounts for the difference you hear between each guitar? 
Thopy I know you are quite an intelligent guy with a lot of experience in certain areas, but think about it, we have been programmed to think certain ways by marketing. 
70's strats are the reason for the vintage market, as they were so poor, now we think of 70's strats as desirable vintage guitars, why? 

richardhomer

dindude said:
Mahogany is an example of one I could spot a mile off, it gets a little trickier with the difference between alder and ash etc, but it's still there.

Spot on! Mahogany bodied guitars not only have a different tone - their attack/sustain/decay/release envelope is markedly different from alder or ash.

I don’t need ‘any’ scientific papers to tell me this - over 40 years of playing experience means I know it to be true....

ThorpyFX

koneguitarist said:

ThorpyFX said:

koneguitarist said:

Yet you can tell which wood! 

I didn’t say that I could tell which wood type on a randomly selected batch of four Guitars. I said that the wood type makes a difference and i can hear the difference.

I personally cannot in a blind test differentiate what the type of wood is. But I’d be able to hear they are different. This is made easier with woods at the extreme ends of the tonal range. 

So basically you can hear the difference of sound between different guitars? Wow well done, we all can no one disputes guitars sound different, but why?


Now tell me which accounts for the difference you hear between each guitar? 
Thopy I know you are quite an intelligent guy with a lot of experience in certain areas, but think about it, we have been programmed to think certain ways by marketing. 
70's strats are the reason for the vintage market, as they were so poor, now we think of 70's strats as desirable vintage guitars, why? 

Why the snarky comment? I said I can hear the difference in wood types on the same type of guitar, the title of the thread is body wood affects tone, I’m struggling to understand how people are arguing against this. 

i.e. I can hear that a solid rosewood neck guitar is darker than a solid maple neck guitar... as can most people i imagine. 

Why? Because one sounds darker than the other. The reason this occurs is because rosewood is denser than maple, has a lower natural speed of sound in the wood.

this is nothing to do with marketing, I naturally buck against marketing speak.

 My guitar collection isn’t a reflection of marketing, I like hearing different woods and like to own things that sound different. Personal choice based on curiosity, not heats hot or what someone suggests I buy. 

koneguitarist

Sorry boys I have proved this loads of times, blind folded you can hear differences between guitars but not one person could pick out a guitar made out of mahogany compared to a guitar made out of Alder, or Ash or Basswood or Beech. I love guitars, been playing live since 1978 owned Ash, Alder, Rosewood bodied Telecasters, guess what they all sounded like a telecaster. 
Is this so hard to fathom without resorting to pages of scientific jargon which is meaningless unless there is a way to test a guitar in truly laboratory conditions. 
Even then how many strat bodies made of Ash, would need to be tested with same neck, and hardware to get a standard reference point to work out the difference between Ash and Alder bodies? 

koneguitarist

richardhomer said:

dindude said:
Mahogany is an example of one I could spot a mile off, it gets a little trickier with the difference between alder and ash etc, but it's still there.

Spot on! Mahogany bodied guitars not only have a different tone - their attack/sustain/decay/release envelope is markedly different from alder or ash.

I don’t need ‘any’ scientific papers to tell me this - over 40 years of playing experience means I know it to be true....

I will put a test together for you if it's that easy

NelsonP

ThorpyFX said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

    ThorpyFX said:
     The vibration of the strings affect the wood which affects the string.....

Sorry, but so much misunderstanding in one post. Have you actually read the thread?

Just to take this point. What do you mean by 'affects' here?  It seems you are suggesting that there is some sort of 2-way transmission of energy going on, which would run counter to the second law of thermodynamics. That is, the natural fact that when two systems with different energy states (typically different states of thermodynamic equilibrium) interact, the energy of the higher-state system will be dispersed, being transferred to the lower energy state system until the two are in equilibrium. This is a one-way, irreversible process that maximises the entropy (or, simply put, the homogeneity) of the energy state of the whole system.

For example, the heat energy from a recently boiled kettle will spontaneously 'flow' into the air of a cooler room, so increasing the air's temperature until a state of equilibrium is reached. However, heat in that cooler room cannot 'flow' into the near-boiling water, thereby further increasing its temperature.

Similarly, a vibrating string is in a higher energy state than the body it is attached to. Hence some of that energy will spontaneously be transferred to the body, being dissipated via acoustic sound, heat and so on, but not visa-versa.

I was talking about two things, sympathetic resonance and damping. But I’m trying to not get to technical for ease of reading.

Firstly the body wood vibrates due to sympathetic resonance from the strings being plucked. As such the wood draws energy from the strings effectively damping the strings (affecting the strings seemingly but yes actually just absorbing energy)

but telling me about the laws of entropy simplifies what is going on in an electric guitar. After the first string is plucked and the wood is set vibrating, every note plucked thereafter is affected by the continuing vibrations of the wood.... so when I say they affect each other, I am right. If there was only one string pluck then eventually they would both head to a resting energy state. 

Yeah. Entropy not really relevant here I don't think. Although it's been a while since I studied it.

Philly_Q

Nobody is going to get anyone else to change their mind about this.

Honestly, it's like reading a debate about burquas.  

koneguitarist

ThorpyFX said:

koneguitarist said:

ThorpyFX said:

koneguitarist said:

Yet you can tell which wood! 

I didn’t say that I could tell which wood type on a randomly selected batch of four Guitars. I said that the wood type makes a difference and i can hear the difference.

I personally cannot in a blind test differentiate what the type of wood is. But I’d be able to hear they are different. This is made easier with woods at the extreme ends of the tonal range. 

So basically you can hear the difference of sound between different guitars? Wow well done, we all can no one disputes guitars sound different, but why?


Now tell me which accounts for the difference you hear between each guitar? 
Thopy I know you are quite an intelligent guy with a lot of experience in certain areas, but think about it, we have been programmed to think certain ways by marketing. 
70's strats are the reason for the vintage market, as they were so poor, now we think of 70's strats as desirable vintage guitars, why? 

Why the snarky comment? I said I can hear the difference in wood types on the same type of guitar, the title of the thread is body wood affects tone, I’m struggling to understand how people are arguing against this. 

I say say you can't, you can hear a difference in tone between two guitars, that's it. Whether the difference is down to wood or not is unproven. 

i.e. I can hear that a solid rosewood neck guitar is darker than a solid maple neck guitar... as can most people i imagine. 

Why? Because one sounds darker than the other. The reason this occurs is because rosewood is denser than maple, has a lower natural speed of sound in the wood.
ok if this is true, can you tell between a carbon fibre neck and maple or solid rosewood?
Or what about two guitars made exactly the same with same wood as you can hear differences between them as well, so what's that down to? 

this is nothing to do with marketing, I naturally buck against marketing speak.

 My guitar collection isn’t a reflection of marketing, I like hearing different woods and like to own things that sound different. Personal choice based on curiosity, not heats hot or what someone suggests I buy. 

Rabs

https://i.imgur.com/ZCK0Tcj.jpg

NelsonP

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Also, in reality the bridge to body interface of an electric guitar has a very high impedance with little energy passing through to the body

This is also largely irrelevant. There is enough energy passed to the body for me to be able to tune my guitar with a clip on tuner attached to the pickup selector. If this much energy can be passed to the body then some of that energy can be passed back via the same mechanism, modulated by damping and resonance of the structure.

The body vibrations can also be passed to the pickups and change the relative position of them to the strings which may also colour the tone.

I share 3cs view that this has led me to investigate things I otherwise would not have bothered to look at. 

But my conclusions are different. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Most people don't care and there's not conclusive proof either way.

This discussion has been had hundreds of times on the internet with no resolution.

Expecting that to come here is probably the very definition of insanity. And yet still we do so. Crazy!

koneguitarist

@NelsonP I think one of your biggest points there is this has been done hundreds of times with no conclusion, that's because the vast majority realise all parts of guitar have an impact on tone, but there is no way of quantifying which part and why? 
To me the biggest part of the way a guitar sounds is drum roll please... ..........................................................
The player. 

WezV

koneguitarist said:

@NelsonP I think one of your biggest points there is this has been done hundreds of times with no conclusion, that's because the vast majority realise all parts of guitar have an impact on tone, but there is no way of quantifying which part and why? 
To me the biggest part of the way a guitar sounds is drum roll please... ..........................................................
The player. 

Put yourself in the builders position for a second.

should we forget about all the variables created by the instrument and blame the player anytime a guitar doesn't quite work?

dindude

koneguitarist said:

richardhomer said:

dindude said:
Mahogany is an example of one I could spot a mile off, it gets a little trickier with the difference between alder and ash etc, but it's still there.

Spot on! Mahogany bodied guitars not only have a different tone - their attack/sustain/decay/release envelope is markedly different from alder or ash.

I don’t need ‘any’ scientific papers to tell me this - over 40 years of playing experience means I know it to be true....

I will put a test together for you if it's that easy

I'd love to take a test, but not one set up by you, I think it would be designed to reinforce your own preconceptions. Based on your last test of three Strats when you played a Gibson! Not sure what that was designed to achieve.

WezV

It proves the nighthawk is a confused guitar

not sure many of us could positively ID that one from sound alone.

It does make the test a bit "Name a Hairy Dog?"

Sassafras

koneguitarist said:

After we had all played them and said which we preferred etc, I said ok, stand behind door and tell me which strat I am using? 4 experienced 

guitarists were standing behind door, only one said he didn't know, the others all picked different guitars, so someone was bound to be right, stands to reason. No one got it right as when they walked back in I was playing a Gibson Nighthawk.

They couldn't have been all that experienced if they couldn't tell the difference between a Fender and a Gibson.

Three-ColourSunburst

richardhomer said:

Spot on! Mahogany bodied guitars not only have a different tone - their attack/sustain/decay/release envelope is markedly different from alder or ash. I don’t need ‘any’ scientific papers to tell me this - over 40 years of playing experience means I know it to be true....

You have probably spent those 40 years listening with your eyes.

Sassafras

@Three-ColourSunburst ;
Can you explain why Gibson decided to put a maple cap on the first Les Pauls?
And don't say aesthetics because they were goldtops originally.

Three-ColourSunburst

NelsonP said:

Yeah. Entropy not really relevant here I don't think. Although it's been a while since I studied it.

It is very relevant when believers in 'tone wood' commonly argue that different woods 'enhance' or 'increase' certain harmonics, thereby (supposedly) colouring the timbre of the instrument. As Paul Reed Smith points out, the structure of a guitar can only be subtractive.

Three-ColourSunburst

NelsonP said:

The body vibrations can also be passed to the pickups and change the relative position of them to the strings which may also colour the tone.

Cirrus, our friend with the double-neck has already tested this for us and showed that a signal generated the body transmitting vibrations to the pickups, which are then picked by the strings above them, have 'at best' only around 100,000th the power of a signal generated directly by the strings vibrating over the pickups, far too weak to perceptibly colour the tone. What's more the signal that was generated was dominated by the bass frequencies, which is what we would expect given the damping characteristics of a solid-wood body.