Body wood affects tone

WezV

Three-ColourSunburst said:

WezV said:

The vibration of the string (as sensed by the pickup) is affected by the wood and the method its attached to that wood.  A string is not vibrating in isolation.  

From my understanding a vibrating string is a vibrating string, the characteristics of its vibration being determined entirely by its tension, length, mass and the exact way in which it is picked. If anyone knows any physics showing otherwise I would love to read it.

What makes the body vibrate?  The vibrating string

what makes the pickup vibrate? The vibrating body.

the physics is simple- kinetic energy is not lost, just transferred elsewhere

WezV

bobliefeld said:

WezV said:

bobliefeld said:

Unless your pickups are microphonic the acoustic sound of an electric guitar doesn't directly influence the plugged in sound.  Likewise a bit of wood sounding "resonant" or whatever when you tap it has no direct bearing on the sound of the guitar plugged in.  

The vibration of the string (as sensed by the pickup)  is affected by the wood and the method its attached to that wood.  A string is not vibrating in isolation.   PIckups are sensing the vibration of a string, but they are also vibrating themselves to a greater or lesser degree depending on the mounting method.   The tone you hear is the vibration of a string within a vibrating magnetic field

bobliefeld said:

A lot of great guitars use no wood at all, no one talks about "tone grade aluminium" tho.

they should, its not excluded form the system that makes up the whole.  It will affect the way the string vibrates just the same, and more predictably than wood assuming the grade of aluminium is consistent

Thas why I say "directly", my friend.  The wood influences string vibration which the pickup..picks up but, you know, once a guitar is plugged in there's so many other factors that unless it's a particularly bad bit of wood it's not that big a deal.

So you agree with what I have said.  It has an affect as part of the whole system?

the thread title is correct, just not specific enough

Three-ColourSunburst

impmann said:

OK - so a Les Paul sounds identical to a Telecaster fitted with the same pickups, yes? A 335 sounds identical to a Les Paul? A Strat sounds identical to a Jazzmaster if you fit the same pickups? Of course they don't.

They can sound very, very similar even with different pickups, scale lengths and hardware.

impmann

If that were the case, everyone would play the same guitars... wouldn't they?

<bored now... I'm off>

Three-ColourSunburst

guitars4you said:

 it is a case of marginal gains, yet Sky Cycling win many races with this principle -

Very apt, given that Sky's 'marginal gains' mantra is the equivalent of the 'maple is bright, mahogany is dark' claim. To extend the analogy, Sky's equivalent of pickups, technique and amp - the things that really make a difference - would be dodgy  Therapeutic Use Exemptions, corticosteroids (used to cut weight to a minimum) and whatever Geert Leinders taught them. Know what I mean?

Sporky

Cirrus said:

It must be really easy to be in a band with you.

*other guitarist brings paddling pool instead of guitar rig to practice and makes splashing sounds for guitar solo*

I'd probably say "less chorus - sounds a bit watery".

Three-ColourSunburst said:

From my understanding a vibrating string is a vibrating string, the characteristics of its vibration being determined entirely by its tension, length, mass and the exact way in which it is picked. If anyone knows any physics showing otherwise I would love to read it.

That's a bit GCSE physics - it assumes that the two ends of the string are held at fixed relative positions, and that both exhibit purely nodal behaviour. Given that you can fairly easily bend a guitar, the two ends are clearly not held at fixed relative positions, so the behaviour becomes more complex.

As usual, exaggeration is a handy tool. First imagine the two ends are anchored to a massive block of granite or similar - so close to rigid as makes no difference. The string would behave in a GCSE physics manner.

Then imagine the two ends are fixed to a whippy bit of spring steel - stiffer than the string, but bent into a curve by the tension on the string. The two ends can now move relative to each other, which will affect the tension and thus the pitch, and - rather importantly - the vibration of the strings will directly influence the movement of the spring steel, and thus the vibration of the strings affects the vibration of the strings.

Wood is between the two - you can bend a guitar by hand (lots of players grab the headstock on a fixed bridge guitar to get pitch bending effects). How audible the effect is is open to discussion, of course, but it should be clear that a vibrating string in a GCSE physics problem is very different from a vibrating spring on a bit of wood glued or bolted to another bit of wood, with one end passing over a bone, metal or plastic nut and the other passing over a metal bridge saddle of some sort or other... both ends being secured beyond the speaking length.

Three-ColourSunburst

If wood makes such a difference, it is amazing how normal (or should that be 'wood-like' ) all those guitars made out of metal, shovels, concrete and so on that you can see on YouTube sound. Here's an aluminium one.



And a bit of slide on a shovel. Sounds good to me. Must be that tone wood handle!

Sporky

Three-ColourSunburst said:

If wood makes such a difference

Now you're into a straw-man argument.

bobliefeld

WezV said:

bobliefeld said:

WezV said:

bobliefeld said:

Unless your pickups are microphonic the acoustic sound of an electric guitar doesn't directly influence the plugged in sound.  Likewise a bit of wood sounding "resonant" or whatever when you tap it has no direct bearing on the sound of the guitar plugged in.  

The vibration of the string (as sensed by the pickup)  is affected by the wood and the method its attached to that wood.  A string is not vibrating in isolation.   PIckups are sensing the vibration of a string, but they are also vibrating themselves to a greater or lesser degree depending on the mounting method.   The tone you hear is the vibration of a string within a vibrating magnetic field

bobliefeld said:

A lot of great guitars use no wood at all, no one talks about "tone grade aluminium" tho.

they should, its not excluded form the system that makes up the whole.  It will affect the way the string vibrates just the same, and more predictably than wood assuming the grade of aluminium is consistent

Thas why I say "directly", my friend.  The wood influences string vibration which the pickup..picks up but, you know, once a guitar is plugged in there's so many other factors that unless it's a particularly bad bit of wood it's not that big a deal.

So you agree with what I have said.  It has an affect as part of the whole system?

the thread title is correct, just not specific enough

Yeah it affects it but not nearly as much as people think and not really in the ways people think.  The clothes you're wearing can make a difference, what you ate for dinner can make a difference.

WezV

Sporky said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

If wood makes such a difference

Now you're into a straw-man argument.

Maybe we should get in the habit of saying the material makes a difference to cut off this tiresome divert.

yes, a steel guitar will sound different to an aluminium one just like wood piece A will sound different to wood piece B.  It's the same concept.

having said that, I fully agree you could make a guitar out of anything and it will still sound like a guitar.  This is very different to saying the material has no effect at all

Three-ColourSunburst

WezV said:

What makes the body vibrate?  The vibrating string

what makes the pickup vibrate? The vibrating body.

the physics is simple- kinetic energy is not lost, just transferred elsewhere

On a normal electric guitar the pickups sense the strings electromagnetically, not by picking up vibrations. If the pickup generates a signal through vibration  it has become microphonic, which is not all all desirable because it will squeal.

Perhaps you are thinking of a Piezo pickup, which is generally used on an acoustic guitar, which a completely different kettle of fish.

Three-ColourSunburst

impmann said:

If that were the case, everyone would play the same guitars... wouldn't they?

Different guitars present different images, and that is primary for many (most?) players.

Kalimna

Actually, the pickups sense the deformation of the electromagnetic field by the passage of the string through the field. The pickup cares not a jot whether the string is vibrating through the field, or the pickup itself is vibrating and the string is stationary. The phenomena between the string and the filed is the same either way (assuming the frequency and size of the vibration is the same).

Therefore, if the pickup *is* vibrating due to being not perfectly isolated from the structure holding the strings, then the vibrations of the pickup itself will produce a signal, albeit a small one.

Adam

EricTheWeary

MartinB said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Also the classical world is even more conservative than that of the electric guitar, despite the fact that alternative materials can be used with no impact on tone, as with the use of carbon fibre to make bows.

There are a lot of opinions among bowed instrument players about the tone of carbon fibre bows.  That hasn't stopped them from becoming popular, but I'd say that the statement "no impact on tone" would be about as contentious as it is in the guitar world. 

EricTheWeary said:

What I find a bit odd in the tone wood thing is that I don't think Fender, Gibson, et al ever chose the woods they did because of how they sounded. No reason at all to suggest that there aren't better alternatives out there. 

I do wonder if Gibson might have considered the impact of their wood choices on solid bodies.  Les Paul had certainly experimented with materials in his own right prior to his relationship with Gibson, and the maple cap on the early Gibson Les Paul models must have been for some reason other than appearance, given that they were painted gold. 

Yeh , in my head I was thinking about the maple cap on sunburst finishes. But fair point. 
I seem to remember Gibson were supposed to have done the caps basically because they could ( they had the machinery to do it from making other guitars already) and Fender couldn't so it helped differentiate them as a more premium product. Bit of googling says they were also going to launch a range of Les Paul finishes at the very start but got cold feet and only put the gold top ( which had a mahogany top at prototype stage)out for sale so the maple was possibly chosen for cosmetic reasons and the decision never reversed when only gold tops went on sale. Although the true version might be buried in history.

Sporky

WezV said:

having said that, I fully agree you could make a guitar out of anything and it will still sound like a guitar.  This is very different to saying the material has no effect at all

Indeed - and I definitely meant the former rather than the latter.

Three-ColourSunburst said:

On a normal electric guitar the pickups sense the strings electromagnetically, not by picking up vibrations.

Again, you're using over-simplified GCSE physics.

The movement of the strings relative to the magnetic field of the pickups induces a current in the coils.

So if we assume (even though I've already explained it's an oversimplification) that the endpoints of the string are in fixed positions, and put the pickup in a rigid mounting between those endpoints, then only the string vibration is involved in that relative motion. However, as soon as the pickup is mounted to something that's not perfectly rigid - for example a bit of wood - it will also be moving relative to the endpoints (though much less than the strings). The movement of the pickup therefore also affects the relative motion of the strings in its magnetic field.

Given that tapping different bits of wood reveals that they have different resonances and frequency responses, and given that it's the relative motion of the pickup and strings that results in the signal from the pickups, it should be pretty obvious that different bits of wood can have an influence on the signal the pickups produce.

Simples, huh?

WezV

Three-ColourSunburst said:

WezV said:

What makes the body vibrate?  The vibrating string

what makes the pickup vibrate? The vibrating body.

the physics is simple- kinetic energy is not lost, just transferred elsewhere

On a normal electric guitar the pickups sense the strings electromagnetically, not by picking up vibrations. If the pickup generates a signal through vibration  it has become microphonic, which is not all all desirable because it will squeal.

Perhaps you are thinking of a Piezo pickup, which is generally used on an acoustic guitar, which a completely different kettle of fish.

No, I am thinking of the movement of a ferrous metal within a magnetic field.  It's more accurately described as a ferrous  metal vibrating within a vibrating magnetic field.

Three-ColourSunburst

Sporky said:

it should be clear that a vibrating string in a GCSE physics problem is very different from a vibrating spring on a bit of wood glued or bolted to another bit of wood, with one end passing over a bone, metal or plastic nut and the other passing over a metal bridge saddle of some sort or other... both ends being secured beyond the speaking length.

Sorry, but that, in itself, is no explanation at all. One might as well say that 'it should be clear' that the same bell will sound differently, depending on whether it is hung in a stone belfry or suspended from a wooden tower.

impmann

Three-ColourSunburst said:

impmann said:

If that were the case, everyone would play the same guitars... wouldn't they?

Different guitars present different images, and that is primary for many (most?) players.

Bollocks.

I think you are just being awkward for the sake of it now.

Three-ColourSunburst

WezV said:

 I fully agree you could make a guitar out of anything and it will still sound like a guitar. 

Exactly! It will sound pretty much as we expect an electric guitar to sound - that is one made out of wood - even when it is made out of something entirely different. If wood were so important we would expect a concrete guitar to sound like a concrete guitar, a metal guitar to sound like a metal guitar, and only a wooden guitar to sound like a 'normal' electric guitar. However they all sound very, very similar, indicating that the most of the sound of an electric guitar is not predominantly a function of the material it is made from.

WezV

WezV said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

WezV said:

What makes the body vibrate?  The vibrating string

what makes the pickup vibrate? The vibrating body.

the physics is simple- kinetic energy is not lost, just transferred elsewhere

On a normal electric guitar the pickups sense the strings electromagnetically, not by picking up vibrations. If the pickup generates a signal through vibration  it has become microphonic, which is not all all desirable because it will squeal.

Perhaps you are thinking of a Piezo pickup, which is generally used on an acoustic guitar, which a completely different kettle of fish.

No, I am thinking of the movement of a ferrous metal within a magnetic field.  It's more accurately described as a ferrous  metal vibrating within a vibrating magnetic field.

Have you considered that the phenomenon of microphonic pickups proves my point perfectly.  

The pickup can not be considered stationary and separate