Not wanting there to be any actual tonewood debate in this thread, I just have a question about the debate itself.
It's clear that, whether they're right or wrong, a lot of people believe/insist that the wood doesn't affect the tone on electric guitars.
Are there also a lot of people who believe that the size/weight of the wood on a guitar doesn't affect the tone; i.e. a very light extremely thin guitar vs. a much larger and heavier guitar, or is it that they don't believe the type/species of wood has any difference but the amount of wood there is does?
Again, not asking which side is true, just interested to know if the amount of wood used is debated to a similar degree or just the species.
Cheers.
Comments
For a while I sort of went down the more is better so despite having small hands sort out thicker necks and never moaned about a heavy guitar. Then you pick up a light guitar that sings.
I also think the player is often more than the wood, frankly if you gave Robben Ford a well set up Squire Strat or Tele would he sound crap I very much doubt it.
A circle can sometimes never be squared and in some ways its better to just play the things LOL
where is the proof, what tests have you done, how many guitars were used and how many different bodies were used?
Density does matter to me mostly for final playing weight
I have got something aranged to make a guitar out of some resin injected pine, apparently they can alter density to resemble say mahogany or swamp ash etc
It'll be interesting anyway
(formerly customkits)
The real approach is to take a bunch of different guitars (and I mean very different - Strats, Teles, Thinlines, semis, superstrats, Les Pauls etc), install identical pickups as much as is possible in addition to piezos, and then play them through the same amp...loud.
It's pretty obvious that they'll sound different, often in different ways (if only with the difference being the amount of feedback/environmental interaction when using the Thinlines and semis).
From there, you can work to explain the differences...instead of trying to predict differences based to questionable science and woo-woo.
Everyone can hear a difference between a body being changed for another, however you can have two bodies of ash cut from same tree and still have a difference in tone?
And is that difference better or worse or are you just hearing a difference but not able to tell which is which in a blindfold test and if so it's meaningless anyway.
I agree just find a guitar that's comfortable and you like it and just play it.
As for @customkits comment, I use a tele with body made of ash and beech, still sounds like a tele, so did the mahogany body tele, the rosewood bodied tele, the Ash bodied tele, the Alder bodied tele.
So yes material and species make a difference in what way I have no idea!
If someone thinks a given variable makes no difference then they should pay whatever they like, just as if they think it does.
Price is not relevant to this debate, unless you believe that the cost of a piece of timber has an effect on the sound of the finished instrument.
When the human ear listens to a sound then a few seconds later listens to a different one and tries to compare the subtleties of tone from his memory of those two sounds, it's completely unreliable. If the person is actually playing the guitar and can see what is being used each time then biases come in that makes it even more likely they'll think they're hearing certain differences.
I've personally never seen anything that comes close to a scientifically sound test about the tonewood thing, just people who believe they can hear a difference, or believe others who say they can, and people who can't hear a difference and/or believe others who say they can't hear any. That's why I don't have an opinion on it either way.
When it's something that's not even debated, like "humbuckers sound different to single coils", I'm fine to loosely go along with it, hence the original question.