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however if you can’t hear the difference then basic physics can tell you why wood (or other material) sound different to each other. Firstly for every material there is a different speed of sound through that material (before we get to grain boundaries, inclusions etc).
Assuming wavelength of the note applied is the same then if the velocity changes, so will the frequency and therefore the tone, timbre etc whatever you want to call it.
Also so in a closed system with connected parts (read strings and wood) the vibration of one part is affected by the vibration or resonance of another. We’ve all seen the balls swingng on a wire at different speeds all falling into sync. The same th8ng happens with an electric guitar. The vibration of the strings affect the wood which affects the string..... ergo the properties of the wood impact the string vibration and therefore the tone.
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If I record three guitars straight into a desk (so no pedals or amp to worry about), would you be able to tell me what wood the guitars were made from?
By the way, I never play guitars without pedals, I would be lost without my Gunshot!
Hmm interesting.. I wonder if that's a big thing in all this... Im not a pedal guy (I have a looper and a Wha, that's it), nearly always just the amp or I also do recording using a digital 4 track which is also a direct input.. So I am very used to hearing just the guitar without much else involved.
But then isn't that what this is really all about.. What we hear and like and what we expect to hear which is different for everyone.?
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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 degree of dispersal) of the energy in 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.
Truthfully I couldn’t give a monkeys whether people believe wood type has an affect or not, if they can’t tell the difference than I feel they are missing out on something I enjoy immensely.
Aside from that, the physical characteristics of materials have been very important to me in my career. Studying these characteristics enables an individual to design warheads effectively, as such understanding the way a shockwave passes through a material is also vital in maximising performance. I have studied both at the highest level and using that knowledge I have applied the same theory to think about this little internet argument.
This is because the basic principles of physics for transference of vibration in wood is the same as the transference of shockwaves through explosives and metals.
so when I am told I am wrong for understanding the most basic principles of my education and career..... I’m incredulous to say the least.
honestly though this’ll never get answered unless somebody studies it at PhD level, the reason that hasn’t happened is because a) there is no need to prove basic principles of physics. b) there is zero money in it.
and even then, there will be those that won’t believe it anyway.
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.
The thing is, I design affects around the fact people have different guitars and different amps. I have to make sure that the pedals can cope with different levels of brightness, harmonic complexity etc.... it’s bloody hard.
i wish all wood was the same, it’d make my life way easier lol.
This means you have no standard reference point as to Ash or Alder or Mahognay sounds.
so how can you tell?
And forget all your training with explosives etc, these are guitars, use your ears and common sense.
the easiest way to test this is to have two strats one with a rosewood neck and one with a maple neck. You’d have to be tone deaf not to hear the difference it’s dark vs bright.
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.
a guitar with different material, different pickups, bridge and scale length, yet they all thought strat!
Yet you can tell which wood!
https://phys.org/news/2015-10-algorithm-d-vibrational.html
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, which is what gives a solid body electric guitar better sustain than an acoustic. This means any interaction between the strings and the body is very low. (See the studies posted previously.)
As to the damping effect of a solid-wood body, the problem here is that wood inherently damps all the higher frequencies. I.e. the very frequencies that determine the timbre of the instrument. As a result any signal mediated via the body will not only be very weak (possibly having only 1/100,000th the energy level of the signal coming directly from the pickups), it will be dominated by the bass frequencies and so cannot contribute to the timbre of the instrument. Acoustic instruments try to counter this damping of the higher frequencies by using a soundboard that is thin as is possible. In contrast the body of a solid-body electric guitar is just a big lump of wood, almost purpose-made for damping all the timbre-creating higher harmonics. Again all this has already been discussed and links to relevant academic papers posted.
Finally, seemingly the only academic study around that looked at the effect of body wood type on the harmonic spectra found no difference for 9 body wood types in an a study where even the moisture content of the woods was controlled. Again, this has already been posted and discussed. (Several times.)
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.
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