How Much Does Wood Efect Tone On A Solid Body

[Gaffanon]

How much does the wood efect the tone on a solid body?

There are guitars made of mdf I think I know acrylic and seems about evry wood on the planet, graphite Carbon fiber is there really a diference in tonal quality or is it tradition I realize some is just gorgous to look at but it seems to me that the frets and pickups and bridge alone would determine the sound sicne its the vibrations picked up by the pick up and not through the wood. I havent tried anything like ply wood although its used in other instuments. such as a pedal harp I dont mean a cheap or shody one either. its used in the sound chamber and in the sound board. Has any one actually compared other materials for bodies, or necks?

[Mattia]

Never seen an MDF guitar. That would weigh a TON.

Yes, wood does affect tone. The higher output the pickup, the less influence the wood seems to have. The more processed your sound, the less anything matters. Wood acts as a 'filter' for the string: it allows certain frequencies to vibrate freely, dampens others, influencing how the string vibrates/sounds. That's picked up by the pickups (which themselves colour the tone to a significant degree). High-output pickups aren't as good at picking up the nuances, since they generally have either stronger magnetic fields (which influence the string vibration mroe strongly than weaker low output pickups do) and coil geometry issues which colour stuff, or have a preamp in them (EMGs) which flattens stuff out, de-colouring. Single coils, to my mind, seem to best at 'picking up' body influences. This said, my humbucker semihollows have a distinctly 'semi' character defined by the construction as well as the woods, IMO. Can't prove it, because double-blinding guitars is quasi-impossible; variation between bits of wood can be huge.

I look for resonant pieces of wood to build with; ones that 'ring out' when I tap them in raw form. I want a resonant, 'alive' guitar. Wood's also easy to work with, is generally lighter than most composites (ply, etc.) and yes, it is tradition. It's also a pleasure to work with.

Ply's been used in guitars, even acoustics, and for backs/sides it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, but solid tops are superior, at the end of the day.

[Daniel Sorbera]

My theory is exatly the same as mattias. The wood makes the string vibrate diffrently and that sound is picked up by the pickups thus changing your tone by what wood you have.

[JIFRibeiro]

Good Theory

[Robert_the_damned]

I agree as well. The wood of the body, the fretboard and neck both contribute to the sound by dampening differant frequencies, they don't 'boost' them at all they just dampen...unless of course the frequency happens to be the natural resonace frequency of that particular piece in that shape .

I also agree that high gain pickups do loose some of the naunces BUT if you've got a maple neck with an ebony fret board you'll still get a brighter sound than a mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard even if you're using high output pickups. I don't agree that 'all' actives sound flat EMG's do because of their design don't tar all of a type with one brush!

Robert

[Primal]

I've always been of the opinion that the neck wood affects the sound of a guitar far more than the body wood. Think about it, if you have a comparitively soft neck such as mahogany and a very stiff wood such as maple, because the neck is like a pencil compared to the body, a softer wood will have more of a dampening affect than the maple. This of course doesn't take into account any CF reinforcement rods or anything.

I hope you all can visualize what I mean.

[Mattia]

Necks can and do have a serious effect on tone, yes. I'm not sure about 'far more', though; I like to 'smooth' things out by adding CF, sometimes laminating, so the material of the neck becomes slightly less important. That's where things get complicated, basically: where does the influence of the wood stop and the influence of the constructional details begin?

[Daniel Sorbera]

where does the influence of the wood stop and the influence of the constructional details begin?

I think this is diffrent for every instrement.

[Primal]

That's where things get complicated, basically: where does the influence of the wood stop and the influence of the constructional details begin?

Agreed. Basically, I was just trying to say that, if you look at a body (lets say 2" thick mahogany) and a neck (1" thick by about 2" wide), the neck is going to be far more flexible than the body, and therefore be able to absorb more energy, thus affecting the tone. In my opinion, the stiffer, more rigid the neck, the more pure the tone. And by pure, I mean the natural tone of the vibrating string without any dampening effects of wood.

[Doeringer]

Boy, we could volley this question back and forth for ever, and I think we have. Gaff try the search function on this site and see if you find a ton of information.

[TheCross]

That's where things get complicated, basically: where does the influence of the wood stop and the influence of the constructional details begin?

Agreed. Basically, I was just trying to say that, if you look at a body (lets say 2" thick mahogany) and a neck (1" thick by about 2" wide), the neck is going to be far more flexible than the body, and therefore be able to absorb more energy, thus affecting the tone. In my opinion, the stiffer, more rigid the neck, the more pure the tone. And by pure, I mean the natural tone of the vibrating string without any dampening effects of wood.

right. the stiffer the toneier(what?! is that word legal?)

[GuitarGuy]

This is very similar to the nature vs nurture debate with children. You can't prove either way. You can belive anything you want to believe, it doesn't make it true. EVERY guitar I have made has sounded basically the same, including the pine guitar. People say It should have a lighter tone, it does not, it sounds like an electric guitar. Semi hollow guitars and hollow bodies sound different but that is construction not wood choice. Most hardwoods are relatively the same density baring some non conforming species. So the tones carried on those species are relatively the same.

Objects have natural harmonic frequencies, but that is usually only one frequency which does not prove any advantage to an intrument that produces different notes from the same body/neck.

I stick firmly in the camp that if you can't prove through scientific method that it exists then it does not exist or is too negligible to prove useful.

[Guitarfrenzy]

Question: How Much Does Wood Effect Tone On A Solid Body?

Answer: More than you think, and less than the pickups will allow.

These things can be debates till the moon falls out of the sky, but trying to put a scientific number on how much wood effects the tone is anyones guess. The one thing I feel pretty convinced of though is this...

The wood effects the tone of your guitar much more when it's not plugged in, than when it is..

[Mattia]

Um, this is only like the nature vs. nurture debate in children in that anyone who thinks it's entirely one thing or entirely the other is also entirely wrong.

Blinded, with two guitars you know well, if you change body construction, you can tell the difference between them. You can probably even measure different sound outputs, but few people bother, because it's not terrible useful. The Scientific method is a wonderful thing, and you're unlikely to find someone more supportive of it than me, but...it's not useful for everything. Guitarmaking is a craft, definitely more art than science, just like the music these artifacts, these tools we build, are used to create.

I've yet to see anyone willing to provide/build the sample sizes and blind things sufficiently to get results of any significance. Most guitars differ in several ways, so you're dealing with multiple compounding variables, and no economic or even intellectual incentive to discover 'the truth'. Given the number of different ways you can change things (effects, amp, construction, string selection, and - most importantly - playing technique) any singular part is going to be moderately insignificant. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make any difference; it's all about the details. Quantitatively, pickups, construction, scale length, strings, player, amplifier, effects (in no order I can put them in) have greater influences on the basic tone of a guitar. But wood's in that mix as well, somewhere. That's really all I'm saying. End of the day, just build a solid guitar, pick bits of wood you like the look and feel of, and quit overthinking things! I mean, want to build and all-maple guitar? Go ahead. That supposed mega-brightness? You can probably dial most all of it out (if it's there) with judicious pickup, effects and amp selection. And some picking technique ;-)

See, now, for acoustics, I see a whole lot more value in an scientifically-based approached, beacuse you've got everything in one place there, including 'amplificaiton'. And even there, things are crazy!complicated, and I feel construction is far more important than wood selection; topwood species (ie, spruce or cedar) makes a difference more based on physical properties (Stiffness, dampening, etc.) than on species per se (there are really, really bad tops, and really good ones, that look identical), but the backs/sides....less than the guitar's shape. Also, if it's pretty, ain't that enough?

Edited May 17, 2006 by Mattia

[Mickguard]

I like the idea of building guitars using woods that are native to the region I'm in. Just makes sense to me. Came up with that idea today, while I was talking to the wood guy. I asked him if he had any mahogany, maple, and he said, no, they only deal in native species.

I'll have to make an exception of course for fingerboards, I don't think there's any locally grown ebony.

So there you have part of my criteria. I also want the wood to look good... because I spend a weird amount of time just looking the grain on my guitars (the ones that aren't painted that is).

I do think there's some influence of wood on tone, but that it's just not possible to really say exactly what that is. So I agree with guitar guy, no point in worrying about it. And with GF too --my favorite guitar unplugged is not my favorite guitar to play plugged in (although today it sounded damn good too).

As for building guitars from alternative materials, cheap woods, etc...well, it takes me an enormous amount of effort to build --hell, it took me three days just to get my tuner holes semi straight. So I'm just not willing to waste all that time building with plywood. I'm only going to work on something I'm really committed to.

[GuitarGuy]

Mattia its all in your head! J/K

I agree to disagree.

[Mattia]

Mick: local woods guitars are fun. I've got a few planned in my mind; not necessarily all local to me, but all woods in one guitar local to each other. Mostly, I want to do a chestnut/italian spruce acoustic with olivewood trim, perhams even olivewood fingerboard, bridge. Should be hard enough for that.

Aren't a whole lot of really hard european woods. The Americans have Mesquite, Persimmon, Manzanita and similar at their disposal, though.

GuitarGuy: y'know, in part I'm just playing devil's advocate here; I honestly don't pay much attention to wood selection beyond solid, structural stuff, and since I have the choice, something that rings out nicely. On the off-chance that improves things, great. I rely on solid construction and pickups for the rest. In the absense of data, I stick with my more-or-less logically reasoned hypothesis (which amount to: vague hand-waving about multi-factor influences) based on empirical data, but mostly just don't worry about it, and get to building cool/exciting/well-constructed/well-set-up guitars. Do all I can to make them as good as they can be, and I'm damn well aware of the fact that I'm not doing it scientifically. And since nobody else is, either, I don't particularly care. Honestly, I think building guitars helps you understand things, form your own impressions and opinions, better than talking about building. Talking about building is kinda like talking about sex; it can be fun, it can be funny, but most of the time it ain't gonna teach you anything. And the act itself, well, different for different people, different depending on who you're with, and even when it's bad, it's usually pretty good.

See, guitarmaking? JUST LIKE SEX.

Ahem.

Edited May 17, 2006 by Mattia

[ihocky2]

Yeah, their both addicting and both seem to give the wife a headache.

[wardd]

Here's a link to some stuff I found where they are talking about "velocity of sound" for different kinds of wood and other general tonal properties.

http://www.sweetwater.com/shop/guitars/ele...uying-guide.php

Be Cool,

d ward

[Gaffanon]

thank all wow i should have realized it was a hot topic But interesting anyway. so Im still lost but it does give me something to think about I might jst have to experiment

[Robert_the_damned]

I'd do some serious scientific testing but I don't have the thousands of punds for all the equipment and wood ect.

I'm sticking to my story that wood affects tone but not as much as pickups and amps ect. If you took the brightesst gutiar in the world and turned the tone control on it to 0 it shure as hell wouldn't be bright anymore!

don't think we'll ever resolve this!

[rhoads56]

Do all I can to make them as good as they can be, and I'm damn well aware of the fact that I'm not doing it scientifically. And since nobody else is, either, I don't particularly care.

Just because you havent seen the data posted on a public internet forum, doesnt mean a guitar maker or scientiest (or both) hasnt spend a lot of time, and/or money, researching sounds, quality, materials, glues, lacquers, etc etc etc, under controlled conditions. When someone spends a lot of money researching this type of thing to obtain a definate answer which leads to a definate repeatable result, and an advance in the marketability of said product, you can be damn sure that particular person/company isnt going to reveal that info.

Know what im saying?

My advice is to undertake this research yourself. You might surprise yourself.

[Mr.Churchyard]

Know what im saying?

You are saying that you found the holy grail of tone and won't tell us?!?

[rhoads56]

Just wait for the movie

[oz tradie]

I know of a Luthier who has put up on his website some of his collated

data concerning various types of wood and the relation of tone and density.

In fact he's got a whole lot of other scientific and mathematical equations on stuff.

NOYCEGUITARS.COM/TECHNOTES

have a look at 'wood data' especially.

( I would have linked this , but I am just getting over technophobia )