Truck Bed Spray-on Liner As Guitar Finish

[GregP]

<insert something about a pot and a kettle...>

Part of "Tone Voodoo" comes down to transference. We know that tapping a piece of wood that's coated in thick gunk isn't going to sound the same as tapping a piece of wood that's NOT covered with thick gunk. And we transfer that to our perception of an electric guitar's "tone equation."

But what gets overlooked is that the physics of tapping a piece of wood (ie. the "vibrations") is not the same as bolting two pieces of wood together and putting electromagnetic pickups on it. Yeah... sure... some of the vibration is going to be altered somewhat as the vibrations extend throughout the entire volume of the pieces of wood... but at the end of the day, it's a much much smaller piece of the equation than the "tap test" might have you think. The kind of Electric guitars being discussed are, at their core, nothing more than metal strings vibrating across magnetic pickups. THAT's where the tone really lives. The wood choice IS significant in that it's the mass that the nut and bridge are "anchored" to. But as long as you have a solid anchor (in this case, just the body end will be different anyhow) you WILL have a successful electric guitar.

Who the heck made that see-through Plexi thing? You'd instinctively think that it would have "dead" tone, but as mentioned already in this thread, that's not the case.

I understand that it's really hard to separate our instincts and first thoughts from the reality of the physics and the "tone equation" in the guitar... but it's a disconnect that is easily understood once you think it through logically.

Greg