The undeniable proof that... well... tonewood is a thing?

[curtisa]

15 hours ago, Gogzs said:

There are so many factors in this one, and I'd totally understand the discussion if this was about acoustic guitars, but electric... it's easier to EQ the difference out on a good amp, rather than chase tonewood benefits. 

Agreed. There's actually a significant amount of scientific and formula-based work that has gone in to acoustic guitar design and construction in recent years (see Trevor Gore's and Gerard Gilet's work and publications on the subject). In that field it's no longer necessary to just rely on marrying a bunch of commonly-accepted wood combinations and paint-by-numbers construction techniques to get a good result. I often wonder if modern acoustic guitar builders look at how much solid-body guitar builders twist themselves up into knots trying to convince everyone that mahogany sounds like 'X' and ash sounds like 'Y', and just shake their heads at the apparent stagnation of evolution in our guitar building activities.

We're actually in a unique position as ameteur and semi-professional builders around here - we're not bound to the market norms of the conventional timber choices, nor are we aren't afraid to experiment with wood species that don't confrom to the commonly accepted 'standards' of guitar construction. Want to build a Strat or Les Paul out of bamboo, padauk, african blackwood or a reclaimed huon pine plank from a decomissioned fishing ketch? By jingo, you've got our attention - make that damn thing and show the world how a 'non-standard' guitar can sound!

[mistermikev]

21 hours ago, Gogzs said:

So how do you know if you nailed it and they resonate and amplify each other, or they cancel each other out?And then there's the question if it's beneficial, do you lose some of the benefits by mounting the pickups onto pickup rings instead directly screwing them into the body? 

And the biggest question of all... DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY MATERIALS? What about tonecoffeebeans? Or toneepoxy? Hell, my current builds are like, 80% bamboo... can I coin the term tonegrass?

There are so many factors in this one, and I'd totally understand the discussion if this was about acoustic guitars, but electric... it's easier to EQ the difference out on a good amp, rather than chase tonewood benefits. 

you can make guesses at what wood might influence the sound more or less and in more or less of a positive way... but that is all guesswork.  I've said b4 and will say again... I don't think it matters what material you choose as ultimately you have to compensate for that choice in the end by listening and making choices about "yeah it works" or "no it doesn't work".  changing pickups or wrestling with it in other ways.  if a danelectro can sound good... almost anything can.  I think dano got lucky with his combinations.  that recipe will result in a decent sounding guitar.  my def of tonewood is so relaxed it really isn't a def at all.  I don't ascribe to the notion that it has to be a certain type because the dano proved to me it doesn't.  but the dano DOES sound a certain way.  I don't think you can quite capture that sound using elite tonewood.  I don't think I have golden ears or anything... I don't know that I could consistently pick it out of a recording... but when I play one I hear something that sounds dif than other guitars.  nothing wrong with chasing that.

[mistermikev]

19 hours ago, Drak said:

OMG, I'm replying to a tonewood thread!

Must analyze self, must analyze self! Danger Will Robinson!

Right around 5 min. in he just gets right to the point of it all.

 

well I don't think that recording is really 'great' but it does sound pretty good considering.  I've seen this vid and a number of dylans' vids before and give him all sorts of credit for keeping it interesting (relic a strat by dragging behind truck comes to mind!).  that said... I agree and disagree with his summation.  on the one hand... people do take it way too seriously... on the other - who cares.  if that makes you happy knock yourself out.  we tend to get down on other folks for chasing 'tone wood' meanwhile we are all gear whores who are constantly tweaking our gear to sound better (I assume anyway... otherwise why have more than one guitar/amp/pedal/pick/strings choice?)  if pickups are your tonewood, great.  if amps are your tonewood - great.  that said, we must all remember that video of joe satriani making a $100 cheapo strat copy sound good.  he def doesn't sound quite as good as he typically does... but still sounds 100% better than I ever will!!

[mistermikev]

5 hours ago, curtisa said:

Agreed. There's actually a significant amount of scientific and formula-based work that has gone in to acoustic guitar design and construction in recent years (see Trevor Gore's and Gerard Gilet's work and publications on the subject). In that field it's no longer necessary to just rely on marrying a bunch of commonly-accepted wood combinations and paint-by-numbers construction techniques to get a good result. I often wonder if modern acoustic guitar builders look at how much solid-body guitar builders twist themselves up into knots trying to convince everyone that mahogany sounds like 'X' and ash sounds like 'Y', and just shake their heads at the apparent stagnation of evolution in our guitar building activities.

We're actually in a unique position as ameteur and semi-professional builders around here - we're not bound to the market norms of the conventional timber choices, nor are we aren't afraid to experiment with wood species that don't confrom to the commonly accepted 'standards' of guitar construction. Want to build a Strat or Les Paul out of bamboo, padauk, african blackwood or a reclaimed huon pine plank from a decomissioned fishing ketch? By jingo, you've got our attention - make that damn thing and show the world how a 'non-standard' guitar can sound!

now this I can totally agree with.  the idea that only certain woods CAN sound good.  all it would take is some high profile guitar player playing a guitar built from unsanctioned wood... and it's ordained.  vai/satch - basswood.  jimmy page - masonite/pine, bill kirchen - pine... etc.

really hope some celebrity picks up a sassafras guitar and makes it into tonewood cause I've been wanting to build a guitar out of it for a while!!  (that way it will sound good).

[Gogzs]

23 hours ago, curtisa said:

We're actually in a unique position as ameteur and semi-professional builders around here - we're not bound to the market norms of the conventional timber choices, nor are we aren't afraid to experiment with wood species that don't confrom to the commonly accepted 'standards' of guitar construction. Want to build a Strat or Les Paul out of bamboo, padauk, african blackwood or a reclaimed huon pine plank from a decomissioned fishing ketch? By jingo, you've got our attention - make that damn thing and show the world how a 'non-standard' guitar can sound!

And this is exactly why I come here, not for the "Fender clone nr. xyz" thread, but for the builds that push the established conventions to their breaking point or even completely ignore them. There are some folks on here, when I see that they started a new build thread, I get genuinely excited

[curtisa]

Who doesn't like flogging the dead horse?

Something that this discussion triggered in the back of my dim mind was a study performed a couple of years ago. I thought I'd lost the link to the original paper, but I've just managed to locate it again. You can read it here if you're really looking for some time to kill.

The crux of the experiment was to take six identically-made acoustic guitars, but use different materials for the back and sides and test to see if players could make any judgements on the instruments based on the sounds emitted as a result of the different materials used. After a not-insignificant amount of work they concluded that different species of back and side woods made no statistically significant difference to the perceived sound of the instrument.

The main content of the paper centred around asking the players to rate the guitars based on a number of different qualities. I suspect that this particular component of the experiment was fundamentally flawed, as the questions being asked of the players (how do you rate the brightness? How warm does the guitar sound? How defined is the guitar sound? etc) could mean different things to different people, leading to randomised results. There also appears to have been no control guitar used in the study to verify that the testing methodology was sound. You could also argue that the six guitars were...well, six different guitars and even if the back and sides were made from the same material in all six there'd be enough variance in them to make them all subtly different anyway.

However.

There was a less-publicised component of their experiment that perhaps offers more interesting and useful data, whereby a group of the same players underwent an ABX test. Each player was offered one guitar from a bank of three different instruments with varying back and side materials and allowed to play it blind for a period of time (guitar A). They were then offered a second guitar from the same batch of three to play it blind for a period (guitar B). They were then offered one of the two guitars they had just played and asked to identify if it was guitar A or B they were now playing (guitar X). The results again indicate that no-one could reliably identify guitar A or B any better than a coin toss.

While the study was primarily concerned about acoustic guitars, it does beg the question that if the data suggested that reliable identification of just two acoustic instruments (arguably where wood choice plays a larger role in the sound produced) played back-to-back was nearly non-existent, how much credence should we put in to identifying sonic characteristics of the wood used in a solid body electric guitar?

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, curtisa said:

Who doesn't like flogging the dead horse?

Something that this discussion triggered in the back of my dim mind was a study performed a couple of years ago. I thought I'd lost the link to the original paper, but I've just managed to locate it again. You can read it here if you're really looking for some time to kill.

The crux of the experiment was to take six identically-made acoustic guitars, but use different materials for the back and sides and test to see if players could make any judgements on the instruments based on the sounds emitted as a result of the different materials used. After a not-insignificant amount of work they concluded that different species of back and side woods made no statistically significant difference to the perceived sound of the instrument.

The main content of the paper centred around asking the players to rate the guitars based on a number of different qualities. I suspect that this particular component of the experiment was fundamentally flawed, as the questions being asked of the players (how do you rate the brightness? How warm does the guitar sound? How defined is the guitar sound? etc) could mean different things to different people, leading to randomised results. There also appears to have been no control guitar used in the study to verify that the testing methodology was sound. You could also argue that the six guitars were...well, six different guitars and even if the back and sides were made from the same material in all six there'd be enough variance in them to make them all subtly different anyway.

However.

There was a less-publicised component of their experiment that perhaps offers more interesting and useful data, whereby a group of the same players underwent an ABX test. Each player was offered one guitar from a bank of three different instruments with varying back and side materials and allowed to play it blind for a period of time (guitar A). They were then offered a second guitar from the same batch of three to play it blind for a period (guitar B). They were then offered one of the two guitars they had just played and asked to identify if it was guitar A or B they were now playing (guitar X). The results again indicate that no-one could reliably identify guitar A or B any better than a coin toss.

While the study was primarily concerned about acoustic guitars, it does beg the question that if the data suggested that reliable identification of just two acoustic instruments (arguably where wood choice plays a larger role in the sound produced) played back-to-back was nearly non-existent, how much credence should we put in to identifying sonic characteristics of the wood used in a solid body electric guitar?

keeping in mind that right now I am mad from several days of cold medicine and awaiting covid testing results... ie I cannot be held responsible for anything I say/do... I remember that study and was under the impression that while the back and side didn't matter - the tops did.  

that's all... back to bed.