I came across this quote today--a guy discussing the tonal differences from the shape of a guitar...seems kind of fishy to me...since I'm cutting up a Telecaster body, it'll be interesting to see what kind of tonal change I get...What do you all think?
"My research showed that the difference between Gibson- and Fender-style guitars mainly lies in the dimensions of the guitar's "waist", the indentation between the upper and lower bouts. If a guitar is "offset" like a stratocaster, with the left side upper bout overhanging the right because the indentation is wider on that side, the guitar will have a it's primary voice in the treble. It will be "twangy", or if distortion is used, "thrashy" (an Ibanez is just a strat with a humbucker and gets its fat mids from its electronics). If the waist is symmetrical, the guitar will speak from the midrange with a vocal "aw" sound, like a Les Paul. The bass and mids resonate in the lower bout while the treble resonates in the upper, so the more freely-vibrating wood there is in the upper bout, the brighter the tone will be. Therefore, a double cutaway guitar will be brighter than a single-cutaway (assuming that more wood is added to the "horns" than if they just made it a cutaway by removing wood). This explains why Les Pauls tend to be bottom-heavy. The left-side upper bout is "complete", locking the wood in place and preventing it from vibrating as freely as it would if it were scooped out. NOTE: Any guitar can be made to have fat mids with a combination of pickups, EQ and FX. That doesn't mean the guitar's *voice* is in the midrange."