yoyofargo

Hehe, that's why I used the word "Most." I seriously got to hear a sample of that when it's finished. Let me just toss out an analogy. "Asking why vibrating pickups, wood species, and strings effect the sound of your guitar is like asking why the walls of the building you happen to be in effect the sound of your voice." Alright, maybe it's a bad one... but heck... Vid's getting there btw.

If you're an e-nerd, you know that a "proxy" is something, as in software or hardware, that blocks your IP address. While keeping that in mind, I also draw from it's denotative meaning. I use the word as connotation whenever information from a first object of person (or dampened in this case) and then falsely represented by a second person or object to a third person or object. Now apply that to the situation in this case, body to pickgaurd, pickgard to mounting screws then pickups. Anyways, this is a forum. It's on the internet. Oh god what are we going to do? Learn to accept small amounts of connotation and that words have multiple denotative meanings or call the grammar police. Alright then, because it has a mind and it can clearly make a thought and say to itself "Oh, I don't care" ... imagine this. A pickup is vibrating exactly in harmony with a string. It follows it's movement exactly. How the heck is it going to create a tone? Now, this is an exaggeration. But in practicality, try vibrating a pickup in front of oh, let's just say an iron nail... it's going to create a current. Don't forget your ground. Depending on the speed of the vibration, it will create a signal that is perceivable. The magnets within the pickup create an electromagnetic field. When the pickup is moved, so is the field. I'd go deeper, but I think you're intelligent enough to figure out this 101 stuff. Now the real problem I made in the post was to say that a pickgaurd is going to make a huge difference. I didn't actually intend on creating this premise that "Oh pickgaurd suck, they kill your tone." Why? They don't. They add character. Another problem with measuring tone difference between guitars is your amp and accessories. First, turn the tone pots all the way down. If you love to play with distortion, quit worrying about hearing a tone difference. Most of this tone stuff is for peeps who play clean into a tube amp, and only model their tone to compensate for 60-cycle.

Yeah, I should have expanded the theory when I posted it. I was going to explain overtones, how the tension created-and-released when a string is picked causes the wood to flex, thus causing the wood's tension upon the string to effect the tone... etc etc... It would be tough to explain in text. That's why I'm making a video about my thoeries in Blender. I'll post it in a couple days when it's finished. If there are other reasonable theorys out there, that make sense, I'll be happy to add them to the video. Thanks, yoyofargo

I've noticed the same thing with strats, or any other guitar that has pickups mounted to a pickgard. The pickgard basically acts as a proxy for the vibrations of the wood. It dampens them, making the tone different. When you pick that low E string (or any string), the whole guitar vibrates. When your pickup is mounted on a piece of acrylic the vibrations are going to be dampened. Alright, you pluck a string. From there, the hard vibrations travel: Through the BridgeThrough the BodyThrough the PickgaurdThrough the mounting screwsTo the Pickups Through the NutThrough the Neck Through the Body Through Pickgaurd Through the mounting screws To the pickups Of course, this is simplified, but it's just to show an example of how vibrations travel within a guitar. This is NOT how the pickups work, they work by creating a current via metal moving within a magnetic feild. At each step, the vibrations are dampened and frequencies altered. At the end of the chain, your pickups are vibrating differently than you strings, but you can't say that they aren't vibrating at all. It's this vibration creates the differences in tone between one guitar to another. The movement of the strings in relation to the magnetic feild is changed when the pickup is vibrating along with the strings. This is where wood species becomes a factor. Each wood species and combination will alter that vibration differently. Though the species and shape of the wood is a factor, it is not the only thing that models your output. Each piece is going to act differently. Again, if you toss on a sheet of acrylic as a proxy for your pickups, it's going to dampen the vibration of the pickups. It's a personal opinion if you like the tone or not, which is why alot of people like playing strats. I really hope I made that theory clear enough. If I didn't, I'll work on a visual aid. :/ In the end, it's all about if you enjoy playing your guitar. Go ahead, pick up your cheap little squire, model that tone through a digital device... All of this doesn't matter if you're doing what you love. -Matthew Thoemke