kawasami Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I just found perfect tone for my fender deluxe start. (I play through my headphones). Nice "clean" sound with little compression and works with all mic positions. The neck pick especially is just like stevie ray vaughan and number two position (bridge and middle mic) is really funky...anyways all positions are great. Just like what start should sound with little compression or overdrive. Then I changed the guitar to my fender american standard tele and the sound was really crap. Not sure but like the tele had hotter mics and the sound was really messy. I changed back to my strat and the sound was beautiful and clean again. I will test it with other guitars tomorrow and try to figure why the sound is so different. Could it be the strings?? Strat has now 009-042 elixir polyweb and tele has elixir 010-046 nanoweb strings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 its everything every ingredient is needed to makes a pie now, don't get me wrong, I don't know why, specifically, they would sound so drastically different. But, yes, every thing is going to make it what it is. I've seen factory fresh exact same models look, feel, and sound different than each other. But they aren't exactly the same, because the wood is from a different part of the tree. Its the next layer in, or the same layer but 3 feet higher. Another tree in the forrest. Any number of things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alienux Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 Yes, there are many factors that affect how a guitar sounds (type of pickups, height of pickups, type of wood, thickness of wood, type of hardware/bridge, thickness of strings, etc.). Do these same two guitars sound as different from each other when running through an actual amp or any other equipment, or do they sound similar in other cases? If the tele sounds much hotter, it's likely that the pickups on that one are either higher power pickups or they are closer to the strings than they are on the strat. Also, you didn't mention whether each guitar has double coil or single coil pickups (I'm assuming single, but of course there are strats and teles out there with double), but single coil pickups are going to sound much more sensitive and noisy with more gain than double-humbuckers will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjnette Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 A lwhile ago I checked out a Pawn shop and a new Chinese Squire had a $49 price tag on it. I thought it would come an error when I got to checkout. Probably should of beeen a whopping $149. LOL' It wasn';t much and I bought a $20 loaded HSH pickguard from China and installed it. Still crap.remained idle. Months later just the other day I decide to put a new set of strings on it and set it up.to sell. Easily my favorite guitar right now. Crazy superb and I own a mex strat which needs a set up as have heavy gauge on it. My real favs are a couple of Jap guitars one with stock pick ups the other a mix of good ones. Pickups are a real factor after proper setup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 Pickups probably account for around 60%+ of any guitar tone. The type of wood (and other properties of the wood), the string gauge, bridge, has some effect (maybe 15% combined), but you'd have to listen so close to actually hear any difference that it may as well be discounted as a contributing factor. Certainly a non-musician wouldn't be able to tell any difference. Let's see, that leaves 25% remaining that can be attributed to playing style and phrasing, which can also change depending on the type of music being played. Note the above numbers are guessed from my butt-hole with hardly any data to back it back up, only experience and a somewhat trained listening contraption contained within my rather large head. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joel_brown Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 I took an old Vantage guitar (ever heard of them ?) and worked on it heavily. Finally got it playing really nice. Then I stuck a SuperDistortion pickup in it, which is my favorite pickup for all my guitars. Now it plays great and sounds great. Took it over to let one of my buddies play it. He's a real stickler for Les Pauls, SGs, Strats, no clones or copies allowed. He was impressed. I put a total amount of $70 into this guitar plus the $50 I paid for it and have a nice backup guitar for every day use. I even take this guitar to gigs as a backup in case I break a string or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjnette Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 One of mine is a Vantage LOL. And it plays very nicely. It is my guitar for rhythm. I'm a bass player so I'm allowed have to these"inferior models" I have played on plenty of great named guitars owned by plenty of guitarists. There is no doubt that quality branded instruments are beautifully made. But they require setting up too. Boutique instruments seem to come already set up. The wood mainly on the fretboard has a bearing on the sound imo the most, but not to the degree the wood from a Stradivarius effects tone. The strings and how they are fixed by bridge and nut and the pickups used are the way the sound is gotten and naturally needs to be set up right. The playing style and ability have the most bearing on tone from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 There is something to be said for the quality of an instrument, at least for basses. I used to have an SR305 that was replaced with an SR1205E. The difference was quite astounding, much more than I thought it would be. The 305 felt like a floppy piece of styrofoam compared to the 1205. The 305 constantly went out of tune because of the crappy bridge (although I tend to put a lot physical energy in my playing, probably more than needed); the little screws adjusting the saddle heights would vibrate into a disastrous mess, making the bridge look like a mountain range. The 1205 has none of these major annoyances, and sounds good too. The 305 sounded ok, but the two have totally different pickups. One other thing about the wood that could effect tone in a very good way is if the neck wood (not fret board) is resonant with the body wood. Try flicking both pieces of wood with your finger and if they have very similar sound characteristics that's good. Neck joint is important too. I have an older Ibanez American Master with an AANJ that is absolutely a pleasure to play on. Much better than my JEM. More contact with the body wood to transfer the vibrations better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radatats Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I took an old Vantage guitar (ever heard of them ?) and worked on it heavily. Finally got it playing really nice. Then I stuck a SuperDistortion pickup in it, which is my favorite pickup for all my guitars. Now it plays great and sounds great. Took it over to let one of my buddies play it. He's a real stickler for Les Pauls, SGs, Strats, no clones or copies allowed. He was impressed. I put a total amount of $70 into this guitar plus the $50 I paid for it and have a nice backup guitar for every day use. I even take this guitar to gigs as a backup in case I break a string or something. You actually have a quality guitar from the glory days of Japanese guitar manufacturing by Matsumoku. Getting hard to find these gems at good prices. They are real keepers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsumoku 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjnette Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I have had mine on the bench! I was going to install a floating tremelo and reload the pick guard. Perhaps I should leave it stock. I am a bit of a collector of Jap guitars got a Jazz Conrad guitar and a real workhorse Quest Atak. This guitar is really something , it has a wide string spacing that just seems natural, it comes with a coil split on the bridge humbucker and has one only single. I have set it up to the nth degree and the stock pups just perfect. Everyone who has been to my place for a jam have really liked it Dunncan: My basses are good. Ibanez Musician is a little like yours; Ibanez ATK my main and Ibanez Accoustic bass. I definitely would like a F Jazz Bass one of my students have. About the best I have ever tried. Speaking of wood, the neck thru basses have always been better at sustain. I think there are some old Ibanez earliest guitars designed the same. Wood does play a role. And true good hardware especially on basses is a big factor in tone. I personally like trying to make silk purses out of a sows ear. It gives me a kick to have a cheap guitar sounding and playing like something way more expensive. If you get real joy from it then no harm done. Maybe once my kids are all grown up I can invest in something special. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I have an old Jackson. It has a J-90c pickup, and runs into a JE-1200 mid boost (active pickup, and active preamp circuit). 18volts is what it needs to run. The thing has been my 'go to' guitar/pickup when I needed something really hot. Not just loud, but it picks up every little nuance and every --- its an amazing pickup. BUT It only gives an amazing sound on old gear. Gear of its generation. If I plug it into my Pod, it sounds fairly common. Nothing unique or special about it. I've had the thing for almost 30 years. Its has amazed people for almost 30 years. My rig. Other people's rigs. Any old rig. Its only the modern gear that destroys it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alienux Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I have an old Jackson. It has a J-90c pickup, and runs into a JE-1200 mid boost (active pickup, and active preamp circuit). 18volts is what it needs to run. The thing has been my 'go to' guitar/pickup when I needed something really hot. Not just loud, but it picks up every little nuance and every --- its an amazing pickup. I have a Charvel/Jackson model 2 that came stock with a J90c, but I replaced it with a Duncan Screamin' Demon about 20 years ago. I still have the J-90c in a drawer somewhere, but the Screamin' Demon has been a good pickup, and sounds good with the HD500X, but it is a little hotter than my other guitar (Ibanez with a Norton and Paf Joe). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dshow Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I just found perfect tone for my fender deluxe start. (I play through my headphones). Nice "clean" sound with little compression and works with all mic positions. The neck pick especially is just like stevie ray vaughan and number two position (bridge and middle mic) is really funky...anyways all positions are great. Just like what start should sound with little compression or overdrive. Then I changed the guitar to my fender american standard tele and the sound was really crap. Not sure but like the tele had hotter mics and the sound was really messy. I changed back to my strat and the sound was beautiful and clean again. I will test it with other guitars tomorrow and try to figure why the sound is so different. Could it be the strings?? Strat has now 009-042 elixir polyweb and tele has elixir 010-046 nanoweb strings. That's why the voting system on Custom Tone doesn't make any sense to me. It depends on so many things how a patch sounds. I always create different tones for every guitar I use even for do adjustments for different pickup positions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBob-Irwin Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Then I changed the guitar to my fender american standard tele and the sound was really crap Have you tried switching the Guitar in on the pod from normal to pad when using the Tele? Have you tried the Strat and the Tele through a Guitar amp instead of the pod and if so was the result the same? if it is you might want to drop the height of the pups in the Tele or at least try and drop the volume on the Tele. To me a Tele is a half way house between a Strat and a Les Paul and does seem to have more output than the strat and is a little more gruff sounding in a nice way only need to listen to Led Zep 1 to see what I mean about Gruff, An other thing has the Tele been fitted with high output pickups if it has this may be the problem as high output pups are more focused at a particular frequencies have high "Q" and lower bandwidth which is fine if that is what you want but in my old age I have discovered less is more and prefer lower output pups and if I want a heavier sound I let the Amp/FX do the work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhittles Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 I'm seeing assertions that guitar wood affects tone. For the record, I think the evidence and the science demonstrate this not to be the case. I'm open to a double blind study to the contrary but I've been waiting a long time for that. Assertions are groovy but I'd just like to point out it is NOT accepted fact and a lot of us disagree ( when speaking of potted electromagnetic pickups and the amplified signal created 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjnette Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Yes there is that argument, but rather then condemn you for inexperienced deaf ears: I tend to agree. It is a personal thing. If you get average Joe to listen he is not going to hear it. If you get a beginner to play he wont feel the difference. You get the picture, thru the hardware strings and electromagnetics not everyone can discern a difference. Take the seasoned pro guitarist blindfolded, can he pick the difference of an ebony fretboard, a straight thru neck? Some can they are that experienced with guitars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhittles Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Sorry I don't buy it And I am far from inexperienced but this is not about my Bona fides - I've run sound for major label bands, I've worked closely with a world class luthier (who make guitars for some of the most well known guitarists) Science is science. It doesn't care who you are And the psychology of confirmation bias etc plays a part in why you believe I used to believe the same thing. Heck, it SEEMS like wood affects tone EXCEPT when you try to PROVE IT DOUBLE BLIND EVERY SINGLE TIME - the 'I can hear the difference' advocate (remember I WAS one) is challenged double blind... They can't tell the difference It's just like ESP people will swear up and down they have it - but when it comes time for controlled testing? FAIL every time I would LOVE for Tonewoods to be real... And God knows they are for ACOUSTIC guitars. And maybe they are for piezo's. I haven't studied the science But when it comes to an ELECTROMAGNETIC POTTED PICKUP - sorry, that signal is unaffected by tone wood. I guarantee you I could play 6 acrylic and 6 mahogany guitars, and if you could not see them and I didn't know which I was playing (so I couldn't subconsciously attack the strings differently) , you would not be able to discern which is which Heck, I'll substitute cement, beer barrel wood, or particle board It WILL affect the ACOUSTIC tone of an electric guitar ... And 95% of the trine a guitarist is noodling away in practice he CAN hear the guitar itself ACOUSTICALLY, which helps reinforce the belief since wood WILL affect that again, as the above poster did, you can post link after link where people will assert this without evidence as the above person does but again with millions of dollars at stake nobody can show in one double-blind study TONEWOODS actually make a difference! And it has been demonstrated many times they do not Confirmation bias, subjective hearing (we don't hear passively. We LISTEN actively, more so the more musically experienced we are) One suggestion - study compression waves Get a good physics textbook Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhittles Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Bra, snark away but this is not about you or me, and this is not my theory. Many very savvy physicists, luthiers, players and gear heads have been saying this stuff for decades like you, I listened to what the industry wants us to believe, because there are billions of dollars at stake, but you are making all sorts of assumptions. You assume sarcastically for example that 'Line 6' which is of course not a monolithic entity but a company with many people within it Doesn't believe when I am telling you and I find it more likely that there are probably some people at Line 6 that tonewood's are mythology and probably some people who disagree. cool! but that's tangential to whether it's reality I would love to still believe in the romantic and appealing notion of Tonewoods but I cannot ignore the dozens of Counterexamples I've seen demonstrated to me as well as the underlying physics which are very compelling when I see people who are convinced they can tell the difference suddenly lose that claimed ability when they are presented with that test presented in a double-blind manner and when I see a person play a beautiful guitar and then saw off essentially the entire body of the guitar and it still sounds exactly the same I can't ignore evidence that sitting right in front of me regardless I'm not trying to convince you and I could not care less what your opinion is. my statement that I made was that it was being presented as a indisputable fact in this thread that Tonewoods affect tone in an electric guitar using electromagnetic pickups and I am simply saying that to be charitable that is best - ARGUABLE Unlike many people who have sunk costs into Tonewoods and thus have a vested interest in the truth being a certain way , I have no dog in this fight and I would love to be wrong because it would reinstate the wonderful romantic notion of Towerwoods and I find the idea very appealing! however it's pretty telling that with all the $$$$$$ made from charging more for Tonewoods, that no advocate thereof has presented proof, and it would be quite simple to do caveat emptor. Believe what hat you want to bepiece but remember that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in your philosophy my PRS is no less beautiful because the wood in the body is not affecting the tone. I prefer maple necks and I'm stoked to get my maple fretboard 69s tomorrow i like the feel of maple fretboards, I prefer the dynamics which improves my Playing so there is a feedback loop there - maple will 'sound better ' in that respect even though it's not the maple- it's the symbiotic relationship it has with my left hand that makes the difference I appreciate your enthusiastic recommendations but I'm reasonably confident that Line 6 will soldier on making awesome products without us and it's not that Tonewood in the guitar's bodies make a difference in the sound carried by the electromagnetic pickups ( again I am agnostic vis a vis piezos) but it is a fact that there are a metric buttload of factors that go into making a guitar cry and sing and clearly the tyler variax's have plenty of that sweet mojo compression waves are what they are I am also heartened that there are people who can discuss this topic without snark, bile and evasion of the underlying physics that offers an explanation WHY Tonewoods don't matter there is so much already written on this fascinating topic so if you really do care, seek out the truth. It can wait Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edstar1960 Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 This thread has become very deep ... but while we are on the subject of wood and pick ups I thought I would share this....I have a friend who is a very experienced luthier and he has put together some excellent sounding guitars comprised of the cheapest and worthless wood and laminates and cheap pickups. He has bought cheap Chinese made clone guitars for less than £90, and with a little bit of TLC and a careful setup, has managed to get them singing and sounding as nice as his USA made Fender strat. He has even played these guitars to an audience of guitar players alongside people playing an assortment of classic fender strat guitars with top of the range customised pickups and they have been amazed at just how good his cheap guitar with cheap pickups actually sounds when played through the same amp and fx because it sounds comparable to their very expensive guitars. He doesn't believe the hype around expensive pick ups and therefore will only buy cheap pick ups because he believes the expensive ones are a waste of his money - sure they sound different - but it's only a matter of tone and resonant frequencies - and each and every pickup is just copper wire wrapped around a magnet or magnets - and he has shown many times to himself and his experienced guitar playing friends that when compared played through the same fx and amps that they don't come up short. The same with the body woods - he has guitars made out of utter junk but they sound great and play great because they have been set up correctly. Sure they don't sound exactly the same as a top of the range Gibson or Fender - but they don't sound worse or better - just different but still close in sound - personal taste determines which sound we each prefer. One example of a famous home made guitar, not built by an experienced luthier or using expensive tonewoods or pickups, is the red special built by Brian May of Queen. I have recently bought a couple of Vintage V100 guitars brand new - they needed to be setup correctly and did not have the best hardware or best finishes - but they are very playable and sound great. They are very cheap LP style guitars. I compared them to my actual Gibson LP Standard and made some demo recordings to see if they could easily be identified and asked my friends to listen and pick out the Gibson. Well they were so close in sound that it was almost impossible to tell them apart. These experiences have shown me that it's not the name on the guitar headstock, or the make of pick ups or the body or neck woods that make an electric guitar sound good, or just because an electric guitar has a low price tag that it is necessarily going to sound like lollipop. Any electric guitar that is set up correctly has the potential to sound great through amps and fx regardless of what it is made of or the hardware on it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillBee Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 One of my fave el'cheapo's is an OLP MM1 just comfortable and stays in tune - even the stock pickups sound nice. The tonality of wood is a sticky wicket of discussion where subjective will battle with scientific. I agree with Nico and "believe" that the guitar as a whole affects the resonance and tonality. I've swapped loaded pickguards on a 74 and 76 Strats a long time ago. One had a really heavy body the other pretty light (both maple necks). With nothing else changed there was tone and sustain change - through the same Vibro Champ amp (its been too long for me to remember which was which). But all in all its MHO :) -B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edstar1960 Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 I agree with Nico too. I think every electric guitar does have it's own unique voice but not everyone will be able to hear the subtle differences. Some people who have many years experience and a highly trained ear will be able to hear differences that most will never hear. For example. my wife thinks every electric guitar sounds the same so why would I ever want more than 1? Fortunately I have won that argument! LOL ;) I don't understand how the body wood interacts with the string to produce a different tone through the magnetic pick ups but somehow that does seem to happen because the same pickups mounted on different guitars do sound different. I have a custom built strat style guitar with a mahogany body and a quilted maple veneer top, it has a birds eye maple neck and an ebony fingerboard. It has a vintage strat style trem. I put strat pick ups on it and it does not sound identical to my Fender USA strat, or my Fender Mexican Strat. It sounds like a trem guitar with single coil pickups but it does not sound like a strat. It has it's own voice. If the tone was 100% down to the pick ups then it should sound just like a strat - so there is certainly more involved in the final output tone. What exactly is involved and is picked up and interpreted by the pickups is something the scientists will know. I really don't know enough about it. I don't understand why the same pickup mounted on two different guitar bodies will produce a different final tone when all it is doing is picking up the vibration of a metal string interfering with its magnetic field. I don't understand how the acoustic qualities of the electric guitar can get transferred through the pick ups - but from experience it seems that they do. Another thing that make a difference to strat trem guitars is the trem block - I originally had a brass block on mine and I changed it for a steel one and I could clearly hear the difference. Also the bridge saddles make a big difference for strats and tele's. I put together a tele style guitar from parts bought on the internet - but it didn't sparkle like my Fender Mexican Tele - I double checked the bridge components and discovered that the saddles were chrome covered zinc and not solid steel - so I swapped them for solid steel and wow, what a difference that made - suddenly the missing sparkle was there. Again, I don't understand how these tonal changes could be picked up and transferred via the pick ups - but they were! There are a whole host of things that contribute to the electric guitars final tone through the pick ups. I can't explain it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhittles Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Again, "not everyone can hear it" etc . But here's the rub... when the listener is "BLIND" iow they do not know if they are listening to ash or mahogany or particle board or cement THEY cannot hear it either. over and over and over and over and over again There is a reason why studies are conducted DOUBLE BLIND. Because subjectivity and even subconscious or subtle cuing can affect results. So, again, here's what I am trying to explain people CANNOT tell the difference this has been demonstrated over and over again but that's when the study is conducted blind OBVIOUSLY, if you are told "This is a superbitchenmagicwood guitar and it sounds warm!" ... you hear warm and you are told "this is a muckyentwoodjehosophat" and it sounds bright ... you hear bright this has been demonstrated in the audiophile world for decades. they will take a cheap stereo and have people review it then, they will put it in an expensive box with a top brand name (they used to do this with Bose all the time when it was the "it " brand. now many audiophiles HATE bose, but I digress) and the SAME PEOPLE will rate the stereo substantially higher "wow, I can really hear the difference" except... there is no difference. go ahead, show me a double blind study where people found Mahogany to be (insert marketing terminology here) and basswood to be... (...) etc. it NEVER happens people are able to discern individual tonewoods at about the same rate they would by CHANCE. iow, the emperor has no clothes but sure , "I can tell the difference. I'm special". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Acoustic instruments are more obvious to tonal changes. BUT, the casual listener will miss it. ALSO, cheap $200 guitars, no matter what wood was used, will not show a difference. Higher end models is where you can tell. Otherwise, why would we ever need to buy a high end guitar? And even those 'scientific' youtube videos. You have to take in to account the microphone used, and the video quality. That type of demonstration is different that what the human ear is actually hearing in a live setting. But electric instruments are mostly about electronics. Strings. Pickups. Cords. FX. Not wood. That's how you can go to youtube and see logs or toppled over trees being used to make tremendous guitar sounds. Add a pickup, a fretboard, and something to hold the strings. The wood may change things like sustain, or the playability of the guitar, but it has less to do with sound because of the electronics. There is also a difference between the player and the listener. Because the player comes into physical contact with the guitar. So any vibrations will travel into the player. Woods make a difference to what you 'feel', which could in theory change what your hear. Its sort of like making your body a vibrational speaker. Which is the same type of effect that happens if you are sitting at your desk playing guitar, and you have the headstock touching the desk, or the body touching the arm of the (non-padded) chair. Those things "become" part of the instrument and help provide sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akeron Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svmOQuNC1Uw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aerosol_d7 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 different guitars always need different amp settings.. the Strats probably are the most diffuse electric guitar types in the world.. and the factory presets settings probably are build mainly around the typical Strat signal.. that's probably why Strats tend to sound better than Tele and Les Paul type guitars leaving the factory settings as they are.. don't esitate to turn down (even at zero if necessary) to a more appropriate point bass, treble, presence and drive depending on the type of guitar connected, to get the most from any combination.. also, for a cleaner and more definited sound you could try and like the single input approach, ie setting input2 to variax or aux is there any information available to know which brand or type of guitar line 6 used to build a tone? Id say original Fender strats mostly (with single coil pickups), but it doesnt make too much sense to me, for high gain amps like ENGL, Boogie, (at least Fender strat with humbuckers) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhittles Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Acoustic instruments are more obvious to tonal changes. BUT, the casual listener will miss it. ALSO, cheap $200 guitars, no matter what wood was used, will not show a difference. Higher end models is where you can tell. Otherwise, why would we ever need to buy a high end guitar? And even those 'scientific' youtube videos. You have to take in to account the microphone used, and the video quality. That type of demonstration is different that what the human ear is actually hearing in a live setting. But electric instruments are mostly about electronics. Strings. Pickups. Cords. FX. Not wood. That's how you can go to youtube and see logs or toppled over trees being used to make tremendous guitar sounds. Add a pickup, a fretboard, and something to hold the strings. The wood may change things like sustain, or the playability of the guitar, but it has less to do with sound because of the electronics. There is also a difference between the player and the listener. Because the player comes into physical contact with the guitar. So any vibrations will travel into the player. Woods make a difference to what you 'feel', which could in theory change what your hear. Its sort of like making your body a vibrational speaker. Which is the same type of effect that happens if you are sitting at your desk playing guitar, and you have the headstock touching the desk, or the body touching the arm of the (non-padded) chair. Those things "become" part of the instrument and help provide sound. There are a metric buttload of reasons to spend a lot on a guitar - iow where it is worth it 1) investment 2) aesthetics 3) piece of history 4) craftsmanship 5) tone etc.etc. But again, it's as simple as this. The physics suggest wood makes no difference. So, it's a pretty extraordinary claim but I am not even requiring extraordinary evidence Just this ONE PEER REVIEWED DOUBLE BLIND STUDY that shows tonewood makes a discernable difference TO ANYBODY (as long as they are blind - as is the person creating the tone) It's pretty telling with the MILLIONS of dollars profit made from tonewoods, they can't come up with ONE solid study to prove it makes any difference Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellM5 Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I believe the tone comes entirely from the pickups and brand/gauge of strings and that wood is only a factor with acoustics and hollow or semi-hollow bodied guitars. I regularly play 11 different electric guitars through my HD500X / DT25 setup, as well as my Vetta II, and the tonal differences on any given patch are huge. This can even be demonstrated through Workbench by swapping pickups or directly on the HD500X by changing the impedance. One thing I love about the Variax is that, no matter which patch I call up, the guitar has a model that will sound great with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhittles Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 i have heard some awesome sounding acrylic guitars but here is what is funny play a person a sound file of an acrylic strat and TELL them it's a vintage strat and they will say how "warm" and "resonant" the wood sounds etc. Show them a video first and they see it's an acrylic strat and they will say it sounds lifeless tinny and dull heck, even though i KNOW it's pure psychology, I admit I can fall prey to this. I look at the acrylic guitar and it SOUNDS different to me. it is SO SO SO Subjective and we dont realize it years ago, I was remarking to a total blues guy (I am not a blues guy although I appreciate SRV Buddy Guy, BB King etc) how I though the version of Cat People on let's dance has the most awesome intro ever and is a near perfect tune. He said how soulless and lifeless that album was - pure pop crap, especially for bowie. I remarked on how awesome the solos are, for example on Let's Dance. He didn't agree (he had no idea SRV plays all the solos on the album... Nile Rogers, my guitar hero, produced and plays most of the rhythm) as soon as he found out it was SRV, he LISTENED and HEARD it differently and admitted he now thought it sounded awesome but he had never HEARD it that way if you have a preconceived notion BEFORE you hear something, it is impossible to hear it objectively when I was in High School (ok, 1984 I admit it), I had a 4 track and I recorded a very rudimentary cover of white wedding. I rented a microphone and since I didn't own any drums and was just recording in my living room (didnt feel like driving to our practice garage where my drummer had his stuff), I ended up using some cardboard boxes etc for the "drums" People I played it for asked me who was playing drums and that it sounded "good" i knew it was a cardboard box and it sounded thin to me, but they didn't and it sounded good there are few things more subjective in our experience than what enters through our ear drums and into our brain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billlorentzen Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Here is something that doesn't make sense to me: if tone wood does not make a difference, then why would a semi acoustic body make a difference? The pickup is not amplifying the acoustic aspect of the guitar, only the string, right? The body should not be a factor except in sustain, according to the physics video. I have a custom "super Strat" with EMG SA singles and an Ibanez as120 (more or less like a 335). I swapped pickups on the Ibanez to EMG 89s, which are a single and hum in the same case. The single is supposed to sound like an SA. I could not get a tone even remotely the same as the strat on that Ibanez. Obviously there are other factors such as scale length etc, but I thought I should be able to get something somewhat the same, but I assure you it was impossible (and I really wanted to get a similar tone, and tried hard to get it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellM5 Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 I believe the semi acoustic body cavity makes a big difference and is captured by the pickups. Otherwise, an acoustic with a pickup would just sound like an electric. As for the sustain thing, guitars with bolt on necks sustain the longest. You would think a neck through design would win but that's not the case. As expected, set necks don't fair well in this contest because the glue has a dampening effect on the vibration. I've seen this demonstrated on multiple youtube videos and I've been able to recreate the results with my own guitar collection. I don't, however, own a neck through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 The one with the spinning gears and moving piston was pretty awesome, even though I'm not a fan of that guitar shape. Sounds good too. The one made from concrete, well, that one screwed with my sense of intuition about what a guitar is. You see it first and think, ok that's a bit strange, but when he started playing it my senses were a little short-circuited. Thanks for that. :huh: :lol: I think if these same guitars were put into the hands of less capable guitar players, the perception of the sound would be completely different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 these are also interesting.. I'd love to have one Yikes! They might be interesting, but I find them to be quite ugly. Reminds of Twiki from Buck Rogers for some reason. Bedeep bedeep bedeep! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Yikes! They might be interesting, but I find them to be quite ugly. Reminds of Twiki from Buck Rogers for some reason. Bedeep bedeep bedeep! :lol: I'm gonna file this one under " just because you can, doesn't mean you should"...lol I'd also be willing to bet that if you're not constantly wiping off the fingerprints, eventually the acids will eat into the thing and you'll never get them off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 you can ask your wife what product uses to shine the kitchen sink.. lol I ask my wife that question, and I'll never play again...I'd wake up with no hands, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I ask my wife that question, and I'll never play again...I'd wake up with no hands, lol. In the old days, women like that would be called Spinsters. Because no man would want her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hepdog Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Re vintage vs new: The same double blind tests have been made with stradivarius vs new builds; experts can't Id one consistently. But this misses the point entirely- the old wood/construction techniques/mojo/whatever is something you feel as you are playing the instrument in question. It interacts with you, it responds to your playing nuances, it rewards the years of practice and expert technique. This is hard (not impossible) to find in a new guitar. Will an audience ever be able tell sonically that you are playing your beloved 50's gibson? Would they even care? Aside frome the 4 gear heads at any show, the answer to both is no. But you will know. With that knowledge your confidence and skill will bring your playing to a place it may not have gone before. This is what owning a great piece of vintage gear is all about. One of the reasons I switched to L6 modelling when the XT came out was they got the feel right-no more amp tone chasing. I traded my 58 tweed deluxe for a 55 junior because in a live setting NO ONE can hear the difference, including me. And as we established earler, we - as guitarists - are really the only ones who really care about this musical minutia anyway. As zappa said :"shut up and play year guitar" Hep 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil_m Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Re vintage vs new: The same double blind tests have been made with stradivarius vs new builds; experts can't Id one consistently. But this misses the point entirely- the old wood/construction techniques/mojo/whatever is something you feel as you are playing the instrument in question. It interacts with you, it responds to your playing nuances, it rewards the years of practice and expert technique. This is hard (not impossible) to find in a new guitar. Actually those blind tests involving violins were not just identifying the sounds, it was people playing the violins. They used players from a range of different skill levels including some of the best players in the world. Even then, the players weren't able to pick out the real Strads versus the newer violins. So it seems that the thing about the old wood and construction techniques is actually a bit overblown, too. Maybe players have the experience of feeling more inspired to play when they play on vintage instruments and gear simply they have strong expectations in that direction. It should be noted, though, that the violins the Strads were put up against weren't just some mass-produced instrument. They were handmade violins constructed by top makers today. So it was comparing multi-million instruments to ones that would still be in the >$10,000 range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 And a violin test would be acoustic vs acoustic. Its a little different between electric vs electric because its not the wood making the noise, its an amp that was powered by a pickup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott93105 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 I just found perfect tone for my fender deluxe start. (I play through my headphones). Nice "clean" sound with little compression and works with all mic positions. The neck pick especially is just like stevie ray vaughan and number two position (bridge and middle mic) is really funky...anyways all positions are great. Just like what start should sound with little compression or overdrive. Then I changed the guitar to my fender american standard tele and the sound was really crap. Not sure but like the tele had hotter mics and the sound was really messy. I changed back to my strat and the sound was beautiful and clean again. I will test it with other guitars tomorrow and try to figure why the sound is so different. Could it be the strings?? Strat has now 009-042 elixir polyweb and tele has elixir 010-046 nanoweb strings. Often times you can simply adust the z-impedence - I usually run spanky guitars (tele) at 230k, and humbuckers/low output single coils at 1M. I'm guessing these 2 guitars sound pretty different through the same real tube amp as well, but the differences come out in a way that's pleasing! I've never dialed up a tone via HD500x on my Strat that sounds good on my SG, or Les Paul... but I can plug into my Hot Rod Deluxe with the knobs at noon and all guitars sound great. The pod really needs to be tailored to the axe/output device for the best results - that's why so many people lollipop about POD presets! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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