Why Wood Matters | Rules of Tone: Episode 1 | PRS Guitars

[Holy-diver]

Not to be a spoiler, but I bet there will be no evidence forthcoming for this claim

Evidence is in acoustic instruments. Additionally, there is electric guitar evidence posted in this very thread, people like you just choose to say no to it and act like it must have been some other mystery variable causing the tone difference because they didn’t use a laser level and precision calipers

I just realized I replied to that video the day it came out.

He's claiming different species sound different. This cannot POSSIBLY be true, it is dendrochronology denial

I don’t think anyone has tried claiming every piece of wood within the species is exactly the same but they certainly can have common characteristics and the majority of pieces of wood from that species would usually fall somewhere in that average range. Cut down 20 trees of any species and they will be pretty damn similar to one another, all with the signature characteristics of grain and density you would expect from trees of that species and of the same relative age. Wood species do have their own inherent unique tonal qualities once again just look at acoustic instruments. In fact every other instrument has tone that is affected by the material used to construct it but we’re supposed to believe that once it’s an electric guitar it somehow doesn’t? Literally how

 

[pipelineaudio]

1. Of course there is. And it has been done and established many of the principles we use in manufacturing today in many fields, especially telecommunications
   [Citation Needed]

Timbre or any other reality based description of a sound is going to come down to frequency, bandwidth, distortion, noise or time based effects
Usually timbre describes harmonic content of an instrument both in added harmonics (distortion) and the level of each of those harmonics (frequency)
We can easily measure these for free with software like Room EQ Wizard. https://www.roomeqwizard.com/

1. Something we can do to an astonishing degree, and we can do very easily with products you probably already have around the home
   Please do elaborate.

A decent audio interface (even one from Behringer) paired with Room EQ Wizard will allow you to test every parameter that we can hear

1. That used to seem like a tricky thing, but people have found many ways around this into overlapping error ranges
   [Citation Needed]

All the way down to quantum errors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_constant
Of course, industrial applications, like making circular sawblades safely or even keeping mechanical hard drives from busting apart don't need to go that far into the noise, but we certainly can, down to the photon, thanks to Plank's Constant

 

[pipelineaudio]

The thing about all the scientific evidence is that it doesn’t agree with my ears/experience. I’m an engineer so I tend to trust the science more than some but my ears just keep pummeling my brain with a different answer.

That's why our ears are unreliable and worse than unreliable as measurement devices. Your state of mind, the food you ate, the color of your walls, and so manyu billions of things affect what your brain thinks you hear as the McGurk Effect shows so clearly

Maybe it’s from playing acoustic guitars that are otherwise built identical but one model has Mahogany back and sides and the other has Rosewood. There are tonal properties that are consistent when switching from one to the other. Consistent among brands, consistent among other models, etc. I don’t think any amount of science would convince me I’m not hearing that.

If so, this would be extremely easy to measure and show, for free even thanks to REW, but we never get these measurements

Does it then not apply to hollow body electrics?
Does it then not apply to semi-hollow body electrics?
Or is it only solid body electrics where it then magically stops making a difference?
What about thin lines?

This seems less about species of wood than it does construction, but even then, there's a pitiful lack of evidence. (I am 1000% convinced that a semi hollowbody electric is going to feedback like crazy compared to a solid body, but I've never been able to reliably show it)

 

[pipelineaudio]

Oh, I do, bro. Every basswood bodied bolt on guitar I've ever played that has a locking trem has a spongy, soft attack, compared to guitars with hardwood bodies and I say that as someone in their 60's who's been playing shredsticks for over 4 decades.

This would be extremely easy to measure and show. I wonder why YouTube channels would take longer to write about it than to just test it

 

[pipelineaudio]

Over 40 years of personal experience. I don't need to prove it to anyone else. Why would I? I don't care!

Argumentum ad TrustMeBronium

Drum shells, man. Now there's a rabbit hole.

YES! Still tons to research there

 

[Fiesta Red]

Without wood, none of us would be here

 

[pipelineaudio]

Addendum:

If you show that there's a difference analyzing the frequencies, they say "oh this all disappears in the mix"

If you show that there is a difference that reaches the threshold of audibility, it MIGHT disappear in the mix, but it might not. The Burden of Proof would then be on the one saying it would disappear. Are you aware of a case like that?

Its true that of course many things will disappear in a mix as converting something with say an 80dB dynamic range to its spotify output of MAYBE 12dB of dynamic range is going to drop a LOT of perceptible information

 

[BlueParfait]

Are you aware of a case like that?

Where they actually take ownership of their claims like that?

No. None lol.

I do remember Glenn Fricker doing it, but I don't remember where, but he "proves" it by using a blind test, and then equates not being able to identify which pickups by name with "can't tell the difference"

 

[BlueParfait]

Timbre or any other reality based description of a sound is going to come down to frequency, bandwidth, distortion, noise or time based effects
Usually timbre describes harmonic content of an instrument both in added harmonics (distortion) and the level of each of those harmonics (frequency)
We can easily measure these for free with software like Room EQ Wizard. https://www.roomeqwizard.com/

A decent audio interface (even one from Behringer) paired with Room EQ Wizard will allow you to test every parameter that we can hear

All the way down to quantum errors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_constant
Of course, industrial applications, like making circular sawblades safely or even keeping mechanical hard drives from busting apart don't need to go that far into the noise, but we certainly can, down to the photon, thanks to Plank's Constant

Aight I'll go read that + implications in my free time

 

[pipelineaudio]

Where they actually take ownership of their claims like that?

No. None lol.

I do remember Glenn Fricker doing it, but I don't remember where, but he "proves" it by using a blind test, and then equates not being able to identify which pickups by name with "can't tell the difference"

Glenn definitely did some videos where he shows that at higher gains the differences between pickups gets vanishingly small. I think that he didn't say you couldn't tell which pickup was which but rather you couldn't tell when one pickup was switched for another which sounds the same but is pretty different. But for all I know, its Glenn Fricker and he said exactly what you said he did.

There's a close parallel in mic preamps, where the sommeliers pretend they can totally easily tell even under the worst circumstances how much better a neve mic pre is from anything else, and then when actually tested, pick Mackies and ARTs as the best in some cases and in others cannot even tell IF mic pres had been switched beyond the 33% random chance would predict

To me, pickups have measurable resonant frequencies, and thus should be distinguishable at least measurably predictably, even if we can't or would have trouble hearing it, regardless of the gain as I can't think of any way that a multiband distortion model of gain nonlinearities could somehow even that out, but I think I remember the video you are talking about and it really did seem hard to tell.

And in my own experiments: I SWEAR that an EMG81 sounds like an icepick to the brain with its ceramic pickup, compared to an Alnico 87. I could hear it from a mile off...But when I tried, with two different guitars, thru a pretty high gain amp sound, I couldn't ABX between them

I'm very confused on pickups

 

[rsm]

titanium > wood

has volume, treble and bass controls. I can make it sound like just about any other solid body electric guitar.

this is the only guitar I will never sell.

 

[stratjacket]

The scientist does not trust people’s ears but that’s the ultimate measurement and no one trusts the tests that provide hard measurements. It’s a Mahogany standoff, haha

From my own experience of going down the rabbit hole, I settled on when I play a guitar without an amplifier and can feel the body/neck vibrations, I love feeling and enjoy playing it and I’m sure I can get a great sound out of it. If the guitar body/neck has very little or no vibrations, it’s lifeless and it’s not a keeper for me.

 

[7704A]

To me, pickups have measurable resonant frequencies, and thus should be distinguishable at least measurably predictably, even if we can't or would have trouble hearing it, regardless of the gain as I can't think of any way that a multiband distortion model of gain nonlinearities could somehow even that out, but I think I remember the video you are talking about and it really did seem hard to tell.

One of the issues I had with Glen's video was that he didn't do any measurements of the resonant frequencies 'n such. I had a hard time hearing much of a difference too, but given we don't have any electrical measurements to show how different they are in construction it's hard to say anything besides "pickups can sound similar." Plus there are other videos where pickups do sound different, e.g. Mike Stamper's stuff, and Glenn doesn't address this conflict if I remember correctly. If you haven't found it already, this forum has a pickup sub-forum with a bunch of people nerding out about trying to measure 'em and posting their results: https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/

 

[sytharnia1560]

I like electric guitars ... parts of them are wood ... I like wood

 

[7704A]

I like wood

You'd get pilloried in OTC.

 

[pipelineaudio]

titanium > wood

View attachment 408402


has volume, treble and bass controls. I can make it sound like just about any other solid body electric guitar.

this is the only guitar I will never sell.

Since I play scallops, that is my dream guitar. The few times I’ve heard it, it didn’t sound any different than any other humbuckers to me. Just waiting for the seven string version

 

[SpiderWars]

If so, this would be extremely easy to measure and show, for free even thanks to REW, but we never get these measurements

Then something is wrong with the measurements. The differences between Rosewood back and sides vs Mahogany in acoustic guitars are clear and consistent. If we can't even agree on that then we just can't proceed to electrics. We just disagree.

 

[JohnnyGtar]

Dude, I’m 57 and I got my first electric bass when I was 8. I started gigging in bars when I was 15.

Your ears lie Johnny.

Oh, for fuck's sake, bro. Got my first instrument at 10 as well. I started gigging in bars when I was 18. And you know what? When we started out doesn't have jack to do with the topic.

 

[JohnnyGtar]

Argumentum ad TrustMeBronium

No. I didn't say or imply "trust me". In fact, I said "I don't need to prove it to anyone else. Why would I? I don't care!".

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." - Mark Twain

 

[Floyd Eye]

Oh, for fuck's sake, bro. Got my first instrument at 10 as well. I started gigging in bars when I was 18. And you know what? When we started out doesn't have jack to do with the topic.

Then why'd you bring it up ?

"Over 40 years of personal experience. I don't need to prove it to anyone else. Why would I? I don't care!"