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

[rstites]

Are you saying that because the people pipeline mentioned didn't get the results you wanted they're wrong and incapable? That seems backwards.

No. I'm saying that if someone failed to find a known phenomenon than there was something wrong with the experiment. For example, if students set up an experiment to measure the acceleration of gravity then we know what they'll find if everything is correct in their experiment. Typical undergrad experiments will have non-negligible errors for a variety of reasons when we do this, most of which come down to their equipment, though not all. That doesn't invalidate the established, known value.

We capture the harmonic content of instruments all the time, so if someone sets up an experiment and fails to detect them, then something is wrong with the setup - or perhaps the equipment isn't sensitive enough. Fair enough, but it doesn't invalidate known phenomenon.

 

[pipelineaudio]

If it’s piezo , don’t they work by measuring vibrations more like a microphone? They can work on nylon strings. Think how many zillions of cheap guitars and ukuleles became DIY electrics using an piezo door buzzer speaker as a “microphone”

Electric guitar pickups are electromagnetic generators. If you swapped out your car hood for a wood one, you wouldn’t expect the alternator’s voltage output to change.

But put a front to back brace in a piezo pickup equipped uke and you can get a giant sound difference

 

[Kraku]

For the below scientific test the engineers changed the electric guitars body size by coupling it with a resonating body of wood. That essentially changes the whole transference of how the acoustic energy of the plucked strings moves throughout the electric guitar body. Then they measured the results which you can read from the below quotes.

https://gitec-forum-eng.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/poteg-7-8-1-legend-of-the-primary-tone.pdf

"Increasing the Strat body changes the airborne sound (the primary tone)
so dramatically that even the layperson will recognized the difference. For the pickup
signal, even the expert cannot hear any difference."

"And so we arrive at our first conclusion: those who enthusiastically record the airborne sound
of a solid-body guitar, those who may even consider such activity as the main purpose of such
guitars – they certainly will be wise to pay attention to the material and build of the guitar
body. We other guitarists who plug the guitar into an amp that we then turn up, we should
only think about the wood when it comes to ergonomics or cosmetics; the luthier will not
have used insulation board for the instrument i.e. the material will be ok. Back in the day, Leo
Fender cut up wood that was affordable and in reach to him – neither ash nor alder are
classical tone woods, and they don’t have to be, either. For the acoustic guitar, things are very
different: who would ever bolt a steel-sheet casing of the dimensions of an external 2.5” hard
drive to his or her pre-war Martin? Fender does that for their VG-Stratocaster, and nobody is
bothered; the guitar fully meets all expectations [G&B 7/07]. A hole for the battery
compartment is also milled into the body – great guitar, still! And why not, the thing will
work as long as neck and bridge can be solidly fixed to the body. With the Martin (to stay
with the example), that situation would be very different, but that guitar is something else
entirely, compared to Fender’s VG. "

----

IMHO it is safe to say that anyone who claims to hear a clear difference between "tone woods" of an electric guitar body is delusional and is just following the religion of "The Great Galactic Tonewood".

 

[tallcoolone]

IMHO it is safe to say that anyone who claims to hear a clear difference between "tone woods" of an electric guitar body is delusional and is just following the religion of "The Great Galactic Tonewood".

Not safe to say in the least. And It’s not about ‘hearing a difference’ it is about ‘feeling a difference’. Dead wood changes the way a guitar feels and responds. These are things that a novice player (or a sound engineer) can’t discern but experienced players can.

 

[rstites]

If it’s piezo , don’t they work by measuring vibrations more like a microphone? They can work on nylon strings. Think how many zillions of cheap guitars and ukuleles became DIY electrics using an piezo door buzzer speaker as a “microphone”

Electric guitar pickups are electromagnetic generators. If you swapped out your car hood for a wood one, you wouldn’t expect the alternator’s voltage output to change.

But put a front to back brace in a piezo pickup equipped uke and you can get a giant sound difference

Electric guitar pickups are transducers, as are piezoelectric pickups and acoustic microphones. They all convert one type of energy into another type of energy. None of them generate anything. Electrical guitar pickups convert the energy of the disturbance of their magnetic field into an electric current in the coil wrapped around those magnets. Piezoelectric pickups convert the charge built on the crystals in the material when they are forced into oscillation by the surrounding medium. Acoustic microphones convert the energy of the sound wave incident on the diaphragm into electrical current by moving the coil relative to a magnet.

When a guitar string oscillates, it produces sound waves. Those sound waves reflect off the surrounding surfaces which will act to reinforce or damp certain frequencies of the string oscillation dependent on the specific resonances of the material. (This will also be true of mechanical reflections at the anchor points which may well be different resonances than the acoustic reflections.) The pickup reaction to the final total wave on the string, that includes the reflects from nearby surfaces and anchor points.

The car analogy is seriously flawed. An alternator's output is dc, so there are no waves present which is what this discussion is about, and even an AC generator produces exactly one frequency based on the speed of rotation. Changing a nearby surface will in no way affect it, though it would affect the natural harmonics created by reflections of the sound generated by the spin of the generator. (Aside: we use engine mounts to minimize the interaction of the engine's vibrations from the body of the car, so changing the hood to wood would just add weight and a fire hazard.)

You are correct that changing things in an instrument changes its sound. I fail to see what the stumbling block is to understanding that electric guitars follow all the same principles. The weight of how things affect the final tone might change, but at their base it's a block of wood with a vibrating string on it and the sound produced by that string is the foundation of anything else done with the guitar. Changing any variables around that system will change the dynamics of the system.

 

[rstites]

Not safe to say in the least. And It’s not about ‘hearing a difference’ it is about ‘feeling a difference’. Dead wood changes the way a guitar feels and responds. These are things that a novice player (or a sound engineer) can’t discern but experienced players can.

There's another good point. In the end, guitars are instruments for artistic expression. They aren't just mechanic devices. If one guitar "feels better" than another, then the person playing it is going to play better and produce better results. It's self-reinforcing, and it isn't delusional. I mentioned above that I generally select guitars for which is the best to play for myself and then I go figure out pickups, etc. that compliment it and get the sound I want. That's because I know I'll play better and a guitar I enjoy playing better than one I enjoy less. No amount of empirical is going to ever going to change the fact that one sounds better than the other in my hands.

Understanding equipment and the physics/engineering is about supporting the art, not trying to invalidate it.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Electric guitar pickups are transducers, as are piezoelectric pickups and acoustic microphones. They all convert one type of energy into another type of energy.

Yes, in very different ways

None of them generate anything.

Only in a way that alternators and generators don't generate anything from nothing
Otherwise, an electric guitar pickup IS a generator, the same way a generator and an alternator are generators. The only difference of note being being, that like a tidal generator, the electrical guitar pickup uses reciprocating force thru a stationary magnetic field vs rotating force in the case of alternators and generators

 

[pipelineaudio]

There's another good point. In the end, guitars are instruments for artistic expression. They aren't just mechanic devices.

This is a deepity, and is putting feelings over facts. The word "just" there only serves to muddy the waters and make it a deepity. It IS a mechanical device. That it can serve an artistic purpose doesn't change that fact in any way

If one guitar "feels better" than another, then the person playing it is going to play better and produce better results. It's self-reinforcing, and it isn't delusional.

But still a non sequitur if you are using that to deny facts

No amount of empirical is going to ever going to change the fact that one sounds better than the other in my hands.

This is where it becomes religion

Understanding equipment and the physics/engineering is about supporting the art, not trying to invalidate it.

Reza Aslan would applaud your attack on big bad, as he calls it "scientism"

 

[rstites]

Otherwise, an electric guitar pickup IS a generator, the same way a generator and an alternator are generators.

This is both incorrect and is starting to come off as trolling, so I'll let you be.

 

[rstites]

This is a deepity, and is putting feelings over facts.

It isn't about feelings. It's about being aware of the purpose of an object - a guitar in this case. The fact is that people perform better when the equipment they use makes them happier/more comfortable/etc. If you or I can't personally identify with their choices doesn't invalidate those choices.

This is where it becomes religion

No, that's called understanding a bit about basic human psychology.

Reza Aslan would applaud your attack on big bad, as he calls it "scientism"

Never heard of him and given that I haven't attacked anything in any of my posts, unless you count me correcting your misunderstanding of physics and engineering as personal attacks, but as you appear intransigent I'm not really that interested in wasting my time. (Plus, I'm back home, so no longer have time to kill waiting on flight delays!)

 

[pipelineaudio]

This is both incorrect and is starting to come off as trolling, so I'll let you be.

Nice dodge, I could say the exact thing.

 

[sytharnia1560]

has anyone every taken all the hardware, all the electronics and the neck off of a guitar and put them on and into another body?? it still sounds exactly the same right?

 

[Kraku]

Not safe to say in the least. And It’s not about ‘hearing a difference’ it is about ‘feeling a difference’. Dead wood changes the way a guitar feels and responds. These are things that a novice player (or a sound engineer) can’t discern but experienced players can.

The URL to the test in my previous response ruled out everything that might change how the guitar responds when you change the tone wood. If the resulting audio is exactly the same with different tonewoods, then the guitar responds exactly the same way to the exact same type of strumming. Hence there is no difference at all how the guitar responds with different body materials.

I'm not sure what you mean by how the guitar "feels" though, so I can't comment on that.

 

[tallcoolone]

has anyone every taken all the hardware, all the electronics and the neck off of a guitar and put them on and into another body?? it still sounds exactly the same right?

I already explained earlier in this thread that I have done this multiple times. There is no shortage of obtusity in this discussion

 

[tallcoolone]

The URL to the test in my previous response ruled out everything that might change how the guitar responds when you change the tone wood. If the resulting audio is exactly the same with different tonewoods, then the guitar responds exactly the same way to the exact same type of strumming. Hence there is no difference at all how the guitar responds with different body materials.

I'm not sure what you mean by how the guitar "feels" though, so I can't comment on that.

Again, I have swapped out ONLY bodies multiple times with dramatically different results. Honestly, I wonder if any of you "wood don't mean nuthin'" guys play the guitar at all.

 

[sytharnia1560]

Again, I have swapped out ONLY bodies multiple times with dramatically different results. Honestly, I wonder if any of you "wood don't mean nuthin'" guys play the guitar at all.

BUT SCIENCE

 

[Floyd Eye]

Again, I have swapped out ONLY bodies multiple times with dramatically different results. Honestly, I wonder if any of you "wood don't mean nuthin'" guys play the guitar at all.

Admittedly I haven't been following this thread too close lately, but has anyone actually suggested wood doesn't matter at all ?

My take is more that difference in wood can affect tone subtely and the difference in tone can be mitigated or compensated for with electronics ( amps, pickups, strings, technique, etc..)

I'm not a beginner or new to it, but I have never experienced two guitars that were the same except for the wood exhibiting tonal differences like say the difference between humbuckers and single coils.

Does wood matter ? Yeah, but not nearly as much as people claim it does. I think it's like everything else we do. You get a hobby or get passionate about something and then dissect it to the extreme and get OCD about every little thing regardless of how inconsequential it is. Kinda like AR guys will spend tons of good money to fix problems they don't even have. Like special coatings on BCGs or spending $400 on a Giessele trigger that doesn't feel or break any different than a $100 Hiperfire.

 

[rsm]

still no consensus?

 

[DISTORT6]

 

[Floyd Eye]

still no consensus?

I'll let you in on another secret. While it's pretty easy to hear subtle differences in tone when rolling tubes, it really doesn't make all that much difference. At least as far as real NOS glass goes. Now speakers, yeah, pretty easy to hear the differences usually, although I would still argue that you can mitigate a lot of differences in tubes and speakers with different combinations of pickups, preamps and amps.