Then there’s this that has me going the other way. So who knows?

interesting

the problem with using different instruments where everything is the same except the wood is that in reality while the strings, nut, saddle, intonation,  pickups, pots, and caps, are all the same, they are not all the same they are the same parts but different parts and there are manufacturing tolerances and all those same parts with minor differences in values are in fact different and since the electrical signal is created by all those different parts, the electrical signal will be different.

I think recording with the actual same parts with different wood or even no wood should be a better comparison.


But the reality is I am half deaf  so I will never hear any minor difference anyway

This is truth. Well, it's a  truth.

The real truth is, we will inevitably convince ourselves of whatever we want to convince ourselves of. Of course the wood impacts the resonant sound of the instrument. It's impossible for it to not. The real question is, to what magnitude is that impact perceivable between two compared instruments and is a particular individual capable of detecting and articulating that difference in an objective, impartial way in the context of their preconceptions?

The egotist will always say they can detect the difference if they say there is a difference or that there is no difference if that's their position.

Someone that can't hear a difference but wants to can trick themselves into hearing a subtle change between two instruments because they hope they have a better ear than they do, even when they're trying to be objective... or did they actually hear it?

The truth is, tone is in the ear if the person who enjoys it. Play what makes you happy. Only an oscilloscope knows the true difference.

another truth is that the pickups absolutely do not pickup the vibrations in the wood.

The pickups ONLY pick up the vibrations of the metal string in the magnetic fields of the pickups. It's science yo.

For the wood to influence the tone, the wood would have to vibrate ( and it does ) and that vibration of the wood would have to move through the nut, the fret, and the saddle ( the 3 contact points of the string with the wood ) and transfer to the string with enough force to color the vibration of the string that you are strumming or plucking.

An easy exercise is to bang on the wood with your hand to make the wood vibrate and listen for that vibration to be transferred to the strings and be heard by the pickups.

The reality is that although you can hear a slight impact of the wood through the pickups, you simply do not hear the after impact vibration of the wood and then realize this vibration after impact is magnitudes greater in the wood than any vibration transferred from the strings to the wood.

He used a "stick" of each wood which seems to show tone variation, but what are the controls? Any variation in the method,
no matter how slight, will result in variation of the tone. Even if all controls are perfectly reliable, how does this relate to an
actual guitar with a maple neck and only the body made of each wood?

I suppose we could speculate back and forth all day on that since it’s not covered in the video. That’s why the other video is compelling to me is that he covered all his bases pretty well. Some people say the neck wood is what has most of the effect on tone but I haven’t seen many videos where that aspect is tested. I do know that on that video there was a substantial change in tone when he reshaped the headstock. Now to me that shows to me that the wood does have some effect on the overall sound.

Another aspect to look at is the fact that all guitars have a different sound to them even amongst the same models. Barring any major qc issues most everything going into a guitar is held to some certain tolerance. The only thing that would be glaringly different would be the wood structure itself. I noticed when playing my 2018 LP Traditional against my 2023 LP 50’s Standard which are the same except for the pickups and the color.

Now I fully understand they have different pickups but you can pick these guitars up and play them acoustically or electrically and can tell the tone difference between the two either way. It’s by far not scientific but what that standard is missing is present both acoustically and electrically. Now is it much difference? Nit really, but it’s enough that I can easily notice it.

And what about chambering or semi hollow body guitars? Those all have a certain ring to them that’s apparent both acoustically and electrically. Why do those vibrations make a difference but not the dampening effect of the wood itself?

I would guess that the biggest impact on how the sound is perceived at the pup is going to come in the form of resonance and sustain more than raw tone, though, resonance is ultimately a reflection of the original frequency in phase so it must contribute something. Consider bass wood vs mahogany bodies. Certainly extreme ends of the spectrum but examples of how the wood impacts that aspect of sound. In the most elementary way, if the wood didn't matter at all we could make an electric guitar out of anything and it would sound great but we've seen that fail a few times.

There is a musical term that is very old; "timbre."

It is used to describe the harmonic content and distribution differences between individual voices and instruments.

It is a real thing that can be measured using transducers (and yes of course microphones or our ears are transducers).

Can I tell two different low density slab guitars with bolt-on necks apart blind or double blind if the pickups and wiring are the same?  Probably not!  In fact, almost certainly not.  Could I tell the difference between remarkably different wood choices?  Probably yes.  And that doesn't even say that I would pick the more expensive option(s) as my favorites.

There are a crazy number of variables in this unless you set up an experiment as I describe, and use null testing (or as someone else posted, RTA/waterfall graphs) to prove for certain that these things do or do not make a difference.  And that just proves they make a difference, and quantifies the difference.  It still doesn't speak one iota to preference.

It is what it is and I really don't care how other people justify their love of certain types of guitars.  You like what you like, and your budget is what it is.  No fucking way I would buy most of my guitars new.  $5k for a Les Paul?  GFY Gibson.  $2k+ for a bolt on neck Strat?  GFY Fender.  I'd probably play Japanese or Korean made instruments if I were starting today made of whatever wood they dig out of their forests and call "maple" or "ash" or whatever.

I don’t think justification is the right word for it but if we were to go that rout I would suggest those saying the wood doesn’t matter are the ones looking for justification just as much, if not more than those who say the wood does matter. I tend to think it’s all personal preference and to each his own but someone is always gonna be there telling you that you're wrong and that their opinion is more valuable than your own. Those are the ones trying to justify things.

Also $5k is a bit high for a Standard Les Paul. Cut that price in half. And then I seriously doubt someone that pays that for their guitar gives two shits that someone on the internet is trying to belittle their choice based on the whole tonewood argument. I know I don’t. I am curious about it, but it’s not gonna make me regret buying my Les Paul’s if it doesn’t make any difference.

You don’t have to believe the wood makes a noticeable tone difference to absolutely appreciate the quality materials and craftsmanship in a higher end electric guitar. I love my mahogany Gibson SG and Alder American Strat for the feel, the playability, the wood, the fit and finish,  the necks and the sound and the history and I don’t think the wood or the neck contributes anything to the sound or the sustain, but I would love to see indisputable data either way. I just don’t know if that is really possible. I would like a Gibson LP because of the feel and the look and the history, and the sound,  but I just can’t justify the expense when I already have 2 very nice guitars and another 6. I also would like a Fender Tele, but don’t for the same reason. If a sold a few guns I could. Maybe I should consider that.

Well aware. I was speaking to the “justification” part.

I currently own about 30 guitars. All made from a variety of materials and styles. All sound different. Even the ones that are the same models/materials. What makes the difference in tone? Probably all those attributes mentioned before contribute something in the overall tone. I’m certainly not going to say everything else but the wood contributes as I feel that’s just not the case. I’ve seen evidence both ways that could be looked at as defining, and that says allot right there. It certainly doesn’t point to one side being right in the tonewood debate though. What I do believe? My own ears. Does it matter in the long run? Not to anyone but the player really I suppose.

Another thing to think about. If it’s the variables between the pots, wires, soldering that is affecting the tone then why don’t we see a wide tonal variation between amps of the same models? They have way more potential to be affected by those variables yet they aren’t. Seems everyone is ready to throw in everything to include the kitchen sink at this in order to debunk tonewood and they give credit to it all, except the one thing that has the most variation to it in the mix. The wood. And I’m not saying the wood is the only thing that affects the tone, I think it’s more of like a cake or stew. All the different ingredients combined make up the tone/taste.

Good point about the amps, never thought about that before.

I will have to think about that. I just recapped my one and only amp, a 1974 Peavey Classic 100 Series 2x12.

It sounded horrible. I figured the electrolytic caps were bad since I know for a fact they are original and 50 years old.

So I bought a cap kit and replaced them. Sounds great now. But does it sound like when it was new, I have no idea. The signal path caps were electrolytic and now they are Tantalum caps. They are supposed to be less noise ( leakage ) and faster responding ( clarity ) but I have no idea if it is noticeable.

But you are right, brand new amps, different actual values of components even in 5% tolerance components and nobody ever claims brand new same model amps sound different. So of the components in an e,extricate guitar, that would leave the strings and the pickups and the wood, including neck.

I think the neck wood has a big influence on it. That’s the one thing everyone in the videos Ive seen have failed to change. If you ask Yngvie he’ll tell you tone is all in those huge CBS headstocks lol.

Another thing to consider. Acoustic electric guitars. Now no one doubts tonewood has an effect on acoustic guitars. How come an anplified spruce top acoustic will sound like it’s made of spruce and an amplfied mahogany top acoustic will sound like it’s made of mahogany. Acoustic electrics generally use a piezoelectric pickup and those amplify the vibrations of the strings through the saddle. It wouldn’t be picking up the wood vibrations yet the sound quality of the tonewood is still apparent and not really disputed even despite the rather brash sound of a piezo.

It is my understanding that piezoelectric pickups pick up all vibrations. They are a vibration sensor that changes the vibrations into an electrical signal via a piezo transducer.

They don’t need to be under the saddle, some people put them Inside the soundbox away from the saddle to pickup different tones. Many put them under the saddle to pickup the string vibrations and also pickup the wood and sound box vibrations. They also pickup thumping / tapping on the body for rhythm. Kinda sound like a snare drum.

There are people and companies that put them on solid body electric guitars where they pickup the vibrations in the wood and can blended into the electromagnetic signal for a more acoustic sound.  I was thinking of doing that with my travel headless guitar with the spilt humbuckers. It would make it very versatile but like everything else there are cheap piezoelectric pickups and expensive ones.

An under the saddle piezo relies on pressure. If you cut the bottom of a saddle to where a part of it under a string doesn’t make good contact with the pickup then you get a dead string.

ETA: I’m not talking about piezo pucks but the more common under the saddle ones. They are made to pick up string vibrations and not the body vibrations like a puck would. At least this is what I’ve been taught.

They are all piezos, and they all work on the same principles. A saddle type piezo will still pick up vibrations from the whole instrument, but just as previously mentioned, all piezos will be colored by their location and method of attachment. Mounting it elsewhere or in a different manner may change the resulting signal - sometimes a lot, sometimes less.

They also work perfectly fine in solidbody applications. I've done it - and even more than that, I've used a "six string" saddle piezo on a four-string bass. Works just fine, as one should expect. Piezos pick up any and all physical vibrations, after all. This is in contrast to magnetic pickups, which ideally should not pick up anything except the vibrating string immediately above it. Pickups (as in magnetic ones, not piezos) need to be wax potted in order to behave more ideally, as otherwise they can start picking up other vibrations.

On the subject of wood, I would like to share one thing that always gets me : the extreme hype for "korina" - the wood otherwise known as limba.

I don't understand how, but certain people have apparently ascribed nigh-magical properties to this wood, presumably due to certain historical usage. Certain suppliers drum up lots of hype when they have it available, and price it rather high accordingly.

Now don't get me wrong, limba is an awesome wood. Black limba in particular can result in some really cool figuring, and even white limba can have neat grain patterns. It also works quite well and finishes without any issues. The open grain lends itself very well to cool grain-fill effects with transparent finishes if you are into that kind of thing. I love the stuff.

But here's the thing: Limba isn't some rare, super-expensive wood. Quite the opposite, at least as far as imported African hardwoods go. In the sizes needed to make bodies, it's often cheaper for me than some domestic species - for a three-piece body, white limba is considerably cheaper than ash, and even for a typical two-piece body it is about the same cost. And it's readily available in 8/4 at my main supplier, and has been for years.

I was confused when I found out that korina was actually just a synonym for limba. I had of course heard of korina, whose discussion often made it seem that it would be on the level of ebony in terms of availability and cost. But I had already been working a bit with limba, which was completely opposite of that expectation - I could easily get it, and it was quite affordable. At the end of the day, it all comes down to mere marketing. It doesn't matter what the reality of the situation is if people will buy into something else.

So being curious about this I plugged my Martin into my amp. I then turned down the transducer mic all the way so it’s just using the piezo. Next I used a pick stuck tightly under the low E to create a different “saddle” and plucked the string. So what I found was that while the string clearly rang out the piezo caught almost none of it except a very extremely faint thunking sound when I pluck the string.

Worried that my fingers holding the pick might have dampened the vibrations I took a tall saddle blank I had laying around and wedged it between the string and body and plucked. This time I could make out an extremely faint string noise coming from the amp, and the amp is turned way up. When I say faint I mean I had to do it over and over again and strain to listen.

So the under saddle piezo is made of 6 small pickups that run under the saddle right? A common problem when lowering a saddle for string height is that you can round off the corners at a slight angle. When this occurs the saddle will not sit tight against that piezo and that string will either lose its volume or not get picked up at all.

So……. Yes I understand the under saddle pickup and the pucks are all piezo’s the under saddle ones have these small pickups sitting inside a small piece of metal channel with a copper strip across the tops and generally all of this is shrink tubed. The piezo in this situation will conduct the vibrations from the saddle area directly above it. Thus the only vibrations it’s picking up with any substantial use comes from the string itself vibrating through the saddle material directly in between the string and piezo.

I also tapped the top several times hard. With the secondary pickup on it could pick up the tapping. With the under saddle piezo alone I get nothing.

So why does the puck pick up sound off the tops? Because it is in direct contact with the top. The under saddle piezos are not. This is what I think is going on at least.

So in conclusion….. Yes an under saddle piezo can pick up body vibrations but very very extremely minimal. Almost not at all. YMMV.

Also I might add that if you do much research on forums you’ll find people using those stick on piezo’s report feedback issues and body noises and thumps being picked up. But not on an under saddle piezo. Almost like they designed them to just pick up the string vibrations

That is a really good point in this discussion that has not been talked about yet. If the body of the guitar vibrates the magnetic pickup, it will color the signal because whether the metal string moves or the pickup moves relative to the metal string, it is still movement between the pickup and the metal string and will produce a signal based on that movement.

Damn good point.

That was one of the reasons people didn’t like the old amplified F hole guitars that Gibson was making in the 40’s is that the top vibration caused the distance from the strings and pickup to vary slightly as the top would move while playing. I believe it was one reason Les Paul built his log. He said he wanted hear the strings move, not the top move.

Makes sense.It is all about magnitude of vibration.

However, that piezo is made to pickup all vibration, not metal moving in a magnetic field.

Now think of how small the signal would be from a vibration in the wood body or neck of a solid body electric where the pickup can not pick up vibrations but only pick up movement of metal in the magnetic field of the electric pickup.

If it does get influenced, it will be extremely small, I would argue much smaller compared to what is picked up by the peizo, which actually does pick up all vibrations.

My thinking is that the wood, which the strings are attached to, causes the strings to vibrate in a certain way as to color the tone. NOT that an electromagnetic pickup is picking up wood vibrations. Anything a vibrating strung touches is going to have a dampening effect on it.

I think the issue is there isn't much body vibration that transmits through the saddle to the piezo from the body of the guitar. It is all about vibration strength and dampening effect of transmission at any given point.

The string is a big resonant vibration, that resonant vibration gets dampened going through the small footprint of the saddle and bridge, the resulting small transmitted vibration gets into the body, the body vibrates some ( you can feel it against your body ) and then transmits back through the bridge and the saddle and the fret ( and probably through vibration of the pickup itself ) from the body back through the saddle and gets attenuated again and while it probably influences the signal produced by the metal string in the magnetic field of the pickup, it is going to be very very small compared to the vibration of string itself.

the question is can that variation of the signal actually be heard.

I wonder if the body can be directly vibrated at 440 hz with a mechanical device, say an electric motor,  to investigate how much of that vibration makes the low E string move to be picked up by the pickup.

I have a couple semi hollow body and a couple chambered guitars. They translate that hollow body chime to the pickups just fine so maybe it does more than you think. After all those are both body vibrations and should effect the strings roughly the same right?

and the debate continues:



https://guitar.com/features/the-history-of-the-f-hole-in-guitars/

I suspect this debate and inquiry will continue for as long as their are guitars

Yes until someone does some real definitive testing it will be debated over and over.

The way I heard it, the F hole design was used on the guitar to kill feedback. Flat tops with a big old sound hole created a feedback loop when using a microphone and PA.

I believe the first real “Signature” electric guitar was an amplified F hole guitar. The ES-150 Charlie Christian model. It came as a set with an amp in 1936.

yes, i think the chambered and hollow body electrics have bodies made to accentuate the body vibrating and that most certainly does influence the vibrations of the strings / pickups. I believe that can certainly be heard, even though when the saddle is fixed to solid wood, that seems to be debated.

My question is whether the body vibrations of the solid body electric can be heard. We know the body vibrates, we can feel it against our body. To me the question is how much of that vibration is transferred to string / pickup movement and if those vibrations can be heard as tone and then back to the original question: can the different types of solid wood influence the vibration enough to be distinguished between one type of solid wood to another type of solid wood.

Those in my mind are 2 separate questions.

The more we talk about this the more I think there probably is some color added to the tone from the body vibration. I guess the question is, can it be heard enough to make a difference from one type wood to another type wood especially given how much the pickups completely influence the tone, does the wood make any real difference? Maybe with very well designed and constructed ( and expensive ) quality pickups that can actually reproduce the finer variations in the string, maybe it does. maybe not so much on other than top of the line quality pickups. We know from electronics that capacitors filter signal variations that level those variations out. that is one of the reasons capacitors are used besides blocking DC. How much of the small variations in the signal that are produced by the solid body vibrations actually get picked up by the pickups and reproduced, which have an inherent capacitance, and how much of that reproduced variation ends up getting filtered out by inherant and added capacitance in the rest of the circuitry including the amp. There are many stages of influence to go from solid body vibration to ear through the air.

It is a thought provoking issue for sure.

i think you mentioning that the heavy solid body LP was specifically developed to reduce / eliminate the vibration of the body influencing the strings is interesting. I was not aware of the history.

Vibration of the body influencing the pickup height. Not the influence on the strings.

I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter much as long as we like the tone we’re getting as to “how” we are getting it.

There’s so much more to tone than the wood itself. That’s one area I completely agree with you on. Break angle of the strings across the saddles probably have more to do with that effect being transferred to the strings than anything. Then if you have a tremolo the springs are another source of tonal properties.

One thing I have noticed on my strats however, my 1975 is probably the lightest strat Ive ever touched. It rings out acoustically and electrically better than my other two strats. So does the weight of the wood have a huge impact? It still sounds like a strat, just more opened up. I know, different pickups and all, so not sure, but to be able to hear that effect both acoustic and electric is telling. Now what it tells? Who knows for sure.

I do feel it’s safe to say that more and better testing needs to he done to be for sure.

Also it’s my belief the reason the top vibration alone isnt picked up by an under saddle piezo is because of the orientation of the piezos in the metal channel. Those piezos are marked on one side to denote proper orientation. Now this might also be attributed to the fact that one side of a piezo is positive and the other side is negative I “think”.

Also the piezo relies on pressure. Pressure is what causes the electrons to realign in the crystals creating an electrical signal. The direct downward pressure of the saddle in this case is what is being picked up. If you angle that saddle to where you don’t have full downward pressure then your puckup will be less effective and you will lose volume.

Here is some food for thought. On traditional classical guitars you don’t have a truss rod. Instead higher end models will have a piece of ebony running the length of the neck for reinforcement. On those you can hear the tone has a brighter quality to it. Now that isn’t coming from the vibration of the body, that wood has colored the tone of the strings vibration in this case I believe.

Also with the video you shared early on one of the biggest factors in tone other than consistent pickup height was when he cut down that huge plank of a pegboard. In this case the wood for sure had an effect on tonal properties. This kinda jives with Yngvei believing tone comes from the headstock and why he uses CBS style strats reportedly.

On the acoustic electric thing this is a pretty good video. You can hear the under saddle piezo is not as full as the body transducer but the tone is very comparable otherwise.

The reason why iI believe is simply that more vibrations are being picked up by the body transducer making it richer and fuller. What’s y’all’s opinion?