Dig it! For all those who insist "tonewood" is important for electrics

bsman

bsman

b00b
Great thread on TDPRI. This guy built two teles - one from one-piece swamp ash and one from subfloor-grade OSB particle board. I hope this helps convince some people that IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!



As Ron Kirn says: "Guys, wood is wood, and as I stated in the diatribe about necks, it doesn’t matter what wood you choose, a S-type is still going to sound like an S and a T-type will always sound like the T."
 
I have 2 Teles. All the same hardware, neck wood, pickups, pots and caps and they sound very different. The only difference between the 2 is one is alder and the other is roasted swamp ash. I even matched the pickup heights.

I have always been in the camp that didn’t think wood mattered (and I still really don’t, I’m never going to pick a guitar based on the body wood) but there is a very noticeable sound difference. Even my neighbor has commented on the sound difference when we jam, he has no idea what my guitars are constructed of or that all the parts are the same. When I bring the black Tele to jam, he always says it’s gonna sound awesome tonight.
 
And he happened to use a very airy particle board.... and compared it to a lighter, more naturally airy, grown wood.

Had he also compared the particle board to a solid maple body, and a solid mahogany body, I think he would have felt and heard a more noticeable difference.

Add to that, he's using a software modeled "amp" into computer speakers..... when Warmoth did their comparison, they did a much more scientific comparison.



And they also did neck comparisons.

 
I can def hear some subtle differences. And moreover different woods can resonate a bit differently and therefore feel different.
 
Personally, I hear the alder a little smoother (mellower?) and a little more bottom end in the mahogany. The effect is more subtle when distortion is applied, I hear it more in the cleans.

Of course given the dozens and dozens of guitars and neck/body swaps I've done (dare I say hundreds?) there is a noticeable FEEL difference.... especially when the finish is thin, satin, or relic compared to a thicker gloss finish.
 
my take is that all of it matters, and all of it affects tone, the question is whether we can actually hear it. I think, most of the time, we can't. UNLESS we're talking about scale, pickups, amps, and speakers.
 
I have pickups that sound different in different strats. Very much so. The pickups that came in my B&ch strat sounded like shit in it, only to sound aces in my SX.
 
If you have a guitar that's all maple, you can't put just any pickups in them. You need something dark, otherwise, it will be too treble-y. So, don't tell me there isn't a difference in wood.
 

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I can hear the difference, subtle as it may be - and I slightly prefer the particle board in this particular comparison.

That said, I think it has proven the point that body would makes *some* difference, but perhaps not as much as the neck, hardware, and pickups.
 
baimun said:
And he happened to use a very airy particle board.... and compared it to a lighter, more naturally airy, grown wood.

Had he also compared the particle board to a solid maple body, and a solid mahogany body, I think he would have felt and heard a more noticeable difference.

Add to that, he's using a software modeled "amp" into computer speakers..... when Warmoth did their comparison, they did a much more scientific comparison.



And they also did neck comparisons.

Click to expand...

If you look at the time line of this guys videos, he looks like the examples of what happens if you spend your life smoking crack.
 
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