Dig it! For all those who insist "tonewood" is important for electrics
- Thread starter bsman
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Rick 381
Boob Enthusiast
The string goes from a metal tailpiece to a metal bridge to a metal fret. When the string is struck the tone travels between the metal fret and the metal bridge. In between the vibrations are picked up by a metal pick up. At no point does the wood become involved in the vibration that produces the sound.
Pine Apple Slim
Kick Henry Jackassowski
The metal bridge is embedded into the wooden body, which dampens and or resonates at various frequencies that feed back thru the pickups.
The strings contact the frets and nut which is embedded into a wooden neck.
Fingers contact the string, which are connected to the players muscles and nervous system, which are connected to the players brain.
All parts of the system contribute to the final product.
To insist other wise is uninformed and does not conform to physical reality.
In other words, either you aint played many guitars or you didn't pay attention.
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Rick 381
Boob Enthusiast
Les Paul built a guitar out of a piece of railroad track. Guitars have been made out of many non-tonewood materials including steel, aluminum, and plastic. I've got guitars made from just about every "tonewood" and there's no real difference. I've got 2 strats with maple boards and 2 with rosewood and they sound the same. You want a Squier to sound good you don't change the tonewood you drop a set of custom shop pups in it. Tonewood is in people's minds. It's a carryover from acoustics. If you built an LP out of basswood and told people it was mahogany people would say it sounded great.
Dexter Inferno
Serious error
Most of the tonewood thing is bullshit. Wood is one little part of the whole rig you use. Everything matters.
Basswood guitars can sound great with a good setup.
Paying a couple of grand extra for "premium" 7A tonewood is not going to make you sound better.
Acoustics is a whole other matter of course.
Basswood guitars can sound great with a good setup.
Paying a couple of grand extra for "premium" 7A tonewood is not going to make you sound better.
Acoustics is a whole other matter of course.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
I honestly don’t care about what kind of wood is used on a solid body.
I care a lot about the neck/fingerboard, I care a lot about the electronics and hardware, I care a lot about intonation, and I want the unplugged guitar to vibrate like a gong cymbal when I strum a chord.
And I kinda roll my eyes at folks who insist on rare/endangered woods for their solid bodies.
I care a lot about the neck/fingerboard, I care a lot about the electronics and hardware, I care a lot about intonation, and I want the unplugged guitar to vibrate like a gong cymbal when I strum a chord.
And I kinda roll my eyes at folks who insist on rare/endangered woods for their solid bodies.
GDSmithTX
Corporate cog
A bunch of Ibanez solidbodies are basswood, from the $150 Gio crap, through the Premium and Prestige lines, all the way up to the $2900 Joe Satriani JS series.
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
I'm very much in the Bob Taylor camp where I like to appreciate the beauty of unique woods... but insist on the piece being properly sourced. Also I embrace the pieces with the big knots and holes that would be cast aside from a "production run" and sent to the waste bin or used as a shop doorstop.
I whole heartedly agree that production needs to ONLY use sustainably sourced lumbers and some of these weirdo builds I've been doing lately are to come up with ways to build a good sounding guitar with the smallest amount of lumber, or good sounding balances of natural and man-made resources. I don't want to play a guitar made out of toxic plastics... and I also don't want to see less guitars made where they throw a slab of old growth wood on the table and then a CNC machine turns 75% of the block into sawdust.
Dogsinplastic
avuncular to no one
This argument always make me laugh.
The basic deal is:
1. there IS a difference in how different woods sound, but...
2. the amount of difference will vary and you have to determine if it matters to you
3. the body wood is just one variable in an electric guitar...the neck, fretboard, hardware, pups, and even electronics (pots & caps & such) all play a role...and then there's the amp...
4. AND the audience can NOT tell the difference and THEY DON'T CARE.
The basic deal is:
1. there IS a difference in how different woods sound, but...
2. the amount of difference will vary and you have to determine if it matters to you
3. the body wood is just one variable in an electric guitar...the neck, fretboard, hardware, pups, and even electronics (pots & caps & such) all play a role...and then there's the amp...
4. AND the audience can NOT tell the difference and THEY DON'T CARE.
Highernoon
Burninator
The Suhr guitars dude (John?) praises Basswood body with a maple top as the holy grail of tone.
IIRC basswood A. dings easily b. isn't considered a "pretty" wood, so usually isn't the choice for fancy clear finishes.
The wood a guitar is made from probably wouldn't be an important factor for me in deciding whether to buy a certain guitar or not, I guess if I was getting a guitar custom made I'd look more into it.
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
I think it comes down to MASS and DENSITY for vibration... DURABILITY for material type and finish.... and then GEOMETRY.
It's my belief that one could bolt or set neck into a BLOCK that could be a strip of hardwood connecting the neck pocket to bridge, then the body could be a 3D-printed honeycomb to create the mass and density desired to enhance or supress different resonant frequencies.... then the exterior could be a thin layer of a material that feels comfortable under the arm of the player, transfers the right amount of passive vibrations to communicate with the player....
... and at that point, playing with the printed geometry could replicate the weight, balance, resonance, and 99.5% of the tone of just about any other solid body guitar, but with only a FRACTION of the natural resources.
Chad
Slender Hobbit
Les Paul built a guitar out of a piece of railroad track. Guitars have been made out of many non-tonewood materials including steel, aluminum, and plastic. I've got guitars made from just about every "tonewood" and there's no real difference. I've got 2 strats with maple boards and 2 with rosewood and they sound the same. You want a Squier to sound good you don't change the tonewood you drop a set of custom shop pups in it. Tonewood is in people's minds. It's a carryover from acoustics. If you built an LP out of basswood and told people it was mahogany people would say it sounded great.
I'm sure a Les Paul made of basswood, would sound good. Basswood doesn't sound bad, but a basswood LP will not sound exactly the same as a LP made from mahogany. Will it sound better or worse, that's up to the individual. Yes, there have been many guitars made from plastic, aluminum and other materials, but they don't sound the same as a guitar made from wood. And upgrading your Squire with pickups is a nonsense argument. The electronics in Squires are garbage so that will give you the biggest benefit for your money and for the most part Squires uses the same body woods as Fender so there isn't an upgrade for them. I'm not saying one wood sounds superior to another, but there are differences. If you ever head to the DC area, stop by and play my Teles. 100% identical except for the body wood and there is a difference in the tone. A few of my friends have played both, not knowing the woods were different and they all have preferred the black one. 2 of my friends wanted to know what pickups were in the black one because they liked how it sounded better than the red one.
dmn23
Duller than cardboard
Scenario: The guy at Fender has two pieces of alder. Both will be used to build Strats. Both will have opaque finishes. This is a hypothetical world where Fender uses one-piece bodies for everything.
He selects one to be used for a Squier and he decides the other piece is suitable to be used for a $6k Fender Custom shop instrument. He's determined one of those blanks is a significantly more desirable piece of wood than the other. How is the determination made?
He selects one to be used for a Squier and he decides the other piece is suitable to be used for a $6k Fender Custom shop instrument. He's determined one of those blanks is a significantly more desirable piece of wood than the other. How is the determination made?
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baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
The difference is the piece of alder being used on the squire production line was bought in bulk, probably arrived last week. (think sifting through 2x4s at Lowes or Home Depot to find 4 that are straight enough for the project you want to do).
The wood from the custom shop was already pre-selected to be the lightest, best grain, piece out of a pile.... and then properly dried and kept acclimated in the private shop wood storage for several months or sometimes years. (same goes for the PRS Wood Library)
I have pieces of wood that I've kept in my music studio for several YEARS until the wood dries naturally and rings when I tap on it before it's ready to build a guitar out of. When wood isn't dried properly, that's when it expands/contracts down the road and you see a seam line down the finish, or in the case of Keisel guitars... they put the finish on it with all the moisture trapped in it... and the wood is then like concrete.
Kiln roasted wood (maple, ash, alder) is kind of a game changer because it allows them to turn relatively fresh wood into much more stable, musical, pieces of wood!
Honkridge
UNACCEPTABLE!
I'm pretty sure the determination is made when the lumber is purchased. The timber wholesaler probably knows that Fender wants clear, lightweight resonant wood but insists that Fender takes a few "barely musical instrument grade" planks with the purchase as a bulk package deal. Fender probably separates the wheat from the chaff at that point. I'd wouldn't be surprised if those planks are further graded into "clear" and "opaque" finish potential at this early stage as well as moisture content and maybe a dozen other criteria.
