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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2012 16:24:00 GMT -7
I think there would be a lot of pickup manufacturers particularly boutique winders that may disagree with the above statement. Just sayin IMHO I personally agree with you. I recently had a conversation with a boutique pup maker that had a similar opinion to fleabiscuit's. Here is what he had to say: Hi Doug, regarding the base plates, originally they used the raw steel (unplated) base plate, however this was subject to corrosion hence the move to plating. First they used zinc and subsequent to that a copper coating over the steel base plate. The base plate, whether raw, zinc or copper plated is primarily for historical accuracy and look with negligible impact on the tone, the scatterwinding and AlNiCo is far more significant in influencing tone. In my experience good guitar tone is really all about 3 things, 1/ you, 2/ the pickups and 3/ the strings, Everything else is way down the tone food chain, it's like a digital picture, if it’s a poor quality, low res image then you can zoom in all you like the picture will still be bad or even get worse, best to start with a really great picture... LOL Choose the woods, weight and finish to your personal liking, it is more a playability and comfort issue, the pickup will take care of the tone, trust me!This was Rodney McQueen @ Slider Pickups. He was great to deal with. At one time he suggested an alnico III magnet for the pup in question. During my inquiry he discovered I use extra light strings. Without hesitation he changed his recommendation to an alnico V magnet. I haven't tried the pup yet as I'm still building the guitar. I also have a Don Mare .0038's Broadcaster pup.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2012 13:20:36 GMT -7
I'm not an engineer, but if his study is true why does a PRS McCarty Korina lack the high end snap of a PRS McCarty with a mahogany/maple body? Same pickups, same scale length, etc? hey now, I LOVE my mcarty korina! (lol) Yea, I loved mine, too. I kind of miss it, but the girl who bought it is head over heels in love with that guitar. She spent a good 30+ minutes just raving about it to me after she had it for a month or so. Made me feel good to know it was in the hands of someone who truly loved it.
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Post by Norrin Radd on Aug 3, 2012 20:34:48 GMT -7
Anyone here check out the Ernie Ball Music Man Gamechanger? www.music-man.com/instruments/guitars/the-game-changer.htmlThe guys who have them claim they can tweak them to sound like just about any electric guitar. Very interesting idea, IMO. Also food for thought.......anyone think this doesn't sound like a Tele???
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2012 22:33:10 GMT -7
A USB connection and 3 "AAA" batteries. Classic. Anyone here check out the Ernie Ball Music Man Gamechanger? www.music-man.com/instruments/guitars/the-game-changer.htmlThe guys who have them claim they can tweak them to sound like just about any electric guitar. Very interesting idea, IMO. Also food for thought.......anyone think this doesn't sound like a Tele???
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Post by greenblues58 on Aug 4, 2012 3:38:10 GMT -7
I think I would put money on that sounding like a tele on the bridge position.
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Post by Hohn on Aug 5, 2012 15:30:26 GMT -7
The short answer is "comb filtering." Consider one extreme: a vibrating string suspends across two infinitely stiff, infinitely massive supports. The string resonates at its own natural frequency both side to side and axially. You could consider this a "carrier frequency." Now consider another extreme: a string under tension where one of the supports is a transducer like a speaker motor). In this case, the tension will vary according to the signal fed into the transducer. If I oscillate one of the string supports at 120hz, say, then it will induce a modulation into the vibrating string's natural frequency. This modulation matters a TON. It is the difference between a classic rock station at 89.3MHz and a NPR station at 89.3MHz. Thus, the argument that wood doesn't matter is (imo) to arguing that all the music on a given radio frequency is the same. If you tune a Les Paul to the same tension as a Telecaster and had the same pickups in it, it is NOT going to sound like a Telecaster. The wood has different filtering and the "modulation" applied to the bridge/saddles or fretted note is also therefore different. JMO EDIT: Looks like this was post 3999, so it's time to embark on the traditional pause... Okay, but you don't explain how the wood in the guitar body--which contacts neither the strings nor the pickups directly--introduces that modulation to the string's vibration. Also, you don't provide any evidence that even if there was such a modulating effect, it would be audible to the human ear. Also, I don't think that "modulation" in this context has the same meaning, exactly, that it has in broadcasting, although I'm not an engineer and I could certainly be wrong about that. Enjoy your pause! Direct contact is not required for the modulation effect to occur. It just is not as strong an effect. As for evidence that it is audible to a human, that is impossible to demonstrate. But since the OP's study used a test instrument, not a human's perception, human perception is irrelevant to the discussion. Modulation as I use it in this context has exactly the same meaning as used in broadcasting. I *am* an engineer. In my day job doing engineering, it's pretty common to do a "harmonic response" analysis (using ANSYS workbench v13). Using this tool, you can see how anything attached to a vibrating entity becomes part of the overall vibratory system. Since there is a feedback loop between the forcing function (the string's vibration) and the response function, ANY change will produce a difference: Changes to mass, density, shape, and modulus are clearly visible when a designed experiment is conducted. Since different woods have different moduli and densities (not to mention transfer functions across the audible frequency range), it becomes almost impossible for the wood not to matter. The only way wood doesn't matter is if the string is mechanically isolated from the wood-- which clearly is NOT the case in a solid body guitar. Saying that the wood MUST matter is NOT the same as saying that it matters the most. If you did a Pareto chart, I would imagine that wood choice would likely be #2, #3, or perhaps even #4 behind pickups choice (clearly #1) and maybe body shape and/or overall weight. A study of spring-mass systems can be incredibly insightful int explaining the phenomena observed in resonating or vibrating systems.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2012 17:48:01 GMT -7
A study of spring-mass systems can be incredibly insightful int explaining the phenomena observed in resonating or vibrating systems. That is a fun lab to do in "Physics of Sound". Nerds rule
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Post by pcns on Aug 6, 2012 4:03:50 GMT -7
wow, what a fun thread to read . . . . thanks for all the great thoughts guys, I've enjoyed every word of it
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Post by Jacques Belanger on Aug 6, 2012 11:37:48 GMT -7
I'm sorry, I'm HIGHLY suspicious of research done by an undergrad. How does he know the strings where the same? String vary from lot to lot and package to package. How did he reuse the same set each time to eliminate this variable? No two pieces of wood are identical. Ever. Even within the same species. The far more likely case (imo) is that he was unable to control enough variables sufficiently well to demonstrate the role of the wood and shape variables. If he wanted to test the effects of shape, then he would have to use a material other than wood. You'd need to use a material far more uniform in composition. The reality is that there is "collinearity" in his variables, and he isn't controlling for it. Hmmmm...didn't you just confirm his theory? or at the very least undercut the importance of the wood? If the strings make "that much" difference, that it could totally skew the results, how much difference can the wood possibly make? If any. Now I'm not confirming or denying anything.... I just think that TOO MUCH importance is being made of the importance of the wood. There are some things like 1. Scale Length 2. Pickups 3. String Gauge 4. String Material 5. Pot Values 6. Saddle Material All of these make a much more substantial difference than the wood. And really, we are arguing over something that is IMPOSSIBLE to perfectly and accurately measure. Wood is a natural, and imperfect substance and it has natural variables, Far too many for ANY test to be able to perfectly account for. No matter what the results are, we can't do anything about it. Either the material matters, or it doesn't. If it does, we're screwed because we can never get 2 pieces of wood to sound the same, or it doesn't matter, in which case, we STILL have all of the other variables to worry about. So we're not really any further ahead. Now acoustic guitars are a different story. ;D *ducks*
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2012 15:09:30 GMT -7
I'm sorry, I'm HIGHLY suspicious of research done by an undergrad. How does he know the strings where the same? String vary from lot to lot and package to package. How did he reuse the same set each time to eliminate this variable? No two pieces of wood are identical. Ever. Even within the same species. The far more likely case (imo) is that he was unable to control enough variables sufficiently well to demonstrate the role of the wood and shape variables. If he wanted to test the effects of shape, then he would have to use a material other than wood. You'd need to use a material far more uniform in composition. The reality is that there is "collinearity" in his variables, and he isn't controlling for it. Hmmmm...didn't you just confirm his theory? or at the very least undercut the importance of the wood? If the strings make "that much" difference, that it could totally skew the results, how much difference can the wood possibly make? If any. Now I'm not confirming or denying anything.... I just think that TOO MUCH importance is being made of the importance of the wood. There are some things like 1. Scale Length 2. Pickups 3. String Gauge 4. String Material 5. Pot Values 6. Saddle Material All of these make a much more substantial difference than the wood. And really, we are arguing over something that is IMPOSSIBLE to perfectly and accurately measure. Wood is a natural, and imperfect substance and it has natural variables, Far too many for ANY test to be able to perfectly account for. No matter what the results are, we can't do anything about it. Either the material matters, or it doesn't. If it does, we're screwed because we can never get 2 pieces of wood to sound the same, or it doesn't matter, in which case, we STILL have all of the other variables to worry about. So we're not really any further ahead. Now acoustic guitars are a different story. ;D *ducks* I think Hohn was just commenting on the study of springs and wave theory to say that everything vibrates at it's own frequency..
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Post by Hohn on Aug 7, 2012 20:07:41 GMT -7
Jacques, i think there's a big difference between saying wood is one of several things that matter and wood does not matter.
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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Aug 8, 2012 2:47:13 GMT -7
Dare I enter such an informed and educated debate? Oh why not.........
Trouble is, IMHO, we are mostly all of us trying to "bottom line" everything these days: trying to find the "magic bullet", or simple sound bite which gives THE answer, and in this case, there isn't one.
Everything matters to a greater or lesser degree in the case of a musical instrument - everything.
It's in the guitar makers' interests to encourage us to believe the woods, and skills, used matter the most to the tone, whereas in reality, they matter much less than the electro-mechanics. Much less. That's not to say they don't matter - they matter just much less than we are led to believe in terms of tone only (not having a go at luthiers here, I just mean the big boys). Aesthetics is a different matter completely.
Example, albeit purely personal. My son and I both play almost identical Strats; his with Rosewood FB, me with Maple. Same everything else. Almost no tonal differences that we can hear amplified. I changed my trem block to a Callaham one - very noticeable difference in sustain. We also play identical Epi Les Pauls - I changed my pups, dramatic difference.
Wood matters, but in the electric world, electro-mechanics matter much more.
Just my .02 worth etc.
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Post by Hohn on Aug 8, 2012 9:19:02 GMT -7
Pete, if I may slightly disagree in one way:
I don't think it's appropriate to lump together wood selection and builder skill as if they are common variables. IMO, I'd much rather have a guitar built from questionable wood by a legendary luthier than have the best wood on the planet hacked up by a novice and presented as a "guitar"-- even an electric guitar.
My personal experience: I'm confident that Collings uses really good wood. But let's also accept that they aren't hand-picking their own wood on site in foreign lands; they buy their wood from reputable suppliers like lots of luthiers do.
But my Collings is so much better than any other guitar I've played like it. The intonation seems to be perfect, even though it's just a TOM like used on countless LPs. Yet the intonation is so much better than any LP I've played. WHY? I can't think of a reason. Nothing obvious comes to mind. Yet, the phenomenon occurs.
Not to long ago Taylor or McPherson or someone made a guitar from a shipping pallet that sounded good and played very well by all accounts.
As much as I think wood matters, I think it matter far less than execution. Even a "bad" design that's well-executed can be a great electric guitar, imo.
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Post by zenfly on Aug 8, 2012 10:56:53 GMT -7
My first post.. so hi.. now I worked at Vielette Citron for a few years before they went out of business .. What I can tell you about this is I was a bass player through those years (1975-80)and got to play every bass before it left the shop and the ones with more dense/heavy wood were brighter sounding to me.. I always preferred the light ones.. Now I prefer the same in guitars though I find less change especially when the strings are attached to a big hunk of metal like a strat.. I laugh when I hear someone say they like swamp ash or whatever for better sound.. I think that the weight of the neck has more effect on tone and sustain in guitars and basses..
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Post by Norrin Radd on Aug 8, 2012 11:22:55 GMT -7
My first post.. so hi.. now I worked at Vielette Citron for a few years before they went out of business .. What I can tell you about this is I was a bass player through those years (1975-80) Well, that immediately discredits anything you could possibly say past this point! ;D I hope you know I'm just yanking your chain - and welcome to the forum! I think you can't discount the impact of anything on the tone of the guitar - all the pieces are there for a reason and they ALL have an impact. What's at issue is the significance of the impact of each piece. In an electric, I just find it implausible to believe that 90% of the impact on tone is NOT due to the pickups on the guitar, the pick used, the strings (gauge & material) and the rest of the electronics they are passing through (pots, resistors, etc...) just on the guitar - not including the amp, of course (which, frankly, is about the ONLY variable that can be controlled for with any sense of scientific precision - as long as it's SS - oh boy. ) All I know is, no matter what guitar I play and no matter what amp I play through - it is definitely ME coming through. How big an impact does the player have on tone? A ton. Maybe even more than anything but pickups. My friends who play my rig - they all sound like them. Even just handing the guitar over to the other guitar player, the other band members can identify who is playing - even when we play identical riffs almost identically. I think the tone chase needs to focus more on the human, than on the things. Think about the impact of pick attack, how hard the strings are pressed, hand position relative to the neck & frets, how hard the strings are strummed, at what angle are the strings being picked, etc... All the human things that vary from player to player - how big of an impact do they have? I think a ton. YMMV.
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Post by Hohn on Aug 8, 2012 17:58:45 GMT -7
Welcome, Zenfly!
You'll find that playing Bass is a pardonable sin here-- we all have our stories about going through rehab, so to speak.
JH
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Post by Gregg White (aka stratbrat) on Aug 11, 2012 19:06:50 GMT -7
Here's the statement that makes me question the study:
"it really looks like all of them are pretty much identical"
Would not his measurements have to be exactly identical to even begin to consider that wood type does not have an effect? Seems that in the world of acoustics, even minor differences in measurements could have an impact on what the human ear is hearing.
And I agree that the physical "feel" of the wood could definitely change how a player responds by playing differently, thus the wood would definitely be a reason for tonal differences.
Not an engineer, and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn last night. (though I am sometimes relagated to the doghouse)
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Post by Jacques Belanger on Aug 11, 2012 22:19:49 GMT -7
Jacques, i think there's a big difference between saying wood is one of several things that matter and wood does not matter. Perhaps I should have been more clear. What I meant was.........If something as simple as a different "set" of strings, which are manufactured to hopefully be relatively consistent, can, in your estimation, potentially skew the results of a test such as this.... How can we ever possibly attribute a specific set of tonal qualities to something as varied as a naturally produced "random" piece of wood. It does not seem to me to be possible. At least not with any degree of certainty. It would seem (from your experience) that you know what your talking about, and I say this slightly in jest, but also with the utmost respect. Seriously. I'm trying to wrap my head around this, and so far it's not making much sense.
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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Aug 12, 2012 0:01:15 GMT -7
Pete, if I may slightly disagree in one way: I don't think it's appropriate to lump together wood selection and builder skill as if they are common variables. IMO, I'd much rather have a guitar built from questionable wood by a legendary luthier than have the best wood on the planet hacked up by a novice and presented as a "guitar"-- even an electric guitar. My personal experience: I'm confident that Collings uses really good wood. But let's also accept that they aren't hand-picking their own wood on site in foreign lands; they buy their wood from reputable suppliers like lots of luthiers do. But my Collings is so much better than any other guitar I've played like it. The intonation seems to be perfect, even though it's just a TOM like used on countless LPs. Yet the intonation is so much better than any LP I've played. WHY? I can't think of a reason. Nothing obvious comes to mind. Yet, the phenomenon occurs. Not to long ago Taylor or McPherson or someone made a guitar from a shipping pallet that sounded good and played very well by all accounts. As much as I think wood matters, I think it matter far less than execution. Even a "bad" design that's well-executed can be a great electric guitar, imo. Totally agree with you Justin - that's what I meant by "not having a go at luthiers" and I group Collings in the luthier class for sure ;D Before I plug a guitar in, I go by "if it feels right, it is right". That covers the wood and build for me. Once it's plugged in, well then we're in to pups and strings and all that malarkey ;D
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Post by Hohn on Aug 12, 2012 15:23:43 GMT -7
Jacques, i think there's a big difference between saying wood is one of several things that matter and wood does not matter. Perhaps I should have been more clear. What I meant was.........If something as simple as a different "set" of strings, which are manufactured to hopefully be relatively consistent, can, in your estimation, potentially skew the results of a test such as this.... How can we ever possibly attribute a specific set of tonal qualities to something as varied as a naturally produced "random" piece of wood. It does not seem to me to be possible. At least not with any degree of certainty. It would seem (from your experience) that you know what your talking about, and I say this slightly in jest, but also with the utmost respect. Seriously. I'm trying to wrap my head around this, and so far it's not making much sense. This is probably the case. I think it could be possible to evaluate several variables in isolation, but controlling so many variables very tightly would be problematic.
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Post by Hohn on Aug 12, 2012 15:36:24 GMT -7
Last night I tried something to satisfy a curiosity of mine.
I took my Telecaster and pressed my ear against it at several different locations-- tightly enough that my ear was sealed against the body.
I found it interesting how different places on the back of the body sounded, just plucking the same open low E string. There are places on it where the 5th harmonic was so present that it overwhelmed the fundamental. Near the string ferrules, there was a lot of high end content, indicating that the string's vibration carries well behind the saddles and all the way to the string ferrules.
Put your ear as close as you can to various places on your guitar and you'll realize that the whole thing is alive with its own kind of resonance. The headstock sounds very different than the back of the neck. The Neck attachment plate carries a surprising amount of vibration through the screws and the wood-to-wood coupling at the pocket.
But each location sounds slightly different than another. Different parts of the guitar have different frequency responses.
I can totally believe now why EVH's "shark" guitar was "ruined" after he cut out the section of wood so close to the bridge. That section is ALIVE with resonance!
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Post by rogerglewis on Nov 21, 2012 13:23:32 GMT -7
What a bunch of crap. Any real electric guitarist with EARS can tell that there is a difference in how swamp ash and mahogany sound and "feel". The difference is less between some woods, such as ash and alder, but a better player will still be able to tell it. The teuffel Bird Fish comes with Alder and Maple tone bars. More details here and the experiment can be repeated at home with the links to a sound analysis scope and the mp3 files. The difference is audible and the frequency curves also demonstrate the difference,
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Post by wubberdubber on Nov 21, 2012 22:27:58 GMT -7
Somehow this turned into a discussion on pickups, but as for the threads original premise... I've put together too many parts-o-casters over the years from various woods to believe it doesn't make a difference...I know better.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2012 9:18:38 GMT -7
Somehow this turned into a discussion on pickups, but as for the threads original premise... I've put together too many parts-o-casters over the years from various woods to believe it doesn't make a difference...I know better. This. ^ +1
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Post by Jefferson on Nov 22, 2012 10:19:14 GMT -7
^^^^Yep!
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Post by nigel (Rick) on Nov 22, 2012 20:08:42 GMT -7
My electrics with humbuckers don't sound like my acoustic (with humbucker pickup in it).
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cruz
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Post by cruz on Nov 23, 2012 15:21:53 GMT -7
I have mixed feeling about this one. I've been part of a couple of blind tests and we were all clueless. I'm talking 20 guys, from conservatory musicians to hippies playing in the street. All of us were guessing. Every time it was the same. Extremes are easy. Two tweaks on the amp and the entire exercise became a guessfest. At one point the guy distorted the amp and played with an accoustic. The answers went from a jaguar to a mockingbird. All of us were wrong, course. What a bunch of crap. Any real electric guitarist with EARS can tell that there is a difference in how swamp ash and mahogany sound and "feel". The difference is less between some woods, such as ash and alder, but a better player will still be able to tell it. Are those the same real electric guitarist that reference Stairway to Heaven's solo as an example of LP tone and Another brick in the wall as a strat one? You do know the first was recorded with a telecaster and the second one with a LP, right?
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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Nov 24, 2012 2:21:30 GMT -7
^^^ Dagnabit! You've just answered a really important issue for me! I have been playing Another Brick solo recently on my Strat, and no matter what I did, or how many pedals I used, I just couldn't get "that" tone. Figured it was a "fingers" thing. Plugged my LP in, and hey presto! Again I assumed a "fingers" thing - now I know!! LOL! ;D Another challenge to "tone wood purists" (not having a go, as I'm as vexed by this issue as the next guy), but I challenge anyone to listen to Joe Walsh recordings and tell me ANY guitar he's playing, or even more challenging, the wood composition of any of those guitars, purely from blind listening. Wood is important of course, but more for the player and the feel than for the output sound, IMHO.
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Post by deaconblues on Nov 26, 2012 8:29:17 GMT -7
The article keeps mentioning "guitar shapes" as a focus of this research. The shape of a guitar is more for visual aesthetics than acoustical quality, IMHO. While pickups, strings, nut material, saddle material, baseplates and even fingers all contribute to a guitar's tone, there is still an audible difference between alder and ash, mahogany and maple, mahogany and rosewood. Any musician should be able to tell the differences in sound from these different woods. The guy is either full of excrement, or deaf.
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cruz
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Post by cruz on Nov 26, 2012 10:33:02 GMT -7
The guy is either full of excrement, or deaf. Most people in online forums say that. It's easy to claim you have a particular talent when you don't have to back it up. Do a blind test and get back to me. You'd be surprised. PS: take it from someone who's spent a small fortune in gear.
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