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+--- Thread: Does Body Wood Make a Difference (/thread-348.html)
Does Body Wood Make a Difference - jtkung - 06-21-2022
So many stories and myths on body wood making a HUGE difference in guitar sound. We all know that if the sound is overdriven or distorted, it is really hard to tell what kind of guitar much less the wood. Listen to Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover" solo to discover that (it was done with a Strat and ES-335! They sound nearly identical, you would have never known).
What about clean? Well, Physics does not LIE. The string vibrations are picked up by the electronics, and there are only 2 points of contact -- the bridge and nut. Both are then connected to the wood parts -- the body and neck. You can calculate the mechanical effects of these easily and discover that the pickups and electronics overwhelmingly determine the tone (as well as the distance to the strings and the tone controls, etc.).
In fact, the easiest way to dispel that the body "resonance" makes a huge difference is -- just check the resonance and dampening when you hold the guitar against your body. This is done all the time as nobody I have ever seen plays a guitar where the body is NOT in contact with a human body. You will find that this contact greatly affects any mechanical resonance of the system. Yet -- you don't see people saying there's a huge difference in tone! Maybe a fat person playing the guitar sounds different than a skinny person? :-)
Here is an excellent analysis of the electric guitar using physics:
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/tag/physics-of-the-electric-guitar/
There's even analysis of the ABR-1 bridge to show the nonsense involved.
RE: Does Body Wood Make a Difference - jtkung - 12-03-2022
Take a listen to a 3D printed Strat body -- made of plastic. If you listen to the clean tone blind-folded, there's no way anybody could say this was not a wood body. It sounds like a humbucker Strat!