[jtkung]

Pretty much see here:

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index....t-27818274

Physics says you DO NOT WANT a resonant body or neck. This does nothing for the string vibration, or in fact, can kill the sustain. It is the acoustic properties that resonance affects, but we don't care about that for ELECTRIC GUITARS!

Some good links to read:

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication...ic_guitars
  
• http://acoustics.org/pressroom/httpdocs/...scher.html
  
• https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index..../27774095/
  
• https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/2...-resonance
  

From the last article:


What we’ve learned. Returning to the systems we summarized a moment ago, both would immediately eat up energy from the string’s signal once we’d hit the few frequencies they are tuned to. All physical instruments will have some inevitable resonances and dampening, which is the main reason why there are so many instruments that sound different. But for a solidbody electric, the whole notion of increasing sustain with resonant tonewoods or letting a string send its vibrations into the body to resonate before returning to the string is pretty much nonsense.

You’d think if one of the resonance-enhancing systems worked as promised, it would have generated at least some reaction from owners by now. It hasn’t, which gives us an idea of a body’s tonal influence on a solid electric instrument ... obviously not that much.

[jtkung]

A lot of experienced luthiers say that wood and construction do make a difference, and I don't doubt that they "hear" a difference. But it probably wasn't under strict controlled conditions (like below) -- or maybe just the very strong psychological placebo effect.

• Double-blind listening tests
  
• Pickups are identical -- which means they have to be swapped in and out
  
• Pickup location and settings have to be the same (same height from strings)
  
• Same type of strings with the same playing time (age)
  
• Electronics have to be the same (pot values, caps, etc.)
  

What it means is that it has to be properly controlled where you are ONLY changing the body wood, or neck wood, or whatever variable you are testing for. 

For example, a Les Paul doesn't sound like an ES-335, but are

• Pickups identical?
  
• Pickup locations identical?
  
• The bridge and nut identical, as well as break angle?
  
• Strings identical?
  

The answer to these is usually NO.  Also, the ES-335 is semi-hollow and thus will feedback at high volumes. This is where the resonance of the body could affect the string vibrational energy. But it is less so in the Les Paul.  And this is regardless of the body woods used!

Essentially just putting your hand on the neck and your body against the guitar body changes the resonance, but not really enough to be audible through pickups. Or even acoustically on an electric. 

In terms of whether the body really makes a large difference in electric string tone, see this test below. Debunking decades of marketing bullshit!

[jtkung]

Just read this -- if you can handle it!

https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/the-book/

[jtkung]

Can there be more marketing BS ... from PRS?  See here:

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/paul-re...ood-debate

In the article, Paul refers to violins for the tonewood argument. 

“I found an argument in Germany when I was over there that I think sticks,” Smith said. “If the instrument doesn't matter, and it's only the pickup, then a concert violinist would go up to a Neumann microphone and the violin would not matter at all. It's his hands and the microphone. That's it. That's all that matters, according to the internet. What a load of crap.”

He is a load of crap! Nobody is saying that tonewoods don't make a difference on ACOUSTIC instruments -- especially the VIOLIN! Then he relays a story about how a bunch of violin makers choose the same wood set. Well, that's because they have experience testing tone on woods on an ACOUSTIC instrument, which make a difference. 

Nowhere in the article does he mention tonewoods for electric guitars. That is the key argument where physics says it means much less.   In a double-blind test, could people tell if you changed the body wood from Mahogany to Okoume?  Or maybe put a maple top on it?   Not likely. 

Complete BS and his story is not at all relevant.

He wants you to believe that tonewoods make a difference on electrics so you can pay him more money for these tonewoods on his electrics. Even though they don't make that much a difference other than aesthetics and bragging rights.  Finishes are the same also.

[jtkung]

Even more crazy BS from PRS.

https://www.premierguitar.com/podcast/di...h-tonewood

Does he not read and understand the argument?  He states that old strings sound different than new strings and it's not all the pickups. Well - of course! The strings are the actual source of the vibrations! Nobody says that ONLY pickups matter.  What the physics says is that pickups matter MUCH MORE than the slight differences in woods used in an ELECTRIC GUITAR -- like Alder, Swamp, Ash, Maple, Mahogany, etc.  These "tonewoods" have much less an effect than pickup choice.  This is what the physics says, and this is what you see and hear in reality, though it is obscured by myth and human placebo. 

Let's put the argument this way. If tonewoods make such a HUGE difference, than a mediocre pickup should suffice, yes?  Because the tonewood should overshadow the pickup importance.  Alas, that is not the case. It is the other way around!

Guitar makers do NOT want you to believe this, because what it means is that you can upgrade a cheaper guitar with 3rd party pickups and achieve equal or maybe better sound.  You can easily upgrade pickups, but you can't upgrade wood on a guitar without buying a new one.  So they want you to believe that tonewoods make a difference and that you should buy THEIR guitar with THEIR tonewoods to get THAT sound.  

For the words of the profits

Were written on the studio wall
Concert hall

And echoes with the sound of salesmen
Of salesmen, of salesmen

[jtkung]

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! The neck sounds excellent -- great definition and clarity, yet still warm. 

How is that possible with a plastic body??   Uhhh ... because physics has predicted it. I think the next step as an experiment is to replace the 3D printed body with a "tonewood" using Swamp Ash, or Alder, or even Mahogany. And using the identical components, etc. 

My guess is that in a true double-blind test, with similar components except one guitar has a 3D printed body and the other a tonewood body, that few could tell the difference. And if there were slight differences, EQs on the amp could easily compensate for these differences.

[jtkung]

Even more craziness:

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index....r.2422406/

Wow. Of course the whole point of the physics discussion is that the acoustic voicing of the guitar is not correlated at all with the electric pickup sound! 

However ...

Quote:
Speaking from experience of dealing with guitars and has personally been owning hundreds of Les Pauls. The influence of pickups of the same general characteristics (ie: same Alnico magnet with roughly the same DC resistance) is very minimal. It's always the core acoustic voicing of that slab of wood (and how precisely the body & neck was glued together) that dominates through an amp.

The first statement is completely off because:

• Different Alnico compositions can definitely lead to different frequency responses. Even the same magnet can have different mag strength
  
• Different windings, even if the same DC resistance, can have an effect
  
• The electronics make a large difference: potentiometers and capacitors, especially if they are not in spec. Some have +/20% tolerance and this can shift the resonant peak significantly
  

He is saying that pickups of similar magnetic composition and resistance sound the same? This is completely false. 

Then he says it's the tonewood that shows through the amp? Wow. He has it completely ass backwards. Physics says it's the pickups that have the most effect and the solid-body "tonewood" is small.

Even many commenters were against this guy.

[jtkung]

I started to think about this much more after reading comments from guitar players. Many players (especially older players -- "Dad Boomers") seem to be fixated on the acoustic sound of the electric guitar and naturally correlating that back to the electric sound.  This is natural if you don't understand how a pickup actually works. They are assuming the pickup is like a microphone -- picking up the actual acoustic sound, when it is not.

Of course if you listen to guitars only acoustically, the body woods and also construction do make a difference. This is because the sound you hear is from vibration of the body and all the mechanical parts moving air and producing sound. The actual vibration of the string moves so little air that this is NOT what you hear (though it IS what you hear when picked up by the magnetic pickup, EQ'ed and amplified by an amp!).

If indeed you care about this sound (which is never heard through an amp), then you can analyze it from this perspective. But all the myths still are false.  A few examples:

• You need a resonant body for a good sound.  This might be true if listening acoustically. But the resonance will only appear over a limited range.  It isn't an acoustic guitar with a resonance chamber!
  
• If sustain is important, the contact points should be large to transfer the energy.  But contact points to the body on a Les Paul is through the bridge, and everybody wants the ABR-1 bridge which has small screw posts into the wood! This contradicts this. Also for a Strat, the bridge is complicated, with one part only contacting a knife-point edge, while the tailpiece contacts a block which is then held by springs back to the body. Contact points are extremely small!
  
• The tailpiece break angle has a larger effect since it dictates the downforce on the saddles, but the actual tailpiece itself is not as important.
  
• Having the tailpiece screwed down against the body (like on a Les Paul) for better sustain has such a small effect to be negligible
  
• Look at the Strat "tailpiece." The ball-ends are held against a block which then goes through metal springs onto two screws into the body.  This isn't a high contact path. Yet, Strats still have some sound when played acoustically.  Nobody ever designs an electric guitar, trying to make it sound good acoustically. Else they would have never made it solid, nor chosen such mechanisms for the bridges. 
  

The points above only look at the acoustic sound of an electric guitar, and the myths are false for this evaluation too. And of course, this is all moot since nobody plays the electric guitar unplugged for their sound -- it is through an amp -- via the magnetic pickups and control electronics -- that determine the sound of an electric.  So the focus should be on the characteristics of the vibrating string and the subsequent electronics used to transduce this to an electrical signal -- i.e. this path:

Vibrating string --> Magnetic Pickup --> EQ/filter --> Amp --> Speakers/Cab --> Ears

The woods and mechanical parts of an electric do in fact have some effect on the vibrating string, but the downstream elements have a much larger effect.

So Physics says if you want to really make your electric sound better and to sculpt the sound, look at the electronic path above, because the woods of the guitar simply don't have as big an effect.

Hence the argument that certain tonewoods have such a big impact is really false. Change the pickups and/or the pots and caps and this will transform the guitar much much more.

So the argument then goes ... why use wood at all? Easy

• Availability and cost
  
• Looks and feels good
  
• Good weight and material characteristics to support string tension and general usage requirements
  
• Easy to machine, stain, paint, and finish
  
• Each piece of wood has a unique figure and grain
  
• Has always been done this way and works!
  
• Guitar companies don't want to change their supply chain and thinking
  
• Guitarists are conservative, nostalgic and don't like change
  

Now if you could 3D print wood or other materials that meet the above, I believe you will start to see these more prominent. because people will see the benefits and they will not be able to HEAR the difference.

[jtkung]

People can convince themselves that they really hear something when none exists. See these articles on violinists and their evaluations of old violins vs contemporary modern instruments:

• Soloist evaluations of six Old Italian and six new violins
  Claudia Fritza,1, Joseph Curtinb, Jacques Poitevineaua, Hugues Borsarelloc, Indiana Wollmana, Fan-Chia Taod,and Thierry Ghasarossiane
  
• pnas.1323367111.pdf
  
• Expert violinists can’t tell old from new
  Daniel J. Levitin1Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1; and College ofArts and Humanities, Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, CA 94103
  
• pnas.1405851111.pdf
  

In the last article, this comment is telling:

In short, simply knowing that an instrument has a certain pedigree or history could activate expectations for its sound that cause neural circuits even lower level sensory-perceptual ones—to behave differently than they would without that knowledge. We may really believe that they sound better, even if there is no acoustic difference in the distal world.

I think the same is happening with guitars, especially old guitars like 50s Strats and Les Pauls. And of course, the use of "tonewoods" in electrics.

[jtkung]

I came to my own realization that pickups make a HUGE difference when I compared two very different guitars. The Physics and experimental data clearly show this, but the ultimate proof is in the TONE on REAL guitars:

• Grosh Retro Classic from 1996.  Alder body, maple neck with Rosewood fingerboard. made in SoCal before he moved to Colorado. Vintage trem. Has Lindy Fralin single-coils in a SSS configuration -- most likely similar to Vintage Hots today. This guitar is >$3K today
  

• EART W2 headless guitar from 2022. Roasted Padauk body, laminate Maple/Padauk neck with Rosewood fingerboard. SS frets. Headless fixed bridge system.  Replaced the stock pickups (most likely made by Artec) with GFS Crunchy Rails. Guitar is about $450 USD with the pickup upgrades. 
  

These guitars could not be so opposite! Different design, shape, woods, hardware, pickups (single-coil vs humbucker, Alnico vs ceramic), etc.

I then played them through this setup:

Amp
Bill Krinard 50W Guitar Tube Amp
"Custom Reverb Signature Plus" (has a Kimock preamp front-end, is an R&D prototype, in a Custom Reverb Artist Chassis)
Signed on the back by Bill Krinard (W Krinard 7-07-06)
ARTIST S/N: 033
TAD 6L6 power tubes

This is one of Bill’s prototypes when he was experimenting with different amp configurations, options, etc.  It is an incredible sounding clean amp in the Dumble style.

Cabinet
Two-Rock vertical 2x12
Speakers: Eminence Tonespotters, early prototypes owned by Taku Sakashta.
Eminence used Celestion G12-65s from Taku as a model for these. These are 16ohms (rare, not available) wired in parallel for 8 ohms.

This setup is very high-end and mimics similar setups used by noted Dumple amp players like Steve Kimock and Robben Ford. 
Cable was 15ft George L cable -- straight nickel connectors.

The amp was setup to play clean, with good volume. 

Grosh Retro Classic ~$2900 USD
Pickups: Lindy Fralin SSS
Neck impedance: 5.91K
Middle impedance: 6.03K
Bridge impedance: 7.06K
Neck: there’s a jangly quality to the sound, very sweet high-end chime with no bass looseness. It is a tight bass, with all notes well defined with crispness, clarity, and compression.  On the attack, there’s a metallic-like tone like on a great acoustic. Great tone.
Neck+Middle: there’s a glassy sound due to the phase additions and more compression. It sounds like a comp and a stronger chorus turned on.  One of my fav sounds. Slightly less volume and punch.
Middle: Brighter than the neck with less jangle and sweetness on the high-end. A drier sound.
Middle+Bridge: similar to the Neck+Middle with the glassy, chorused compressed tone, but skewed a bit more to the treble side due to the bridge.
Bridge: more top-end but never harsh or ice-picky. Still retains the sweet high-end chime, but not as much as the neck or neck+middle. I was surprised how great this sounds in the bridge. No harshness at all.

2021 EART W2
$366 USD
GFS pickup upgrades: $95 USD
Total: $461
GFS Crunchy Rails Neck and Bridge
Neck impedance: 10.1K
Neck split impedance: 5K
Bridge impedance: 15.4K
Bridge split impedance: 7.92K
Neck+Bridge both coil-split: This is quite an incredible surprise as the sound is very close to the Grosh Neck+Middle, but with more attack, volume, and punch. There’s a jangly quality to the sound, with the sweet high-end chime. It has more bass and punch than the Grosh but still well defined, with a very crisp attack and compression, and clarity you expect from single-coils. The Grosh might be slightly sweeter in the highs, but doesn’t have the punch and bass as the W2.

This was a revelation. You could get very close to that sweet, jangly, phasy Strat quack tone with the W2 with split coils!  It was as good as the Grosh.  And this is through a very high-end tube amp.

Note that this was only comparing the Neck+bridge split position. Something about this combo works! The split-coils themselves were good, but not as sweet and chimey as the Grosh.  Note that the humbuckers were searing and perfect for lead tones in progressive metal.  So with the W2, you could get incredible chunky humbucker tones, but also great split coil cleans. It's the pickups! Oh and the W2 guitar -- stays in tune incredibly well, has low action, and the neck is amazing -- and plays as well as the Grosh.  For 1/6th the price!

I surmised that the split-coil on the GFS crunchy rails get you an impedance that is 5K in parallel with 8K which give you an impedance of about 3K -- lower than a vintage wind of 6K. But compared to the Fralins 6K neck+middle in parallel, this is also 3K ohms!   Most likely the frequency response curves on this setting are similar, yielding similar tones. 

What this says is that with the right engineering, design and pickup choice, you can get a huge range of sounds that have much larger impact than changing the woods.  It's really the pickups that make a HUGE difference in the sound! Not the bridge, woods, etc.  It's the ELECTRONICS that seem to matter most when it comes to actual TONE.