Wanted : actual science in the "wood affects tone" debate

[Nag]

First, I post this in the luthiery section because I guess that's where people with answers will be. Dunno if the mods will want to move it.

Second, I want this thread to be informative. Not a shitstorm between people who think the wood does affect or does not affect the sound of the instrument.

So here goes :

As far as I know, the electric guitar works like this. You have a magnetic pickup that creates a permanent magnetic field. When you pluck a string, the vibrations "disturb" the magnetic field, which creates a small electric current. This electric current goes to the amplifier, where it is transformed into a physical sound wave.

Correct me if this is wrong but I guess I got that mostly right.

Now, here's where it gets complicated. I do HEAR differences between the different woods. And everyone agrees that in acoustic guitars, the wood changes the sound of the instrument. But in what I just described for the electric guitar, the wood itself isn't part of the chain.

Each wood has different physical properties. But what exactly happens ? Do those properties influence the way in which the plucked string vibrates ? Does it accelerate/cancel certain vibrations ?

Main question : HOW does the wood affect the tone. Question is not IF it does. Because it just does, and if you disagree, please just close this tab. Question is HOW. Only that.

So yeah. Science, people. No shitstorm.

Thanks if anyone can contribute.

 

[RV350ALSCYTHE]

Different materials vibrate at different frequencies and either resonate certain frequencies or absorb them. All a result of the materials composition.

Woods produce different grain patterns and porosity, which affect what frequencies are heard. There is also variation within the same species, they all grow slightly different and some will have a more desirable sound while another sample may sound dead.

An extreme example would be to compare the sound of a metal bar and an equally sized wood beam. They both sound different when tapped despite the same application of force.

I don't think anyone can argue Balsa has the same tone as Maple.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

I'm no scientist, so I can't really delve too deep, but the easiest way to explain how the guitar's body effects the tone on an electric instrument is as follows:

When you pluck a string, you'll notice the whole guitar vibrates. That means some of that energy is being transferred from the string to the guitar. That means the pickups are only picking up the vibration that remains in the strings, after some energy is diffused to the body. Not all materials, woods, etc. get the same amount of energy from the strings when struck, so there's the difference when comparing materials.

Disclaimer: I hate the idea of "tonewoods". I've worked on enough guitars (thousands) and owned enough guitars (hundreds) at this point to be able to say that the material the guitar is made out of is not nearly as big of a deal as a lot of folks make it out to be. The fact that the folks most ardent in convincing folks that wood A > wood B are trying to sell them said wood A is very telling.

 

[Nag]

Different materials vibrate at different frequencies and either resonate certain frequencies or absorb them. All a result of the materials composition.

Woods produce different grain patterns and porosity, which affect what frequencies are heard. There is also variation within the same species, they all grow slightly different and some will have a more desirable sound while another sample may sound dead.

An extreme example would be to compare the sound of a metal bar and an equally sized wood beam. They both sound different when tapped despite the same application of force.

I don't think anyone can argue Balsa has the same tone as Maple.

So that basically confirms what I was expecting. Nice.

I'm no scientist, so I can't really delve too deep, but the easiest way to explain how the guitar's body effects the tone on an electric instrument is as follows:

When you pluck a string, you'll notice the whole guitar vibrates. That means some of that energy is being transferred from the string to the guitar. That means the pickups are only picking up the vibration that remains in the strings, after some energy is diffused to the body. Not all materials, woods, etc. get the same amount of energy from the strings when struck, so there's the difference when comparing materials.

Disclaimer: I hate the idea of "tonewoods". I've worked on enough guitars (thousands) and owned enough guitars (hundreds) at this point to be able to say that the material the guitar is made out of is not nearly as big of a deal as a lot of folks make it out to be. The fact that the folks most ardent in convincing folks that wood A > wood B are trying to sell them said wood A is very telling.

I'm with you there. This thread isn't about "how much" the guitar woods affect the sound. I know for a fact that a good guitar through a meh amp sounds worse that a meh guitar through a good amp. There is a ton of factors that change the overall sound... construction, scale length, pickup choice, pickup position, amp head, type and size of cab speaker, even the strings, the pick, the fret size etc etc etc

It never ends. The list of factors is extremely long. But I don't want to discuss the importance of tonewoods here. Just how it actually works

 

[sl0th]

Yep. An electric guitar is not just a bunch of strings in a magnetic field, it is a complex system. And the tone of the guitar depends to some degree on properties of all it's components.

I also want to add to previous posts that not only part of the energy comes back to the string through the neck and body, but the neck and the body both have their own resonances and produce a complex vibrations (different tap sound RV350ALSCYTHE was talking about) that also become a part of the final signal you get out of your pickups.

But wood indeed does not make such a big difference as some people believe.

 

[Eliguy666]

Here's a good test. Guitars produced totally identical except for body wood, swamp ash one is fundamentally brighter/clearer than the mahogany one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLxE8iDWD_w

 

[Konfyouzd]

"Wanted: actual science..."

 

[Yo_Wattup]

I dont know science *hick laugh* but the whole 'body absorbing certain frequencies and pickups picking up whats left over' makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.

 

[Konfyouzd]

But even then, it gets brought up that even within the same species of wood there are inconsistencies that make it difficult to tell how one will act vs another in all cases. It'd be cool if there were a way to figure out some standard deviation of frequencies absorbed by a given type of wood... You'd have to try SO many different guitars with the same woods to really get a good enough estimate. Then, does the thickness of the body matter? What about neck joints?

 

[ElRay]

Here's a good test. Guitars produced totally identical except for body wood, swamp ash one is fundamentally brighter/clearer than the mahogany one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLxE8iDWD_w

Yes two guitars of known materials sound different. Big whoop. Please provide a [single|double] blind study where listeners reliably and accurately determine the woods in a guitar solely by listening to what comes out of the speakers.

Ray

 

[Konfyouzd]

They already tried that on TalkBass--several times. It was always roughly 50 - 50 whether people go it or not. Those that did get it right would gloat and those that didn't conceded that they didn't know. If you have a 50 - 50 chance and you get it right it's easy to say you knew it all along...

 

[ElRay]

"Wanted: actual science..."

You want the science? You can't handle the science!

Son, we live in a world that has laws, and those laws have to be investigated by men with science. Who's gonna do it? You? You, LT Konfyouzd? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Tonewood, and you curse the Pre-Amps. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Tonewood's death, while tragic, probably saved GAS. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves GAS. You don't want the science because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me studying those laws, you need me conducting those experiments. We use words like double blind study, systematic error, repeatability. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent investigating something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the tone wood and "Tone is all in the fingers", and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just read the journal article, said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a guitar, and conduct a study. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

 

[sandalhat]

We'll all be lucky to see any actual science show up in this thread, but we have plenty of knowledgeable folks that have thought about this a long time and have indirect data to support their claims. I think everybody has made great contributions so far and I agree with what everyone has brought up. I would say that pretty much everything matters to the end result of a guitar's sound, but all to highly varying degrees. It doesn't benefit manufacturers to actually quantitatively analyze all these factors and then make that information public knowledge. Most people wouldn't understand it anyway, and it benefits manufacturers more to have a mystique surrounding all the different choices and options you can make a guitar with. Pure marketing.

But to weigh in on the original question specifically, I like to think of it this way. A guitar is a set of strings vibrating between to points. Imagine one string, stretched between two anchor points and perfectly coupled to those anchor points. Now imagine that those two anchor points are completely fixed in space. If you pluck the string, let's say there is no mechanism to transfer energy to its surroundings and you get a "perfect" version of whatever note happens to ring out. A real guitar bridge and nut are not perfectly fixed in space relatively speaking because they are connected with mostly wood, which we know is only so rigid. As has been said before, that wood receives some of the energy when you pluck a string and the bridge and nut actually move (vibrate) because of that on a small scale. You'll get a complex spectrum of frequencies when trying to play a single note, and the relative amplitudes of all frequencies in the spectrum are altered by how rigid your guitar is and the resonant frequencies / damping factors of the materials used. You can see that the neck joint matters in this case, but it's hard to say how much or what matters the most. Even if you did a great experiment and had some captured spectra for different variables you wanted to track, it would still come down to listening to the sound samples to see if people could tell a difference.

After playing a lot of guitars and building two, I think that the wood isn't as important as it is made out to be. I think that's largely due to manufacturers trying to sell us something. I think that getting good quality wood of whatever appropriate species you want to try, and doing a good job building it, with whatever style of construction you like, is pretty well going to get you something that does the job. Assuming you put pickups that you like in it.

 

[Konfyouzd]

Ray... What are you talking about? I quoted the title and it was posted well before you had anything to say in this thread. Further, it was in response to the fact that none of the responses up to that point were actually scientific, but just cohesive guesses.

 

[stevexc]

The specific piece of wood you pick is going to have an effect on the sound of the guitar. It'll be a very minor effect once you've got it amped up and everything, but it'll still be there. I don't think anybody with two brain cells to rub together will say that it doesn't matter what the guitar is made of, it'll sound the same regardless*.

However, it's far from predictable - you'd have to be insane to believe that any two pieces of maple will sound the same. Otherwise we wouldn't have people posting NGDs and saying "man I expected this guitar to be super muddy from the mahogany, but it's the brightest sounding guitar I've ever played!".

Material makes a difference, but tonewood is bs. But regardless what you make your guitar out of it'll sound like a guitar.

*Although it's funny that those guys who whole-heartedly believe that the smallest details have huge effects on your tone throw that entire religion out the window when there's EMGs involved... if wood's that big of a deal, EMGs physically CAN't make every guitar sound the same, now can they?

 

[ElRay]

Ray... What are you talking about? ...

It wasn't me that was speaking. It was the too much coffee on too little breakfast talking.

... I quoted the title ...

And it was too close to the movie line to resist. I had to explain a reference to the line to my kids because they haven't see the original movie. Then it became a running joke this weekend:

• You want the jelly beans, you can't handle the jelly beans!
• You want the eggs, you can't handle the eggs!
• You want the punch, you can't handle the punch!
• You want the olives, you can't handle the olives!
• ...

Mucho s all around!

Ray

 

[Konfyouzd]

Oh okay... I thought you were pissed at me at first. The only portion of that movie I'm familiar with is the "You can't handle the truth" part. The rant afterwards confused me at first.

 

[bschmidt]

I vaguely remember Perry Ormsby posting something about this on the ol' Etherial thread. I want to believe he posted some sort of chart on woods and tonality, but I was going crazy with finals at the time so i may have imagined it or something. It wouldn't hurt to fire him a PM though

 

[ElRay]

... I don't think anybody with two brain cells to rub together will say that it doesn't matter what the guitar is made of, it'll sound the same regardless ... However, it's far from predictable - you'd have to be insane to believe that any two pieces of maple will sound the same. ...

Yes. I'll add "repeatable" to "predictable" and then </thread>

The sad thing is that there are "tonewood experts" that preach the tonewood dogma and proselytize against tone wood sins and this-wood laying with that-wood or those-pick-ups.

At least there aren't too many "left-side toan" adherents here.

Ray

 

[ElRay]

Oh okay... I thought you were pissed at me at first. The only portion of that movie I'm familiar with is the "You can't handle the truth" part. The rant afterwards confused me at first.

It's the speech after the "You can't handle the truth" line. I should have left it at "LT Konfyouzd". It might have been more clear as a parody.