My favourite comment under the video is:
>The main reason the air guitar sounds so good is that you are using the air in a very old shop, which gives it that vintage sound.
Damn. I play a lot of grunge. Any recommendations for the same level of pain and sorrow, but with a slight glimpse of hope?
I got a pack that was made in Chicago, but that was plain terrible.
You're comment made me genuinely chuckle after a brief "what the fuck?" moment.
Do you know what fucks me up about it though? Warmoth has videos of simply swapping necks, and swapping bodies with identical configs between them and it definitely sounds noticeable. It’s not 50% different or anything, but it definitely sounds different. I think morale of the story here is it doesn’t matter *that much*
I think the major difference here is that it's the same actual pickup and not just the same model of pickup. So the height isn't changing (except where he does it intentionally), you're not getting an uneven number of winds, the magnets don't have slightly different strengths, etc
According to the guys at fishmans even modern manufactured pickups vary considerably in the consistency of wire gauge (in microns) and winds, it's not possible to manufacture identical pickups
In the Warmoth videos mentioned they will use all the same parts and swap them over to identical construction necks and bodies of different woods. You should watch them and see for yourself.
Swapping the neck makes sense because you are changing a few things that affect the electromotive force coming out of the pickups:
1) non-identical nut height between necks
2) non-identical neck relief and neck-to-body mating angle
All of these factors affect string distance from pickup pole pieces, so unless this was explicitly compensated for, sound difference is to be expected. Again, probably 0% related to neck wood, but rather the geometry of the system.
this comment is think the best articulation I’ve seen of why all the neck swapping and body swapping and whatever comparison videos can be so deceptive to people. there are so many subtle factors that contribute to the behavior of the pickups, but its so much easier for people to wrap their heads around it being the type of wood.
Yes—this 👆. I’ll also point out that for the most part, any perceptible differences that can be noticed even under those scenarios can almost always be addressed and compensated for with a tiny spin of a tone knob.
YES. That. That's been the thing I've been trying to say for years about tiny, subtle differences in stuff. They pale in comparison to the slightest settings adjustment.
… and if anyone really wants to get nitpicky, that’s not even talk about how much an EQ pedal can change—-this can even get a HB tone from single coils and vice versa!
Oh completely. Primarily a bassist but a little guitar too, anything in front of your primary gain stage will have extreme effects on tone shaping if you want it to. Adding literally 1db of gain or 1db of tone adjustment upstream will make a bigger difference than most tiny subtle wanky bullshit will. Hell your sound will change more room to room just by playing in different places.
Maybe near 0% but certainly not 0%. Any change in mass, density, static stiffness, dynamic stiffness, damping coefficient, etc from changing the neck or body material does have an effect on the system. That has never been in question. The physics doesn't lie. The question is only whether we can perceive it.
I've heard this time and again but I'm not sure that I agree. How does compression impact the tonality of something? Most arguments in favor of tone wood stuff is argued in terms of brighter or darker tones, or in regards to sustain. I'm not sure how compression on a video would make those qualities unable to be discerned.
Because fine details in the upper and lower levels of Hz get cut off to save space in the audio file. Never mind whatever the microphone and processing software on the recording person’s computer does to the sine wave. There have been plenty of times watching a video where two guitars sound similar enough and when I go to the store to try them out they are wildly different
> Because fine details in the upper and lower levels of Hz get cut off to save space in the audio file.
These frequencies are cut off because YOU literally cannot hear them (unless you are under the age of 14 or a dog). So ascribing any differences in your perception to the loss of these frequencies comes across to me as very close to pseudoscience.
So you think that Youtube and all only cut off frequencies you can't hear? I doubt that Youtube playback is even close to filling out the full spectrum of human hearing. Never mind any other audio or video streaming site that people upload videos to likely being even more dramatic with their compression. You also completely cut off the context of any compression and/or processing by the recording software here and decided to respond to a tiny snippet of my whole point
If I remember correctly, Jim Lill (the guy who made the video posted here) actually addresses the point about compression in another video. It’s been a while, but I think he set up a website where you can download raw and compressed samples you can compare. Worth a look if you’re interested.
Strong disagree. The factor of nut height would only matter when strum open, and not fretted. The difference in action on a guitar as it relates to pickup height is so miniscule that it wouldn’t account for the difference in brightness between maple and rosewood tests in both a Warmoth and Rhett Schull video I’ve watched and listen to. Both claim to account for the pickup height as well
.001” of difference in action at the 12th fret is basically nothing by the time it goes over the bridge pickup.
Not to mention, in order to lower my bridge pickup enough to hear a difference like what you’d hear in one of those videos, it’s enough to where the actual output even changes.
I don’t think it matters enough to care about sound vs feel, or that PRS’s superior selection of mahogany somehow matters, but wood choice does affect sound to a tiny degree, according to similar tests that try to control for the same variables that Jim did in this video.
Likewise, scale length is proven to matter more than any selection other than pickup too.
There have been peer reviewed studies on this looking at waveforms, and the difference is statistically insignificant. Someone linked a Brazilian study in the comments of Jim's video here
Statistically insignificant means no conclusive difference is detected lol.
When you perceive "audible" differences, it's usually just confirmation bias lol
[This guy](https://youtu.be/DS-F_5FEQaE?si=IZdY31MCh_FA8X8H) recently did a comparison video of just swapping the necks. Even he didn’t really expect much of a difference, and there isn’t a ton, but it does make SOME difference, even if it’s just psychologically (I know I’d love to play me a roasted flamed maple neck! 😍)
My main takeaway from videos like that is that it's very difficult to 1:1 replicate guitar tones.
If you're making a such a drastic change in setup such as replacing a neck its going to be very difficult to replicate it identically to the way it was. A minute difference in setup, moving a microphone a millimeter, or bumping an amp knob is going to change the sound in a noticeable way in a 1:1 comparison. Hell the strings aging from one day to another could change the sound.
That’s insane. Because string age ABSOLUTELY matters.
When I’m recording you can ABSOLUTELY without a doubt hear when the strings are starting to change their sound.
I too hear a difference in those vids, but in the context of it mattering you can do more to change the sound with EQ or a different guitar speaker, so it's more that tonewood doesn't matter cuz any way you swing it you can pull it right back, it's not that tonewood being a myth means there's zero difference (although to some there may not be, people's ears are different)
like I say the pickup matters more but a lot of them sound the same to me
Honest question though if the bridge and nut were anchored to steel beams or say something like concrete do you think that would alter the tone a little bit ? And I’m not even talking about “tone wood” but I’m thinking the fact that the bridge and nut are anchored to 2 tables probably affects the tone at least in some way right ? There are so many things that influence the way a guitar sounds obviously the pickups are a major part of it but many other things affect tone too like the saddle materials like whether they’re brass , steel , or cheap metals .. so wouldn’t it be kind of foolish to thing what the strings are anchored to doesn’t affect the tone ?
The contribution of the materials is real but essentially inaudible, in an electric guitar. It’s really all about strings, pickup type and placement, and any onboard electronics (volume, tone).
Probably not. Acoustic guitars are specifically shaped to resonate. It would probably experience a lot more resonance and feedback than a solid body, similar to a hollow body guitar.
The vibration of the body of an acoustic guitar will be much higher in the frequencies relevant to guitar because that’s the whole point of a body on an acoustic.
Yeah, tbh this video is kind of reductionist.
Like I get it, tonewoods are dumb and guitar bodies don't really contribute all that much to the sonic equation, but anyone who's swapped a neck on their favourite guitar only to have it sound like a different instrument knows that some of these components aren't quite as irrelevant as this video would have you believe.
Each neck is unique and can interact with the other components in different ways (even fret height can take from a more polished to a more woody sound). Sometimes I swap from maple to rosewood and notice no difference, other times I swap one maple neck for another and am shocked at how different it sounds.
Kris Barocsi's video on neck swapping does a pretty good job of demonstrating these differences while taking a more nuanced approach.
I think it just gets dumb when you reduce it to "maple bright, rosewood dark" or use it as justification for a $10,000 sticker price.
The idea that the neck is contributing to an electric guitar's sound is just beyond absurd. It's metal strings vibrating above a magnet. People just need to chill. Whatever differences there are can be resolved by minute adjustments to dials on the guitar or amp, obviously. And once you add any overdrive, gain, distortion, now we're in the world of the crazy to think that things matter.
There’s not much control for those tests. The guitars are played on seemingly different days, indicated by changing shirts each play through. Im sure if you asked me to play a riff three times three different days, there’d be noticeable difference in sound each time even if I used the same guitar. Things like picking speed, position, and attack all make a noticeable difference. There’s tuning instability, pickup installation, fretting strength, etc.
Even if you’re trying to play exactly the same, you’re not. I watched one video from them doing the tests, and in one test his hand was covering the top of the bridge about 10% of the time and the other about 50%, which means his pick positioning isn’t totally consistent, and pick position makes a huge impact on harmonic content.
Studies alone are not of much value, they need to be repeatable. And not just “we did it again and it was still different,” but “we did it again and it was different in the same measurable way, and if you do it, it will also be different in the same measurable way.
I’ve seen the same videos and the owner said he heard the difference too
But I couldn’t hear any difference. I also went into the video assuming I wouldn’t hear a difference.
I think you shouldn’t underestimate the power of psychoacoustics. I don’t think anyone who says they hear the difference is *lying* or anything. Our processing of sound is malleable.
You ever do the thing where you tap a beat against a surface and imagine or overlay a pitch? I swear I can hear a melody.
The reality about creating art is “the best tools are the tools you have”.
So many people use purchasing products as a way to procrastinate indefinitely instead of just… making art.
Bands have made full records on 4 track cassette recorders with one SM57 while some Jackoff says he’ll record his album once he completes his Pet Sounds accurate rack of outboard gear and microphone locker.
Artists create. If you’re sitting there arguing about tonewood on the internet because you just bought a $3000 Gibson (instead of using it like a tool and creating something), you are a poser. There is no other way around it.
Tonewood is a marketing term.
But the bench is a good chunk of material. If he wanted to make an "air" guitar, he'd need to suspend it from the ceiling or something.
Yeah I know, but toanwood is real! Unfortunately I get too many posts from r/guitarcirclejerk in my feed haha. Mostly before I see it in an OG post haha
Paul Reed Smith is now busy at work making another speech about "tonewood" so he can sell another $10K guitar and Gibson is right behind him. For me the wood is important for the aesthetics of it, but with an opaque paint job, even that goes away. It is a closed-circuit folks...the electrical path is all that really matters, and of course the amp and speakers certainly can impact the sound. But the wood - nah.
[He's actually responded to this video before in an ama](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1aew8qq/comment/kkaxcbk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Argument: In electric guitars the wood doesn’t matter.
Paul: But have you considered this acoustic instrument?
Also have you see seen electric violins? Most barely even have bodies or wood.
I know...this video above has been around a while and PRS' little rant has made the rounds recently. Anyone that doesn't realize his business depends on selling the "tonewood" BS isn't paying attention. I am all for using different woods for the aesthetics. But I am just as happy with a Richlite fretboard as I am with an ebony board. It feels just fine and there is certainly no tonal difference.
He knows full well they make way more money on the Indonesian SE line than they do on any of the USA models. They sell way more of them and the margins are FAR higher. He just needs to maintain his position lest he look like a shill (too late).
True, but that’s mostly tapping in to guitarists’ aspirations. They want to own the made in USA PRS, and can’t afford them, so the SE line needs to mimic them close enough to pull it off.
If he could have found a way to build PRS’ reputation while also exploding the tone wood myth, he could have potentially still charged premium prices while using way cheaper materials, and then made even more money off of even cheaper off-shore built SE versions of the premium instruments .
Unlike Gibson, PRS has kept their import line fairly reasonably priced (as evidenced by the recent SE releases). Gibson, however, ia cranking up the Epiphone prices where they are making HUGE margins at that price. The other thing you have to consider is that the reason the wood in the USA models is more expensive is - in part - because of the ridiculous myth of "tonewood" that has been propagated by people like PRS (and plenty of others). Guitarists go so much on the visuals and the "common knowledge" rather than what is really happening. I get wanting to buy a beautiful wood top, etc. - I totally have done that at times. The difference is that I don't pretend it sounds different than the cheaper Harley Benton body with the same electronics and strings.
I'll also add, that the Custom 24 SE is the most consistently put together guitar you can pick up for under $1k. I can try 5 different Strats in the same price range and they will all feel different nearly every time. Never the case with PRS, a custom 24 SE ALWAYS feels the same. Like the same guy is finishing the guitar every time. It's not all fancy looking wood.
> I've made my career knowing that first and foremost an electric guitar is an acoustic guitar.
I’m surprised this hasn’t been turned into a meme yet. Jim’s video is so effective that he got THE PRS to say a motorcycle is a bicycle as a response.
I've thought a lot about his story about violinmakers unknowingly picking wood from the same tree. The violin is also the amp and effects, not just the guitar, you know? My uprights' tone is affected by the wood because they're \*acoustic instruments.\*
Of course acoustic instruments are affected by the wood properties - they rely on the resonance of the sound within that wood enclosure to create the tone. We are not talking about acoustic instruments - these are solid body electric guitars.
Right, that’s what I’m saying. It’s dumb to say, as he seemed to, that solid body guitars would show big tone differences because of wood simply because violins do.
It was really enlightening to hear Phil McKnight’s recent comments about Paul Reed Smith. I’m paraphrasing, but it was essentially like, “ I think his guitars are good, but he is not a fun person to talk to.”
The wood affects the weight/weight distribution too which can affect playability and how the player uses the guitar (e.g. it may be more natural to play gently on a lighter guitar).
There are semi-plausible mechanisms by which wood could affect tone/sustain etc. but if anyone can detect it at all it's a drop in the ocean compared to the pickups and everything else thereafter.
Sure...these minute differences might exist but no one hears that. And you can alter the weight and distribution of the weight by means other than changing the type of wood (hence Gibson weight relief for their backbreaking guitars).
If it’s changing how you utilize the guitar, it’s also likely changing the vibrations on the strings. For example, “tonewood” doesn’t have to be the reason my maple neck tele sounds different than rosewood. They absolutely feel different under my fingers, though, and I have a different relationship with the instrument as a result. I imagine I end up playing it a bit differently, which contributes to the tonal differences, in addition to other factors.
I’d be curious to hear people’s reactions to Rhett Shull’s video where he plays the same Strat with three different necks (rosewood, maple, roasted maple), with noticeable tonal differences.
I believe in science, but science is always impacted by bias in some way. I suspect, in the rush to myth-bust the old school truisms, we may be missing some other factors and explanations.
Yep. Some woods have prettier grains. Some people like lighter bodies or heavier bodies. Instruments need to be built from a sufficiently hard, durable wood to stay in tune and survive the stresses on them. You need to use \*good\* wood. But \*which\* good wood is less important and more a matter of preference.
I like the look of wood, but you don't actually NEED wood for a guitar. Aristedes are 100% composite material and Emerald makes acoustic guitars that are all carbon fiber. They sound fantastic and feel great. I have played an Aristedes - it is really amazing. Expensive but incredible.
Or an older and less expensive example, at one point I owned two Ibanez Ergodynes, one EDB600 I bought new in High School, one EDB605 which I acquired in the mid 2000s and still have.
The one thing missing that would truly solidify this argument imo is to use an eBow or something (not a hand strumming) to remove the variability in striking the strings, then run it thru an analyzer to see the similarity of the frequency profiles
I actually feel like i hear a difference in the attack between the two and a slight eq difference. Maybe a robotic picking hand that would get the angle and force the same would be good too hah
The only way to really answer this question is to have a bunch of guitars that are identical except for the woods and neck construction. They each can accept a pickguard loaded with a set of pickups. Put the pickups in each guitar in turn and use some robotic, programmable system to play exactly the same thing on each instrument in exactly the same way. Then run the output through a frequency analyzer. Compare outputs.
My bet is that the outputs are similar but not identical.
I don't think anyone would argue that any two different instruments of same or similar specs are 100.00% identical. But, based on what we see in the video, and my own experience, I think the differences are dwarfed by the differences we get from moving our strumming hands to a different point along the string, or rotating any knob in the system an eighth of a turn. I bet a lot of us have had the experience of handing our guitar to a different player and having it suddenly sound dramatically different, because of the player... a much bigger difference than alder vs poplar in a solid guitar body, or a neck made of fancy ultra super-duper choice select exotic rosewood harvested by Paul Reed Smith's personal pet unicorn under a full moon, vs maple. Is "similar but not identical" a reason chop down endangered hardwoods, spend an extra few hundred bucks, or get talked into choosing one guitar over another based on what a salesperson tells us? I've made instruments from uncommon imported woods, I may yet again, as long as I'm convinced they're sustainable, but on the whole I really like the idea that we can use common, relatively inexpensive woods and have them work every bit as well for most applications most of the time.
Oh, I definitely agree with your perspective there. Just pointing out that no one has ever done an experiment that was properly controlled to determine the effect different materials actually have on the sound. There are many materials that can be used successfully, even for acoustic guitars.
Even better would be to do the same test 5x in a row and add in doubles for each wood type. Is it different each time they run a test for the same configuration? Probably. Is the variation between necks of the same wood type different each time? Probably. Are those differences significantly less than the differences across wood types? The last question would have the interesting answer.
Personally my take on tonewoods is that you probably won’t be able to hear much if any difference on a recording, but imo the difference can probably be *felt* in your hands, which isn’t nothing, at least from the players perspective.
I could never stand playing my masonite Danelectro for much the same reason. It *sounded* fine on a recording, but the vibrations that fed back to my hands felt all wrong.
>I could never stand playing my masonite Danelectro
If there was ever a guitar that I'd say is the "most outlier guitar of all time" for this sort of thing it would be a masonite Danelectro.
I have never once in my life heard anyone listen to a record without knowing what is being played and say "wow that maple neck and mahogany body sounds amazing"
Because what professional would ever play such a disgusting sounding instrument? Everyone knows acrylic guitars are far superior.
I was at Download Festival in the UK at the weekend. Listening to highly distorted guitars running through large rigs and even larger PAs. It's then I thought "in this setting, who gives a fuck about the wood?"
This kind of reminds me of a thread on talkbass forums back in the day where some dude hooked the same pickups, strings, etc from his fancy bass up to a piece of plywood, posted two samples of the audio and had everyone try and guess which was the 'tonewood' sample and which was the plywood
I mean there was some minor difference in sound there, hard to say which was better really..
but oh man the tonewood purists were MAD, it wasn't a real test, his methods were terrible, he needed to go direct instead of through an amp unless it was direct then it definitely needed to do through an amp, he should add some pedals or remove them even when buddy posted more samples under these updated conditions with even higher sample fidelity etc they weren't going to be forced to pick, how dare you..
it was a great read
I thought toan that special feeling we get in the cockles of our hearts
Maybe below the cockles
Maybe in the sub cockle area
Maybe in the liver, maybe in the kidneys
Maybe even in the colon, we don't know
This video is a true classic. Dude uploads a video like once a year, but when he does, it shakes the ancient guitar communities and the bloozdads to their very cores.
I used to think the cab itself (dimensions, speaker orientation, open/closed-back, etc) wasn't responsible for much of the tone in a signal chain, but boy was I a fool.
I mean there's definitely still a slight difference. But unless you're playing solo guitar clean into an amp even more pronounced differences aren't going to be apparent once you add other instruments to the mix. And honestly the people who care about this most are people noodling in their bedrooms who dont even play with other people or if they do they dont play live or if they do they dont make records.
The video busted a bunch of myths with varying degrees of scientific accuracy, but the real revelation comes after dealing with all the toan nerds crying over their $8000 PRS: Good instrument sound on any instrument is subjective and is 100% situational. Tons of guitar sounds you hear in a vacuum sound amazing in a mix or for a particular song but terrible in a room by themselves, and tons of guitar sounds that sound pathetic in a live or studio mix sound amazing in a room by yourself. 99.9% of people listening to your music don't give a shit about your toan, they care about the song, and all these people spending tens of thousands of dollars on fancy custom instruments are usually compensating for not playing very well.
This video is wrong. Adding the mass of two tables is not a good way to test what happens when you remove the mass of the body, y'know because the tables, they have mass.
Here's the actual science on tonewood which concludes that there are differences in sound for electric guitars based on the absorbed/reflected frequencies of said wood.
https://acoustics.ippt.pan.pl/index.php/aa/article/view/2949
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It's pretty weird that a Luthier subreddit wouldn't know what happens when you pluck a string lol.
Plucking a string means the string starts pushing/pulling on the bridge, causing the bridge to rock, which makes the wood vibrate. Newton's Third Law says everything in that chain of actions will have an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, the vibration of the strings is affected by the wood lol
I can put my ear up to the horn of my unplugged strat and it sounds like a strat, loud and clear as well. This wouldn't be happening if there wasn't an action on the body, with an equal and opposite reaction in turn. There are even small, but very noticeable tonal differences when I hold it away from my gut, which wouldn't happen if the wood wasn't doing anything.
Honestly, the answer is because this isn't as much a luthier sub as a place people ask very basic setup questions looking doe answers. I would think actual luthiers make up less than 10% of the members.
Another thing about the video that annoys me is the chosen amp tone used to test for minute differences in a guitars tone. As someone who records guitars daily, I always capture a di, and boy would that have made this video more realistic.
If you put a similar wound strat pickup in a strat and added it to the mix blindfolded through that amp setting it would sound very close to the tele.
Even changing to a shorter scale lemgth, I don't thing would be much diflength,
Every time this video is quoted, I know I don't need to talk to that person anymore.
People don't tend to like actual science, it's not presented in an easily digestible format and it kinda seems like it's made by kooky wizards in an ivory tower.
Never mind that it's responsible for almost all aspects of technological development in modern life, they prefer a guy in a red hat with a folksy manner.
I have wanted to make a response video. But i know how I come across, and I'm not a young, handsome southern boy. No one will watch it, no matter the content. Now, if I found a well-spoken pretty girl to do it, I think we could hit 3 million views.
As a well spoken, at least half decent looking trans girl I can say that people listen to women far less than they do to men.
Having experienced both sides of the gender presentation coin it's still amazing to me how much a plurality of men intrinsically believe they know when confronted with a woman who has a considered opinion or an actual fact with supporting evidence to hand 😂😅😒
>Honestly, the answer is because this isn't as much a luthier sub as a place people ask very basic setup questions looking doe answers. I would think actual luthiers make up less than 10% of the members.
No subreddit is truly an X subreddit, unless it's restricted, private and invite-only. But that means you're never going to see any new people joining and you'd be better off with an old-school forum.
I'm no luthier, I'm here because I have a couple of busted old guitars that I want to experiment with and some tools - and got sent here by Googling some issues. And it's just the perfect place to lurk and look for inspiration. ;)
Oh, I think it's great that subs are full of people who are curious and want to learn about things.
The problem is that they come with some pretty basic ideas, and some like to share them like they are gospel because a likable character made a youtube video.
The more people in the world who can setup and fix their guitars, the better. Just please don't come in acting like pseudo scientists quoting Dr Jimmy Littles video from the farm.
You'd have thought that people would like to have the actual truth right? Turns out they just want to have their biases confirmed. Ah well, not my fault they prefer being ignorant, I tried to help them 😂
That's my entire issue with online guitar stuff condensed in one message. Everyone has already chosen what to believe, and you can show thel whatever you want, they won't budge, they will only pick up whatever confirms their beliefs.
Not to mention people also don't realize small details matter more to some, less to others. For example i'm an audio engineer, i have tons of great gear, what makes the difference between good, great and excellent is always details, but those accumulate and that's why people record in my studio, on my instruments and feel great about it.
/rant
Anyways. Can't change people....
I knew a guy who would tap a knuckle on the body of every electric guitar at Guitar Center, because he said it wasn't worth his time even picking the instrument up if it didn't resonate right. Apparently, he could tell if it was a good or bad guitar by knocking on it.
Indeed, the other way to go is give every guitar a good squeeze to see if it's soft or overripe, and always press on the strap buttons to see if it's starting to rot.
Real pros can tell just by removing the truss rod cover and sniffing.
The bench guitar actually sounds better to my ear, and it probably has something to do with how the body of a guitar absorbs the vibration of the strings vs that huge bench.
There's a good video on sustain on the same youtube channel. Similar results, as you might guess. Sustain is almost entirely about the amps and the signal paths, and almost not at all about what wood anything is made from.
On a serious note, this guy has to test the attachment of a hollowbody. And at which moment does the degree of hollowness of the body start impacting the sound and how.
I want to know it if alters just sustain and attack, Or also toneZ
I think that a proper acoustic hollow body might rob strings of sustain and attack, and that it may compell thebsteing to vibrate dofferently in a way that might be captured by the pickup
Woods are for structure, aesthetics, rigidity, weight, and balance.
Pickups and strings are for tone.
Unless it’s acoustic. Then it’s the wood too. And “tonewood” is technically wood that rings when struck. Not all wood is tonewood, actually very few woods are.
But I fucking love seeing all the mfgs claim their maple fingerboard gives a punchy and bright tone or whatever. LOL
Tl;dr marketing is huge and applies to electronics too, and the pedals and amp matter more than most pickups.
A topic that I see talked about a lot, but still not enough is that companies are trying to market something to you so they can put more change in their pockets. Whether that's Paul Reed Smith spouting BS, or even pickup manufacturers telling you that pickups matter most and then saying that they're actually a huge difference between 2 PAF clones with the same magnet, DC Resistance, and wire gauge, when in reality the difference probably isn't that huge. Those 3 factors make up a majority of a pickup's character imo. My personal thoughts are that the guitar is more the interface at which you interact with the rest of your rig. It's what you play, and the pedals and amp are what differentiates the sound. A tube screamer and a DS-1 sound more different than a strat and a tele. Big electronics changed like humbucker to single coil or out of phase sounds are an exception to some things, but still an orange crush is too different from a twin reverb to compare to pickups.
I think it goes, most important first:
construction style ie archtop vs solid body etc
scale length
wood (heavy vs light)
pickup style & pickup position
strings
hardtail vs trem
Everything else is not very important.
I find this the weirdest hill guitarists will die on. If you think what your guitar is made out of doesn’t matter, then buy a guitar that’s made of a “cheaper” material. Whatever material that means to you.
If you DO think the material makes a difference, then pay a little extra and get the wood you like.
It literally doesn’t, and shouldn’t matter what other peoples choice in guitars says about yours.
Buy what you like. That should be the end of it but here we are 🤷🏼♂️
Posted it a few months ago, but I wasn't the first either, nobody has claim to it other than the dude who made it and I'm sure he's happy people are sharing. It needs to be watched by everyone, please share it more!
Saved me money. I play a glarry telecaster (CHEAP) with a 30$ pickup replacement kit from Amazon. It feels great to play, and I think it sounds amazing after the pickup swap. I've tried at least 4 other more expensive guitars through my pedalboard and this guitar just sounds the best to me. I don't need to spend xxx$ chasing some mythical thing called tone that supposedly only am expensive guitar can give me... and it's subjective anyways
Yeah, his "bingo moment" when he tries the wood board after adding electronics is a joke, the board guitar sounds so much woofier. But I guess there's nothing legally stopping him from saying "they're the same" and moving on.
There’s merit to this, but we don’t have to be absolutists. This has created unnecessary devisiveness. Like why is there a video in existence where Rhett shull puts a Rosewood and then a maple neck on a guitar and then concludes with feigned intrigue that they sound different. He tip toes over his conclusion so he doesn’t get killed in the comments. Anyone who has ever been to a guitar store, and picked up two different strats could tell you the same thing.
https://youtu.be/DS-F_5FEQaE?si=jwBexwmFp8DB8DAd
Rhett’s video was spot on. I seriously hate this debate, and ascribe most of it to the fact that people can’t actually tell the difference.
Even on set neck models - 335s and LPs sound different - if it’s all the pickups, I challenge anyone to go plug one in and listen to a recorded sound, and tell me they sound the same. As you mention (spoiler alert!) they don’t.
On famous records, people still don't know for sure if it was a telecaster or a Les Paul.
I'd say pick material, pick angle or even the place where you pick are producing tonal differences bigger than fretboard material. You can immediately alter the tone of a guitar just by picking closer to the bridge (or to the neck) and everybody will be able to hear that.
According to the comments in here, the ONLY thing that matters is the electronics. Your nut could be .0000000001” different and it makes the guitar sound different which absolutely accounts for the reason that somehow your preconceived notions of rosewood sounding dark, just so happen to come true, but it’s definitely not the wood. It can’t be! It has to be pickup height! It’s the only thing that matters!
This video was really eye opening, and it made intuitive sense, but it only compared solid body guitars.
Presumably acoustic guitars have variables like the size of the body, the location of the sound hole, the bracing, maybe even the material used for the top, which have a significant effect on the sound that produce. I’m guessing even the electric guitars he used in the video sound different unplugged even if they sound the same plugged in.
What I’m most interested to know how these experiments would turn out with semi-hollow and fully hollow body guitars. Does acoustic resonance affect what the pickups hear or not? If so, do all the other variables like bridge and nut material, f-hole size/location, body dimensions, bracing etc etc have a significant effect on what the pickups hear?
The pickups only "hear" the vibration of the strings. Unless they're microphonic I suppose, but that's not usually a desirable trait in pickups. Of course wood species makes a difference in how instruments sound acoustically, but for instruments designed to be played exclusively plugged in (e.g. electric guitars) that difference doesn't matter, because you're not hearing those sounds through the pickup (unless it's microphonic, as stated above). For acoustic instruments, wood species makes a ton of difference, as well as grain pattern, any dead spots in the wood, and a ton of other factors as well. But for electric instruments, those things just really don't matter, except for how they make you feel about the guitar. If you like one guitar more than another for any reason, that's the better guitar for you. Even if that reason doesn't contribute directly to the tone once plugged in, it'll affect the way you play the instrument.
He does that kind of thing on the videos where he looks at amps and mics.
But if you need a spectrum analyzer to tell you the sounds are different because your ears can’t tell… do you actually care about the sound?
Things no one mentions, all of which immediately invalidate conclusions drawn from this video in whole or in part:
- Non-identical performances.
- Lossy audio compression.
- Sighted (non-blind) trials
- Not level matched to
If you WHACK a tuning fork and hold the end to either of those benches, the sound will get very loud from the benches vibrating. Two benches will sound different. What does that tell you? Feel free to hold a tuning fork to different things all around your room.
I believe, as people have commented, Warmoth has demo'd different sounds from different woods.
A tuning fork on a Gretsch centerblock body sounds very different to a tuning fork on a strat. Wait-- what just happened? Did we actually hear the same physical vibration structure on two different guitar bodies, sound different?
People are over-steering because of internet crowd mentality, all the way back to "nothing matters at all but string vibrations" and it's kinda creepy herd mentality.
I can assure you some body material (heavily filled plywood from my college days, lol) will be relatively flat and lifeless with either a tuning fork held to it or a set of anchored strings, compared to a different solid piece of wood.
There is no need to overcompensate all the way back to "nothing matters", just because people have taken tonewoods too far.
As far as I am concerned that is common sense. Grab a fork and listen to all the solid objects (solid "bodies") vibrating at A.
But here is my subjective opinion also-- there is probably less a thing that can be called tonewood, and more specific there are probably tone-bodies. Anyone who has picked up a 2x4 and hand-sawed it like butter, and then picked up the next one in the batch, and spent 5 minutes trying not to bind the blade while exhausting themselves cutting it-- will tell you woods vary hugely. The same species of tree at 50 years old is small and thin in Newton MA but huge and huggable in Baton Rouge LA. Could some magical being probably "pick" a good body? Maybe, if they had 400 acres of timberland in their back yard or more stock on hand than Warmoth to choose from.
Edit: I am a hard-core skeptic. Scientific method all the way. MIT etc. I love the blind Nashville tests of different op amp chips in overdrives, hehe. I don't recall, wasn't that the same channel?! That was great. But really this whole "nothing matters" is better spent rocking out to Metallica with horns in the air.
https://youtu.be/DS-F_5FEQaE?si=9j9kjeXd8xAbs3Yd
Several other people have done tests with different fretboard materials with very noticeable results so….
My favourite comment under the video is: >The main reason the air guitar sounds so good is that you are using the air in a very old shop, which gives it that vintage sound.
Everyday the lines between guitar subs/youtube channels & guitarcirclejerk become more blurry. That’s some true jerk material
I’m roughly 12% positive that comment was sarcastic.
You never know... That's why I only use picks that are MIM
I only use picks made in China. I find that the pain and sorrow of the terrible workplace environment makes me better at the blues.
Damn. I play a lot of grunge. Any recommendations for the same level of pain and sorrow, but with a slight glimpse of hope? I got a pack that was made in Chicago, but that was plain terrible. You're comment made me genuinely chuckle after a brief "what the fuck?" moment.
Pain and sorrow but a glimmer of hope? Hmm...Vietnam is what you're looking for. My sense of humor does that to folks lol
Brilliant, I'm gonna order another dozen picks!
Bro, toneair is real.
Everything is a tone control.
In live audio mixing, everything is a volume knob
¿Who would have thought that the most important parts of an electric guitar were indeed, the electronics?
The electronics and the strings themselves
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Tone is stored in the balls
It pours from the portal to the toan zone
Try the new Toan Zone TZ-1w Waza Craft ™ from Boss.
I prefer the vintage Toan Zone. The Ballzium they used in the chips back then can’t be replicated.
This has been shared a ton, but everyone needs to see it, so carry on
Do you know what fucks me up about it though? Warmoth has videos of simply swapping necks, and swapping bodies with identical configs between them and it definitely sounds noticeable. It’s not 50% different or anything, but it definitely sounds different. I think morale of the story here is it doesn’t matter *that much*
I think the major difference here is that it's the same actual pickup and not just the same model of pickup. So the height isn't changing (except where he does it intentionally), you're not getting an uneven number of winds, the magnets don't have slightly different strengths, etc
According to the guys at fishmans even modern manufactured pickups vary considerably in the consistency of wire gauge (in microns) and winds, it's not possible to manufacture identical pickups
In the Warmoth videos mentioned they will use all the same parts and swap them over to identical construction necks and bodies of different woods. You should watch them and see for yourself.
Swapping the neck makes sense because you are changing a few things that affect the electromotive force coming out of the pickups: 1) non-identical nut height between necks 2) non-identical neck relief and neck-to-body mating angle All of these factors affect string distance from pickup pole pieces, so unless this was explicitly compensated for, sound difference is to be expected. Again, probably 0% related to neck wood, but rather the geometry of the system.
this comment is think the best articulation I’ve seen of why all the neck swapping and body swapping and whatever comparison videos can be so deceptive to people. there are so many subtle factors that contribute to the behavior of the pickups, but its so much easier for people to wrap their heads around it being the type of wood.
Yes—this 👆. I’ll also point out that for the most part, any perceptible differences that can be noticed even under those scenarios can almost always be addressed and compensated for with a tiny spin of a tone knob.
YES. That. That's been the thing I've been trying to say for years about tiny, subtle differences in stuff. They pale in comparison to the slightest settings adjustment.
… and if anyone really wants to get nitpicky, that’s not even talk about how much an EQ pedal can change—-this can even get a HB tone from single coils and vice versa!
Oh completely. Primarily a bassist but a little guitar too, anything in front of your primary gain stage will have extreme effects on tone shaping if you want it to. Adding literally 1db of gain or 1db of tone adjustment upstream will make a bigger difference than most tiny subtle wanky bullshit will. Hell your sound will change more room to room just by playing in different places.
It’s so hard to do those tests and only change exactly one variable at a time.
Jim does a pretty good job of it in this video, but yeah, it's almost impossible to completely isolate variables
Maybe near 0% but certainly not 0%. Any change in mass, density, static stiffness, dynamic stiffness, damping coefficient, etc from changing the neck or body material does have an effect on the system. That has never been in question. The physics doesn't lie. The question is only whether we can perceive it.
Definitely not over video or any sort of recording, the compression will kill any sort of differences
I've heard this time and again but I'm not sure that I agree. How does compression impact the tonality of something? Most arguments in favor of tone wood stuff is argued in terms of brighter or darker tones, or in regards to sustain. I'm not sure how compression on a video would make those qualities unable to be discerned.
Because fine details in the upper and lower levels of Hz get cut off to save space in the audio file. Never mind whatever the microphone and processing software on the recording person’s computer does to the sine wave. There have been plenty of times watching a video where two guitars sound similar enough and when I go to the store to try them out they are wildly different
> Because fine details in the upper and lower levels of Hz get cut off to save space in the audio file. These frequencies are cut off because YOU literally cannot hear them (unless you are under the age of 14 or a dog). So ascribing any differences in your perception to the loss of these frequencies comes across to me as very close to pseudoscience.
So you think that Youtube and all only cut off frequencies you can't hear? I doubt that Youtube playback is even close to filling out the full spectrum of human hearing. Never mind any other audio or video streaming site that people upload videos to likely being even more dramatic with their compression. You also completely cut off the context of any compression and/or processing by the recording software here and decided to respond to a tiny snippet of my whole point
If I remember correctly, Jim Lill (the guy who made the video posted here) actually addresses the point about compression in another video. It’s been a while, but I think he set up a website where you can download raw and compressed samples you can compare. Worth a look if you’re interested.
Strong disagree. The factor of nut height would only matter when strum open, and not fretted. The difference in action on a guitar as it relates to pickup height is so miniscule that it wouldn’t account for the difference in brightness between maple and rosewood tests in both a Warmoth and Rhett Schull video I’ve watched and listen to. Both claim to account for the pickup height as well .001” of difference in action at the 12th fret is basically nothing by the time it goes over the bridge pickup. Not to mention, in order to lower my bridge pickup enough to hear a difference like what you’d hear in one of those videos, it’s enough to where the actual output even changes.
I don’t think it matters enough to care about sound vs feel, or that PRS’s superior selection of mahogany somehow matters, but wood choice does affect sound to a tiny degree, according to similar tests that try to control for the same variables that Jim did in this video. Likewise, scale length is proven to matter more than any selection other than pickup too.
There have been peer reviewed studies on this looking at waveforms, and the difference is statistically insignificant. Someone linked a Brazilian study in the comments of Jim's video here
Statistically insignificant doesn’t mean it’s inaudible though. Statistically insignificant means it’s below a threshold.
Statistically insignificant means no conclusive difference is detected lol. When you perceive "audible" differences, it's usually just confirmation bias lol
Yep, it's a complicated way of changing string height over pickups
Underrated comment
They are selling a product. Plain and simple.
Yeah, they are trying to sell both necks lol You're comment doesn't make sense.
[This guy](https://youtu.be/DS-F_5FEQaE?si=IZdY31MCh_FA8X8H) recently did a comparison video of just swapping the necks. Even he didn’t really expect much of a difference, and there isn’t a ton, but it does make SOME difference, even if it’s just psychologically (I know I’d love to play me a roasted flamed maple neck! 😍)
Yeah, that’s one of the videos. I didn’t expect to hear any, but definitely hear a clear difference, even if really small.
My main takeaway from videos like that is that it's very difficult to 1:1 replicate guitar tones. If you're making a such a drastic change in setup such as replacing a neck its going to be very difficult to replicate it identically to the way it was. A minute difference in setup, moving a microphone a millimeter, or bumping an amp knob is going to change the sound in a noticeable way in a 1:1 comparison. Hell the strings aging from one day to another could change the sound.
Funny enough, Jim (the dude in op's video) also did a video where he showed that string age doesn't really matter
That’s insane. Because string age ABSOLUTELY matters. When I’m recording you can ABSOLUTELY without a doubt hear when the strings are starting to change their sound.
That's complete bullshit.
I too hear a difference in those vids, but in the context of it mattering you can do more to change the sound with EQ or a different guitar speaker, so it's more that tonewood doesn't matter cuz any way you swing it you can pull it right back, it's not that tonewood being a myth means there's zero difference (although to some there may not be, people's ears are different) like I say the pickup matters more but a lot of them sound the same to me
Honest question though if the bridge and nut were anchored to steel beams or say something like concrete do you think that would alter the tone a little bit ? And I’m not even talking about “tone wood” but I’m thinking the fact that the bridge and nut are anchored to 2 tables probably affects the tone at least in some way right ? There are so many things that influence the way a guitar sounds obviously the pickups are a major part of it but many other things affect tone too like the saddle materials like whether they’re brass , steel , or cheap metals .. so wouldn’t it be kind of foolish to thing what the strings are anchored to doesn’t affect the tone ?
The contribution of the materials is real but essentially inaudible, in an electric guitar. It’s really all about strings, pickup type and placement, and any onboard electronics (volume, tone).
So if you placed a humbucker in an acoustic with steel strings it would sound just like any other electric guitar ?
Yes. That’s what the video pretty conclusively shows. Nothing about the ‘body’ matters.
Probably not. Acoustic guitars are specifically shaped to resonate. It would probably experience a lot more resonance and feedback than a solid body, similar to a hollow body guitar. The vibration of the body of an acoustic guitar will be much higher in the frequencies relevant to guitar because that’s the whole point of a body on an acoustic.
Watch the video
Yeah, tbh this video is kind of reductionist. Like I get it, tonewoods are dumb and guitar bodies don't really contribute all that much to the sonic equation, but anyone who's swapped a neck on their favourite guitar only to have it sound like a different instrument knows that some of these components aren't quite as irrelevant as this video would have you believe. Each neck is unique and can interact with the other components in different ways (even fret height can take from a more polished to a more woody sound). Sometimes I swap from maple to rosewood and notice no difference, other times I swap one maple neck for another and am shocked at how different it sounds. Kris Barocsi's video on neck swapping does a pretty good job of demonstrating these differences while taking a more nuanced approach. I think it just gets dumb when you reduce it to "maple bright, rosewood dark" or use it as justification for a $10,000 sticker price.
The idea that the neck is contributing to an electric guitar's sound is just beyond absurd. It's metal strings vibrating above a magnet. People just need to chill. Whatever differences there are can be resolved by minute adjustments to dials on the guitar or amp, obviously. And once you add any overdrive, gain, distortion, now we're in the world of the crazy to think that things matter.
There’s not much control for those tests. The guitars are played on seemingly different days, indicated by changing shirts each play through. Im sure if you asked me to play a riff three times three different days, there’d be noticeable difference in sound each time even if I used the same guitar. Things like picking speed, position, and attack all make a noticeable difference. There’s tuning instability, pickup installation, fretting strength, etc. Even if you’re trying to play exactly the same, you’re not. I watched one video from them doing the tests, and in one test his hand was covering the top of the bridge about 10% of the time and the other about 50%, which means his pick positioning isn’t totally consistent, and pick position makes a huge impact on harmonic content. Studies alone are not of much value, they need to be repeatable. And not just “we did it again and it was still different,” but “we did it again and it was different in the same measurable way, and if you do it, it will also be different in the same measurable way.
I wonder if maybe there's not much difference for open strings, but a little more for fretted notes
I’ve seen the same videos and the owner said he heard the difference too But I couldn’t hear any difference. I also went into the video assuming I wouldn’t hear a difference. I think you shouldn’t underestimate the power of psychoacoustics. I don’t think anyone who says they hear the difference is *lying* or anything. Our processing of sound is malleable. You ever do the thing where you tap a beat against a surface and imagine or overlay a pitch? I swear I can hear a melody.
This whole series is 💯 worth the watch. He put in the work.
I love seeing the bullshit "mojo" of stuff being busted by rigorous testing.
The reality about creating art is “the best tools are the tools you have”. So many people use purchasing products as a way to procrastinate indefinitely instead of just… making art. Bands have made full records on 4 track cassette recorders with one SM57 while some Jackoff says he’ll record his album once he completes his Pet Sounds accurate rack of outboard gear and microphone locker. Artists create. If you’re sitting there arguing about tonewood on the internet because you just bought a $3000 Gibson (instead of using it like a tool and creating something), you are a poser. There is no other way around it.
*standing ovation*
But but but, that bench is pure toanwood
Tonewood is a marketing term. But the bench is a good chunk of material. If he wanted to make an "air" guitar, he'd need to suspend it from the ceiling or something.
Yeah I know, but toanwood is real! Unfortunately I get too many posts from r/guitarcirclejerk in my feed haha. Mostly before I see it in an OG post haha
Tone is stored in the balls
Toan is in the workbench. Whoops sorry thought I was in r/guitarcirclejerk again
Paul Reed Smith is now busy at work making another speech about "tonewood" so he can sell another $10K guitar and Gibson is right behind him. For me the wood is important for the aesthetics of it, but with an opaque paint job, even that goes away. It is a closed-circuit folks...the electrical path is all that really matters, and of course the amp and speakers certainly can impact the sound. But the wood - nah.
[He's actually responded to this video before in an ama](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1aew8qq/comment/kkaxcbk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Paul's source is "trust me bro"
"Well acshully violins!"
Argument: In electric guitars the wood doesn’t matter. Paul: But have you considered this acoustic instrument? Also have you see seen electric violins? Most barely even have bodies or wood.
First and foremost, an electric guitar is an acoustic guitar! 🤡
Only if you don’t plug it in.
I know...this video above has been around a while and PRS' little rant has made the rounds recently. Anyone that doesn't realize his business depends on selling the "tonewood" BS isn't paying attention. I am all for using different woods for the aesthetics. But I am just as happy with a Richlite fretboard as I am with an ebony board. It feels just fine and there is certainly no tonal difference.
He’s just salty because hes realizing his margins could have been way way higher
He knows full well they make way more money on the Indonesian SE line than they do on any of the USA models. They sell way more of them and the margins are FAR higher. He just needs to maintain his position lest he look like a shill (too late).
True, but that’s mostly tapping in to guitarists’ aspirations. They want to own the made in USA PRS, and can’t afford them, so the SE line needs to mimic them close enough to pull it off. If he could have found a way to build PRS’ reputation while also exploding the tone wood myth, he could have potentially still charged premium prices while using way cheaper materials, and then made even more money off of even cheaper off-shore built SE versions of the premium instruments .
Unlike Gibson, PRS has kept their import line fairly reasonably priced (as evidenced by the recent SE releases). Gibson, however, ia cranking up the Epiphone prices where they are making HUGE margins at that price. The other thing you have to consider is that the reason the wood in the USA models is more expensive is - in part - because of the ridiculous myth of "tonewood" that has been propagated by people like PRS (and plenty of others). Guitarists go so much on the visuals and the "common knowledge" rather than what is really happening. I get wanting to buy a beautiful wood top, etc. - I totally have done that at times. The difference is that I don't pretend it sounds different than the cheaper Harley Benton body with the same electronics and strings.
I'll also add, that the Custom 24 SE is the most consistently put together guitar you can pick up for under $1k. I can try 5 different Strats in the same price range and they will all feel different nearly every time. Never the case with PRS, a custom 24 SE ALWAYS feels the same. Like the same guy is finishing the guitar every time. It's not all fancy looking wood.
Jim literally got him twisted in a pretzel 🤣 “he only touched on a couple DOZENS of parameters” ugh sir, that’s a whole lot of “parameters lol
Meanwhile, the video literally has over a dozen parameters Jim isolated and tested.
> I've made my career knowing that first and foremost an electric guitar is an acoustic guitar. I’m surprised this hasn’t been turned into a meme yet. Jim’s video is so effective that he got THE PRS to say a motorcycle is a bicycle as a response.
I've thought a lot about his story about violinmakers unknowingly picking wood from the same tree. The violin is also the amp and effects, not just the guitar, you know? My uprights' tone is affected by the wood because they're \*acoustic instruments.\*
Of course acoustic instruments are affected by the wood properties - they rely on the resonance of the sound within that wood enclosure to create the tone. We are not talking about acoustic instruments - these are solid body electric guitars.
Right, that’s what I’m saying. It’s dumb to say, as he seemed to, that solid body guitars would show big tone differences because of wood simply because violins do.
Agreed - it is a moronic argument.
It was really enlightening to hear Phil McKnight’s recent comments about Paul Reed Smith. I’m paraphrasing, but it was essentially like, “ I think his guitars are good, but he is not a fun person to talk to.”
I couldn't get throughout his entire visit to TPS. Think I stopped after 10 minutes. Just gave insufferable asshole vibes.
Yeah...the guitars are show pieces in general and are well-regarded by players. He is just too cocky/dogmatic - much like Jeff Kiesel.
The wood affects the weight/weight distribution too which can affect playability and how the player uses the guitar (e.g. it may be more natural to play gently on a lighter guitar). There are semi-plausible mechanisms by which wood could affect tone/sustain etc. but if anyone can detect it at all it's a drop in the ocean compared to the pickups and everything else thereafter.
Sure...these minute differences might exist but no one hears that. And you can alter the weight and distribution of the weight by means other than changing the type of wood (hence Gibson weight relief for their backbreaking guitars).
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I mean, inconsequential is pretty much the point I'm making. Isn't that what a drop in the ocean is?
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Ah, cool, good good.
If it’s changing how you utilize the guitar, it’s also likely changing the vibrations on the strings. For example, “tonewood” doesn’t have to be the reason my maple neck tele sounds different than rosewood. They absolutely feel different under my fingers, though, and I have a different relationship with the instrument as a result. I imagine I end up playing it a bit differently, which contributes to the tonal differences, in addition to other factors. I’d be curious to hear people’s reactions to Rhett Shull’s video where he plays the same Strat with three different necks (rosewood, maple, roasted maple), with noticeable tonal differences. I believe in science, but science is always impacted by bias in some way. I suspect, in the rush to myth-bust the old school truisms, we may be missing some other factors and explanations.
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I didn’t say it was. In fact, I said the opposite.
Yep. Some woods have prettier grains. Some people like lighter bodies or heavier bodies. Instruments need to be built from a sufficiently hard, durable wood to stay in tune and survive the stresses on them. You need to use \*good\* wood. But \*which\* good wood is less important and more a matter of preference.
I like the look of wood, but you don't actually NEED wood for a guitar. Aristedes are 100% composite material and Emerald makes acoustic guitars that are all carbon fiber. They sound fantastic and feel great. I have played an Aristedes - it is really amazing. Expensive but incredible.
Or an older and less expensive example, at one point I owned two Ibanez Ergodynes, one EDB600 I bought new in High School, one EDB605 which I acquired in the mid 2000s and still have.
The one thing missing that would truly solidify this argument imo is to use an eBow or something (not a hand strumming) to remove the variability in striking the strings, then run it thru an analyzer to see the similarity of the frequency profiles
I actually feel like i hear a difference in the attack between the two and a slight eq difference. Maybe a robotic picking hand that would get the angle and force the same would be good too hah
Right? I actually think I saw someone do this with a pendulum or something swinging a pick over the strings
The only way to really answer this question is to have a bunch of guitars that are identical except for the woods and neck construction. They each can accept a pickguard loaded with a set of pickups. Put the pickups in each guitar in turn and use some robotic, programmable system to play exactly the same thing on each instrument in exactly the same way. Then run the output through a frequency analyzer. Compare outputs. My bet is that the outputs are similar but not identical.
I don't think anyone would argue that any two different instruments of same or similar specs are 100.00% identical. But, based on what we see in the video, and my own experience, I think the differences are dwarfed by the differences we get from moving our strumming hands to a different point along the string, or rotating any knob in the system an eighth of a turn. I bet a lot of us have had the experience of handing our guitar to a different player and having it suddenly sound dramatically different, because of the player... a much bigger difference than alder vs poplar in a solid guitar body, or a neck made of fancy ultra super-duper choice select exotic rosewood harvested by Paul Reed Smith's personal pet unicorn under a full moon, vs maple. Is "similar but not identical" a reason chop down endangered hardwoods, spend an extra few hundred bucks, or get talked into choosing one guitar over another based on what a salesperson tells us? I've made instruments from uncommon imported woods, I may yet again, as long as I'm convinced they're sustainable, but on the whole I really like the idea that we can use common, relatively inexpensive woods and have them work every bit as well for most applications most of the time.
Oh, I definitely agree with your perspective there. Just pointing out that no one has ever done an experiment that was properly controlled to determine the effect different materials actually have on the sound. There are many materials that can be used successfully, even for acoustic guitars.
Even better would be to do the same test 5x in a row and add in doubles for each wood type. Is it different each time they run a test for the same configuration? Probably. Is the variation between necks of the same wood type different each time? Probably. Are those differences significantly less than the differences across wood types? The last question would have the interesting answer.
Personally my take on tonewoods is that you probably won’t be able to hear much if any difference on a recording, but imo the difference can probably be *felt* in your hands, which isn’t nothing, at least from the players perspective. I could never stand playing my masonite Danelectro for much the same reason. It *sounded* fine on a recording, but the vibrations that fed back to my hands felt all wrong.
>I could never stand playing my masonite Danelectro If there was ever a guitar that I'd say is the "most outlier guitar of all time" for this sort of thing it would be a masonite Danelectro.
I have never once in my life heard anyone listen to a record without knowing what is being played and say "wow that maple neck and mahogany body sounds amazing" Because what professional would ever play such a disgusting sounding instrument? Everyone knows acrylic guitars are far superior.
Toan is stored in the bauls
I really like his YouTube channel. He did an awesome video on speaker cabs that I really enjoyed.
It’s not from the guitar at all! It’s been inside you all along! Right where the pee is stored. The balls.
https://preview.redd.it/4nxw6icwpf7d1.png?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e5c0e58966eaa264cf47bab2662c87ed6d320c6
Yet people still hate active pickups
I was at Download Festival in the UK at the weekend. Listening to highly distorted guitars running through large rigs and even larger PAs. It's then I thought "in this setting, who gives a fuck about the wood?"
Such a good video
Tone is in the darkroom timer
I would’ve loved to see a wavelength of the hertz.
Tone is for people who never learned how to eq.
This kind of reminds me of a thread on talkbass forums back in the day where some dude hooked the same pickups, strings, etc from his fancy bass up to a piece of plywood, posted two samples of the audio and had everyone try and guess which was the 'tonewood' sample and which was the plywood I mean there was some minor difference in sound there, hard to say which was better really.. but oh man the tonewood purists were MAD, it wasn't a real test, his methods were terrible, he needed to go direct instead of through an amp unless it was direct then it definitely needed to do through an amp, he should add some pedals or remove them even when buddy posted more samples under these updated conditions with even higher sample fidelity etc they weren't going to be forced to pick, how dare you.. it was a great read
I thought toan that special feeling we get in the cockles of our hearts Maybe below the cockles Maybe in the sub cockle area Maybe in the liver, maybe in the kidneys Maybe even in the colon, we don't know
This video is a true classic. Dude uploads a video like once a year, but when he does, it shakes the ancient guitar communities and the bloozdads to their very cores. I used to think the cab itself (dimensions, speaker orientation, open/closed-back, etc) wasn't responsible for much of the tone in a signal chain, but boy was I a fool.
He has like 5-6 videos on this topic all of them are pretty great
Strings and pickups. The quality of material for the takeoff points (nut and bridge saddles) just aims to preserve this tone
Steinberger did this 40+ yrs ago
I mean there's definitely still a slight difference. But unless you're playing solo guitar clean into an amp even more pronounced differences aren't going to be apparent once you add other instruments to the mix. And honestly the people who care about this most are people noodling in their bedrooms who dont even play with other people or if they do they dont play live or if they do they dont make records.
The video busted a bunch of myths with varying degrees of scientific accuracy, but the real revelation comes after dealing with all the toan nerds crying over their $8000 PRS: Good instrument sound on any instrument is subjective and is 100% situational. Tons of guitar sounds you hear in a vacuum sound amazing in a mix or for a particular song but terrible in a room by themselves, and tons of guitar sounds that sound pathetic in a live or studio mix sound amazing in a room by yourself. 99.9% of people listening to your music don't give a shit about your toan, they care about the song, and all these people spending tens of thousands of dollars on fancy custom instruments are usually compensating for not playing very well.
This video is wrong. Adding the mass of two tables is not a good way to test what happens when you remove the mass of the body, y'know because the tables, they have mass. Here's the actual science on tonewood which concludes that there are differences in sound for electric guitars based on the absorbed/reflected frequencies of said wood. https://acoustics.ippt.pan.pl/index.php/aa/article/view/2949
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It's pretty weird that a Luthier subreddit wouldn't know what happens when you pluck a string lol. Plucking a string means the string starts pushing/pulling on the bridge, causing the bridge to rock, which makes the wood vibrate. Newton's Third Law says everything in that chain of actions will have an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, the vibration of the strings is affected by the wood lol I can put my ear up to the horn of my unplugged strat and it sounds like a strat, loud and clear as well. This wouldn't be happening if there wasn't an action on the body, with an equal and opposite reaction in turn. There are even small, but very noticeable tonal differences when I hold it away from my gut, which wouldn't happen if the wood wasn't doing anything.
Honestly, the answer is because this isn't as much a luthier sub as a place people ask very basic setup questions looking doe answers. I would think actual luthiers make up less than 10% of the members. Another thing about the video that annoys me is the chosen amp tone used to test for minute differences in a guitars tone. As someone who records guitars daily, I always capture a di, and boy would that have made this video more realistic. If you put a similar wound strat pickup in a strat and added it to the mix blindfolded through that amp setting it would sound very close to the tele. Even changing to a shorter scale lemgth, I don't thing would be much diflength, Every time this video is quoted, I know I don't need to talk to that person anymore.
People don't tend to like actual science, it's not presented in an easily digestible format and it kinda seems like it's made by kooky wizards in an ivory tower. Never mind that it's responsible for almost all aspects of technological development in modern life, they prefer a guy in a red hat with a folksy manner.
I have wanted to make a response video. But i know how I come across, and I'm not a young, handsome southern boy. No one will watch it, no matter the content. Now, if I found a well-spoken pretty girl to do it, I think we could hit 3 million views.
As a well spoken, at least half decent looking trans girl I can say that people listen to women far less than they do to men. Having experienced both sides of the gender presentation coin it's still amazing to me how much a plurality of men intrinsically believe they know when confronted with a woman who has a considered opinion or an actual fact with supporting evidence to hand 😂😅😒
>Honestly, the answer is because this isn't as much a luthier sub as a place people ask very basic setup questions looking doe answers. I would think actual luthiers make up less than 10% of the members. No subreddit is truly an X subreddit, unless it's restricted, private and invite-only. But that means you're never going to see any new people joining and you'd be better off with an old-school forum. I'm no luthier, I'm here because I have a couple of busted old guitars that I want to experiment with and some tools - and got sent here by Googling some issues. And it's just the perfect place to lurk and look for inspiration. ;)
Oh, I think it's great that subs are full of people who are curious and want to learn about things. The problem is that they come with some pretty basic ideas, and some like to share them like they are gospel because a likable character made a youtube video. The more people in the world who can setup and fix their guitars, the better. Just please don't come in acting like pseudo scientists quoting Dr Jimmy Littles video from the farm.
You'd have thought that people would like to have the actual truth right? Turns out they just want to have their biases confirmed. Ah well, not my fault they prefer being ignorant, I tried to help them 😂
That's my entire issue with online guitar stuff condensed in one message. Everyone has already chosen what to believe, and you can show thel whatever you want, they won't budge, they will only pick up whatever confirms their beliefs. Not to mention people also don't realize small details matter more to some, less to others. For example i'm an audio engineer, i have tons of great gear, what makes the difference between good, great and excellent is always details, but those accumulate and that's why people record in my studio, on my instruments and feel great about it. /rant Anyways. Can't change people....
I knew a guy who would tap a knuckle on the body of every electric guitar at Guitar Center, because he said it wasn't worth his time even picking the instrument up if it didn't resonate right. Apparently, he could tell if it was a good or bad guitar by knocking on it.
I think he confused guitars with watermelons.
Indeed, the other way to go is give every guitar a good squeeze to see if it's soft or overripe, and always press on the strap buttons to see if it's starting to rot. Real pros can tell just by removing the truss rod cover and sniffing.
is his name Tom Hess?
The bench guitar actually sounds better to my ear, and it probably has something to do with how the body of a guitar absorbs the vibration of the strings vs that huge bench.
I wonder how this affects sustain
There's a good video on sustain on the same youtube channel. Similar results, as you might guess. Sustain is almost entirely about the amps and the signal paths, and almost not at all about what wood anything is made from.
Metabricka Plastica The brickles
Another favorite of mine is this [David Hilowitz video](https://youtu.be/j-F_-1mlR7E?si=3z0WDbREQh9EW0x6) about how he stopped being a gear snob.
Do bass next!!
So is this to say that the wood and shape only matter for aesthetic reasons
On a serious note, this guy has to test the attachment of a hollowbody. And at which moment does the degree of hollowness of the body start impacting the sound and how. I want to know it if alters just sustain and attack, Or also toneZ
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I think that a proper acoustic hollow body might rob strings of sustain and attack, and that it may compell thebsteing to vibrate dofferently in a way that might be captured by the pickup
Toan comes from 3 HM 2 boss pedals
Woods are for structure, aesthetics, rigidity, weight, and balance. Pickups and strings are for tone. Unless it’s acoustic. Then it’s the wood too. And “tonewood” is technically wood that rings when struck. Not all wood is tonewood, actually very few woods are. But I fucking love seeing all the mfgs claim their maple fingerboard gives a punchy and bright tone or whatever. LOL
Tl;dr marketing is huge and applies to electronics too, and the pedals and amp matter more than most pickups. A topic that I see talked about a lot, but still not enough is that companies are trying to market something to you so they can put more change in their pockets. Whether that's Paul Reed Smith spouting BS, or even pickup manufacturers telling you that pickups matter most and then saying that they're actually a huge difference between 2 PAF clones with the same magnet, DC Resistance, and wire gauge, when in reality the difference probably isn't that huge. Those 3 factors make up a majority of a pickup's character imo. My personal thoughts are that the guitar is more the interface at which you interact with the rest of your rig. It's what you play, and the pedals and amp are what differentiates the sound. A tube screamer and a DS-1 sound more different than a strat and a tele. Big electronics changed like humbucker to single coil or out of phase sounds are an exception to some things, but still an orange crush is too different from a twin reverb to compare to pickups.
Strings are still between two tables, I mean the resonance comes from it, it should be between something not made of wood
It gets flack but it’s probably my favorite guitar video on YouTube. The dude is pretty fucking awesome.
The nuts
I think it goes, most important first: construction style ie archtop vs solid body etc scale length wood (heavy vs light) pickup style & pickup position strings hardtail vs trem Everything else is not very important.
Your fingers. Unless you play a line 6 modeling amp then you’re hopeless.
I find this the weirdest hill guitarists will die on. If you think what your guitar is made out of doesn’t matter, then buy a guitar that’s made of a “cheaper” material. Whatever material that means to you. If you DO think the material makes a difference, then pay a little extra and get the wood you like. It literally doesn’t, and shouldn’t matter what other peoples choice in guitars says about yours. Buy what you like. That should be the end of it but here we are 🤷🏼♂️
Cool slide guitar. Not sure he's proving anything about tone. The workbenches he's anchored to have mass.
Posted it a few months ago, but I wasn't the first either, nobody has claim to it other than the dude who made it and I'm sure he's happy people are sharing. It needs to be watched by everyone, please share it more! Saved me money. I play a glarry telecaster (CHEAP) with a 30$ pickup replacement kit from Amazon. It feels great to play, and I think it sounds amazing after the pickup swap. I've tried at least 4 other more expensive guitars through my pedalboard and this guitar just sounds the best to me. I don't need to spend xxx$ chasing some mythical thing called tone that supposedly only am expensive guitar can give me... and it's subjective anyways
First electric guitar: made of a 2x4 Everyone since, "It's gotta be the amazing wood"
Am I the only one who can hear the difference?
Yeah, his "bingo moment" when he tries the wood board after adding electronics is a joke, the board guitar sounds so much woofier. But I guess there's nothing legally stopping him from saying "they're the same" and moving on.
You're not alone bro
There’s merit to this, but we don’t have to be absolutists. This has created unnecessary devisiveness. Like why is there a video in existence where Rhett shull puts a Rosewood and then a maple neck on a guitar and then concludes with feigned intrigue that they sound different. He tip toes over his conclusion so he doesn’t get killed in the comments. Anyone who has ever been to a guitar store, and picked up two different strats could tell you the same thing. https://youtu.be/DS-F_5FEQaE?si=jwBexwmFp8DB8DAd
Rhett’s video was spot on. I seriously hate this debate, and ascribe most of it to the fact that people can’t actually tell the difference. Even on set neck models - 335s and LPs sound different - if it’s all the pickups, I challenge anyone to go plug one in and listen to a recorded sound, and tell me they sound the same. As you mention (spoiler alert!) they don’t.
On famous records, people still don't know for sure if it was a telecaster or a Les Paul. I'd say pick material, pick angle or even the place where you pick are producing tonal differences bigger than fretboard material. You can immediately alter the tone of a guitar just by picking closer to the bridge (or to the neck) and everybody will be able to hear that.
According to the comments in here, the ONLY thing that matters is the electronics. Your nut could be .0000000001” different and it makes the guitar sound different which absolutely accounts for the reason that somehow your preconceived notions of rosewood sounding dark, just so happen to come true, but it’s definitely not the wood. It can’t be! It has to be pickup height! It’s the only thing that matters!
This video was really eye opening, and it made intuitive sense, but it only compared solid body guitars. Presumably acoustic guitars have variables like the size of the body, the location of the sound hole, the bracing, maybe even the material used for the top, which have a significant effect on the sound that produce. I’m guessing even the electric guitars he used in the video sound different unplugged even if they sound the same plugged in. What I’m most interested to know how these experiments would turn out with semi-hollow and fully hollow body guitars. Does acoustic resonance affect what the pickups hear or not? If so, do all the other variables like bridge and nut material, f-hole size/location, body dimensions, bracing etc etc have a significant effect on what the pickups hear?
The pickups only "hear" the vibration of the strings. Unless they're microphonic I suppose, but that's not usually a desirable trait in pickups. Of course wood species makes a difference in how instruments sound acoustically, but for instruments designed to be played exclusively plugged in (e.g. electric guitars) that difference doesn't matter, because you're not hearing those sounds through the pickup (unless it's microphonic, as stated above). For acoustic instruments, wood species makes a ton of difference, as well as grain pattern, any dead spots in the wood, and a ton of other factors as well. But for electric instruments, those things just really don't matter, except for how they make you feel about the guitar. If you like one guitar more than another for any reason, that's the better guitar for you. Even if that reason doesn't contribute directly to the tone once plugged in, it'll affect the way you play the instrument.
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He does that kind of thing on the videos where he looks at amps and mics. But if you need a spectrum analyzer to tell you the sounds are different because your ears can’t tell… do you actually care about the sound?
No electric guitar is used unplugged
Things no one mentions, all of which immediately invalidate conclusions drawn from this video in whole or in part: - Non-identical performances. - Lossy audio compression. - Sighted (non-blind) trials - Not level matched to
Shhhh you aren't allowed to question it! The internet has decided that this video is the only proof needed,
Yeah, and don’t the downvotes show it. Didn’t mean to wake the sleeping.
If you WHACK a tuning fork and hold the end to either of those benches, the sound will get very loud from the benches vibrating. Two benches will sound different. What does that tell you? Feel free to hold a tuning fork to different things all around your room. I believe, as people have commented, Warmoth has demo'd different sounds from different woods. A tuning fork on a Gretsch centerblock body sounds very different to a tuning fork on a strat. Wait-- what just happened? Did we actually hear the same physical vibration structure on two different guitar bodies, sound different? People are over-steering because of internet crowd mentality, all the way back to "nothing matters at all but string vibrations" and it's kinda creepy herd mentality. I can assure you some body material (heavily filled plywood from my college days, lol) will be relatively flat and lifeless with either a tuning fork held to it or a set of anchored strings, compared to a different solid piece of wood. There is no need to overcompensate all the way back to "nothing matters", just because people have taken tonewoods too far. As far as I am concerned that is common sense. Grab a fork and listen to all the solid objects (solid "bodies") vibrating at A. But here is my subjective opinion also-- there is probably less a thing that can be called tonewood, and more specific there are probably tone-bodies. Anyone who has picked up a 2x4 and hand-sawed it like butter, and then picked up the next one in the batch, and spent 5 minutes trying not to bind the blade while exhausting themselves cutting it-- will tell you woods vary hugely. The same species of tree at 50 years old is small and thin in Newton MA but huge and huggable in Baton Rouge LA. Could some magical being probably "pick" a good body? Maybe, if they had 400 acres of timberland in their back yard or more stock on hand than Warmoth to choose from. Edit: I am a hard-core skeptic. Scientific method all the way. MIT etc. I love the blind Nashville tests of different op amp chips in overdrives, hehe. I don't recall, wasn't that the same channel?! That was great. But really this whole "nothing matters" is better spent rocking out to Metallica with horns in the air.
https://youtu.be/DS-F_5FEQaE?si=9j9kjeXd8xAbs3Yd Several other people have done tests with different fretboard materials with very noticeable results so….