Quote:
Originally Posted by LouieAtienza
While I do believe that psychology plays a part in the whole tone game, there ARE differnces in how woods can affect the general tone and feel of an electric guitar. The pickups merely amplify that. To categorize it as "stupid sales hype" is a bit unfair. . . . .
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No. The pick ups absolutely do not amplify the overall sound of an electric guitar. In fact the pick ups do not "amplify" anything. What they do is convert the mechanical force of the vibration of the string into a very weak electric current (the scientific principle is known as electromagnetic induction and you can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction) and that current is amplified by the amplifier.
For some reason many people believe that the differences in sound of electric guitars that are played "acoustically", viz. unplugged (and there are differences in this case since the shape, construction and material composition of the body does influence the way in which air molecules are caused to vibrate and the human ear can detect that difference - that, of course, that is how an acoustic guitar works) are reproduced by the pick up. But that is not so - a pick up can't detect vibrating air molecules - it works by a completely different principle.
Oh and BTW, what you hear when you play a plugged in electric guitar is the loudspeaker of the amplifier not the guitar itself.
And I'm afraid it is stupid sales hype.