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  #61  
Old 04-13-2011, 03:22 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Originally Posted by eatswodo View Post
One could just as easily turn this around, and ask *you* to provide the proof that those of us who take a contrary view are wrong.
As some-one famous once said: "We are . . . . . . . what we think".

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Originally Posted by eatswodo
I'm beginning to harbour a suspicion that you might be tweaking our tone controls
Not at all (although I must admit that I do often derive some pleasure from some of the more - shall we say - "exotic" suggestions that are offered). No - I genuinely believe that most of what is said about "tonewoods" is complete nonsense. I'm pretty sure that the woods traditionally used in the construction of guitars were chosen for their strength to thickness properties, their ease of working (with, remember, quite primitive tools by today's standards) and their cosmetic attractiveness. The attribution of terms describing various nebulous tonal properties to different species of wood is a very recent occurence. When I started playing guitar 40+ years ago no-one (manufacturers or players) talked about wood. It was never mentioned in advertisements, no player I ever met ever said that his guitar was made of such and such woods - he probably didn't know and he certainly didn't care.

Then - and I'm not sure quite when but I'm sure it's possible to find out - makers started to use wood as a sales hype, initially for acoustic guitars wherein the sound of the strings is amplified by the body of the guitar and it might be thought that the type of wood used for their construction might make a difference to the resulting sound (although quite how much difference here too is debatable). This hype was then transfered - without any attempt to justify or quantify it - to electric guitars wherein the sound of the strings is amplified by a completely different principle, viz. electromagnetic induction.

This luthier agrees with me:

http://www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm



Some information on the principle of electromagnetic induction and about pick-ups here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickup_(music_technology)

Last edited by Garthman; 04-13-2011 at 03:38 AM.
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  #62  
Old 04-13-2011, 03:36 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Originally Posted by skyver View Post
There. Fixed that for you.
Well, I would have no hesitation in offering a different opinion to one you might hold if I disagreed with it but I wouldn't dream of twisting your words.
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  #63  
Old 04-13-2011, 05:03 AM
ukejon ukejon is offline
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Gartman writes:
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When I started playing guitar 40+ years ago no-one (manufacturers or players) talked about wood. It was never mentioned in advertisements, no player I ever met ever said that his guitar was made of such and such woods - he probably didn't know and he certainly didn't care.
This really isn't a very accurate statement:

“A truly magnificent instrument with its natural mahogany back and neck, while the top is in gleaming gold with contrasting ivory trim.” — Original Gibson advertisement, circa 1955

...and there are many more early ads that talks about specific woods and their tonal as well as visual attributes. True, today we are obsessive about tonewoods, in part because now we have flashy looking, inexpensive, laminate top guitars on which appearance trumps tone. But pre-1971 folks did indeed talk about the playing attributes of particular woods.....
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  #64  
Old 04-13-2011, 05:15 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Originally Posted by ukejon View Post
Gartman writes:

This really isn't a very accurate statement:

“A truly magnificent instrument with its natural mahogany back and neck, while the top is in gleaming gold with contrasting ivory trim.” — Original Gibson advertisement, circa 1955

...and there are many more early ads that talks about specific woods and their tonal as well as visual attributes. True, today we are obsessive about tonewoods, in part because now we have flashy looking, inexpensive, laminate top guitars on which appearance trumps tone. But pre-1971 folks did indeed talk about the playing attributes of particular woods.....
Ah. Well I suspect that this must have been in the USA. In those days things always used to take several years to filter over here. Very often pretty useless things like food proccessors, suburbia and dog hairstylists.
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  #65  
Old 04-13-2011, 10:40 AM
Chalz Chalz is offline
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Originally Posted by Garthman View Post
As some-one famous once said: "We are . . . . . . . what we think".

Not at all (although I must admit that I do often derive some pleasure from some of the more - shall we say - "exotic" suggestions that are offered). No - I genuinely believe that most of what is said about "tonewoods" is complete nonsense. I'm pretty sure that the woods traditionally used in the construction of guitars were chosen for their strength to thickness properties, their ease of working (with, remember, quite primitive tools by today's standards) and their cosmetic attractiveness. The attribution of terms describing various nebulous tonal properties to different species of wood is a very recent occurence. When I started playing guitar 40+ years ago no-one (manufacturers or players) talked about wood. It was never mentioned in advertisements, no player I ever met ever said that his guitar was made of such and such woods - he probably didn't know and he certainly didn't care.

Then - and I'm not sure quite when but I'm sure it's possible to find out - makers started to use wood as a sales hype, initially for acoustic guitars wherein the sound of the strings is amplified by the body of the guitar and it might be thought that the type of wood used for their construction might make a difference to the resulting sound (although quite how much difference here too is debatable). This hype was then transfered - without any attempt to justify or quantify it - to electric guitars wherein the sound of the strings is amplified by a completely different principle, viz. electromagnetic induction.

This luthier agrees with me:

http://www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm



Some information on the principle of electromagnetic induction and about pick-ups here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickup_(music_technology)
It would seem you are picking and choosing which facts and responses to reply to. Multiple people here have explained the fact that the wood used influences the way the string vibrates in the magnetic field, yet you don't seem very willing to event consider that fact...let alone responding to it.

Yes (and again), the sound is coming from the pickups amplifying the strings vibrating in the magnetic field. I'm pretty sure that every single electric guitar player understands that extremely simple concept. What you seem to be avoiding is the fact that the string's vibration is very much dependent upon the wood it is strung on.
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  #66  
Old 04-13-2011, 10:52 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Originally Posted by Chalz View Post
It would seem you are picking and choosing which facts and responses to reply to. Multiple people here have explained the fact that the wood used influences the way the string vibrates in the magnetic field, yet you don't seem very willing to event consider that fact...let alone responding to it.

Yes (and again), the sound is coming from the pickups amplifying the strings vibrating in the magnetic field. I'm pretty sure that every single electric guitar player understands that extremely simple concept. What you seem to be avoiding is the fact that the string's vibration is very much dependent upon the wood it is strung on.
What I am disputing is that the strings vibration is very much dependent on the wood it's strung on. I don't believe that is the case at all. A string will vibrate between two fixed points in pretty much the same way irrespective of what the fixed points sit on. You can argue that the vibrating string may be influenced to some degree by sympathetic vibrations from the substrate - fine - I'm just saying that in the case of a solid-bodied electric guitar those influences (if indeed they exist at all) are so minute in comparison with the primary vibration of the string that they can be ignored for all practical purposes.
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  #67  
Old 04-13-2011, 11:39 AM
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David Eastwood David Eastwood is offline
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So... when I sit and play my Rickenbacker 650D (maple thru neck, walnut body) unplugged, and I can feel it vibrate and resonate as I strum it, that either has nothing to do with the wood, or I'm imagining it, or both?
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  #68  
Old 04-13-2011, 11:39 AM
Chalz Chalz is offline
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Originally Posted by Garthman View Post
What I am disputing is that the strings vibration is very much dependent on the wood it's strung on. I don't believe that is the case at all. A string will vibrate between two fixed points in pretty much the same way irrespective of what the fixed points sit on. You can argue that the vibrating string may be influenced to some degree by sympathetic vibrations from the substrate - fine - I'm just saying that in the case of a solid-bodied electric guitar those influences (if indeed they exist at all) are so minute in comparison with the primary vibration of the string that they can be ignored for all practical purposes.
Well, in fairness, a lot of people believe a lot of things, and you aren't the first (and won't be the last) to believe something that is completely in conflict with science/physics. You are most certainly entitled to your own opinion on the matter.

That said, it seems that the opinion you have developed is extremely firm...which is really no problem until you assert it as fact, and then demand others to prove it wrong when it should be your responsibility to convince others that all known empirical evidence and facts are incorrect and that your opinion is fact. If you wish to state that known facts and evidence are invalid, you should be providing some solid evidence that either backs up your claim, or discredits currently known facts. Telling people they're wrong simply because you're older than they are and have more anecdotal evidence is just kind of silly.


TL;DR - In other words, my problem with this discussion is less about your opinion, and more about your approach to discussing it and method of trying to convince others it is fact.
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  #69  
Old 04-13-2011, 11:44 AM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Garthman View Post
...I'm just saying that in the case of a solid-bodied electric guitar those influences (if indeed they exist at all) are so minute in comparison with the primary vibration of the string that they can be ignored for all practical purposes.
Again, unless you quantify just how minute the the body influence is, you are making an assumption.
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  #70  
Old 04-13-2011, 05:40 PM
macleay macleay is offline
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Garthman, according to you, a piece of spruce, vibrating at 440 times a second shouldn't sound any different than a piece of cedar vibrating at 440 times a second.
Tell me why there's a difference in sound? After all, it's just air movement.

Last edited by macleay; 04-13-2011 at 05:58 PM.
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  #71  
Old 04-14-2011, 03:56 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Eatswodo and Macleay

Of course you can hear a difference in sound between spruce and cedar and feel and hear the sound of the body of an electric guitar when it is played acoustically - I've never said that you can't. You can hear a difference because the vibrating wood causes air molecules to vibrate and that vibration is carried to your ears.

However a magnetic pick-up does not "hear" vibrating air moleclues or wood. A magnetic pick-up can only detect a vibrating ferrous metal. Vibrating air and wood has no affect at all on a magnetic pick-up. If you follow the link I posted in post #61 above you can read a scientific explanation of how a pick-up works.
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  #72  
Old 04-14-2011, 05:04 AM
ukejon ukejon is offline
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So would a balsa wood Les Paul sound the same as a mahogany Les Paul?
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  #73  
Old 04-14-2011, 05:25 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Originally Posted by ukejon View Post
So would a balsa wood Les Paul sound the same as a mahogany Les Paul?
Would balsa wood be strong enough to withstand the tension of the strings?

I and several of my friends were once challenged by another friend to distinguish an all plastic electric guitar from a few all wooden ones by listening to each played through the same amp. None of us could do it. Some of us liked one rather than another (which you would expect in a random group) but we couldn't tell from the sound which was the plastic one - we all had to admit we were guessing.

Try it some time.
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  #74  
Old 04-14-2011, 05:34 AM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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Originally Posted by Garthman View Post
Would balsa wood be strong enough to withstand the tension of the strings?

I and several of my friends were once challenged by another friend to distinguish an all plastic electric guitar from a few all wooden ones by listening to each played through the same amp. None of us could do it. Some of us liked one rather than another (which you would expect in a random group) but we couldn't tell from the sound which was the plastic one - we all had to admit we were guessing.

Try it some time.
I don't think that disproves that the material and construction of the guitar affects what the pickup's output. In a double blind test, people can't consistently identify an acoustic guitar's wood species yet there is no disagreement that a mahogany guitar and a rosewood one sound different.
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  #75  
Old 04-14-2011, 06:14 AM
Garthman Garthman is offline
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Originally Posted by Herb Hunter View Post
I don't think that disproves that the material and construction of the guitar affects what the pickup's output. In a double blind test, people can't consistently identify an acoustic guitar's wood species yet there is no disagreement that a mahogany guitar and a rosewood one sound different.
In an acoustic guitar you would expect different woods to sound different. An acoustic guitar works by using the body of the guitar to amplify the sound of the strings. The vibration of the strings is transfered to the top of the guitar (which, remember, is a very thin piece of wood) and the vibrating top then transfers the vibration to air molecules inside the body of the guitar where they bounce back and forth getting stronger and issue through the sound hole and are carried to the ear of the listener. So the way (and the degree) to which different woods vibrate (although in reality only a few species of wood are used for the top of an acoustic guitar - mainly because of their high strength to thickness ratio) directly affects the sound. (Note: It is believed that the top of the guitar contributes around 90% of the sound of an acoustic guitar. The remaining 10% is made up by the rest of the guitar - back, sides, neck and fretboard, headstock).

In an electric guitar the vibrating strings are amplified because the magnetic flux of the pick-up is disturbed which generates a small electric current in the PU windings which is then tranfered to the amplifier which amplifies the current and sends the signal to the loudspeaker which (by the same principle as the pick-up but in reverse) converts the electrical signal back into mechanical energy setting the speaker diaphram vibrating which causes air molecules to vibrate and carry the sound to the ear.

Acoustic and electric guitars are very different animals. Their only common feature is that they both produce the initial sound by a vibrating string - after that they go their separate ways and use two different scientific principles to amplify the sound of the string. Alas many people think they are similar which is probably how the "wood" myth has arisen in electric guitars. The myth is reinforced because people hear that an electric guitar played unamplified sounds like a very weak acoustic guitar and assume that the sound their ears hear is amplified by the pick-up. It isn't - the pick-up only responds to a vibrating ferrous metal, not air, not plastic, not wood.

When you "hear" an electric guitar played amplified you are actually not hearing the guitar at all - you are hearing a loudspeaker.

Last edited by Garthman; 04-14-2011 at 06:31 AM.
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