how Gibson picks tone wood.

[donh]

"None so blind as those who will not see"

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Garthman

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.

So the string drives the wood, and influences the way it vibrates, but that vibration has no influence on the behaviour of the string.

I must revisit Newton's Third Law. Apparently he got it wrong.

[Garthman]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

So the string drives the wood, and influences the way it vibrates, but that vibration has no influence on the behaviour of the string.

I must revisit Newton's Third Law. Apparently he got it wrong.

Well we come back to quantity, don't we? There is the string vibrating it's heart out a couple of mm above a magnetic pick-up which is converting its mechanical energy into an electric current and then there is some energy being transfered to (and absorbed by) a very very massive (in comparison to the vibrating string) chunk of wood. Are we then saying that any re-tranfer of energy back to the string from the wood is going to be of a magnitude large enough to make anything other than a minute difference to the primary vibration? Are we? Really?

[Garthman]

Originally Posted by donh

"None so blind as those who will not see"

Exactly my point.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Garthman

Are we? Really?

Yes, I am. I won't presume to speak for others, but it's pretty apparent that I'm not alone.

[Herb Hunter]

Originally Posted by Garthman

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.

You appear to have entirely missed my point. We all agree that the woods from which an acoustic guitar is made have an influence on the guitar's tone. Nevertheless, blind folded luthiers auditioning guitars made of different woods can't reliably identify the woods species of the guitars they are auditioning even when knowing, beforehand, which woods were used. Therefore, that you and your friends couldn't identify which guitars were made of plastic and which of wood, proves nothing. You said that in your experiment the participants expressed preferences for one type of guitar over the other. If they had a preference, it is because they sounded different and if they sounded different it is because the body material had some influence, unless, of course, the pickups were dissimilar which would render the experiment (already containing the unfortunate variable of differences between individual pickups) completely invalid.

The fact that I use the more specific term, induction, when referring to electric guitar pickups should indicate that I have some understanding of the subject yet you wrote an entire paragraph on how pickups work (after needlessly writing one about the working of acoustic guitars - no one is disputing that electrics and acoustics are very different). How they work is not the issue. I have stated quite clearly, more than once, that induction pickups respond to string vibration. The argument is whether the body affects string vibration.

I've already suggested how you could prove that the body has no effect by taking advantage of Taylor's interchangeable pickup feature on their solid body guitars. The results would be far more conclusive than the experiment you described.

[Garthman]

One of the points that I made earlier was the fact that pick-ups do indeed vary a lot - even when they are sold as being the same. This is true of all pick-ups, cheap and expensive. I've lost count of the number of mods I've done for friends over the years but I've tested most of the pick-ups I've used and the difference is marked. For example, I very recently replaced a broken bridge PU in a USA Fender Strat. I also tested the neck and middle picups while I was doing the work. Both Fender Lace Sensors Silver - the neck was 6.8kohm and the middle was 7.3kohm. These are pick-ups that retail at round the £75 mark and they showed a 7.5% difference in output rating!!!

Now are you going to tell me that the wood that the guitar is made from is going to make that sort of % difference? And what about the differnce in tone and volume controls, cables . . . . ?

And I wrote a paragraph about how acoustic and electric guitars differ because it is painfully obvious that many people do confuse the two - just read back and see how many people believe that the sound they hear when they play an electic acoustically is amplified by the pick-up.

[Garthman]

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

. I've already suggested how you could prove that the body has no effect by taking advantage of Taylor's interchangeable pickup feature on their solid body guitars. The results would be far more conclusive than the experiment you described.

I'd love to. Will you be donating the Taylors?

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Garthman

Both Fender Lace Sensors Silver - the neck was 6.8kohm and the middle was 7.3kohm. These are pick-ups that retail at round the £75 mark and they showed a 7.5% difference in output rating!!!

Can you hear that difference? If so, please quantify it, and outline your testing methodology. "I've been doing this for years" does not count.

Also, while you noted a difference in the DC resistance of each pickup (not the 'output rating'), I assume you also tested to ensure that the magnets in each were identical.

[Herb Hunter]

Originally Posted by Garthman

I'd love to. Will you be donating the Taylors?

I'm sure you could talk a Taylor dealer into helping you. Where there is a will, there is a way. If nothing else, it would be an opportunity for the dealer to demonstrate how easily a Taylor pickup swap is accomplished. You could start by comparing a Taylor Classic (alder body) with a Taylor Standard (mahogany body with a maple top) each fitted with, say, a pair 3/4 size humbuckers. If they don't sound different you can stop there. If they do sound different, then you can ask the dealer to swap the pickups and see if the tonal change follows the pickups or not.

[Garthman]

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

I'm sure you could talk a Taylor dealer into helping you. Where there is a will, there is a way. If nothing else, it would be an opportunity for the dealer to demonstrate how easily a Taylor pickup swap is accomplished. You could start by comparing a Taylor Classic (alder body) with a Taylor Standard (mahogany body with a maple top) each fitted with, say, a pair 3/4 size humbuckers. If they don't sound different you can stop there. If they do sound different, then you can ask the dealer to swap the pickups and see if the tonal change follows the pickups or not.

Next time I come across a friendly Taylor dealer I'll give it a try.

[kscobie8]

Originally Posted by Garthman

Next time I come across a friendly Taylor dealer I'll give it a try.

I haven't encountered any unfriendly ones.


Bel isi,
-kyle

[Gypsyblue]

Sheesh...this thread is getting as boring as arguing over politics.

[macleay]

Garthman, "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." does not explain how the same air, moved by different woods, can sound differently. Explain how, please?

[alohachris]

Aloha,

To answer the original question re: Gibson & electric guitar wood selection?

Gibson is definitely NOT the Gibson of the 60's. In fact the company was recently ranked at the bottom of the pile for being among the worst companies in the nation to work for - with good reason.

So, the answer to "How Does Gibson Select Wood?" is probably, "BADLY."

I've owned probably 30 Gibson's in my life - all from the 50's & 60's. But new Gibson's don't do anything for me now - acoustic or electric.

The question should be "How Does Paul Reed Smith Guitars Select Guitar Woods for their Electrics?" Paul is a fanatic!

alohachris