16 guitars made from different woods - Perceive the differences
 

Gaëlle Solal plays 16 guitars who were recorded and edited into sections of the desired length and then pasted together into one musical piece.
Eight guitars are made from traditionally used tropical tonewoods like rosewood, ebony, mahogany and Spanish Cedar.
Eight guitars are made from local and non-commonly used non-tropical wood species.
All guitars are of the same model. They all have European spruce tops, the same bracing pattern and the same strings.
They are recorded with a flat EQ. No audio editing or effects are added.

This video was part of a blind listening test where people first had to listen to the audio and than complete an online survey with questions such as:
How many guitars did you perceive ?
Can you note the transition time points (when one guitar follows another) ?
How many of the perceived guitars are made from non-tropical wood species?

https://sites.google.com/site/leonar...-online-test-1

the conclusion sums it up very well, thanks for posting it.

That is both interesting and surprising. I will admit for the most part I heard great playing and not much difference in the guitar materials.

Sounds pretty nice to me. Brazilian newspaper, probably. ;)

That's awesome, thanks for sharing. It's always so hard to tell people that their preconceived notions about materials used in building guitars are 95 percent wrong. Especially when many of us who build them continue to perpetuate the myths. I've been convinced for a long time now that the back and side sets used in building a guitar have little to do with tonal color and that in fact the tops can be somewhat interchangeable just so long as their physical properties are similar enough. IWO the different species of the material can be worked to have the same physical characteristics. The top is where it's at but at the same time a hundred or more test subjects under the same conditions would probably not be able to tell the difference between Western Red Cedar or Alpine Spruce either. Especially if it was made by a master luthier.

We can always take the argument to it's extremes to 'prove' the opposite point is true. A body for example made out of thin sheets of concrete versus one of cardboard. But in the end it's the goal of the luthier to make a guitar sound a particular way and it's the manipulation of the materials more then the species of the materials that have the most importance.

That's my two cents and I'm sticking to it :)

Back in the 1970s and early 80s, there were blind listening tests done between tube and solid state stereo equipment. In many (if not most) cases, the listening panel could not accurately distinguish between the two. Yet, there was much animated debate and pages upon pages in magazines, spent on arguing which sounded better.

This kind of thing happens all the time. When all the hype and claims and arguments are put to real test, all that noise seems to crumple under the facts.

Tony

BTW I should make myself more clear. The performer of that piece is most certainly aware of the nuance between each guitar so in essence we are too even though we may not be aware of it. That's the thing about guitars, there are no two alike. Even if those guitars were built identical they would be different and the performer would notice it.

That's why this stuff is so difficult.

Again, the importance of understand what exactly is the "truth" about this subject is more important than just tonal preference. It is a matter of life and death.

These "rumors, wives tales, things everyone knows" that get perpetuated by group think psychology have devastating, often unseen by the masses, detrimental effects on the environment, all simply based on something that is not the truth somehow being fostered and percieved as the truth.

From your politics, to your money to wood, the world is full of lies, rumors, things we thought we knew, and just flat out criminal activity that very much has a motivation behind it all.

Now in the world of wood, I do not think this was some grand conspiracy to rape the forest as much as it is a bunch of stupid monkeys doing what the other monkeys did before them and not really realizing the consequences of their action.

Did the forestry industry in Ft Bragg in 1960 to 80's, did these people not see what they were doing? cutting down Redwood after Redwood tree all the while knowing that these trees they were cutting for your deck took 1000's of years to grow? Did that stop them? no, they just literally cut away until the harsh fact that there were no more to cut and so after they depleted the supply to virtually nothing, then they stopped and the entire areas economy died or morphed into growing dope.

The only way false information/wives tales/untruths etc. gets stopped is the same way they get started, by word of mouth.

Old as the internet is, it's still a "new" invention, an invention that has allowed us to communicate globally, through this global communication comes the ability to share information, through the sharing of information often times the "truth" about any given subject often times eventually comes to light.

I'm sure there are die hard BRW/EIR fans who even after hearing the video, and not being able to pick any of them out, would still choose the BRW/EIR, mostly based on conditioning, HOWEVER there are also many who will see/hear videos like this and be moved to change their way of thinking about things.

I started my work life at the young age of 12 doing construction and wood flooring with my dad, only when one handles 100's of thousands of individual pieces of wood of the same and different species does one REALLY get an idea of what wood is all about. And one of the main things you will start to understand is that within the same species of wood the are MASSIVE differences, so if one says "I don't like Maple" I say which particular piece did you not like?

It will be up to those in the wood working industries to educate the masses about such things.

It is an uphill battle, the ability for us to "talk among ourselves" has only been here for 25 years, we have hundreds of years of group think wives tales developed by groups of monkeys in isolation to shatter.

I being a builder am all to well aware of the motivating factors in all this, quite simply, there could be many makers who know the facts about wood, but they will still make things out of these endangered woods, because "it won't sell else wise". It will take many years for these cycles to be broken and lots of it will fall into the lap of the consumer being educated about the TRUTH about wood.

Well said Jessupe.

I agree with this from the player's perspective. Even if it were true that we could not hear the differences between tone woods, we would still choose those most pleasing to our personal sense of what we like to see, hear, smell, etc.

As I said in my previous post, this kind of argument and proofs have been going on for some time. Personally, I think there is a lot to all these things from the player's point of view, whether the listener can hear it or not.

I can say with certainty that I have owned steel string guitars with maple back and sides, with rosewood back and sides, but all with spruce tops. My personal preferences is for these instruments to be made with rosewood back and sides, both from an aesthetic and from a sonic, viewpoint.

With audio equipment, I personally always preferred tubes to solid state, but never really cared about vinyl vs CDs. These days, I don't care about any of it, finding MP3s to just be most convenient. Maybe this is due to my ears aging, or maybe I just want the simplicity of a tiny MP3 player that holds thousands of tunes.

There is always more to the picture than the double blind test. But the articles and arguments will continue to draw interest.

If somebody is perfectly happy playing a classical guitar made of 40 layers of newspaper, no problem. I prefer a fine, handmade instrument with cedar top and rosewood back and sides. Let others argue about the merits of each.

Tony

Yes but knowing that your preference at this point in time threatens forest ecosystems and has the potential to make species go extinct, to vanish from the face of the earth.

I mean I like Ivory nuts and saddles, but I'm not willing to have others kill elephants and decimate the species so I can have my preference.

So I assume you are aware of the consequences of these choices? I lay no "blame" on you for liking what you like, nor wish to diminish any of the experiences you have had that have brought you to these preferences, but the question I have, and or thing I am curious about from a "what makes people tick" stand point is, and I really ask this question of anyone, not singling you out;

knowing that the use and perpetuating the use of certain species that are harvested in un managed forests where not only the tree species becomes endangered but all the chain of ecosystems attached to the tree, the animals, birds and insects also become endangered or go extinct, knowing that, and then knowing that there are alternate species of woods that are cut from managed forests where neither the tree nor the ecosystem are threatened by intelligent forestry, how is that you can morally be ok with the preference?

To me it would be one thing to be oblivious to the fact {see 1900 to 1990} or for these species truly be superior in every way or some other determining factor that made it so that even after you knew it was killing the rain forest that you just had to have it.

I'm not sure if it's the "well it's only one guitar" or "China uses more than we do"or the "it's superior" or just exactly what it is.

But I assure you as a builder of "fine handmade" guitars that it is important for every individual person both builder and player to take a stand and start to undo what has been done by those that came before us who knew not what they do.

I am all up for using Rosewood or any other species that has already been cut, like the Indian and the Buffalo, use all of what gave it's life, but it will be up to each individual person to act to eventually be the group that "stops the madness"in order to stop the felling of new trees.

as I have said before, I am phasing out my use of anything even potentially endangered, strive to diversify my species and promote the use of materials that come from properly managed forests. Heck I'm even proto typing some Bambootars.

I encourage you and everyone to really think about the consequences of their preferences and ask themselves if it's worth it? Sure it may be just one guitar, but the problem is the "it's the best" myth, as exposed by this test, just perpetuates it's use, if it may be that you can tell when you play rosewood, it should be known that most of your audience can not tell the difference.

For the sake of the animals I hope for the day where Rosewood is a "sheikh" as wearing a fur coat.

there can be land parceled off, there can be properly forested products of these species,maybe even hydroponic forests, but until those forests are created and managed, we really need to stop and let these wild forests heal.

I have a couple of carbon fiber instruments that don't use wood at all. Have you considered heeding your own words and possibly joining the forward thinkers such as Rainsong, Peavey (CA Guitars), Blackbird, and others discussed in the carbon fiber sub-forum? I could be perfectly happy with just those carbon fiber instruments I have. The person preaching always makes whatever s/he is doing to be excusable and to be THE way to do it. I say, go a step farther and don't use wood at all, if you are that passionate about this. Set an example by joining with those who are already doing so. Put effort into advancing the non-wood building methods so they can fully replace the use of wood. Most of us will buy what builders make (i.e. most don't commission guitars).

I don't see those carbon fiber builders preaching anything other than that their guitars don't require the care that wood guitars do. There is no guilt being laid on by them, instead they extoll the benefits of their product, creating desire rather than guilt, as the motivating factor. Please consider that approach. It might be more effective.

The reality is that many of us have several guitars, and most are probably not the endangered species. I have ONE guitar that fits the criteria that I stated in my post as a preference. It was bought new, but not commissioned. If it had not been available, I would have chosen from among what is available. I think most of us are more flexible in this than your preaching paints us to be. But then, when taking such a stance, it seems necessary to paint those being preached to in such a way as to need to fit that target of the preaching.

Tony

Video's like this are good to get out in the public and try and break the traditions. Even if it's not for everyone, it could be for some and that's a start. I have built most of the 60 guitars I have built to date using reclaimed wood like floor boards and so on. But I still like the traditional wood as well. In fact I am building a rosewood 00 now. But this rosewood also comes from a plantation. Plantation wood is a very good solution to these problems. In fact I own a few hundred trees in mix of Cocobolo, Mahogany and other native species in Costa Rica. It's really an incredible investment as it's money that grows on trees and it helps keep the wild forests wild and still provide the rest of us with what we want. It's not unlike fish farming or something like that. That's the beauty of something like wood, when done right it is sustainable.

We need more of that but also we need more awareness. The fact of the matter is that a good guitar maker, even the good factory guitars really, can make great instruments from materials that grow in their local forest.

Tops of course are another story. Here in North America's we are blessed with an abundance of conifers and much of that is even from reclaimed logs whether they be old barges, lodge poles, or even naturally felled tree's.

Pretty consistent demonstration of more warmth and depth to sound with the rosewood family. Of course the top wood is what makes the most difference and that comparison not made in this video.

Sorry, I suppose that was rather "preachy" but I still think that a "campaign" needs to happen, like wearing fur, in order to dramatically slow down the use of "wild cut" wood.

related to carbon fiber, first I think the term "carbon fiber" is somewhat misleading, really what they are , are epoxy resin guitars. The carbon fiber simply acts as a backer for the epoxy.

Related to that, epoxy once catalyzed is rather inert, the problem comes in when it is wet and being "layed up" . From my observation of the process, I think companies like Rainsong and others do a good job protecting their employees, but that being said I'm not into exposing myself on a regular basis to epoxypropoxyphenyl, benzyl alcohol and phenol-formaldehyde polymer glycidyl ether along with other "things".

As stated there are plenty of other natural wood materials that are available that are not "forest raping" trees

Redir has stated the wave of the future with plantation style farming of these products, but unfortunately humans started that one a little late, but there is hope for the future. It is too bad that tree farms were not started earlier , we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Anyways at certain points in history we often times are forced into change, I feel that it is "our time" to step up and do something about it. This "something" is merely an awareness of what is going on with the forests and to simply make it "socially unacceptable" , just like wearing fur, to use these products until we get the supply chain happening in a morally acceptable way that does not destroy ecosystems.

"Wood shaming" is very species specific and fortunately for us there are many species of wood that are farmed properly so we don't need to use endangered species nor chemical based plastic as the medium in order to create usable tools for the creation of music .

Lets make music, but at the same time lets not destroy forests to do so.