Quote:
Originally Posted by dbradfie
Aren't they just slabs of wood with electronics added? I know this is naive. Help me to understand
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Pickups, amp and speaker can act like pretty savage EQ controls discarding much of the signal and adding some colour of their own. As a rule of thumb the influence of each component on the final sound is in reverse order - with the guitar itself last of all.
Say I pick up a new guitar. If I don't know what tree it was hewn from but I do know how the pickups are wound I'll have a good idea what it's going to sound like. If I know it's made of mahogany but I don't know what the pickups are, I won't have a clue.
That's not to say the physical construction has no influence on the sound. It will certainly affect the envelope ie the attack/decay/sustain/release when you pluck a note. Really stiff necks will sustain longer (eg the laminated neck on most neck-throughs). The classic Tele bridge - large metal saddles and high break angle - reduces the high frequency damping a little, contributing to the classic Tele twang.
Timbre? If I was a betting man, I could make a lot of money carrying out proper, double-blind tests of different guitars through the same electronics. It's really up to you to listen for any subtle differences which make you prefer one guitar over another. Subtle is the operative word here.