solidbody shapes

[contrebasse]

Curly question:

Does the SHAPE of a solidbody electric (as opposed to the wood used/pickup/strings etc) have a DEMONSTRABLE effect on the final sound?

[black_labb]

it deffinately has an effect in the sense that if you dont have enough wood then the guitar will sound emptyin a sense. im sure it does effect it but how much i dont know. the vibrations have to carry easily. it cant be that bad otherwise alot of the bd rich guitars would probably sound pretty horrid, but i think active pickups would make the wood and shape less important.

[contrebasse]

OK, but all other things the same (weight, density etc) I'm wondering is there any demonstrable effect on sound between a strat and a tele and a gibson sg and a flying V??

In the acoustic instrument world, body shape DOES change the tone and presence of the sound.

But does an electric guitar luthier say "I want to make something with a strat sound so it'll have to be strat shaped" or can he/she say "I want to make something with a strat sound but I'll make it a les paul shape ... and use strat pickups to get the sound"??

[Malibu]

Sounds like a good question Matthew. I'm tossing a few designs around at the moment for an electric which started out as a Tele thinline.
So far, it's morphed into a double cutaway Tele shape and it's slowly morphing into a Les Paul semi-hollow body with Tele pickups and steam bent sides. I started to wonder pretty much the same question you've asked, but there's only one way to find out! :rolleyes:
Body shape didn't seem to be much of a concern to Bo Diddley when it came to guitar design/sound :D

Why do you ask? Thinking of a solid-body creation now? :cool:

[contrebasse]

I'm asking because I've been looking at a zillion cheap ebay electric basses, as I have to get my daughter one to go on with until I can get time to make nice one for her. She's been using a genuine Gibson SG1 and the owner would like it back. Its worth a bit too much for a teenager to take on a gig ...

[Phil Mailloux]

No, shaping your body like a strat or a tele will not affect the sound of the body. Just make sure you've got the wood type and pickups you wish to have for the final sound and proper building technique (bolt-on, glued-on ect..)


In the acoustic instrument world, body shape DOES change the tone and presence of the sound.

Thats because acoustic instruments have soundboxes that can be shaped differently and thus make a different sound. (As you obviously know) no such thing on electrics.

EDIT: If for example you want the sound of an SG but want to shape it like a strat then make sure you use mahogany for the body and neck, rosewood for the fingerboard and a glued-on neck joint along with two PAF type humbuckers. That should give you the proper result. You could probably get away with it too with a bolt-on connection if using the same woods.

[gratay]

I'd say shape would have little to do with it...

the difference in sound would be more so weight, wood type, whether its bolt-on/glued on/neck-thru, pickup configuration, scale length, finish used, string gauge.

[kiwigeo]

My thoughts...shape has less influence on sound of a electric guitar than wood type/density and electrics. IMO the most important non electric control on sound is wood density and where it is on the guitar. Eg on bases a dense neck wood can improve sustain. Ditto for an instrument where neck continues through the body.

[kiwigeo]

[quote=contrebasse;469582]I have to get my daughter one to go on with until I can get time to make nice one for her. quote]

nice one = acoustic bass of course :D

[old_picker]

Pickups and bridge provide the main colour in a guitar. The wood has a hearable effect ie mahogany, with mahogany / rosewood neck will sound thicker than with a a mahogany/ebony neck and agin a maple /r/wood will be brighter again as will a solid maople neck be the brightest. Light timber will make a nice bright liveley guitar and heavy will give more sustain. Scale length also has a lot to do with it. the tele with a 25.5" scale has more attack and twang than the shorter scale gibson 24.75" ? Another determinant is string through the body. The shape i reckon would also colour the sound. like a tele even with foreign pickups still has a typical tele bite and snarl. The bridge has a lot to do with sound as well. When it all boils down to it you can pretty much get the sound of any vintage guitar by usin the same timbers, scale lenght bridge and pickups. A les paul with tele pickups dont sound like a tele and you can never make a tele sound like a strat or a LP..

Its all pretty subjective and at the end of the day, a certain type of geetar has its own vibe and what does it is a combo of all the varialbles.

I've played lots of teles and they all sound like teles but side by side they sound to my ears a bit different but not as different as say a LP or strat. You can't measure it but you can hear it and thers no science or voodoo about it. If you want the best tele sound use swamp ash, 3 saddle brass bridge, maple neck and a decent set of vintage pickups. it works every time. Change anything and the starts to move somewhere away from that orignal sound

Ami makin any sense?? its late and I'm just ramblin :?

best way to learn about electrics is to copy the classics and play em so you get what they are all about. I think you gotta have electric geetar in ur blood to make em good.
Try makin a les paul junior with 25.5" scale, string through and single coils. [blueshawk] it anit no tele its a whole other thing. even try usin a tele bridge and it will be closer to tele but still not tele. It will sound great still...

oh and I reckon bolt on / set neck is a bit of a furphy it dont make much difference. but if you bust a neck you be wishin it was bolt on any old day:D:D

[rhoads56]

Ive done testing on guitars, that proved to me that tone and sound qualities are effected by the AMOUNT of timber in a guitar (build a guitar, record and test, cut, record and test, cut, record and test, etc), but i didn't go as far as trying specific shapes and their effect on tone. It is something i have always wondered though, especially instruments that are longer, like a flying v. The longer sections would most definitely react differently to wider section (of the same volume, but different grain direction and makeup), but i don't know which would be more benefitual.

[HiString]

It's an interesting question but in all probablility, not worth worrying about.

About 10 years ago I was looking to buy a Tele Plus and having been friends with a (major) store owner, they let me take two Plus's home to play around with. What was immediately apparent was that each had it's own sound, even when in a stand, unplugged we could hear a difference, this could only be attributed to the characteristics of the individual pieces of timber as everything else about the guitars was identical. This has been further confirmed as my son and I have collected Les Pauls.....each one has it's own character in the timber.

Re (cheap) basses, (and I'll refrain from commenting on Gibson basses :C )........you seriously can't go past Yamaha's RBX series for "bang 4 buck". Japanese Fenders are also worth consideration, we have a (Jap) Fender P Bass Lyte in the studio and having had quite a range of other Fenders here at times (defacto son #2 is a bassist and endorsed by Fender), the Jap is damned close to any of the US models. If possible, let your daughter try different instruments out until she knows what she is comfortable with, there's no point in buying something (cheap) and then having it sit in a corner.

:cool:

[rhoads56]

About 10 years ago I was looking to buy a Tele Plus and having been friends with a (major) store owner, they let me take two Plus's home to play around with. What was immediately apparent was that each had it's own sound, even when in a stand, unplugged we could hear a difference, this could only be attributed to the characteristics of the individual pieces of timber as everything else about the guitars was identical. This has been further confirmed as my son and I have collected Les Pauls.....each one has it's own character in the timber.



Now, all you have to do, is build and experiment enough, that you are able to predict the fine tonal qualities, BEFORE you start building. There is a reason only a few out of every ten or so 'quality, mass produced' guitars really sing.

[contrebasse]

[quote=contrebasse;469582]I have to get my daughter one to go on with until I can get time to make nice one for her. quote]

nice one = acoustic bass of course :D

no. electric. She already plays double bass (and can read music, unlike me) in a great stage band. But she practices in bed with her electric and dreams of becoming a rock star ...

[HiString]

Now, all you have to do, is build and experiment enough, that you are able to predict the fine tonal qualities, BEFORE you start building. There is a reason only a few out of every ten or so 'quality, mass produced' guitars really sing.


Unless you are able to do (microscopic) analysis of the timber structure for a complete body blank you are never going to have a 100% guarantee.......the variables of nature will see to that, and that's one of the beauties of working with timber. God, how boring would it be if every guitar sounded just like the next............and the next............and the next.........

:cool:

[bricks]

Not that im a guitar making king or anything but the only real difference ive noticed is when i make a guitar now , all the peices line up perfectly, the glued joints are flush fit etc- the guitar sounds and playsd better than the ones where I said "thats good enough, im painting it anyway"

It seems to me that the better made it is the better it sounds, and neckthroughs do have a bucket load of sustain compared to bolt ons or set necks.

[kiwigeo]

Unless you are able to do (microscopic) analysis of the timber structure for a complete body blank you are never going to have a 100% guarantee.......the variables of nature will see to that, and that's one of the beauties of working with timber. God, how boring would it be if every guitar sounded just like the next............and the next............and the next.........

:cool:

You can have a fair bit of control over the sound of an acoustic without having to resort to microscopic analysis of the tonewood you're using. Tap tones are one example of this. It takes a bit of practice but by tapping a top you can get a fair idea as to whether or not its going to sound good or not in the finished guitar. One can note the change in tap tone as the to gets worked down to final thickness. One can go a step further and couple the top to a loud speaker and examine response of the top to differing tones generated by the speaker.

That said I agree that life would be boring if every guitar sounded the same and there werent a few factors out of the control of the luthier.

[old_picker]

Micoscopic and scientific analysis wont tell much. like kiwigeo says its the tap the tells you. Inn electrics it dont matter so much as much of the tone is generated from pickups, bridge and neck. The body is not hugely importatnt i don reckon. But certain types will give different colour say like a softer more fibrey wood like a mhaogany will give a rich tone where a maple body or hard and dense wood will give a bright tone. Really its just a kind of colouration a bit like adding different kinds of sauce to a pie.It tastes like a pie but pickles is different flavor to chili. Use good wood and top quality hardware it will sound great and the choice of woods will coulor the tone not make it worse or better.

I reckon there's too much voodoo in using special woods and I reckon mainly started by the guys selling the woods to keep you buying it. Its more about how you build it than what you build it out of. Like benedetto says when he makes a guitar for his book out of crap wood. It sounds like the ones made of so called master grade tonewoods he reckons

[HiString]

Ooops, I meant to throw something like :; or :wink: , etc., in after "microscopic analysis".

:cool:

[soundman]

There was an interesting programe on ABC a short while ago about violins, all about how they are mabe and who made and makes them, details about all the facts and myths surrounding the great makers like stratavari.

there was quite a lot of good science covered and some interesting comments form current eminent violin makers.

one interesting segment was a double blind test of 4 absolute top shelf violins only one of which was a genuine "good" stratavarious.

neither the player or the panel knew which was which.
One of the members of the 5 man panel was a top eminent maker, one of the violins was his. I seem to think he may not have been aware.

The panel was instructed to comment on all the violins and specifiocaly to identify the strat"

:D :D (you are going to like this)... all of them selected the one made by the panel member as the strat' even the bloke who made it.
All done by as proper science in a high powered research uni.

BUT I digress

It covered a number of questions concerning what made a strat' sound soooo gooood. was it the wood, was it the varnish......... and so on.
all sorts of good science and investigation.
The fact seems, all the "special factors" that are suposed to be why the old violins sounded soo good ended up being of little or no significance.

any way

one of the issues was shape.
a couple of the makers had been experimenting with shape for years ( some of these guys weren't young).
The had built conventional shapes and all sorts of odd stuff even square ones.

The conclusion is overall shape doesn't matter a bugger.
Its the geometry, mechanics and the structural properties, the amount of wood and the thickness.
Overall shape was only significant in that it may influence where particular eliments of the instruments structure are placed.
Concluding that most of the traditional shape was art a fashon and nothing else.

very interesting.
cheers

[HiString]

As often happens, this thread has veered away from the topic, however, there are some interesting bits and pieces of info regarding timber and hollow bodies that may not have emerged otherwise.

Following on from Soundman's post, people may find the following link interesting. Out of courtesy to the main person concerned, I won't cut and paste his pics and/or info but he is a Australian who has definitely re-thought violin designs........http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]@.1dcf8a07


:cool:

[old_picker]

What soundman says is right that the body shape is art/fashion. Pickers are prett conservative and like trad style guitars. Bass players a re more willing to use instruments that look oddball.

I will say this that every one I make don't sound the same as the last one of the same type. It is always a surprise [usually good] when you first plug her up through the different amps to see how she sounds I notice each one has a slightly different voice and sounds better through this amp or that amp.

if they was all exaclty alike you wouldnt bother making more would you?

[kiwigeo]

The conclusion is overall shape doesn't matter a bugger.
Its the geometry, mechanics and the structural properties, the amount of wood and the thickness.
Overall shape was only significant in that it may influence where particular eliments of the instruments structure are placed.
Concluding that most of the traditional shape was art a fashon and nothing else.

very interesting.
cheers

My thoughts on violin shape:

Even if the shape of the violin has little influence on sound (acoustic guitars are a different kettle of fish IMO) the shape of a violin (and the guitar) evolved for a reason and it wasn't just fashion. The narrow waist section of the violin is there to allow unrestricted passage of the bow across the outer strings. Likewise the waist of a guitar allows the thing to sit on one's knee without continually falling off same.

[soundman]

I disagree that an acoustic gituar is a diferent kettle of fish to a violin.

They are precisely the same kettle of fish.... the structure while slightky different and the application a little different the mechanical and acoustic principles and systems involved are the same.

so as far as the acoustic and tonal performance goes.... shape don't matter a bugger, so when it comes to a solid body instrumentshape will matter even less.
Which was the original point in question.

so when looking for where the difference and therfore the art and magic is and comes from there are a whole lot of other variables that do matter..... shape does not.

cheers

[kiwigeo]

There is also the theory that the shape of the violin and the guitar were based on the shape of a woman.......

Obviously back in the early days of the guitar women were a different shape than they are today.

[soundman]

well thats a pretty safe statement...... afterall most shapes in art can be atributed to only a hand full of things... the woman would probaly be the most popular.


cheers

[kiwigeo]

Check out Alan Carruth's article on free plate tuning in the GAL Big Red Book - Volume Three (pp 136 - 172).

He experiments with Chladni patterns for square plates and then looks at how changing the shape of the plate changes the pattern.

Amongst other things Carruth establishes that 'Free plate nodes are generally combinations of lengthwise and and crosswise beam modes, and torsion modes. Because these modes involve the displacement of areas of the plates, the nodes between the displaced areas form lines. The shapes of these node lines and the node frequencies are influenced by the SHAPE and thickness distribution of the plates, their size and material, the presence of bracing and the Poisson's ratio of the material."

Carruth also notes that although the principles of violin acoustics can be applied to guitars there are differences. He further notes that the acoustics of the archtop guitar are the closest to those of the violin.

Cheers Martin

[HiString]

An interesting history of the guitar can be found here http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/guitar_history.html#Medieval_Europe and photos including a Stradivarius guitar here http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/guitares_evolution.html

:cool:

[kiwigeo]

well thats a pretty safe statement...... afterall most shapes in art can be atributed to only a hand full of things... the woman would probaly be the most popular.


cheers

The most popular....and guaranteed to cause the most argument :D

[kiwigeo]

An interesting history of the guitar can be found here http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/guitar_history.html#Medieval_Europe and photos including a Stradivarius guitar here http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/guitares_evolution.html

:cool:

Thanks for that HiString. Not many people are aware that Stradivarius made a few guitars as well as violins.

[JupiterCreek]

The most important component is the player. The shape, timber and pickups come down the list.

Listen to a few versions of Clapton playing Crossroads. ES335 (semisolid hardwood body, softwood neck, humbuckers) - Flying V and Explorer (softwood body, softwood neck, humbuckers) - Strat (hardwood body, hardwood neck, single coil pickups). Same song, same guitarist, same sound (well almost the same but how much is the guitar and how much is the recording equipment over the years?).

[Mitchy G]

my mates maton sounds just like a strat but is les paul shape. it is worth 4500 retail but he gets them for alot lot less. sounds super sweet tho. i have no idea what woods are in it tho. i can find out if you want?

[HiString]

OK, I'm going to play devil's advocate here...............:

Apart from the Starline archtop, the dearest guitars Maton make are the BB1200 series ($4499-4750) which are hollow body. Like the Mastersounds, they have some similarity to Les Paul's shape in the lower bout but that's about where the similarity ends. They have a Queensland Maple body with either Rock Maple or Victorian Blackwood tops, the pickups are coil tapped. Once you leave the BB1200's, there is nothing until you hit approx., $3300. Also, virtually anyone can get at least 20% off retail without raising a sweat. To say they sound like a Strat, well considering how many different Strats Fender make, I have to ask.............just what does a Strat sound like :wink: .

Now, to change the topic (and apologies to those who deserve them)..........Mitchy, you have been asking about making stave drum shells.

Firstly, I'll ask where you got those pics of shells from?

With care in your preparation, etc., it is not particularly difficult to make a raw stave shell, actually, staves are by far the easiest method of shell construction. However, turning the raw shell is where people strike problems as most have not and are not interested in spending the necessary time to learn traditional turning skills, their workaround is to use a sufficiently large metal turning lathe with a solid boring bar setup and use the automatic feed to control the cut. Also, have you worked out what hardware you are going to use and where you are going to source it from.

Now, to respect the others here, it may be an idea if you start a new thread in the Music Instrument forum for your reply.

:cool: