Thread: Aussie wood for electric guitars

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

I would bet my left nut that there are just as many top luthiers who would disagree that choice of wood is the most important control on the sound of a solid body electric guitar.

A useless offer without pictures Martin, hang on what did I just say...

I agree with Sebastiaan Martin. Not much of a bet if we don't know what the odds are, perhaps some dimensions at least and does it come in the original bag.

Jim

Originally Posted by toejam

I agree with Sebastiaan Martin. Not much of a bet if we don't know what the odds are, perhaps some dimensions at least and does it come in the original bag.

Jim

You two obviously suffering from a week without the ANZLF.

G'Day Martin,
Sorry for the slow reply, I have been deep in the rain forests in North west Tasmania tapping ply trees with a 14 pound sledge hammer then putting my ear to the tree listening to the sound velocity and density sorry I could not hear any.
On a serious note, I have no scientific evidence to back up my claims. my knowledge is only from listening to luthiers and a meeting with, and lots of phone conversions with Andrew Morrow from the forestry section of the CSIRO when he did his report on tonewoods and sorry to say, he did not do any tests on the density and sound volocity
of ply wood, as for saying you bet your lefty that there would be just as many top luthiers who would disagree that the choice of wood is the most important control on the sound of a solid body electric guitar. I will agree to disagree with you, I have yet to get an inquiry for ply wood, and please keep your lefty Martin you never know when you might need it.
Cheers, Bob.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

This was Bob's observation:

"To me if one uses good dense tonewood it would have to sound better and after talking with some of the worlds top luthiers they all agree that solid wood sounds better."

Why does "good dense tonewood" have to sound good??

I would bet my lefty that there are just as many top luthiers who would disagree that choice of wood is the most important control on the sound of a solid body electric guitar.

Give 10 men the same 20 band graphic equalizer set to their own personal choice and i bet not any of them will be the same.

Ok, this is only what i reckon, only my experience. So take it how you want.

You tap on a piece of tight dense timber (a hardwood) The sound will be sharp and crisp and loud.
Tap on a piece of loose, light softer material (say pine) the sound will be deeper and warm and not quite as loud.
Balsa, (to the extreme) the sound will be so soaked in you will get hardly much of a reaction at all. Pretty simple stuff im sure youll agree.

Same goes for pickups in a guitar. Sound bounces around the inside the rout and around the pickup (in this case a hardwood) and goes pretty much direct with very little sound soak going through the body, giving only crisp clean direct tones.

A pine body will give you a more warmer tone with more sound soak and probably not as loud but will be rich.

So depending on the timber the sounds and vibrations will be different.

So does painting the inside of a pickup rout make any difference? I say it does. Mant laugh! To me, the tones through the timber would be less effective if painted, if its the wood tones your after, you'd only be taking some of that away.
Would you paint the inside of an acoustic guitar? Youd kill that beautiful tone that the wood had to offer.

On a side note regarding ply.
I laminate a crap load of skateboard decks and the maple i use is always the same. Same batch.They sound the same when you work on them, the tone of them when they are dropped or hit to the ground, they all have that crispness to them. Until after pressing around the 300 mark i had to buy more glue. I wasnt able to purchase the stuff i was using and had to go with another product. This new glue was dead, boards were not as crisp, they had lost that crisp tone that the others had, not only that they weren't as strong. So glue will play a big factor.

Greg

Originally Posted by Groundhangers

Same goes for pickups in a guitar. Sound bounces around the inside the rout and around the pickup (in this case a hardwood) and goes pretty much direct with very little sound soak going through the body, giving only crisp clean direct tones.

An electromagnetic pickup responds to the vibration of the string. Take the strings off an electric and hit the body and you wont get any signal at all out of the pick up. The ONLY way wood can affect the sound of an electric instrument is by changing the way the string vibrates. This can only happen by string energy passing through to the body or neck of the instrument via the nut (or fret) or saddle and then passing back to the string again via the same points. The amount of energy involved is small....its why electric guitars must be amplified to be heard...and the amount of string energy interacting with the wood and then feeding back into the string is even smaller. It is for this reason that I believe the influence of choice of wood on the sound of an instrument is tiny compared to the influence of the electrics.

Oh i know exactly how a pickup works, i make them and run them through all kinds of electronic measuring instruments, but its these minimals that make the difference.

Things ive done, attached strings to the back of the guitar, it works, not that good, but we have sound.
Turned the pickup upside down, actually works pretty good.
Put a lead cover over the top of the pickup, some really interesting results, sound is deep.

Originally Posted by Groundhangers

Oh i know exactly how a pickup works, i make them and run them through all kinds of electronic measuring instruments, but its these minimals that make the difference.
.

I think this is a never ending debate, those that believe it does and those that dont, I have worked on probably about a few thousand guitars a few thousand violins a few thousand saxophones clarinets and so forth. In my opinion the material the guitar """electric"" is made out of is compleltey irrelevant, but theres no way I will clealry be able to convince the non believers.

Originally Posted by Groundhangers

Things ive done, attached strings to the back of the guitar, it works, not that good, but we have sound.

Interesting...where the pickups on the front of the guitar? I have to ask...why did you do this?

Originally Posted by simso

In my opinion the material the guitar """electric"" is made out of is compleltey irrelevant, but theres no way I will clealry be able to convince the non believers.

A good little exercise would be to give two identical solid body instruments to a musician and tell him that one of the guitars is made of ply and he has to work out which one it is after playing both instruments.

A never ending debate maybe but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of discussion.

Originally Posted by Groundhangers

Same goes for pickups in a guitar. Sound bounces around the inside the rout and around the pickup (in this case a hardwood) and goes pretty much direct with very little sound soak going through the body, giving only crisp clean direct tones.


Greg

This statement sounds as if you are saying that you believe that the pickups can somehow hear the sound that "bounces around the inside the rout" , is that correct?

Jim

Originally Posted by Groundhangers

So does painting the inside of a pickup rout make any difference? I say it does. Mant laugh! To me, the tones through the timber would be less effective if painted, if its the wood tones your after, you'd only be taking some of that away.
Would you paint the inside of an acoustic guitar? Youd kill that beautiful tone that the wood had to offer.



Greg

Yes I would paint the inside of a acoustic guitar and do so always, as do other luthiers. It is done to slow the moisture exchange rate. It does not "kill that beautiful tone" and it is arguable that a finish on a acoustic guitar assists good tone.

G'Day Martin, It is good to see your quote below.
A never ending debate maybe but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of discussion.

After all that is what forums are all about, we have ones who believe that wood makes no difference to the sound of a solid body guitars and the ones who believe it does make a difference to the sound, I am in that camp and not just because I sell wood, but for the simple reason of all my conversations with luthiers over the years, I don't know Martin maybe I plus all the ones I speak with are wrong, but to me dense wood with a good tap tone the sound waves would travel better through this than they would through heaps of layers of crap ply wood with glue in between each layer, as after all that is what plywood is just crap wood sliced into thin strips. So to me if a guitar is build from nice wood, and pickups and every thing else is set up well it is going to be a beautiful instrument and that is what I am all about Martin to hand pick the best tone wood for custom builders, I am not interested in the mass market if some one wants a cheap guitar they can go and buy a cheap ply guitar.
Cheers Bob.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

A good little exercise would be to give two identical solid body instruments to a musician and tell him that one of the guitars is made of ply and he has to work out which one it is after playing both instruments.

A never ending debate maybe but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of discussion.

Originally Posted by toejam

This statement sounds as if you are saying that you believe that the pickups can somehow hear the sound that "bounces around the inside the rout" , is that correct?

Jim

I got the same impression....any vibration that is transmitted to the wood cannot end up generating a signal at the pickup unless it travels back to the strings.