2 piece or 1 piece alder strat body? Tonal diference?

[ORCRiST]

A tonehound told me a 2 piece body with the glue joint down the middle should sustain better.

That sounds like arbitrary BS really... However, I got my body unfinished from W:

...and I am constantly amazed at how well and how long it sustains... very resonant, and that's with a think poly finish, too...

 

[QehQeh]

so a particle board body would have the best tonal characteristics since its made up of millions of pieces of wood all glued together?  :laughing7:

Only if all of the millions of pieces’ grain is aligned.

The story about the 5-way switch is he got a boatload of them at surplus pricing.  Then again, if you ask Buddy Guy, he'll tell you about how he invented it.

Hey, wait a minute… Dick Dale says HE invented the 5-way switch!!!

 

[line6man]

DP3T switches have been around since the early days of electricity, I'm sure.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

A tonehound told me a 2 piece body with the glue joint down the middle should sustain better.

That sounds like arbitrary BS really...

Ha.  Most tonehound proclamations usually are.  I took it with a grain of salt as what the body is or how many pieces it is is way down my check list of things to obsess over. 

 

[Strat Avenger]

I like one and two-piece guitar bodies, although I don't know what affect it has on tone, if any. It's funny the things people will debate, like SS frets not sounding as good as traditional nickle. It's hogwash, but people love to debate.

As for the 5-way switch, I don't remember who it was, but some well-known player discovered that he could position the blade of the three-way switch in-between the detent positions and get that "quack". It was sometime after that when Strats were factory equipped with the 5-way.

Regarding the RWRP comment; I disagree. Although I personally cannot stand pickups that hum, so what if positions 2 and 4 are RWRP hum-canceling when 1,3, and 5 are gonna hum like crazy? This is not even to mention that most playing in 2 and 4 positions is done with a Clean amp setting, so there isn't gonna be any significant hum unless there are florescent lighting or neon signs nearby. I'm obviously talking about classic Strat single-coils here, not a H-S-H setup.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Good points.

On a side note, I was lurking around looking for something else today and found a site where someone regarded body wood as most of the sound and listed the neck wood as the least important.  But hey, it's on the internet.

 

[NovasScootYa]

If you are using a two-piece Strat body intended for a clear finish it's going to be nicer to look at if it's book-matched. A book-matched body can also be a good selling point like a one piece body otherwise a two, three piece Strat body works just as well.
If you are building Violins, Acoustic Guitars, etc. it's a different ballgame where anything other than book-matched wood is frowned upon. Excludes one piece Violin backs which many prefer.