A very resonant body

[Bruno]

Sometimes I hear people say that a solid guitar body is silent, voiceless, in other words: not resonant.
So I ask you: there is a **definitive test** to assess the resonance of solid guitar body?
Or, like I think, it's all connected to subjective factors, experiences, personal sensitivities etc.?
Thanks


p.s:
my 2nd Warmoth project is coming: alder body like quilt top maple (I hope resonant )  + raw neck
(goncalo or indian rose or pau ferro. But my dream - or nightmare - is a maple raw neck )

 

[Orpheo]

I always use a tuning fork on the bodies and necks I get to assess the tonal properties. If the fork rings true and long,the guitar will be resonant and alive,and vice versa.

Ps.why are you so fixed on raw maple? It's bland,boring,the tone is so-so...pau ferro looks and feels much better.

 

[Bruno]

I always use a tuning fork on the bodies and necks I get to assess the tonal properties. If the fork rings true and long,the guitar will be resonant and alive,and vice versa.

Forgive me, would you explain more easily how to do this?

Ps.why are you so fixed on raw maple? It's bland,boring,the tone is so-so...pau ferro looks and feels much better.

But it was understood that I am joking with this story of the raw maple neck?
It was only a (crazy ok) idea had long time ago. Nothing more

I know pauferro, I have a neck and is  simply the best :icon_thumright:

 

[Orpheo]

Take a tuning fork, let it ring,and when you hear the note, put the fork on the body or necj or guitar, depending on what it is you're testing. And then listen to what it does,compare it to. a guitar you know, and draw conclusions. its that simple. Don't make things harder than they have to be.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Take a tuning fork, let it ring,and when you hear the note, put the fork on the body or necj or guitar, depending on what it is you're testing. And then listen to what it does,compare it to. a guitar you know, and draw conclusions. its that simple. Don't make things harder than they have to be.

:icon_scratch: But wouldn't this "just" tell about how good the wood resonates and provides overtones at concert pitch? What if the wood resonated better in E og G?

 

[Cagey]

That's the problem with that trick. Who knows? The wood may resonate 5hz up from your tuning fork. Or, it may resonate great there but nowhere else at all. Or it may resonate everywhere except at the frequency you're trying to make it vibrate at.

I can't see this being a test that returns any valuable data.

 

[Bruno]

I read that holding the guitar by the neck, playing B string and placing hand on the rear body, you can be perceived if there are good vibrations.
To be honest... I do not remember if it's really correct method  :tard: :tard: :tard: :tard:
:glasses9:

 

[Cagey]

You'd have the same problem. It may be resonant at "B", but not for any other note. Or, it may not be resonant at "B", but is for every other note. Or, it could be some combination of the two. So, the results of a test like that aren't very broad indicators of how a body/neck combo is going to sound.

If you want to build an acoustic guitar, Warmoth is the wrong body/neck supplier. They provide high-quality bodies/necks for electrics that use both typical and exotic wood species and are available with excellent finishes at reasonable prices.

 

[Bruno]

I say nonsense (another)...
Same wood: weight of the body influence resonance or not?
Ex: alder body, 4lbs 6oz is more or less resonant that 3lbs 6oz? Another: solid vs chambered?
Or there is no method, and it's all empirical?

 

[Orpheo]

it wouldn't be a fair test, but it is some indication. you can use several tuning forks. if you like, every note. A through G. and if the guitar resonates with every note, I'm sure it is okay

 

[Cagey]

I say nonsense (another)...
Same wood: weight of the body influence resonance or not?
Ex: alder body, 4lbs 6oz is more or less resonant that 3lbs 6oz? Another: solid vs chambered?
Or there is no method, and it's all empirical?

Grab yourself a 5.5lb swamp ash body, then if you can get it, something built identically using a 3.5lb swamp ash body. Or, ask around. Same wood. Are they different? Sure. There's a lot more inertia in the heavier body. Acoustically, the lightweight will sound better. Electrically, the heavyweight will sound better. Maybe. Depends on the neck, and more to the point, the pickups. It also depends heavily on what you call "good". The biggest difference, and it's not saying much, is going to be in sustain and high end response. The heavy rascal will have that in spades, relatively speaking. Is it "good"? One guy might hate it, while another will say it's Nirvana.

It's not empirical, it's subjective. There's no accounting for taste. If you're waiting for somebody to tell you what to buy, it's unlikely you'll be happy with what you get. Nobody has your ears, tastes or desires.

That's the biggest problem with buying guitars or guitar parts online. There's no way to know where things will end up. If you must know for certain before you plunk your money down that you're going to be happy, you're going to have to go to a store with a pile of guitars in stock and play them all until you're sure what you're getting is what you want. Other than that, it's a crap shoot.

 

[-CB-]

This I've tried quite a few times - changing necks, using different wood.

First hand experience tells me that the neck is the biggest tone shaping device made of wood on the "solid" guitar.  Body wood type is not as much of a difference as folks might make it out to be.  I've got two guitars, each with 52 reissue Tele pickups - one is mahogany, one medium weight ash.  Same neck, same new string type, same exact - measured - set up.  Tone not a whole lot different.  Sustain not too different.  More like very minute shades of the same overall flavor... hard to describe.  The word "lively" might be applied to the ash one.  Maybe a little better attack... very very subtle difference.  The necks made a HUGE difference.  Going from goncalo-alves, to birdseye maple was night and day.  Interestingly, at the time I had a birdseye maple neck, and a straight maple with pau-ferro board.  Tone was the same.

When I built that amber tele thinline of mine, with the black binding, I put a P90 at the neck and a warm Burstbucker #3 at the bridge.  It had a goncalo-alves neck and was way too warm.  I put in 500k then 1m pots.  Still too warm.  It saddened me.  Finally, I switched to an all maple neck.  The tone was so bright, I had to switch back to 250k pots!  That guitar has a "middle" control (like the Gibson L6s) and it was useless with the goncalo neck.  Quite usable and very nice tones now with the maple neck.  Night and day difference.

I took the goncalo neck, put it on a solid ash guitar with a mini humbucker at the neck, and hot Fralin tele pickup at the bridge.  Thats also doing well with tone, not too bright, but still nice and quacky. 

You really need to consider more than body wood for tone.  The neck and pickups must also be matched with the body, especially solid vs thinline. 

 

[jackthehack]

Leaving chambered/semi-hollow bodies out of the equation, just strum the strings without being plugged into anything, how loud is it?

Neck wood/profiles DO make an awful lot of difference, but if there is any "rule" for body wood, go light as possible, from the point of physics, that makes sense.

The most resonant non-hollow body I own is the '64 hot-rodded Gibson Melody Maker below; old school mahogany from the good old days, the guitar weighs 5 lbs, 1 oz (2.3 kg).

 

[swarfrat]

I think a better test is just to rap it with your knuckles and see if it has a pleasant thunk. The pitch and subjective dampening is what I look for.

 

[Strat Avenger]

The "crap shoot" is half the fun.  :icon_biggrin:

I know from personal experience that a hard ash body with a maple neck has tons more high-end than an alder body with a maple neck, so the body absolutely does affect the tone, however the neck affects it too.

 

[Bruno]

First hand experience tells me that the neck is the biggest tone shaping device made of wood on the "solid" guitar. 
[...]

Absolutely.
A very good Italian luthier (G. Frudua) writes:
"Most of the string's vibration on an electric guitar or bass is supported by the neck therefore the neck plays the main role in electric guitar tone. Neck's mass is 10/12 times smaller than body's one but 70% of the strings energy runs over it. The remaining 30% is dissipated into a 12/15 times bigger piece of wood, the body. This simple fact explains why the wood neck is made of, it's resonance features, density, thickness, shape and construction, headstock deepely infuence the guitar tone and are much more important than body in determine the sound properties of a stringed instrument.
Among the most important physical properties that rule neck influence in the guitar tone are:
# stiffness (elasticity coefficient along the grain). This is more important for acoustic guitars and violins tops construction,
# wood density (i.e. coefficient of propagation of sound inside wood),
# internal friction (attitude of a material to dampen the energy which applied to wood),
# truss rod installation method,
# Type of truss rod installed,
# seasoning of neck wood.
Maple is by far the best wood for what concerns stiffness, density and sound propagation. It's performance is only over passed by spruce which actually is not as stiff and therefore can't be used in neck's construction."

Link with image: http://www.frudua.com/neck_influence_in_guitar_tone.htm

 

[Bruno]

The "crap shoot" is half the fun.   :icon_biggrin:

I know from personal experience that a hard ash body with a maple neck has tons more high-end than an alder body with a maple neck, so the body absolutely does affect the tone, however the neck affects it too.

Based on your experience, to get a balanced tone, which wood neck for:
- solid mahogany/quilted maple top
- solid alder/quilt maple top