Does the top wood make a difference?
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Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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On a flat top, the laminate is 1/8" and there for looks, so no. On a carved top with a big cap, they say it does. I'm undecided on how much after considering neck wood, body wood, and to a lesser extent fretboard wood. There's 4 different woods exerting their flavors to different degrees. When it's all assembled, they usually sound like pickups and amps mostly.
Cagey
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Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
On top of all that, there's the issue of weight. Even a lightweight body is quite heavy compared to everything else, so it has a lot of inertia. It's difficult for the strings to have any influence over it, or vice-versa.
Along those same lines, it's funny how some folks worry about finish composition/thickness. They'll think an ounce or two more finish will affect something solid that weighs between 6 and 10 pounds and is often built up of glued laminates.
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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I always fall back to comparing Les Pauls to other Les Pauls. On several models with maple caps, some with opaque top finishes sneak a mahogany top in there, and no one's ears are the wiser. Many attest to LP Standards (maple cap) to being brighter than LP Customs (mahogany top), but they are different guitars. Both have different fretboard woods, different pickups, one has been historically chambered, but it's the top? :icon_scratch:
not much difference in my opinion. Do not underestimate the influence of appearance influencing your hearing. The biggest contributer to tone is technique, followed by amp and amp speaker. Pu do contribute, but all of it is a tone delivery system from your fingers to the audience. So, by the time it gets down to choice of top wood, the effect is minimal being overwhelmed by the factors of technique and amp and speaker. Good assy and setup does make a difference, but choose any top you want and you likely can get any result you want when all the factors are considered.
I wanted to add it is impossible to predict how a particular piece will influence the sound in a partiulare instrument. The character of the wood is changed by where in the tree it came from. So it may be possible that a piece of mahogony and a piece of ash have more in common tonally than other pieces of mahongy and ash from the same tree. So, bottom line is that there is no way to predict the warmness or coolness affect on guitar tone due to many factors including where a piece of wood is cut in a tree. However, you will find people that claim that a certain type of wood has a certain sound. No matter how many times that has been debuncted, It must be right because I read it on the internet. Much of the "tonal wood" for electric guitars is sales gimmicks. Makers claim insider knowlege for the purpose of selling their guitars to you. However you are here, so it speaks to your desire to create you own guitar no matter what others are doing.
Jumble Jumble
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If you're chasing a tone, focus on the amp first, then the pickups. That will get you 95% there and the rest you can fake with EQ and your playing technique.
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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We've been accused before (some of us atleast) of saying all woods sound the same. The tone charts are a starting point, and good rule of thumb. This is nature however, and there are variants. Thing is, you have to have several of the same wood to make any accurate judgment. If you've only got one guitar of _______ wood that is supposed to be bright or warm, that one piece may be the outlier, yet we make judgements on a species as a whole. Overgeneralization?
Cagey
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Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
I don't know. Over-generalization implies under-sampling, where outliers may escape detection. Over-sampling will catch the outliers, but then you get the typical bell curve. Either way is going to have its adherents, depending on the message you'd like to project. If you're the argumentative type, it's easy to make your case in any court because proof exists regardless of preconceived notions.
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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Cagey said:
That's exactly what I said. Overgeneralizing and under sampling. Many people may dislike a certain wood or even company because they only have one experience, and it's negative.
SustainerPlayer
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Anybody had a case of bad wood?
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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SustainerPlayer said:
I don't like Basswood. It's too soft. Others do like and swear by it as a tonewood.
lkja8uatt33
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I've had a Warmoth aldar body with maple neck & ebony fretboard for many years and I can coax a wide range of sounds out of it.
I will say though that a Les Paul with a carved maple top does add to harmonic string "squel" quite nicely.
I would imagine that a 1/8 top would not contribute much to the sound, but that a 3/4 maple top would have an impact depending on how you play.
The down side to making a Strat with a 3/4 maple cap (similar to a LP) is that the addition of a forearm contour might cut down to the core wood (whatever you may have used for that).
You could still keep the contour if you painted the body - or else, even nicer - would be to add a matched top on top of the 3/4 maple cap. I imagine that is something that could be done without too much trouble. Mahogany core + 3/4 maple cap + bookmatched top - that would be awesome I think.
I will say though that a Les Paul with a carved maple top does add to harmonic string "squel" quite nicely.
I would imagine that a 1/8 top would not contribute much to the sound, but that a 3/4 maple top would have an impact depending on how you play.
The down side to making a Strat with a 3/4 maple cap (similar to a LP) is that the addition of a forearm contour might cut down to the core wood (whatever you may have used for that).
You could still keep the contour if you painted the body - or else, even nicer - would be to add a matched top on top of the 3/4 maple cap. I imagine that is something that could be done without too much trouble. Mahogany core + 3/4 maple cap + bookmatched top - that would be awesome I think.
DslDwg
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I would also add it probably depends on what you play.
I think woods have a greater influence on a clean sound that has very little processing.
I also think you could slam a couple of EMG 81's in a guitar made of cardboard and get a decent high gain sound.
My long winded opinion is this. Most people don't build two guitars exactly the same except for the top material, which is the only possible way IMO you could really tell a difference.
Then you would need analyze the differences as a listener and not a player. Because I feel like as players we perceive vibrations and feel as tone or sound differences when in actuality the sound coming out of the amp is the same.
I think woods have a greater influence on a clean sound that has very little processing.
I also think you could slam a couple of EMG 81's in a guitar made of cardboard and get a decent high gain sound.
My long winded opinion is this. Most people don't build two guitars exactly the same except for the top material, which is the only possible way IMO you could really tell a difference.
Then you would need analyze the differences as a listener and not a player. Because I feel like as players we perceive vibrations and feel as tone or sound differences when in actuality the sound coming out of the amp is the same.
I know many people argue that you could put the electronics on anything and it will sound the same, my experience is otherwise. Anyone else deliberately tried to "duplicate" a guitar? I built a backup for my main gigging Strat and was surprised at how different they sounded with exact same electronics and similar wood and parts. The woods that I have multiple guitars of (alder, ash and mahogany mostly) I find substantially variable. This leads me to believe that every factor contributes to the tone (including a top laminate). These things all contribute to how the guitar resonates and reflects the sound, which ultimately translates to what the pickups amplify.
What makes it difficult is there are so many potential variables, it's hard to say what really changed the tone. The most controlled exercise I did was this "backup" guitar I mentioned. Even in that case, how identical are the same brand/model of pickups and pots?
What makes it difficult is there are so many potential variables, it's hard to say what really changed the tone. The most controlled exercise I did was this "backup" guitar I mentioned. Even in that case, how identical are the same brand/model of pickups and pots?
