The data is in: the Wood Doesn't Matter

S

stubhead

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Uh-oh. Get a groupie (or yer wife) drunk and she'll tell you the same thing: "Electric guitars all sound the same." But this guy's real... Woodn't be surprised if NAMM (or Fender, or... :eek:) sends in a SWAT team. Mysterious accidents DO happen... :evil4:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/does-a-10000-guitar-sound-better-than-a-300-one-20120723-22k7b.html
 
Interesting. Would have liked more detail. Maybe he'll publish a paper.
 
Unfortunately these kinds of small scale tests generally aren't as thorough as necessary to be able to draw the sweeping conclusions people like to make (to be fair, that's extremely difficult, time consuming and potentially very costly).

Also, sometimes I'm not sure if the conclusions drawn even match the data presented. And they don't generally put the quantitative measurements in the context of what's audible under typical (or ideal) listening conditions.


But FWIW, here's another interesting paper that compares alder and ash bodies recorded with both PU's and microphones:

http://www.stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf
 
Since this guy is claiming "science", lets see a controlled experiment.

Same shape
Same construction
Same hardware
Same pickups, moved between guitars
Same electronics, moved between guitars
Same strings

Furthermore, lets see an ACTUAL paper done on the situation. Did this "Deb Anderson" write everything, or did she just write the first paragraph? If Matthew Angove wrote the bulk of this paper, he should have cut the "humour".

Lets go into how pickups react to string vibrations. I believe it's absolutely set in stone that unplugged, different woods sound different. So is it simply that pickups don't "pick up" whatever changes between woods?

I hate when people try to change the general population's opinions without substantial evidence.
 
I'm certainly not endorsing him, I'll use the woods I like. Beside the lack of controls and the sample size making this study scientifically weak, it comes with the most common problem: only odd or contrary information counts as "news." The science and medical reporters are particularly strapped for anything really interesting or contradictory to report, so they leap upon any study that goes against the "common-sense" doctrines. Just because of how statistics work, sooner or later you're going to come across a small sample-size study that "proves" cigarettes inhibit cancer. And being "news" because it's weird, that's the one that gets trumpeted from the rafters. And all the susequent studies that contradict it are just plain dull.

Several decades ago, there was a study done that supposedly "proved" that a prayer group could change the rate of cancer recovery of some total strangers, just by praying for them. And because people wanted it to be true so badly, it's even entered the culture as "fact." Never mind that the original study was flawed in technique, or that a few dozen further studies have disproved it, and a review of the field using a large-scale sample size shows no effect from prayer - people just like the first conclusion better.

And it's one thing to say "well stupid people are gonna act stupid" but it does cause harm, in my eyes anyway. If you engage with "news" often enough, you'll see story after story about people who had a dream idea and started up a small business and struggled and mortgaged their house and worked 110 hours a week and the inlaws mortgaged their house, and then the idea caught on, and now Buffy and Biffy are millionaires. What they don't tell you is that Boomer and Sue-Bee right up the street did the same thing, and lost their house and the in-laws lost their house and now they're all living in a motel and selling crack to schoolchildren - because 80% of small businesses fail, and the "news" reporters have to look far and wide to find the small percentage who succeed. Just so they can tell you a happy story which still fits the happy model.
 
Another serious flaw in his <cough> methodology is that he's basically just measuring a couple randomly selected parameters and pronouncing his declaration. A static oscilloscope shot really don't say much at all in terms of sonic character. It says nothing about time dynamics, or level dynamics, or note interaction - in short - there's a whole lot more going on than just taking a couple measurements.
 
Paul-less said:
Since this guy is claiming "science", lets see a controlled experiment.




Lets go into how pickups react to string vibrations. I believe it's absolutely set in stone that unplugged, different woods sound different. So is it simply that pickups don't "pick up" whatever changes between woods?
Click to expand...
I think this is the key to it all. The characteristics of the woods tone is going to be more prominent in it's natural state, which would be acoustically. Without the contamination of electronics, I do believe woods have their own natural tone, but their basis of their tonal qualities is acoustic. Stradivarius didn't make his violins with electronics, and yet some exact copies of his violins don't sound the same. Just my .02
 
I personally am of the opinion that 90% of subjective opinions on things like sound or taste are bull.

You put the same wine in two bottles, one with a higher price tag, and people will tell you that the more expensive one tastes better, even though it's identical. (They'll even go into detail about what specifically was different and better.)

I would be surprised if there isn't an identical effect with sound - take the same tones but tell people one came from a koa bodied guitar and the other came from an alder bodied guitar, and I'd bet people will tell you they sound different, and the koa one sounds better. And then they'll tell you about how they don't sound the same, because they personally heard the difference.

With any type of subjective experience like that, your brain is as much or more a factor than anything else. So until you can show me specific blind taste tests or listening tests that tell me that people will consistently rate one thing higher than the other, I'm going to err on the side of believing that there isn't a difference.
 
NQbass7 said:
I personally am of the opinion that 90% of subjective opinions on things like sound or taste are bull.

You put the same wine in two bottles, one with a higher price tag, and people will tell you that the more expensive one tastes better, even though it's identical. (They'll even go into detail about what specifically was different and better.)

I would be surprised if there isn't an identical effect with sound - take the same tones but tell people one came from a koa bodied guitar and the other came from an alder bodied guitar, and I'd bet people will tell you they sound different, and the koa one sounds better. And then they'll tell you about how they don't sound the same, because they personally heard the difference.

With any type of subjective experience like that, your brain is as much or more a factor than anything else. So until you can show me specific blind taste tests or listening tests that tell me that people will consistently rate one thing higher than the other, I'm going to err on the side of believing that there isn't a difference.
Click to expand...

Really?? There's no difference in tone between guitars with bodies made of alder, mahogany, and hard ash with the same pickups, hardware, & strings?

All just "subjective"?

Give me a break.
 
I wouldn't go so far as to say there isn't a difference, but I think it's generally minor, perhaps in some cases to the point of insignificance. Amplified, that is. Acoustically, the differences can be dramatic. I have plenty of examples of that in my collection, as I'm sure we all do.

Here's how I look at it.

The pickups can only sense the string vibrations, not the body, so the low impact of the neck/body composition makes sense. But, it's also true that the neck/body combination absorbs some of the energy of the strings, and more or less so at different frequencies. That changes how the strings vibrate and for how long, and since the pickups sense the strings, that influence has to be audible once amplified.

For example, a hard, dense wood is going to absorb little energy from the string(s), so you would have longer sustain periods. If the wood is shaped or has a grain structure that allows it to absorb certain frequencies more so than others, you'd also have variations in tonal character as some harmonics decay while others continue. So, it would seem to be difficult to say that composition (wood) doesn't influence the character of the sound in an electric guitar, since it influences the vibration of the strings and the pickups sense the strings.

I still think the influence isn't enough to get worked up over. I don't think it can be disregarded, but I think the solidity of the bridge and the behavior of the pickups and amplification chain are the major tone shapers for electric guitars.
 
drewfx said:
Unfortunately these kinds of small scale tests generally aren't as thorough as necessary to be able to draw the sweeping conclusions people like to make (to be fair, that's extremely difficult, time consuming and potentially very costly).

Also, sometimes I'm not sure if the conclusions drawn even match the data presented. And they don't generally put the quantitative measurements in the context of what's audible under typical (or ideal) listening conditions.


But FWIW, here's another interesting paper that compares alder and ash bodies recorded with both PU's and microphones:

http://www.stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf
Click to expand...
This is a better picture of what the first effort was trying to do. You can see a big difference when the guitars are mic'd, not so much when plugged in. That is what I would expect from my own collection.
 
Curious that different players will sound different with the same guitar that by itself will sound the same.
 
Pick attack, pressure of the fretting hand. Hell, the amount of vibrato you use. That is what makes people sound like themselves on different instruments, and unique when multiple people use the same instrument.
 
"...electric guitar companies tend to have come from acoustic guitar companies."
  Huh?  It happens most often when said companies are older than electicity.



"Would Bruce Springstein sound the same on a cheap instrument?"
  Yes.



"I'm a guitar player and it turns out there's been very little research in the field of the electric guitar."
  I work at Gibson.



"I've only been looking at the results for two weeks, and it really looks like all of them are pretty much identical."
  2 weeks!?  In a row!?
 
I think this debate gets a little sidetracked at times because of the way it's defined.

People want to believe that mahogany sounds one way, while alder has a slightly different tone and ash offers yet another variation on the tonal pallet.

The truth is, a mahogany guitar can sound identical to ash or alder guitar and there really is no way of knowing in advance what a given guitar will sound like.

All we can do is take our best guess and hope we like the results.

The most important thing anyone can do to improve their tone is to practice.
 
That's true. Choosy mothers have always known you don't buy the first Strat off the rack. You play all of them, because one of them might be magical. There are too many variables involved, and even when they all look identical they're not. One's pickups are a little hotter/colder, one's Swamp Ash is a little looser/denser, one's neck is more or less rubbery, one's tone cap has more or less capacity, on and on ad infinitum and all combinations of all the above.
 
It's often said that tone is in the fingers, which I will agree to if we stipulate that the fingers turn the amp knobs, buy the strings and cables, fingers that turn the pages or click the forward on some books or videos... most modern, decent-quality amps have far more treble and bass than you'll ever need, and when somebody sets it to their preference, it's going to be their fingers that they use (we hope!) :eek: :eek: :eek:

2) It's impossible to discount the mental bonding you do with any certain instrument, and that one may be the one you work really, really hard on getting a good sound out of. And it doesn't even matter what it's made of, practically - that's the one you fall asleep playing and the one you play when you wake up in the middle of the night and you HAVE TO get something down. Even if there was some statistical proof it was a P.O.S., it wouldn't matter at all.
 
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