Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

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Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by quyet »

I've made this thread because I have a Fender Player tele and a Fender Vintera 50s strat. Both alder body and maple neck.

Unplugged I expected them to sound roughly similar, but they are quite different. Relatively speaking, the tele is bright and airy while the strat is rich and bassy. For recording, the strat sounds huge while the tele is more delicate. Pickups aside, I am talking about that same unplugged sound coming through.

I always thought strats sounded unique because of the tremolo cavity and springs, but this is not the difference in sound I expected. What else is going on?

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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by Voxshall »

I'm of the opinion that everything makes a difference the neck, the body the way the body and neck match each other, every part can make a difference to the sound, I heard a difference in tuners, bridge saddles, springs, trem block, nut, setup, guitar design, each piece of wood interacts with the way the strings make sound in a unique way. You can run around in circles with all this stuff, I think there could be a case that the neck makes the biggest difference but then there is the way all the parts create the whole, sometimes you might think a part is no good then you place it in a different guitar in a different context and it comes to life. So the issue with tone chasing is saying these are the best pickups or this is the best pedal, when in reality that depends on the guitar or the rest of the setup you match it with.

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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by Molly »

I used to have nine Strats. Even those of the same spec sounded different. I recall reading that Pete Townsend, for example, would try twenty of the same guitar before choosing one. Acoustically at least the wood had to make a difference. Quite how much of that makes it through the amp I'm not sure.

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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by GrantB »

I’ve had guitars that just simply wouldn’t sound better with any changes to hardware/pickups. I have seen many arguments recently that the construction of the body and neck make no difference to tone but I respectfully disagree. My recent build is evidence to that.
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by jeremyb »

Do you have the same brand and gauge of strings on them both? Are the strings the same age? I’ve found enough difference between brands of strings alone to cause differences in tone let alone getting into wood :lol:

It makes very little sense for the material the guitar is made out of to impart changes in tone to a piece of wire vibrating over a pickup but I’ve witnessed it first hand, to me it’s something to do with how the wood allows or restricts the strings to oscillate which effects the tone, it’s incredibly subtle but noticeable... even switching from neck screws to threaded inserts in a build I did made a difference, tighter with more sustain... YMMV
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by Danger Mouse »

I had a custom neck made for an old Ibanez, went from maple with rosewood fretboard to all maple. Old neck it was a dark guitar with lots of bass, but little clarity, new neck it was bright and articulate. Nothing else changed on the guitar.
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by murky »

+1 for everything.

Including string gauge and action/setup. Fret size/height also - affects how you play and therefore the tone.

What a rabbit hole.....

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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by GrantB »

murky wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:41 am +1 for everything.

Including string gauge and action/setup. Fret size/height also - affects how you play and therefore the tone.

What a rabbit hole.....
We should create a formula, or a model to calculate it all. Deloitte could structure it up for us with sensitivity parameters.
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by NippleWrestler »

Wood as a species doesn't seem to matter.

The particulars of the wood do seem to matter.

I remember when I was learning to build guitars and we had a few pieces of alder. Some were heavy as a boat anchor and dark and very hard, others were pale, light, and had a very different ring to them when you tapped them.

Same of mahogany. Some is super dense and some isn't depending where and when it was grown. And you guessed it, maples, rosewoods etc all had similar variances in their weight, tap tone, and appearance.

So even between 2 pieces of the same wood you'd have massive differences.

Hence why I think it's too simplistic to blanket state "maple does xyz, mahogany does abc" because in reality you'd need an understanding of weight, density, to get an idea of what's going on. Of course it's too much to go into for a manufacturer to break down and catalog every piece of timber but they've led people down a path of binary logic when it's much more nuanced.

I remember trying to make a "warm sounding" guitar with a big mellow roundness to it. Trawling through timbers I ended up with a mahogany back and vitex top, with a neck of padauk. The tap tone led me that way, not the label.

Anyway. Wood matters in my opinion. It's just the tropes associated with a given species aren't always true as any species can have wildly different characteristics.

Like wine grapes, they're very different if grown in France or Australia but they're the same thing on paper.

It's all about terroir mofos.

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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by hamo »

GrantB wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:46 am
murky wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:41 am +1 for everything.

Including string gauge and action/setup. Fret size/height also - affects how you play and therefore the tone.

What a rabbit hole.....
We should create a formula, or a model to calculate it all. Deloitte could structure it up for us with sensitivity parameters.
Algorithms are where it's at these days my man. :mrgreen:
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by murky »

Also, don’t forget “old fingers”. Hard tool worn skin, brittle bones, and the faint waft of.....never mind......

You heard it here first.

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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by calling card »

I know when they are made of steel it is unmistakably steel sounding.
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by hamo »

One of the reasons I finally flicked my Epi LP was that it just never sounded that clear to me. Now I haven't played nearly enough guitars to know whether it was because it was of the finish (this was my main surmising based on the finish, which I expect was thick as poly), or the materials (solid mahogany body, set mahogany neck, rosewood board - possibly a maple cap but seen conflicting info). Or maybe LPs just don't produce the sound that I think I want? (Unlikely, but possible).

All this makes it difficult looking at other guitars in my budget (although admittedly I don't actually have a budget right now). Are they all just going to be heavily poly finished mud machines? Is there a price point where they start sounding brighter? Or is it all just in my imagination? :crazy:
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Re: Wood, build and understanding where the inherent tone is coming from

Post by H671 »

hamo wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 2:18 pm One of the reasons I finally flicked my Epi LP was that it just never sounded that clear to me. Now I haven't played nearly enough guitars to know whether it was because it was of the finish (this was my main surmising based on the finish, which I expect was thick as poly), or the materials (solid mahogany body, set mahogany neck, rosewood board - possibly a maple cap but seen conflicting info). Or maybe LPs just don't produce the sound that I think I want? (Unlikely, but possible).

All this makes it difficult looking at other guitars in my budget (although admittedly I don't actually have a budget right now). Are they all just going to be heavily poly finished mud machines? Is there a price point where they start sounding brighter? Or is it all just in my imagination? :crazy:
I plugged in a guitar last night after playing a different one & thought that it sounded very dark until I remembered that the previous guitar was a very bright one - a couple of EQ tweaks then back to sounding normal.
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