Is all of the good wood really gone?

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 18 Dec 2005 11:05 am

http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/006713.html

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 18 Dec 2005 11:25 am

Eric--
I only mentioned the tap business to refute the remark.

The magnetic pickups only receive vibrational energy from the metal strings, not from the body.

All the pickups I've ever had will produce a sound when tapped ,no metal strings involved.
As you said they sound different when isolated.

As I see it doubling up the springs or hard fastening the pickup to the body changes the tone because more body vibration is transfered to the pickup.

Jon- Thanks for the pointer. I had a feeling this was discussed a while ago.

David- Here is another one .Turn up an amplified solid body guitar to stage level volume.Damp the strings with your hand.Strum the short strings above the nut.Hear anything?
No magnetic pickup up there.
I do this on my TrueTone equipped lap steel and the plinking is loud and clear.Granted not stage volume but definitely amplified.
The pickup is screwed firmly to the body(no foam or springs).
[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 18 December 2005 at 11:53 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 18 Dec 2005 11:52 am

On the other hand, David, on the thought experiment: with vibrating strings in place, there must be some difference in whether the pickup is solidly attached, and thus no 'lost motion' in the movement of the pickup, compared to a pickup that 'floats,' or might technically be in motion with respect to the strings (being fixed to the board).
Or on the other hand, I've got 4 fingers and a thumb.

Jim Peters · Post by **Jim Peters** » 18 Dec 2005 12:05 pm

Eric,FYI, swamp ash is not junk pulpwood. The very best strats I,ve ever heard were swamp ash. It is a very light ash that grows half submerged. My son has a Melancon Strat that is the best sounding that I've heard, and also one of the lightest.
Agathis I don't know about.
Poplar is very similiar to alder, I think it's the same, but grown on the east instead of west coast. If Fender was east coast, we might have had poplar Strats. Anybody know for sure? JP

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 18 Dec 2005 12:15 pm

JP. I guess one man's "Junk wood"...

I'll tell you, the biggest laugh I've had in years was a recent ad for Venitian blinds made out of "Wood Alloy"...

Maple is indeed great, and I have noticed that my standard figured maple The Professional" seems to have as bright a tone as my metal neck PIII, being birdseye. Same pickups.

I am very interested in either Spanish Cedar ( which I have it is not 'cypress') or Cypress to make my Ericaster™ with a repop slightly wider neck.

David Doggett.

That's one of the most surprising observations I've heard of besides the "flatting the thirds" thing.. (ducks..)

Still looking for that "Morning Tree" people are always talking about..

EJL[This message was edited by Eric West on 18 December 2005 at 12:20 PM.]

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 18 Dec 2005 12:16 pm

My guess is that the electro magnetic field around a pickup coil will get disturbed(producing a voltage) by anything that vibrates it.
Metal really excites it,body vibration not so much.(I'm sort of the other way around myself) Anyway, seems like this must be true because how else could a pickup be microphonic? There is no diaphram,yet I've seen some that will transmit your voice if you speak into them.

Darryl Hattenhauer · Post by **Darryl Hattenhauer** » 18 Dec 2005 7:18 pm

On the one hand, I think hearing varies as much as vision. I usually like Martins and Guilds but not Gibsons, but that may be because I don't hear the way others do.

On the other hand, I suspect that a lot of players can't really hear the minute differences that they think they can. I'd like to see a huge "pluck off" where hundreds of experts listen too and play instruments blindfolded, and I'll bet the results would be like those blindfolded taste tests of beer and cola--random. (You can tell near-beer from Heineken, but you can't tell Schlitz from Blatz.) And any sound differences could be cancelled out live and in the studio by using sound processing.

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"Drinking up the future, and living down the past"--unknown singer in Phoenix[This message was edited by Darryl Hattenhauer on 18 December 2005 at 07:21 PM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 18 Dec 2005 11:04 pm

Well, I went back and tried the body tap test, and also picking behind the nut. Nada. I set my volume pedal to sound as loud as I could tolerate picking the strings, and took my foot off. Holding the strings to keep them from vibrating, I rapped on the body of my Zum hard with my knuckles. I heard nothing from the speaker. I picked the strings behind the nut. I could faintly hear the strings themselves behind the nut, but there was nothing coming from the speaker. The pickup was not creating any signal from the body tapping or picking behind the nut. I take this to demonstrate that no vibrations are transmitted from the body to the pickup. By damping the strings, I was holding them steady and vibration free. But the pickup was still free to vibrate below the strings. Any faint vibrations that might have been present in the body or pickup were insufficient to create any audible signal.

However, if I tapped with my finger picks directly onto the plastic top of my new Truetone pickup, I heared a faint tapping through the speaker. I guess no pickup is totally free of microphonics. But even this sound was many times quieter than when I picked the strings. If that pickup tapping was done while I was playing, it would be completely drowned out and contribute nothing to the sound.

So I still remain very skeptical about pickup mounting affecting playing tone. I would have to see an AB blindfold test to believe it.

I took a look at the experiments on solidbody guitar body vibrations. As they said, the movie illustrations were greatly exagerated, because the actual vibrations are too small to see, even though they were tapping with a hammer. I'm still thinking these vibrations, although they can be measured with instruments, are too faint to contribute to tone, compared to the vibrations of the strings themselves and the direct pickup signal.

Here's a good test. If you press down with your hand on the top of an acoustic guitar while playing, the tone is affected. You can hear your hand damping the vibrations in the guitar top. But if you press or hold the top of a solidbody electric, there is no change in tone. Whatever minute body resonance might exist is too faint to make any difference in the pickup signal.

If you mount a magnetic pickup on an acoustic guitar, the top vibrations affect the string vibrations, which changes the signal in the pickup, and changes tone. Same with a hollowbody electric, only less so. But in a solidbody electric - nah. Maybe we could hear a difference between a softwood body and a hardwood body. But the difference between two similar hardwoods, or the difference between finishes? I'd have to see a blindfold test to believe anyone could tell. I just remain skeptical of the audible influence of minor differences on solidbody electric guitar tone. Eliminating such tone inconsistencies was sort of the whole point in inventing the solidbody electric guitar.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 18 December 2005 at 11:09 PM.][This message was edited by David Doggett on 19 December 2005 at 07:09 AM.]

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 19 Dec 2005 1:48 am

"Blindfold" testing and/or scientific tonal analysis would seem to be a great source of subjects for articles in guitar magazines, but I think there's probably a very good reason why the guitar magazines haven't and don't do any of it - look at their advertisers! Do their advertisers make more money, to spend on more guitar ads, if people buy more $2000 "tonewood" guitars, or if people buy more cheap, old, wierd guitars on Ebay? When was the last time you saw a "Shopping for a Good Used Guitar" article in the music rags? Hmmm.

There's an entire industry built up now based on manufacturing "boutique" fuzzboxes, all based on tiny variations of the old Tube Screamer circuits, using this Germanium chip and that film cap and so on. A really good candidate for a blindfold test article would be comparing the $150, $200, $250 Fulltone and Jacques and Zvex (etc) fuzztones to a $15 Ebay Ibanez Soundtank. Like that's really going to happen....

[This message was edited by David Mason on 19 December 2005 at 01:54 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 19 Dec 2005 7:10 am

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 19 Dec 2005 7:56 am

You must have a very well isolated or potted pickup.Also we're talking about solid body guitars here not Pedal Steels which may have intentionaly isolated pickups to avoid sound transmission from the mechanics.
If I plug one of my lap steels in and damp the strings then push another one thats not pluged in up against it. I can play the unamplified one and hear it through the amplifier.
If I touch the headstock of the unamped guitar against the plastic of the amped pickup the sound is very clear.
If I turn up the volume on my amp(Fender DeVille) to 5, damp the strings, and talk into the TrueTone I can hear my voice ringing in the reverb.This is not just a freak pickup.All my guitars will do this if the volume is turned up.
I think your right about all pickups being microphonic to some degree. How much tone can be generated by a solid body thru a pickup probably varies a lot.
I feel like you do,a lot of it is hype and black magic stirred up by guitar techs etc. but in todays high gain, high volume, solid guitar world with your Strat in a stack of Marshalls on 10 you you can probably hear your stomach growling.
I believe one of the primary reasons for the begining of the solid body was to eliminate feedback at high gain which comes from the
speaker exciting the strings and if they were damped resonating the hollow body of the guitar and pickup field.
[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 19 December 2005 at 08:16 AM.]

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 19 Dec 2005 10:44 am

Also, and I just had a discussion about this at the gig last weekend, Hollow Body Guitars are like drums or in earlier times I guess "gourds" that have a specific "tuning" or frequency.

Take a Guild Emperor and thump it while it's plugged in. You'll hear a definite "drone note" like a drum, though maybe less pronounced. Same with an Gretsch CG, 335, or any hollowbody. A "Drone note". Magnetic pickup or not. Probably Bb. I'll check to see if there was ever any consideration of that in the "early days".

IMHO the Fender Telecaster provided the best "non droning" solid body electric instrument. There is no other type of electric guitar that I can listen to without noticing a "drone note". Mine is microphonic as hell. They're best thataway.( Tap on the body and it comes through the amp just like my Sho~Bud.)

Funny how he was trying reportedly to get a sound like a "steel guitar"..

I think he had a great idea.

EJL [This message was edited by Eric West on 19 December 2005 at 10:13 PM.]

Ben Slaughter · Post by **Ben Slaughter** » 19 Dec 2005 1:37 pm

Agathis tree:
http://www.agathis.info/

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 19 Dec 2005 11:10 pm

Okay, I've come up with an easy experiment that sheds some light on this question of solidbody resonance. Take a double-neck lap or pedal steel, and set the volume pedal to a reasonable listening level and take your foot off the pedal so it stays there. Now play on the neck that is turned off. Hear anything from the pickup on the other neck coming out of the amp? If the volume you set was fairly quiet, you may hear nothing. If your volume was fairly loud, you should here the strings vibrating sympathetically on the neck that is turned on. Sound vibrations are traveling from the neck being picked (whose pickup is off) through the solid body to the nut, bridge and strings of the other neck, and the pickup on that neck is getting vibrations from those strings. But this sympatetic vibration is 10 times fainter than the volume you get picking a neck that is turned on. So that's how much solidbody resonance can contribute to the playing sound. I maintain that faint effect is negligible to the playing volume and tone.

Of course if you tromp down all the way on the volume pedal, you can make those sympathetic vibrations moderately loud - but if you pick the strings of the neck turned on at that volume, it will blow your windows out. So the sympathetic vibrations that travel through the body are still many times fainter than picking the strings. Turn both necks on at the same time. If you play one, can you hear anything from the other? How would you even know? The strings you are playing are many times louder than the sympathetic vibrations. So I maintain that string vibrations going into the solid body, causing it to resonate, and then going back into the strings, are so faint they have no appreciable effect on the playing tone or sustain.

Now what about sound being transferred not from string to body to string, but from strings, through the body, to a pickup? To hear that, do the same experiment as above, but damp the strings on the neck that has the pickup turned on. Hear anything from the amp? At any reasonable playing volume, you wont hear anything at all. If you turn the volume up loud enough on a powerful amp, you will hear something. But it's 10 times fainter than even the sympathetic vibrations we heard above. So that is the volume that pickup mounting variations have to play around with. I don't see how that could have any effect at all on normal playing tone.

So, yeah, you can knock on your guitar, play on the other neck, yell at the pickup, whatever, and tromp on your volume pedal and hear it. But hold that volume and strum the strings with normal pick pressure. It will blow your head off. The playing volume is many times louder than any of these effects.

Flamenco guitarists tap on their acoustic guitar top like a drum while playing. And you can hear it like a drum, right alongside the string strumming. Try that with a solidbody electric guitar. You got no taps. The resonance of a solidbody guitar contributes nothing compared to the volume coming from the strings and pickups.

The bottom line to me is that solidbody resonance is not a complete myth, it's just too faint to have an effect on anything. Practically speaking it's a myth. Of course if you use soft or mushy wood, and have sloppy connections between nut or bridge and body, or at the body neck joint of a six-string, that can deaden string vibrations and darken tone and kill sustain. But if you have a tight fitting, hardwood solidbody, minor variations in type of wood or finish are just not going to make audible differences in tone and sustain - nothing like minor variations in top wood or fan bracing in an acoustic guitar. But all these electric pickers, and all the manufacturers, go on about solidbody tone variations as if they were talking about Stradivarius violins or fine old Martins. I think it's a joke. They get all their tone from strings, pickups and amps. But I got no illusions about ever convincing the faithful.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 19 December 2005 at 11:29 PM.]

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 20 Dec 2005 5:29 am

Here is 2 of my favorite guitars in action. They are G&L's and both are swamp ash. Swamp ash is light in weight and sounds great. They are great to gig with. I remember back in the '70's, trying to hold up a Les Paul for a 4 set gig.....forget about it!

------------------
Zum U-12 w/True Tone pickup thru a Nashville 112

Strats thru a VHT Super 30

Band Pics
http://community.webshots.com/album/176544894AuXSmi

jonchristopherdavis.com

www.lonestarattitude.net

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 20 Dec 2005 6:28 am

I dunno, David. I think there's a significant sound difference between, for example, a real lightweight swamp ash Tele and a heavy one, all other things being the same. I've transferred hardware between different bodies and been struck by the difference. The lighter examples have always "popped" more, in that Tele way. I have always assumed that it has to do with the way the fundamentals and harmonics propagate and decay as a group, but I've never measured it. Even a relatively small difference in propagation and decay, due to significantly different body density, can make a significant difference in sound, owing to phase cancellation. I generally notice this most when I'm pushing a Tele hard, in a Roy Buchanan style. Those upper harmonics are more fragile than the fundamental, and I think every little thing affects them.

As far as pickup mounting goes (tight or loose), it is the relative motion between the strings and the pickup that gives rise to the emf in the coil. Clearly, if the pickup moves, the sound is changed as compared to the pickup not moving, assuming that the second order effect of the pickup motion perturbing the nominal string vibration is very small (I think it is). Probably not a huge effect, and I don't necessarily argue that one approach is "better" than another - it probably depends on the guitar.

All this is just my experience, YMMV.

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 20 Dec 2005 7:24 am

Here is another can of worms--Can you hear the difference between a Tele with a Maple fretboard and one with a Rosewood fretboard.
I believe they sound different due to,as Dave M. says, the influence on the delicate upper level harmonics.
I find this true in bass guitars also.

Then I guess we should get into how much filler around the fretmarker inlays and the size of the fret tangs (do nickel frets sound different than SS?) and truss rod tension and material.Yikes!!
[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 20 December 2005 at 07:32 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 20 Dec 2005 7:33 am

Here's another easy experiment demonstrating solidbody "tone." Unplug your solidbody steel or 6-string. Play it. There is the tone of your solidbody. That is what the pickup and amp have to work with. Take two solidbodies you think should have different tone. Unplug them and play them one after the other. Hear any difference? Well, it's hard to tell, because the solidbodies produce virtually no tone or volume unplugged.

Okay, get a mic out and play into it to get audible volume. Hear any difference in tone between the two instruments? Notice that, with an acoustic guitar, the mic picks up the most volume over the bridge or soundhole. But it gets plenty of volume from anywhere away from the edges of the top, not just over the strings. That is because the volume and tone are coming from the air moved by the whole top, not the air moved by the strings. But, for the solidbody, the mic has to be directly over the strings. You can move the mic anywhere you want over the body, but you'll get nothing except directly from the strings. The strings are vibrating and moving air (and not much), the body is not. There is no appreciable body vibration or resonance creating any sound. That block of wood simply holds the strings tight, so they can vibrate a long time over the magnetic pickup and generate an electric signal, there is no acoustic (moving air) sound coming from the solidbody.

Here's another experiment. Take an acoustic pickup and stick it on a solidbody guitar. If you turn the volume way up, you might get some sound from it. But it will be many times fainter than the sound that pickup produces from the vibrating top or bridge of an acoustic guitar. And notice the big difference between acoustic pickups and magnetic pickups. The acoustic pickup faces the bridge or top, not the strings. It gets the sound from the top, not directly from the strings. But the magnetic pickup faces the strings. It gets essentially all its signal from the strings, not the body.

That 5 lb. block of wood your hardware is attached to simply has no useful vibrational volume, resonance, or tone. 99.9% of the volume and tone come from the strings, pickup and amp. It's a magnetic electric instrument, not an acousitc one. A completely different set of rules applies.

Okay, I'm overstating the case to play devil's advocate and make a point. But I don't think I'm overstating as much as all the mythology about solidbody resonance and tone. [This message was edited by David Doggett on 20 December 2005 at 07:38 AM.]

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 20 Dec 2005 8:50 am

Actually, to me, the issue is the electrified tone. Through a cranked Vibrolux, for example, very subtle changes become magnified. There is ongoing exchange of energy between the strings and whatever they're connected to. With a solid body guitar, the primary resonances are at higher frequencies than a hollow-body guitar, but they're there, and influenced by shape, material density, bridge construction and materials, and so on. I really don't believe for one second that none of this makes any difference. But, as I said earlier, I think one may need to push the amp to really notice some of these differences.

I still don't think there is an unambiguous definition of what is "good" wood. The design should make the best use of whatever material is being used - I don't believe that the right designer can't make a good guitar out of any reasonable wood. After that, it becomes a matter of taste.

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 20 Dec 2005 8:59 am

For some reason I prefer the swamp ash guitars. As a gigging musician I have to consider more than just tone. Like I said before the swamp ash is light and always makes for a comfortable instrument to hold around your neck for 4 hours. I like the tone of swamp ash also. Certainly some maple guitars (or any other type) may sound a little better......a little....but may be 5 lbs heaview than my swamp ash. I'll worry about the best tone in the studio. That's where we drag out all the guitars and compare for tone.

------------------
Zum U-12 w/True Tone pickup thru a Nashville 112

Strats thru a VHT Super 30

Band Pics
http://community.webshots.com/album/176544894AuXSmi

jonchristopherdavis.com

www.lonestarattitude.net

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 20 Dec 2005 10:05 am

David-

Here's another easy experiment demonstrating solidbody "tone." Unplug your solidbody steel or 6-string. Play it. There is the tone of your solidbody. That is what the pickup and amp have to work with.

The pickup is bolted to the guitar not listening to it through the air.
Put your ear right up hard against the body of the guitar.
That is more like what the "pickup has to work with" with respect to body vibration.

Touch the live mic to the body of the guitar.The sound doubles, at least. That's what the pickup hears.

I think the upshot is, the more microphonic a pickup is the more "acoustic" a solid body guitar becomes and the more it's ingredients are likely be heard.
[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 20 December 2005 at 11:23 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 20 Dec 2005 3:12 pm

Okay, I put my ear hard up against the solidbody - still can't hear much. I would put my ear hard against an acoustic top, but it would hurt too much - too loud. It's like putting your ear against the motel room wall to hear the conversation next door, versus being in the room with your ear right next to the speaker's mouth the way nature intended.

It doesn't really matter that the pickup is bolted to the body. There is very, very little sound propagating through the solidbody, and the pickup is not an acoustic pickup designed to pickup up such non-metallic vibrations. Even if it has microphonic characteristics (generally considered a flaw), the signal it generates magnetically from the vibrating metal strings (which it is designed for) is many times stronger than anything it is picking up microphonically.

To go back to the motel room example, you have one ear against the wall trying to make out the conversation next door, and right next to your other ear, in your own room, your wife and mother-in-law are having an argument. You're getting nothing useful from the room next door, and getting way more than you can handle from vocal chords in your own room. That's the relation solidbody "resonance" bears to the magnetic signal directly from the strings.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 20 Dec 2005 5:31 pm

My good friend Mr Doggett.

If a new, specification wound, and installed pickup does not transmit a significant amount of body noise, I can safely say that a majority of Sho~Bud and Fender Tele and Sratocaster owners and players will not want it. I sure wouldn't

Again, there ARE steel guitars that have isolated pickups, such as the Sierras I have been familiar with over the years, but the sound is much different. Some people like it. I never did when it was me playing them. Likewise with guitars.

I liked your "tuning observations" better.

Your Friend and Obedient Servant,

EJL

EJL

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 20 Dec 2005 5:56 pm

OK, I've got my '68 alder-body Esquire out, I'm about to leave for a gig. I put my ear up to the upper bout, bass side, and strum. It is deafening and I can palpably feel the vibrations extend to the side of my head. It's much louder than if I put my ear right right up to the string, but not on the body. That's the body resonance. I used to use this method in the pre-electronic tuner days to tune my solid-body guitar on gigs between songs when I needed to do it quietly. I can easily hear it over the noise in a crowded club and the drummer going "rap, rap", with my volume turned all the way down. Is it loud enough to hear over my wife and mother-in-law? Emphatically, yes. I have lots of experience.

Same thing with the neck. I can feel the vibrations on the neck when I'm playing. How all these vibrations feel to me when checking out a new solid-body guitar is one of my first tests before buying.

Energy is dissipated in a solid-body as sound waves propagate through that medium, reflecting back and forth at the boundaries. The precise way this happens affects the string vibrations, since the energy is transferred back and forth between the neck, body, bridge, and strings. Of course, the dissipation rate is a lot smaller for a solid-body than a hollow-body, and the resonances are much higher, so the effect is quantitatively different. Harder, more dense solid-body woods typically have a smaller dissipation rate. Whatever causes it, two identical spec solid-body guitars can sound completely different, acoustically and amplified, at least to my ears.

Try a solid aluminum bodied guitar like a Travis Bean or early Kramer. Very, very different than a wood-bodied guitar. Similarly with graphite (body or neck) guitars and basses. I know a lot of bass players that love these, because they have fewer resonances, or "dead spots".

Jim Peters · Post by **Jim Peters** » 20 Dec 2005 6:31 pm

You can definitely hear differences in woods. A really great guitar is more demonstrative to that effect. I have some guitars that are all electric, the wood adds very little to the tone. My best guitars' strings react with the wood while I'm playing, and I react to what is going on.I can use what I'm hearing and feeling to enhance my notes. Dave D,try the ear test again, there is lotsa sound in that solidbody! Like Dave M, I have tuned my guitar "by ear"(pun intended) many times. Maybe you have a dead guitar. JP