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Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:37 pm
by Friedl
Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but this seems pretty definitive to me.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:09 pm
by Sinster
Thanks will watch when I get home.

This has always been subjective without really much "scientific backing". You really have to have control study, just comparing A to B really isn't very scientific. Plus our vision and information we have play into our bias and you can't avoid it (this has been proven ;) ) . If you know and see you have Mahogany A and Maple B you will use that information and the information you learned throughout the years about the tone of that wood. Now if you were given 5 audio clips without any information then that would be a better test. SpectreSoundAudio did this with Tubes

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:48 pm
by BatUtilityBelt
Best air guitar demo ever.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:29 pm
by Partscaster
My experience is that changing necks, or bodies, must make your ears different, if all guitar woods sound the same.

I have experienced that some pickups will impart their own tone more heavily than others. I think more so with hotter winds.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:04 pm
by mighty_duck
Rather than solving anything, now you'll just get more arguments about what is the best tone air. He was probably using the common Nitrogen/Oxygen combo, but did he try it on Helium? I hear Carbon-dioxide really brightens the tone. :)

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:47 am
by bc rich
download (2).jpg
And we are on one big single coil to boot .

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:34 pm
by solteroblues
mighty_duck wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:04 pm Rather than solving anything, now you'll just get more arguments about what is the best tone air. He was probably using the common Nitrogen/Oxygen combo, but did he try it on Helium? I hear Carbon-dioxide really brightens the tone. :)
you joke, but the different types of air/gas mixture makes way more difference than any tone wood! That's why you sound so different after breathing helium, the different density of the mixture crossing your vocal cords

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 1:49 pm
by Sinster
My opinion is that if you hear a difference then it changes tone... whether it really does or not. Personally I don't buy into wood changes the tone on electric guitars.



Offered to give guitar away if you could tell which guitar was which.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 7:23 am
by Buddha Pickups
Heck of a good argument for how important your pickups are 👍

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:07 am
by littlebadboy
I wanted to be convinced about tonewood, but they all sounded the same to me in the video as well as other videos I have seen. I am sure your audience would really care and same with me.

For me, tone is from the pickupss and on that knob on the guitar. It is tone-shaped on the pedals and amp (modeler in my case).

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:55 am
by mickey
littlebadboy wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:07 am I wanted to be convinced about tonewood, but they all sounded the same to me in the video as well as other videos I have seen. I am sure your audience would really care and same with me.

For me, tone is from the pickupss and on that knob on the guitar. It is tone-shaped on the pedals and amp (modeler in my case).
I agree with you 100% except when you are talking about acoustic as opposed to electric instruments, then tone woods count for everything (nearly.) :D

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:05 am
by mozz
You've got to remember, these are mp3's and probably low grade. If they were recorded as high quality files and played back on a quality system or quality headphones, I'm sure more people would hear a difference.

Another website i can't find again had a quality file song and another with it's mp3 counterpart. They subtracted them and made the difference into a separate file, and you can hear what was taken away when it was converted to mp3, amazing.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:42 am
by Gergo
I find it funny that people rant about how tonewood makes no difference, but then turn abound and have to point out when a Les Paul copy has a maple cap as opposed to just being solid mahogany.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 12:40 pm
by littlebadboy
mickey wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:55 am I agree with you 100% except when you are talking about acoustic as opposed to electric instruments, then tone woods count for everything (nearly.) :D
I agree with you on that for acoustics. For some reason, other people translated the the idea to electric guitars.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 12:41 pm
by littlebadboy
mozz wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:05 am You've got to remember, these are mp3's and probably low grade. If they were recorded as high quality files and played back on a quality system or quality headphones, I'm sure more people would hear a difference.

Another website i can't find again had a quality file song and another with it's mp3 counterpart. They subtracted them and made the difference into a separate file, and you can hear what was taken away when it was converted to mp3, amazing.
There is a choice to upload better audio formats than mp3.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:54 pm
by Sinster

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 9:39 pm
by Chocol8
There are things that make a difference that you can hear in person (blind) but can’t on YouTube, but obviously by that point you are picking hairs anyway. In a mix, no one in the audience will know.

What the video showed was how important pickups and pickup placement are to the tone. I buy guitars for feel and then put better pickups in them for tone. His tests confirmed my beliefs in that approach. There are some other things that he didn’t test that will matter, and I think scale length is significant enough that you should be able to hear it even over YouTube.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 9:47 pm
by Chocol8
Sinster wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:54 pm https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.lame.html

Did the short test

Image
You can hear the difference on a decent playback system. A long time ago, I won a bet with a Sony sales rep at a mall stereo shop on this topic. We setup a fairly decent stereo system and level matched with a db meter to compare MP3 to CD’s. After we picked them out correctly 10 out of 10 times, he claimed it was because we were over analytical and knew what to listen for. So, we grabbed a bunch of random mall shoppers and brought them in to listen. 20 out of 20 non-audiophiles from the mall could hear the difference. My buddy and I pocketed $100 each and we and the 20 Guinea pigs got free pizza.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 9:28 am
by dabbler
In reality, or at least IMO, everything matters, pickups, strings, wood, how you play, bridge etc. it's just a matter of how much. And neck wood has more impact than body wood in a solid body guitar, but body wood still has an affect on tone, IMO.

Not everybody can hear the most subtle differences, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. It's all good though, play what you like... if it sounds good to you, it will satisfy your audience.

Different strokes for different folks. 🙂

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 10:41 am
by Sinster
Chocol8 wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 9:47 pm
Sinster wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:54 pm https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.lame.html

Did the short test

Image
You can hear the difference on a decent playback system. A long time ago, I won a bet with a Sony sales rep at a mall stereo shop on this topic. We setup a fairly decent stereo system and level matched with a db meter to compare MP3 to CD’s. After we picked them out correctly 10 out of 10 times, he claimed it was because we were over analytical and knew what to listen for. So, we grabbed a bunch of random mall shoppers and brought them in to listen. 20 out of 20 non-audiophiles from the mall could hear the difference. My buddy and I pocketed $100 each and we and the 20 Guinea pigs got free pizza.
I actually have a decent setup, but have old ears.

I have a set of 250 ohms Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro and some Bose headsets. Going through my Rodecaster pro or my Focusrite 2i4.


https://soundguys.com/beyerdynamic-dt-7 ... iew-15348/
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/revie ... dt-770-pro

https://rode.com/interfaces-mixers/rodecaster-pro







https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... eIX9I9t8Ub

https://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=201

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 134655.htm

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:46 pm
by Chocol8
Old ears is a big issue. The difference I hear is almost all in the higher frequencies. The symbols and high hats make it pretty clear to me. I got 100% on 4 of the 5 tracks, but I only got 40% on the James Blake track which had no real instruments and no symbols.

I’ll have to try again later when I can turn it up more to see if there is some detail I can pick out that is missing on that one.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 1:04 pm
by Sinster
That's what I was trying to hear the difference on the symbols. The Chics I was going off the fiddle.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 1:13 pm
by Chocol8
BTW, Ethan Winer really knows his stuff. When I was in the audio/home theater world, I learned a lot about measurements, setup and room treatments from him.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 1:44 pm
by mighty_duck
Gergo wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:42 am I find it funny that people rant about how tonewood makes no difference, but then turn abound and have to point out when a Les Paul copy has a maple cap as opposed to just being solid mahogany.
I don't think there are people who hold both of those opinions simultaneously.

The last part is exactly the kind of people this test is targeting.

Re: Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 2:16 pm
by Sinster
Chocol8 wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:46 pm Old ears is a big issue.

Huge issue... especially at the higher frequencies. I don't hear my brakes squeaking after the cars been sitting a few days where the rotors start to get a little rust. My kids have to point it out to me.