Heck of an argument against tone wood affecting electric guitars

[Friedl]

Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but this seems pretty definitive to me.

[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

[BatUtilityBelt]

Best air guitar demo ever.

[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.

[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.

[bc rich]

And we are on one big single coil to boot .

[solteroblues]

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

[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.

[Buddha Pickups]

Heck of a good argument for how important your pickups are

[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).

[mickey]

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.)

[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.

[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.

[littlebadboy]

I agree with you 100% except when you are talking about acoustic as opposed to electric instruments, then tone woods count for everything (nearly.)

I agree with you on that for acoustics. For some reason, other people translated the the idea to electric guitars.

[littlebadboy]

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.

[Sinster]

https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.lame.html

Did the short test

[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.

[Chocol8]

https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.lame.html

Did the short test

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.

[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.

[Sinster]

https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.lame.html

Did the short test

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

[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.

[Sinster]

That's what I was trying to hear the difference on the symbols. The Chics I was going off the fiddle.

[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.

[mighty_duck]

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.

[Sinster]

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.