My 'number one' guitar, a SAKAI made Jaguar copy, brand might be Wards or Daimaru. The body is mahogany plywood. Does that count as 'tonewood'? :-)
I will start this article by making the same statement I made in an earlier article I wrote about that much-maligned guitar pickup, the Powersound.:
I am not an equipment snob.
I think decent (or even good) music can be made on any instrument that tunes. I also don't think there is such a thing as "better" tone -- even in guitars. Instead, we all have our preferences. To me, the perfect tone is Eric Clapton at Klooks Kleek, November, 1966 (see video link below), or the tone he got at the Revolution Club the next year (see video link below, too). Other times, the perfect tone to me is the tone AC/DC's Malcolm Young and Angus Young attained, circa 1975-76.
And sometimes I think the perfect tone is Francis Rossi's lead guitar tone, circa 1975, on Status Quo's awesome rock record On The Level.
Not sure where Eric Clapton would stand on the 'tonewood' debate, but he was playing his 'Summers Burst' 1960 Les Paul in this recording, borrowed and/or bought from Andy Summers -- his previous Les Paul, which he used on the Mayall / Bluesbreakers 'Beano' album, was stolen.
Cream playing 'Sunshine Of Your Love' at the Revolution Club in France, 1968. By this time, Clapton was playing his 'Fool' SG through a Marshall Super Tremolo amp. The differences in Clapton's tone between 1966's Fresh Cream LP and 1968's Wheels Of Fire LP can probably be more ascribed to amps, miking techniques, and other factors than just the guitars alone.... and who knows where the wood used in those guitars (a borrowed Les Paul on Fresh Cream, the 'Fool' SG on Disraeli Gears and much, if not most, of Wheels Of Fire) made a difference in sound.
At times like this, I sometimes think that actual difference in sound that the wood may give to a guitar may be more of a factor to the player, as opposed to the music listener.
Status Quo's On The Level album from 1975 was probably their best. This track is an example of Francis Rossi's awesome lead guitar playing, and trebly sound. He used a Telecaster through either a Marshall or Sound City amp. Most Americans aren't even aware of this phase of Status Quo's long and remarkable career, and most American guitar players don't even know who Francis Rossi is -- and that is a pity.
"Good" tone is just preference. And we all have them.
The past couple of years, thanks to the Coronavirus lockdowns (and other factors), I've spent a lot more time on YouTube (affectionately known here as the 'Tube), watching videos of various rock guitar players and slide guitar players, as well as checking out other music and guitar related videos.
And somewhere on the trail to videos about all aspects of guitar, I discovered a new controversy. It's called the "Tonewood Myth". In fact, there are a bunch of videos on this subject.
NOTE: In this article, I talk about my own guitars a lot. There is a reason for this... Well, two reasons. We all like to talk about our guitars, don't we. But the main reason is to show you where I am coming from. When I say 'I am not an equipment snob', I think it will be pretty apparent to the reader, after seeing my guitars, that truly am not one of those. My guitars are all budget models. I like the tones and sounds I get from them -- but they are budget models, none with what probably would be called "Tonewood". So any of my thoughts about "tonewood" are from my own experiences, playing these budget model guitars.
THERE IS WOOD, AND THEN -- THERE IS GUITAR WOOD
Now, for the uninitiated, most guitars -- both acoustic and electric -- have bodies and necks made out of wood. And there are other materials in guitars -- especially electric guitars -- that are not wood: the metal bridges, metal tuners, metal tremolo bars and springs, the metal string 'trees' and string retainers, the plastic pickguards, and the like. But the biggest part of any guitar is the wood. And wood, amazingly enough, has sonic properties. This can be more easily heard in an acoustic guitar than an electric guitar, but the type of wood can make a difference in any guitar's tone.
For example, if you place your ear to the back of your electric guitar, and strum the strings, you'll definitely hear the sound of them, resonating the body (I think this resonance is called sympathetic vibrations), and most of the other parts of the guitar. With some electric guitars you will hear this more loudly than others. My loudest guitar body is that on my 1970's, Japanese made, Sakai Jag copy.
My Lotus L520, which is made from three pieces of ash, one of the pieces going from the neck joint through to the butt-end of the body. It weighs 10 pounds. I'm not sure if the body wood affects the tone much -- the guitar is brighter than a Les Paul, and sounds a bit like Mick Ronson's Les Paul, with a nice 'orange snarl'. It could be the wood, or the ceramic magnet humbuckers, or both, or something else. I just don't know.
THE ORIGINS OF 'TONEWOOD'
For years, electric guitars were sold on the quality of their wood, and the type of wood used to make their neck and body. There were magazine articles on guitar wood, and how it affects tone. There are numerous internet articles on guitar wood. And from all this literature, the term "tonewood" arrived.
Some guitar makers pride themselves in making their electric guitars out of "tonewood", apparently. And -- also apparently -- they price those guitars higher.
So, there is this large mythos about guitar wood, and "tonewood", and the internet has a ton of information and discussion about it. After all, we guitarists love to talk shop. And we also apparently love to argue about it, too. :-)
An example of the extent of this "tonewood" mythos is the numerous websites that will describe the various 'tones' that you can get if your guitar is made out of a certain wood: mahogany gives your guitar a 'dark', 'full', tone; ash and poplar will give you more 'midrange', and a 'brighter' tone; maple necks will give it more clarity; a maple top (or 'cap') on top of a mahogany body (like many Les Pauls have) will add some treble to the 'darker' mahogany characteristics, etc.
There are guitar players who maintain that only mahogany guitar bodies can give your electric guitar a good hard rock sound, only ash bodies can give you a bluesier sound -- etc. etc.
This thought applies to guitar necks as well. There are guitar players who swear by maple necks (no rosewood or other dark wood on the fingerboard), especially in Fender style guitars. There are guys who swear by thick, 'rosewood slab' fingerboards (as opposed to the thinner 'rosewood veneer'), maintaining that the fingerboard can produce a different tone.
Fear Factory's guitarist Dino Cazares swears by painted necks. Other guitar players swear by certain electric guitar finishes. Mick Ronson sanded the paint off the top of his Les Paul Custom, swearing that it brightened the sound of his guitar. The Cult's Billy Duffy, who is a Ronson fan (as I am) does the same to his Les Paul Customs.
The late Mick Ronson -- who was David Bowie's guitarist from 1970-1973, and also played on albums by Ian Hunter, Elton John (an excellent outtake of 'Madman Across The Water'), and UK folk rocker Michael Chapman -- with his 1960 Les Paul Custom, which he stripped to the bare wood (on the top only -- the back and sides, as well as the neck, remained LP Custom Black). Ronno thought that it would enhance the treble response of the guitar. Whether it did or not is a good question, but the guitar looked cool, and it sounded good regardless of whether the missing paint made any difference or not.
If you look very closely at the 'surrounds' -- the plastic frames used to mount the pickups -- you'll see they are cream colored with sections where it looks like they are turning black. This is because Ronno had to paint the surrounds white with plastic model enamel paint, because Gibson never made black surrounds until much later. And -- naturally -- the white paint would wear off.
So there are a lot of differing ideas of what makes a certain electric guitar sound good. And guitarists seem divided as to the effectiveness of some of these practices. Does the finish really make a difference on an electric instrument? It's hard to believe, but what do I know?
'BUT IT'S NOT GOOD FOR METAL'
As for the wood itself, there are guys who only play mahogany wood guitars for metal music, because other woods like ash and poplar "aren't good for metal". There are guitar snobs who (especially in the past) would look down at any guitar with a bolt-on neck. This was more predominant in the 70's and 80's than recently. I remember guitar players talking about this. They thought bolt-on necks were 'cheap'. Never mind that Hendrix played a guitar with one. And his tone influenced a lot of guitarists.
And for years, if you told someone your guitar's body was made of two or three layers of mahogany, glued together (like my Univox Gimme Les Paul) or -- gasp! -- mahogany plywood, they would look at you as if you weren't really playing an actual guitar.
One can see this sort of talk in a lot of guitar literature, even today. Luckily, the attitude towards guitars and how they are made has changed over the past two to three decades.
That said, guitarists generally seem a bit pedantic about this sort of thing. And in the past few years, the "tonewood" argument seems to be the latest controversy, now that we all agree bolt-on necks are OK. :-)
A section of my 1970's Sakai made Daimaru Jag copy (which for over a year I thought was Teisco-Kawai), showing the maple (?) neck (with rosewood veneer fingerboard), and if you look at the body here, you can see it is 5 to 6-ply Mahogany (at least I think it's Mahogany - it could be another wood, like Agathis? A lot of Teisco guys really don't know what wood was used to make Teisco-Kawai or Sakai plywood bodies, but at least one Teisco fan told me it's Mahogany). This guitar has the loudest body on any of my electric guitars (when you place an ear to the back of it), and it is my loudest electric guitar, acoustically. Electrically, it's quite loud considering the relatively weak pickups.
Plywood is probably the farthest from 'tonewood' that you can get, but the guitar still sounds good. Sort of like an SG with P-90s, with more treble available. I can make it sound like Francis Rossi's green Tele easily.
WHAT THE WOOD IN A GUITAR ACTUALLY DOES
The wood in an electric guitar serves maybe three purposes. First, clearly and obviously, it provides the body and neck for the guitar. Wood is fairly abundant, and it's less expensive than some other guitar-making materials. There also is a tradition that guitar = wood. The wood hopefully looks good -- some guitarists really like a guitar with 'figured' wood -- swirls, 'flame', etc. The wooden pieces of the electric guitar also provide a sturdy base for the mounting of pickups, bridge, tuners, frets, tailpiece, etc., and most guitar woods are sturdy enough to machine, but hopefully light enough to be able to wear the guitar while playing it.
Now comes the controversial part of it: Wood also provides some of the electric guitar's sound. What percentage of the sound, or tone, of the guitar the wood provides is arguable. Some people say it makes no difference. Others say it's vital. I'm somewhere in the middle.
Now, some woods may have more sonic properties than others. Ash supposedly resonates more midrange. My Lotus L520 resonates a lot of midrange. Its body is ash. Coincidence? Maybe. It may be more probable that the ceramic magnet humbuckers are designed more for increased midrange, and the wood may have nothing to do with that. I don't know what the source of the midrange resonance is. All I know is it often sounds a lot like Mick Ronson without needing the cocked wah-wah. That's good enough for me.
But it's an example of how some guitar people look at guitar wood, and how it may or may not affect the guitar's sound.
Although there may be some truth to these descriptions of various woods giving a guitar certain sonic characteristics, many guitarists think that the idea that wood gives an electric guitar's tone a certain character is nothing more than a myth -- that the wood in a guitar's body doesn't matter. And some guys take this argument even further, insisting that the guitar body itself -- wood, size, shape, thickness, density, etc. -- makes no difference to the tone whatsoever.
NO 'TONEWOOD' HERE, UNFORTUNATELY
Now, I don't ascribe to the tonewood theory per se, as my main players do not have "tonewood". I have one mahogany plywood guitar (my Daimaru, Sakai Jaguar copy). That guitar has been my main player for years. My first good electric guitar, my Univox Gimme, has a body made with several slabs of mahogany glued together in a "pancake". That used to be frowned upon by guitarists. My Univox also has a (gasp!) bolt-on neck. In the late 70's and through much of the 80's that was also frowned on by guitarists. Many of them viewed bolt-on neck with absolute disdain.
My Ibanez, 'Ibby' Gio GRX-40, made in 2000 out of Agathis wood. When I did research on the guitar after it was given to me, a lot of comments about any guitar made out of Agathis wood were negative, claiming that Agathis is a 'cheap' wood, and that Agathis wood won't, and simply can't, give you 'good tone'. I call bullsh*t on that. To be fair, there are other guys on the 'net who claim that Agathis can sound good, like a cheaper version of mahogany. Really, I think it all depends on the individual guitar, along with set up, strings, etc. The sound of the guitar is a summary of all the parts.
My newest electric guitar, my 2000 Ibanez Gio GRX-40, has a body made of Agathis wood -- a tropical pine that many guitarists think is a cheap, throwaway wood, so naturally, it follows that you can't ever get a good tone from a guitar made from that wood.
My Ibby Gio GRX-40's bridge and Powersound Humbucker. I filed the bottoms of the bridge saddle set screws a little bit flatter than they were, to give them more positive contact with the bridge plate. I noticed a bit more volume and definition to the notes afterwards. The low-E string's saddle is filed short (with spring taken out) to make it intonate better, especially for a .52 string, and Open G. The humbucker, which has a ceramic magnet, is 4-5 mm away from the strings, for a better sound, and to keep the magnet from pulling on the strings. It's stuff like this that can make probably as much, if not more, difference to a guitar's sound than the wood.
And, last but not least, I have a guitar made out of three chunks of heavy ash, glued together -- my Lotus L520 Les Paul copy. It's a 10 pound guitar, and sounds like one. But it's made of glued together chunks of ash.
So I am the last guitar player in the world that would be a 'tonewood' snob.
What can not be seen easily is that the entire trem assembly is a hair off -- the 'claw' is too far north in this pic. In other words, it's not exactly to spec. Neither is the neck bolt placement, if you measure the placement of the neck bolts. The strings are all properly aligned, and the neck itself is aligned well, so the guitar still works as intended.
Being that this was possibly the 329th Gio GRX-40 made, they probably were still learning how to make them. A small mistake on the front of the guitar (near the volume and tone controls) also is an indicator that someone might have been learning on the job. I take it as guitar 'character'. :-)
ENTER THE 'TONEWOOD IS A MYTH' VIDS
But that said, I find it amusing, and sometimes disturbing, the lengths to which some enterprising YouTube guitar aficionados will go to attempt to prove that the type of wood of which an electric guitar is constructed makes zero difference in the sound of the guitar.
You'll see guys making a guitar out of concrete or glass, and claiming that it sounds just like a Les Paul or a Stratocaster. You'll see guys making a 'guitar' out of a fence post or a couple workbenches, 'proving' that it sounds just like a Les Paul or a Telecaster. Some of the vids are a bit convincing at first. At the very least, they show just how remarkable an invention that an electric guitar actually is: that you can get all this music out of minimal materials.
And the comments underneath these 'tonewood myth' videos are often very scathing towards anyone who thinks that the wood in a guitar really matters. If you post a comment stating that you think wood can make a difference, you may get all sorts of comments ridiculing that idea. Just like with everything else -- when it comes to guitars, everybody has an opinion.
THERE ARE 'TONEWOOD IS NOT A MYTH' VIDS, TOO
Of course, there is also the other side of the controversy, where guitarists have shown that the wood in an electric guitar's body, or neck, can indeed make a difference.
There is one video on the 'Tube where a fairly well-known Swedish guitar player took one neck, and -- in turn -- he attached it to three different, identically sized pieces of different wood -- mahogany, maple, and treated fir. He mounted the same pickup to each piece of wood in turn, and the same identical bridge and hardware. When he played each resulting 'guitar', the different woods did give the sound different tones. The difference was subtle, but audible.
The guitar player is Johan Segeborn, a popular guitar YouTuber. You can see his video here.:
Mr. Johan Segeborn's interesting video on this subject.
Another guy, guitarist Darrell Braun, made a video where he had a Fender Tele guitar with a rosewood neck. He also had an identical, maple neck. When he substituted necks, the sound was clearly different. The maple neck sounded a hair brighter. You can hear it in the first minute or so of the video.
Mr. Darrell Braun's YT vid comparing maple and rosewood Tele necks.
In that video, there is a 'blind test', where you hear both necks being played, but the screen is dark -- you aren't actually seeing them being played. You can still hear a difference, but it's harder to identify it when you're not associating the sound directly with what you are seeing. It shows you just how subtle any wood or materials comparison can be. It also shows how our minds can affect our ears.
And -- of course -- undoubtedly, not all necks made of the same exact materials are going to sound exactly the same. I'm sure that not every maple neck sounds exactly the same. Whatever characteristics you get from your guitar's neck are just another factor in the 16-20 factors that probably make up an electric guitar's sound.
Then you have the music factor. What may sound like 'tone' to a blues guitar player may sound like crap to a metal player. And a jazz or country player may find some tones better than others. We all listen for different things, depending on our musical frame of reference.
This obviously affects how we hear the 'tones' of one guitar over another.
WHAT AMPS WERE THE COMPARISON VIDEOS USING?
In Mr. Segeborn's comparison video, you'll notice the amp he is using. It's a Marshall. In most of the "Tonewood = Myth" videos, Fender or Vox amps seem to have been used.
Does this difference in amps used make a difference in the outcome of the comparisons?
I think it's possible, as Marshall amps are fairly dark amps, which may bring out different characteristics from a guitar's tone, whereas Fenders (especially the ones I've seen used in the comparison, 'myth' videos) are more midrangy. A lot of the perceived differences in guitar bodies that I may be listening for may be in the bass and low-midrange frequencies. Someone else may be listening more for a better high-midrange or treble attack.
DO STRING GAUGES MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THESE COMPARISONS?
I also wonder if different string gauges can make a difference with the affect the wood may have on the sound of an electric guitar. I use fairly heavy strings -- .11 or .12 to .50 on most of them. Large gauge strings are fairly loud. They're bound to vibrate the wood in the guitar more than lighter gauge strings will, because the vibrations are greater. In most of the comparisons online, the string gauges are generally never mentioned.
In the late 80's there was at least one or two articles in guitar magazines about heavier guitar strings giving you 'better tone'. At least one prominent hair-metal lead guitarist got some carpal tunnel or tendonitis from playing fast lead on heavy strings -- or so he said.
Why would heavy strings give you better tone? Of course, the pickups will react to heavy string gauges differently. But how about the body? How about the interaction with the neck?
It's an example of the fact that each element of your tone, or sound, is part of the whole. Throw a midrangy pedal like a Tubescreamer into the mix, any differences between guitar woods is probably thrown out the window.
'TONEWOOD' AND BLIND COMPARISONS: NOT JUST FOR GUITARS:
A Cheap Violin Can Sound Better Than a Stradivarius
This 'tonewood myth' and blind comparison trend -- where an enterprising YT video maker compares cheap and expensive instruments to see if the expensive one actually sounds worth the money -- is not unique to guitars in the internet video world. There is a video on YT, made by an expert violinist, where he compares five violins, ranging in cost from a $70 starter violin found on Amazon to a TEN MILLION DOLLAR Stradivarius.
Now, for the uninitiated, a Stradivarius violin is considered to be the 'Holy Grail' of violins. The guitar equivalent -- for rock and blues guitarists -- would probably be a 1959 sunburst Gibson Les Paul. And being that real Stradivarius violins were made 300 years ago, as opposed to several decades back, one can see why their value is so high.
And 300 years is a long time to build up a reputation.
During the blind test, a skilled violinist played the same short musical pieces on all the different violins, using the same mic, same distance, etc..
Does a Stradivarius really Suck That Bad?
I preferred the tone of the $450 violin, #3 (a Serafina brand violin). The $100K Gagliano violin, #5, came in second in my estimation. Those two violins sounded the most pleasing to me. They had a very full, musical and sweet tone. The Stradivarius seemed a little thin to me, too much high midrange. It didn't sound pleasing to me. Definitely not to the tune of $10 Million.
But I doubt any violin player would agree with me. And they would definitely tell you that the Strad is made out of 'tonewood'!
Here is the link to that video -- you can listen for yourself.:
An eye-opening -- or ear-opening -- video where an expert violinist compares several violins to a Stradivarius.
What is interesting, is that there have been several blind 'tests' of different violins against a Stradivarius, and often the tests show that even violinists can't tell the difference in tone.
SO, WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN A GUITAR'S SOUND?
Ever since I started repairing and rebuilding (modifying) my own guitars in the 1980's I have reached the conclusion that the sound of the guitar is the sum of ALL of its parts.... Including the wood.
The tuners are Gotoh's, I completely wore out the original, open back tuners. When the Gotoh's went on, the tone altered slightly. The guitar was a little bit louder, with a hair more sustain. if you look closely you can see the 'washers' under the nuts that secure the string retainer to the headstock. The 'washers' are parts of an old Dunlop .46mm Tortex pick. I just wanted to increase the string tension at the headstock slightly. I think it helped with the guitar's tuning and playing stability.
I have been working with guitars for several decades now. I sort of rebuilt my number one (my Sakai made Jag copy, which I think might be a Daimaru brand but am not sure) in 1996, lowering the string retainer (by using plastic washers on the bottom side of the headstock where the retainer is attached -- adding a tiny bit of string tension and stability on the headstock side of the nut); changing out the tuners (I completely wore out the original, open backed ones); adding shims underneath the bridge (to increase the area of contact between the saddles and the body of the guitar, effectively increasing the size of the bridge posts); radiusing the bridge to make it match the neck better; adding extra retainer springs to the pickups to make them more stable and less prone to vibration and microphonics; tightening down the tremolo bar to increase the string tension and tuning stability overall; and sanding the heel of the neck and pocket to increase the transfer of any sound between neck and body.
The effect of all these small mods was that the sustain was improved, the notes had more definition, the guitar was louder, and more stable. The overall character of its sound, however, is about the same. It still sounds like it did in recordings I made with it in 1989 and 1990.
The bridge on my Sakai-made Jag copy. First off, the fact that this guitar had a tunable bridge, and the pickup placement matched an SG or Les Paul shows that Sakai was really trying to turn out a decent, budget instrument. Secondly, if you look at the saddles, you'll see where I used a needle file to radius them. The saddles look like roller saddles, but they're not. They're stationary.
Thirdly, if you look closely, underneath the top two saddles, you'll see a square of shiny metal inserted under the bottoms of the saddles. It's a piece of coffee can.
This is what happens when Chris screws up and almost wrecks his favorite guitar's bridge. I had started filing the bottoms of the saddles, thinking I was going to 'drop' them a millimeter or so. Then I realised that they were held in place by the adjustment screw, fixing their height -- and filing the bottoms would just make them wiggle all over the place.
Luckily for me, the coffee can metal worked.
Live and learn. :-)
I also took out a pickup out of my L520, and after the replacement pickup (a P-94) sucked, put the original back in. I changed out the tuners. The new tuners sucked. The old ones went back on the guitar.
So, as one can see, I've done my share of work on guitars. I've flattened and reattached bridges on two of my acoustics -- both of which I bought at thrift stores with the bridges pulled off of them (one of them warped in the process).
In all of my working with, and playing guitars over the years, I've discovered a few things.
The body wood, and the neck wood, definitely adds something to the tone. It may not add much -- it probably depends on the guitar. Some guitars may be a little more lively than others. Two of mine are 'livelier' than the other two. You can tell by playing them acoustically, as well as electrically. And the better the guitar sounds acoustically, I have noticed it sounds better electrically, too. But I still play the less lively ones. Because the difference in sound that may be due to any 'liveliness' just isn't a deal breaker.
A Tuning Fork, the old-school device used to tune guitars (and other instruments) to the pitch of A440 (an 'A' note at 440 Hz). Before the advent of digital tuners, and when strobe tuners were expensive, this is what we used to tune our guitars -- you'd tap the fork on a wooden (or similar non-metal) surface, and hold it over the pickup or press it against the bridge of your guitar, and tune your A string to the fork. Then -- using fretted notes and harmonics -- you'd tune the other strings to the A string.
A Tuning Fork can also be heard if you press it to various places on the guitar's neck, headstock, and body.
THE TUNING FORK TEST
One way to find out the extent of whether your guitar's body and neck wood is actually influencing tone to any extent is to use a TUNING FORK.
Yes, that ancient tech implement, which was the only way that we guitarists had to tune our guitars before the Boss TU-2 and other electronic tuners became mainstream.
Plug in your guitar. Turn up the guitar's volume. Get a tuning fork, tap it, and hold it against the body and neck of your electric guitar in various places. Some areas of the body or neck you will really hear the tuning fork. Others? Not so much. You may still hear it even if you have the strings dampened with your fingers. One of my guitars, my L520, has wax-potted humbuckers, so they're not microphonic. And if I hold the tuning fork against the sides of the headstock, the fork is clearly audible. If I hold it on the side of the neck, about halfway down? Less so. If I hold it against the body near the neck, or other areas of the body, I can hear the fork clearly.
My Sakai-made Jag copy is much the same, except the fork comes through louder. If I hold the fork against the side of the headstock it is very loud. The body is louder than my L520 -- and the butt end of the body, and horn of the body, are louder than the rest of it.
With my Sakai Jag copy, even if I placed the tuning fork on the end of the tremolo bar handle, I could still hear the tuning fork, although very weakly. I could hear it on the bridge, as well.
It's an example of how the entire guitar vibrates along with the strings. It's all part of the whole... One system -- the strings obviously being the loudest, and main component of sound. The rest of it is what would be called sympathetic vibrations.
The reason I can hear the fork resonating against the body is probably because the fork is vibrating the body, which is vibrating the pickup which holds the body, it's also vibrating the bridge which is attached to the strings, and the pickup is still reacting against the stationary strings, causing the magnetic field to alter, which sends a signal to the amplifier.
And, even if the strings are dampened, they are carrying some of the vibration, which is being picked up by the pickup.
We all know that if the strings move, the pickup 'sees' that movement of the magnetic field, and the coils sense that movement as music. It's because the relationship between the pickup and the strings is changing.
But the strings are not the only part of the system that is in motion: when you strike a chord on the strings, the body vibrates and when it vibrates it transduces the sounds that strings make. The pickups vibrate with the body. The bridge is vibrating with the body. The strings themselves are also vibrating along with the body. The neck is vibrating, too. All the parts are interacting with each other in some way.
All that additional motion -- all of which is vibrating along with the strings -- is going to be sensed by the pickup coils, too. As some online insist, the body, bridge, neck, headstock, and other vibrations aren't as loud as the strings. But those lesser vibrations still add to the sound, or tone of the guitar, because those other components are interacting with the strings. If a pickup can sense the faint vibrations of something so weak as a tuning fork, it's definitely going to sense the vibrations of the body interacting with the strings when you strike a chord.
Does this prove that there is such a thing as 'tonewood'?
Probably not. But it shows that the body's wood (or other body material) does enter into the formula of what makes a guitar sound a certain way. It probably depends on the guitar, too. Two identical guitars -- same hardware, same pickups, same species and cut of wood -- one may sound better than another. There are guys who swear that one 1959 Les Paul sounds better and livelier than another one. They're made of the same species of wood. Same pickups (with some minor differences in winding, perhaps). Same hardware. Same wood in the neck. Same electronics. But some sound different.
Guitarists sometimes call it differences in 'mojo'.
It may be due to the nature of the wood that each guitar is made of. It could be due to the individual in the factory who constructed it. There are a large number of variables in what makes a guitar tick.
A pic of Eddie Van Halen's "Shark" signature guitar. His original "Shark" was just like this one. He took a saw to his Ibanez Destroyer, wanting to make it look cool. The result did look cool, but according to Eddie, the tone of the guitar changed. Removal of so much wood close in to the bridge and tailpiece apparently made enough of a difference that he no longer wanted to play it. Some say it was probably just psycho-acoustics, and that is possible. But at the same time, one would think that a guy would know the sound of one of his favorite performance and recording guitars.
THE GUITAR 'STARS' CHIME IN
Eddie Van Halen recorded a lot of Van Halen I with his white painted Ibanez Destroyer. He apparently also used it a lot on Van Halen II. A lot of the parts on those two albums where there is no whammy bar were recorded with the Destroyer. When Eddie cut the massive chunk out of it to make it into "The Shark" guitar, Eddie swore that it changed the sound of the guitar -- enough to where he didn't want to play it or record with it when Van Halen made Women and Children First (in fact, he borrowed another LA musician's Destroyer to record that album -- WASP's Chris Holmes also had a Destroyer, and that is one of the guitars you can hear on Women and Children First).
Some guys on the internet say that "Eddie probably thought it sounded different when it really didn't." But how do you not hear changes in the sound of a guitar you've been playing daily, and even recording with, for five or six years?
Carl Verheyen is a pro jazz and bluesy pop guitarist who is well respected as a player. He loves Strats. He has a controversial idea about setting a Strat tremolo that I won't go into here, as I'm not sure it works for everyone. But when it comes to choosing a guitar, he may be onto something. He says that if you want to find a 'good' electric guitar, hit the B string, and feel down near the heel of the guitar body. If you can feel vibration, you have a 'live one', i.e. a more lively sounding, and resonating guitar.
Robin Trower, who has been playing Strats for 50 years, goes by the 'unamplified guitar sound' theory. "If the guitar sounds good unamplified, it will sound good plugged in," he says. I think Jimmy Page has said the same thing.
Slash, the guitarist for the 80's metal band Guns 'N' Roses, had a 1961 Gibson SG. When Guns 'N' Roses started recording their first album Appetite For Destruction, Slash was so dissatisfied with the tone and sound he was getting from his '61 SG that he slammed it into the windshield of his car.
His manager got him that famous Les Paul replica to record with, Slash liked the sound he was getting from it. He stuck with that guitar, and the rest was rock music history.
According to the tonewood myth people -- who insist that the composition of the guitar body doesn't make any difference (with all other hardware being the same), Slash should have been perfectly happy with his SG. After all, the pickups were roughly the same (PAF's vs. Seymour Duncan Alnico IIs), the basic hardware is the same, and the positioning of the pickups is the same -- the biggest difference, electronics-wise, being the distance between the neck pickup and the nut is a little different on an SG.
But something in the composition of Slash's SG and the Les Paul replica he got from his manager must have made a drastic difference in sound. A broken windshield on Slash's old van says that much.
All of these famous, expert guitarists have had one opinion in common -- they seem to think that the resonance of the body and neck of the guitar affect its tone somewhat.
Tonewood may be a myth, in that there is no definite mojo to one species or type of wood over another -- and so many other factors come into play with guitars, that the body and neck composition are just two factors out of maybe 16 or more. But I think that those guitar players out there who have bought into the idea that the wood of the guitar makes absolutely no difference just aren't thinking.
At the very least, they haven't done the tuning fork test. :-)
After all, the bridge is the central piece of hardware to a guitar's overall sound. And the bridge's posts are buried into the body of the guitar. If the body of the guitar is resonating, it is affecting and interacting with the resonance of the strings which are also attached to the bridge. Even if the body only contributes to 5% of a guitar's tone, it's definitely contributing something to the tone of the instrument.
A PROMINENT GUITAR MAKER CHIMES IN: THE WOOD MATTERS
Now, I'm not a fan of Paul Reed Smith guitars. I've never liked the sound of them, or ever considered seriously trying one out, much less buying one. When my mom's friend gave me my Ibby Gio, he had me try out his prized PRS. I wasn't really impressed, personally. And although some PRS guitars were used on some Nu-metal classics (the guitarist in Linkin Park played one, for example), I always found the tone of PRS guitars to be sort of a high-fidelity version of blah.
Compared to Gibsons and Fenders, for example, they just sound a bit sterile. But that's just me.
That said, I recently discovered an interesting interview with the man himself: Paul Reed Smith. Regardless of what some of us may think of PRS guitars, you can't deny that they are popular, have a rep for playability, and many stars must play them for a reason.
And Paul Reed Smith -- who not only designed and built guitars for some of the big name guitar players (Carlos Santana is an example), maintains that WOOD in a guitar is important to its sound. The actual discussion on tone and wood is maybe 15 minutes into this YT interview, but it's worth it to watch it. Mr. Smith says that every big name guitarist he's met says that the wood is important. He also -- through years of building guitars -- thinks the wood is vital to the tone. He may be onto something.:
WOOD IS IMPORTANT, BUT IT IS NOT EVERYTHING.
In the big picture, this really doesn't mean all that much. Even if the wood of your guitar isn't exactly lively, that doesn't mean it will sound bad! My Ibby Gio resonates a bit less than my Daimaru / Sakai (plywood) and my L520 (three chunks of ash) -- but it still sounds good. I still play it nearly every day. I have it set up for slide now and I really like the tone of it. It often sounds fairly close to the sound I hear in my head.
So, in my view, if you're buying an electric guitar only because of whatever wood it has, you're making a mistake. It may not have that awesome 'tonewood', but may actually sound better than another guitar that has 'tonewood'. It may match the sound you hear in your head more closely. It may sound more like 'you' than some expensive, 'tonewood' guitar.
But the wood is just one out of many factors that will make up the sound of your guitar.
And, luckily, you can always add elements to the signal chain to boost a guitar's tone, or alter it. An overdrive or other effects box will boost tone. Or you can swap in different pickups, go heavier or lighter in string gauges, deck the bridge of a Strat (which can give its tone more ooomph -- it did so on my Gio Superstrat) -- any of a number of things to get the sound closer to what you want.
ADDENDUM:
Just for fun, I will list here the 20+ factors I think all add up to make a guitar's sound -- and mind you -- this is BEFORE you add in the dirt boxes, echo boxes, EQ's, overdrives, chorus / flange / phaser / wah-wah's / compressors etc., and then adjust tone and drive controls on whatever amplifier you are using.:
1. Pickups (type -- single coil vs. dual coil or Humbucker; amount of wire in pickup, etc.)
2. Ceramic magnet or Alnico magnet in pickups (affects the highs especially)
3. Hardtail or Tremolo, and type of tremolo (Strat style vs. Bigsby style)
4. Strings
5. String gauge (heavy vs. light)
6. Electronic parts (volume controls, the way the guitar is wired, etc.)
7. Scale length and String tension
8. Neck material
9. Fingerboard & frets
10. Nut -- type, material, locking or non-locking.
11. Headstock mass or size
12. Tuners (type and quality)
13. Body wood type
14. Body wood mass
15. Pickups mounted to the body, or to a pickguard
16. String tree / retainer, and/or String tree / retainer type, if guitar has one
17. Zero fret, or no zero fret (would affect open chords only)
18. Bridge and saddles; mass, type of metal, etc.
19. Bridge posts -- thick, thin, how they are attached to the body
20. Distance from pickup to the strings, and pickup and pole piece set-up and adjustment
On Strats and Superstrats:
21. Number of tremolo springs
22. Bridge -- decked or floating
23. Claw (holding trem springs) all the way to the wood, or partially out
Last but definitely not least, the player. Every player has a different style and attack. And if you are a slide player, the slide you use (steel vs. brass vs. glass vs. ceramic) will also make a difference in the overall sound.
Which pick you use will alter the tone significantly. With my guitars, celluloid picks are snappier and punch out a bit more treble, while the nylon and Delrin pics are a bit blunter, and even they vary from brand to brand, even if they're all the same basic gauge (I use .50 and .46 picks). If I want to sound like Malcolm Young or 1966 Eric Clapton, celluloid picks help (especially Fender celluloid thins). They have a certain bite and snap to them that other picks lack. Nylon picks usually sound a bit less trebly than celluloid (I use Clayton .50 nylons a lot), and Delrin picks (like Dunlop pink .50's) sound somewhere in-between.
The thicker, pointed nylon and Delrin picks that a lot of metal guys (and girls) use sound pretty direct, and seem to 'muscle' the strings rather than finesse them. They don't give me the tone I like.
IN OTHER, NON-MUSICAL LIFE....
I will end this blog post with some non-guitar things. First, when I first wrote this article, it was finally looking and feeling like Spring here in Latte-land (a nickname for Seattle, because of the fact we drink so much coffee here). The trees, which in a normal year, leaf out about April 5th, really didn't leaf out until 10-15 days later. On April 5th they were budded, but it took another week and a half for the leaves to appear.
It has been that way the last 3-4 years. We also had a night of freezing, or near freezing, in the early part of April. So, the weather was a little bizarre for Spring. In late April it was 50F outside during the day, and maybe 7C at night. The air was fresh, the birds were chirping. The Frogs weren't croaking as much in the ponds as they used to during March and April.
My pic up above is of some 'volunteer' bluebells (they appeared all by themselves one year) a nice little flower that appears in Spring. There is at least one neighbor who has a tulip in his front yard. No Rhododendron pics this year, unfortunately. As I've said in previous blog posts, they just weren't all that colorful this Spring.
My Happy Snowman lights -- this pic was taken on Christmas Eve, 2019. I won't be putting them up this year. The car that neighborhood idiots broke into is parked in the way of where they would be seen. This pic shall suffice. I got these lights when my former GF was given them by her son, and she didn't have a need for them. They do look happy, don't they.
Now, of course, as I publish this article, it's the beginning of December. I took in my upstairs Halloween Jack O' Lanterns (the neighbor kids liked them) and switched on my only string of Christmas lights. I'm not really ready for the Christmas holidays, but it's a non-issue. Just getting through life and happy for whatever I have. I may buy a SW radio in a couple weeks, a Tecsun that is similar to my Grundig G2, as a sort of backup. Still haven't made the final decision on it, though.
Shortwave has been up and down. The last two weeks have been mostly crap ionospheric conditions. MW has been touch and go. The crap SW conditions gave those of us MW DXers in the northern tier of US states some Auroral conditions to play with -- I heard a couple California stations much stronger than usual (KTRB San Francisco 860 and KNCO Grass Valley, California on 830 kHz.).
Right now I'm drinking some black tea and doing some fiction writing. I think it's time to post this guitar article, for what it's worth.
I shall end this article with something light and fun, for all you Heavy Metal Maniacs left out there in the world -- a little bit of Judas Priest, doing a hit from their classic 1981 album, British Steel. This is when KK Downing and Glen Tipton were both still playing in the band.:
Until my next blog article, I hope this finds my readers living in peace and health, and I still hope that the war in Ukraine ends soon.
Peace.
C.C., February 12th, April 28th, 2022. Some editing and publishing early September, 2022. Finished and posted December 1st, 2022.
