Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm carrying this over from another forum but I have a question for luthiers:

I never understood how "tone" is affected by wood choices on a solid-body
electric guitar. Isn't it just a metal wire vibrating in a electromagnetic field? I
can understand that variations in THOSE two things making sense (e.g.
number of windings around the pickup coil, string thickness, materials,
amount of movement, etc.) And I can also envision wood choices affecting
things such as sustain. Are pickups more "microphonic" than I'm giving them
credit for? Is there significant mechanical vibration occurring in the body to
impart a characteristic sound?

Sorry, but this question's been bugging me for a long time...

Fact: it is affected.

Play a few fenders - ostensibly the same hardware and pickups all around, just some have alder, some have ash bodies. There's a difference. Play electric guitars 'acoustically', and you'll hear pretty different tones.

How? I see it like this: the hunk of wood has a certain mass, damping, velocity of sound transmission, whatever. The string energy is the only energy being pumped into the system, but the wood can 'filter' the sound; damp certain frequencies, let other frequencies resonate more freely, etc. Basically, the wood's allowing the strings to vibrate in a specific way, which is then picked up by the pickups (how said pickups are mounted will likely also affect things, as they're sitting in a vibrating enclosure, and many pickups are quite microphonic). But the pickups pick up what the string does, and what the string does is affected by the wood choice (as well as by string choice, tuning, bridge choice, neck joint, scale length, neck stiffness/reinforcement, playing style, fretwire/fingerboard choice, and so on).

I tend to find single coil guitars are more sensitive to this kind of thing, with humbuckers and actives being far less 'able' in terms of picking up subtleties. And then there's the whole interaction with the other half of the instrument, the amplifier, where issues like feedback and the like come into play (and again, resonance of body wood, etc. affects things).

Every part that a string rests on or is attached to will reflect some
vibrations back in to the string, absorb others, as well as setting parts of
the guitar in vibration, which will in turn effect how it reflects and absorbs
the signal. Pickups being slightly microphonic certainly plays a role as
well, but it's not just being microphonic. It's how the pickups themselves
are set in motion in relation to the strings with body vibrations, which
albeit slight, still effects how the magnetic signal is received.


It may seem complicated at first, but think of it in extremes. Imagine one
guitar made of solid marble, the other made of stitched together luffa
sponges. They have the same pickups and hardware, but for some reason
you probably wouldn't be too surprised to hear them sound drastically
different.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

    The body of an electric guitar is certainly vbrated by the activity of the
stings as they're played so it is obvious that the wood will play a mojor
part in the tone of the guitar.

    I've played so many electrics and have owned hundreds at a time over
my years as a player. There have been times that I've had as many as 30
Strats at a time and they always exhibited wide variations in tone, both
acoustically and plugged in.

    Even though more of the tone is determined by the electronics...and
not only by the pickups, but the pots, caps and even the wire....the wood
certainly makes its contribution.

   I love Mahogany, Alder and Ash for solid bodies, but have steered away
from Maple with its brighter more high mid and top end dominated tone.
I just built a Strat copy for my son using Zebrawood for both the body
and neck and it resemble Maple in tone and is extermely heavy, but it's
what he wanted. Black Limba (Korina) is also very warm and woody
sounding and looks great in a solid piece as a body.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

i recenty a/b,ed two fender telecasters.

One with a maple neck and and alder body the other was a first run indian
roswood model telecaster with indian rosewood body and neck.

The indian rosewood guitar had by far the better sustain and tone to the
extent that you could feel the neck tingling when you played a note.

I think that ab test made up my mind forever that i will go for denser
woods for the necks of my electric guitars from now on.
The diference was without a doubt preferable in faour of the rosewood.

After all dave gimor changed the neck on blackie for a rosewood neck
and this is a guy who knows what tone is.

At the end of the day though it is subjective to the player and what floats
one mans boat will capsise another mans canoe.

Regards,
joel.

I don't have as much to say as everyone else already has, but the way I learned it is that the wood "brings out" different tones from the pickups.

Thats the simple definition that I learned. Everyone else has all the reason behind why.

_________________
-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

    Also, don;t underestimate the contribution of the neck joint's
efficiency....or lack thereof.

   I've owned a number of guitars built by Tom anderson and the boys at
Anderson and also a few from John Suhr, Gerard Melancon, Gene Baker
and others. These guys are all meticulous when it comes to the quality of
the fit between their neck tongue and the pocket that it sits in in the
body.

    A nice tight fit between the two creates an environment of integrity or
integration of the neck and body and allows the whole guitar to work
more efficiently as a system behind the electronics.

    Even though the magnetic pickups on an electric guitar work by
sensing the vibration of the strings within their magnetic fields and
transducing that energy into a signal that is sent to the amp, they do have
microphonic properties. I love to sink the pickups in my old Strats a little
deeper into the routings of the body and slightly farther away from the
strings than alot of folks, but i've always felt that it gives me a bit more
evidence of the wood's voice by allowing more of the pickups to be
surrounded by it.

    A great neck joint allows the neck to return some of the vibration
created by the strings being in contact with the nut and frets during
playing back into the body more efficiently.

    Some builders may not agree with this train of thought or philosophy,
but it's been my experience and, so, has become my opinion.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

I also don't have much else to add except a way of looking at an electric guitar that really makes it much more clear, to me at least. I see electrics and solidbody acoustics. As soon as I started thinking about electrics in the exact same way as
I do acoustic my guitars became immediately more musical. The physics is still the same but instead of thin soundboards we are dealing with thicker pieces of wood which react differently only in the sense that the strings have more wood to move. The strings still excite the wood and depending on the type of wood this energy will be filtered or enhanced upon re-entering the strings where the pickups come into play. I am not so sure how strong any microphonic signal is compared to the electromagnetic induction in a pickup so I do not attribute any of the woody character of my electrics to this at all. But I will say that in my experience a well potted pickup will capture the nuances more effectively.

~David

Seems like everybody has summed it up pretty well. I definitely agree
with Kevin on the neck joint. I think even a bolt-on neck should fit nice
and tight without the bolts.

Just sit down with a few unplugged. You'll easily hear differences.

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

the once concept I don't see mentioned here is VOLUME...some electrics sound awesome at low volumes yet howl and whine when the amp is pushed (yes, I know that this is also caused by pickup problems, but I am talking about when the pickups are quality).  When full distortion is applied things become even more pronounced.  What I've found is that high volume is also moving the woods in the guitar and greatly affects tone and other aspects of it all, such as if the axe will feedback on a note or start whining like a baby being tortured.  Just like acoustics different electrics of the same make/model will exhibit drastically different performance values which is why any true guitarist will choose an instrument based upon a test drive as opposed to what it looks like (yeah, I love beautiful woods like everyone else, but given the choice I prefer an electric which sings on a held note as opposed to one which just dies out or worse starts screeching)

OK, I've read what everybody's had to say on the issue but I still have a
some skepticism. Here's why:

Listening to them acoustically doesn't really tell me how it's going to
sound plugged in which is all I'm interested in. a/b comparisons of
different guitars don't work because there are way too many variables for
my liking. I think Kevin hit it on the head when he mentioned the effect
of the chain of electronics involved before the patch cord. I mean, what
are the tolerances in the manufacturing process for pickups, switches,
and pots?

I did like the idea that wood can take away elements of a vibrating string.
Destruction of partials, less sympathetic movement in the magnetic field,
leading to a "thinner" tone - that sort of thing.

However I still choke on my milk when I hear/read that a plain maple
neck has a bright fundamental whereas a rosewood capped one has a
warmer, smoother sound with more complexity... Maybe this relates
directly to the cause/effect mentioned in my previous paragraph... I'll
have to think about it some more.

BTW, I thought potting pickups was supposed isolate them from the
surrounding wood and remove the microphonic quality?

The point is, the pickups still pick up the basic string vibration and characteristics. They also impart - thanks to their design, wiring, etc - their own flavour, but so does the wood.

I think construction techniques and pickup selection are more important than wood choice, but this doesn't mean wood choice is irrelevant. Same pickups sound pretty dang different in a strat and a les paul, f'r instance.

Listening to guitars acoustically gives me an idea - coupled with the knowledge of what a certain style of pickups usually sounds like - of how the sustain and harmonic content will be on a basic level.

I used to believe wood choice made a big difference and perhaps it does to some degree but with todays electronic processing/effects it sure is hard to tell. When I was at Sylvan's house in Virgina he turned me on to a player that smoked on guitar, it was heavy as heavy metal could get and as acoustic as Al Dimeola playing a jazz run all done on acoustic guitar, with effects that were live (not studio). This guy sounded this way live! He was awesome! Let me tell you it was not lacking in tone in any way...none of that tinny, brashy, noisey bad sounding stuff. So my point is that with the electronics available today...I don't think it much matters on an electric like it does on acoustics. Especially when you plug into a triple Marshall Stack and crank it to 11.

_________________
Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Dave: I agree, amp and electronics make up the vast majority of the tone. But, if you're like me, you rarely play crazy high gain electric geetar, more of a slight overdrive, and let the fingers and guitar do the dynamics. That's where wood and construction (chambered, hollow, set neck, bolt on, scale length, string type) and wood selection come through more clearly.

I've yet to hear a modelling setup that gives you the same responsiveness as a guitar straight into a tube amp. Sure, a lot of it comes very close, more than close enough for live, but it just doesn't feel or sound quite the same to the player. I mean, I love my GuitarPort and associated software dearly, and each generation gets audibly better, but it's not *quite* there yet.

Besides, there's something warm and fuzzy about a beautiful electric pumped into a finely crafted tube amp that an off-the-shelf import with a plastic finish through a Line6 modeller and a rack of effects just can't do. Romantic notion? Perhaps. But what would life be without a little romance, eh?

I think it all depends on what you want to build. Regardless of how advanced the electronics or what type of amp is used the pickups do not add anything nor will any of it make up for lack of sustain/resonance/harmonics/etc. Pickups only pickup what is already there and allow it to be amplified. Personally I prefer to build instruments that have the fullest range of tonalities that I can offer. I then leave it up to my client to decide whether or not they will use that to its fullest. If they decide to run it through a whole chain of effects that nullify my efforts that's fine. If they decide to run it into an amp that can bring out the subtle nuances then they are in for a real treat.

To condense this I will say that I prefer to take care of the whole system regardless of how much effect it makes. If everything is considered in the design and construction then with the right setup it will make all the difference in the world.

~David

a long, long time ago (or so it seems) I bought a Jackson Randy Rhoads custom in its first year of production (circa '84 I think)....turns out the bridge was located about ?" too far forward (i.e. it would not intonate), so I sent it back and being stupid made them freaking totally replace the guitar....I know for a fact that they used the exact same electronics from the first as they were mine and wired by me as I preferred....the orginal would sing on a note like a dream...the replacement while it sounds better for rhythm has rarely sung on a note with full distortion, rather tends to fade away and then sometimes let loose with some nice microphonics....

lesson learned?, if its a simple fill and repaint the thing (mine is white) then let them do it if you think the guitar rocks!...and secondly (which applies to the first) woods do make a dramatic difference in the way an electric sounds, end of discussion!

[QUOTE=Mattia Valente]Dave: I agree, amp and electronics make up the vast majority of the tone. But, if you're like me, you rarely play crazy high gain electric geetar, more of a slight overdrive, and let the fingers and guitar do the dynamics. That's where wood and construction (chambered, hollow, set neck, bolt on, scale length, string type) and wood selection come through more clearly.

I've yet to hear a modelling setup that gives you the same responsiveness as a guitar straight into a tube amp. Sure, a lot of it comes very close, more than close enough for live, but it just doesn't feel or sound quite the same to the player. I mean, I love my GuitarPort and associated software dearly, and each generation gets audibly better, but it's not *quite* there yet.

Besides, there's something warm and fuzzy about a beautiful electric pumped into a finely crafted tube amp that an off-the-shelf import with a plastic finish through a Line6 modeller and a rack of effects just can't do. Romantic notion? Perhaps. But what would life be without a little romance, eh?[/QUOTE]

We are on the same page my friend. 100%. I guess for me, when I think electric...I think back to the late 70's, early 80's and Marshall stacks...when all the electronics made a lot of noise, going straight into the stack was the only way to get "that" sound. Huge clubs, Concert halls, Out door festivals, LOUD. Today, look at Satriani and Vai's rack and it looks like something from the control room of a Space Ship. never mind all the stuff on the floor. I suppose now it would be a glassy strat or tele straight thru some boutique amp, in some small blues club/juke joint...smooth and silky...I guess then it would make a difference what kind of wood...but only to me...the audience could care less.

 

_________________
Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Hey Mike,

Thanks for that. Although anecdotal evidence can be powerful and influential, it is never unduly persuasive or decisive in my line of work. However, since you established some controls in your experiment (the same wiring harness et.al.) this leads me to believe there may be some merit in the tonewood argument.

There is a rather exhaustive debate on another forum about this topic which clearly has two divisive points of view. One side saying "open your ears" and the other "show me the data". I prefer the rigour of the latter simply because I do believe that if it is audible, then is should be measurable.

Apparently, Rick Turner was quoted in a magazine article (Vintage Guitar?) saying that (my paraphrasing) the minute influence of wood at the string level, becomes greatly exaggerated and audible by the time it comes through the amplifier (makes sense). I'll let him confirm or deny that.

Since you played the "EoD" card, I guess that's it then.

[QUOTE=MikeP] a long, long time ago (or so it seems) I bought a Jackson Randy Rhoads custom in its first year of production (circa '84 I think)....turns out the bridge was located about ?" too far forward (i.e. it would not intonate), so I sent it back and being stupid made them freaking totally replace the guitar....I know for a fact that they used the exact same electronics from the first as they were mine and wired by me as I preferred....the orginal would sing on a note like a dream...the replacement while it sounds better for rhythm has rarely sung on a note with full distortion, rather tends to fade away and then sometimes let loose with some nice microphonics....lesson learned?, if its a simple fill and repaint the thing (mine is white) then let them do it if you think the guitar rocks!...and secondly (which applies to the first) woods do make a dramatic difference in the way an electric sounds, end of discussion!


[/QUOTE]

Pickups and electronics are merely windows into the tone of an electric guitar or bass. You can have a big window or a peephole, clear or tinted, but the big picture on the other side is what it is and isn't fundamentally changed by your window. So it is with wood, carbon fiber, metal, etc....they are the picture...the pickups can tint the view, but they are not the view itself.

Electric guitar players tend to be considerably more sensitive to neck, fingerboard, and fret differences than are acoustic players because the pickups do so directly read the string action that is affected by the termination of the vibrating length of the string.   So electric players are not hosing you when they say they prefer, for instance, a rosewood 'board or a maple 'board on a factory Fender or a rosewood 'board or an ebony one on a Les Paul.   Ditto for replacement necks in different woods or different fret sizes.   These factors all directly affect how the string vibrates...attack, sustain, frequency response...all that.

If you don't pay attention to what the musicians say, it is at your peril.   I've known a few too many guitar makers and designers who refuse to believe what their customers and their customers' peers have to say. And don't give me any of this "prove it scientifically" junk, either. An oscilloscope or FFT analysis is not your potential customer.   Many of your customers have better ears than you do. They may not be able to articulate exactly what they hear, but many of them have incredibe sensitivity to things that haven't been adequately measured yet.   Rather than just go to that disbelief place, try to understand possible explanations. If you do, then it's easy to understand that one end of the string is stopping at a nut or a fret in a fingerboard glued to a neck and all those things count. Everything a string touches or is under a touch point absorbs and reflects energy.

Noted. Thanks Rick.

Warren,
   I agree that it isn;t the neck material and its fundamental resonant
qualities that contribute to the tone of an electric guitar. I think it's more
about the neck's ability, regardless of materials it's constructed from, to
conduct vibration back into the body and ultimately toward the pickups.

   I've always used carbon fiber reinforcement in my electric necks for this
purpose since it is so consistent and stiff.

   Potting pickups doesn't eliminate their microphonic ability, but does
minimize micorphonic feedback by helping to integrate the windings. The
wax needs to be absorbed by the coils in order to properly eliminate
unwanted microphonic feedback.

   This kind of feedback is caused by the individual parts moving relative
to one another so the entire pickup needs to be immersed in the wax so
that every component is surrounded and isolated as much as possible.

    The last thing I want to do is to eliminate the microphonic ability of a
pickup. Potting for me has always been an effort to eliminate the
unwanted of a pickup's microphonic qualities.

    No matter what you do to a pickup, it will always have some
microphonic abilty, but there needs to be care taken to balance it so that
great tone can be achieved while still having control over the pickup's
output and its behaviour depending on its proximity to the amplification.

    Rick turner knows so much more about these things than i will ever
know, but I rely on my experience to make things work...and work well
for me.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher

I vacuum pot pickup coils in paraffin wax, and then pot the coils into pickup covers with the same WEST epoxy we use as glue and as pore filler.   I add lamp black to the epoxy to make it black.   As Kevin says, it's to keep coil windings from vibrating inside the pickup and prevent them from howling at high gain.

[QUOTE=Kevin Gallagher]I agree that it isn;t the neck material and its fundamental resonant
qualities that contribute to the tone of an electric guitar. I think it's more
about the neck's ability, regardless of materials it's constructed from, to
conduct vibration back into the body and ultimately toward the pickups. [/QUOTE]

For the sake of clarification I am going to have to respectfully disagree with this Kevin. To suggest that vibrational energy needs to be transmitted to the wood near the pickups also suggests that the pickups can actually pickup wood vibrations directly but unless the wood has a ferric content this is absolutely not the case. The vibrational energy needs to be directed towards the pickups via the strings to have any affect at all.

Here are a couple of quotes from an excellent article on GuitarNuts
that explains a bit about how pickups work:[QUOTE]
"...pickups work on the same principal as electric generators -- Whenever
there is relative motion between magnetic flux lines and an electrical
conductor (copper wire) an electrical signal will be generated in the
conductor. The strength of the signal generated depends on
how much (how many coils) of the conductor "cut" the magnetic flux
lines, how fast the relative motion is, and on how strong those flux
lines are."

"Any time a ferous material is placed within a magnetic field, it will "warp" the magnetic flux lines.
Therefore, when our steel guitar strings vibrate within the field of
the fixed pickup magnet, they cause the magnetic field to "vibrate" as
well. This creates motion of the flux lines relative to the coil of
copper wire and generates an electrical signal."[/QUOTE]

I will also assert that the neck of an electric guitar has as much if not more of an affect on the tone of the guitar. This is due to the fact that the strings are not only connected to the body via the bridge but also to the neck via the nut and frets (as Rick has mentioned above). Considering that the neck is much less massive than the body (I'm talking solidbodies here) it would follow that any string energy absorbed by the guitar will put the neck it into greater motion relative to the body due to the difference in mass. And this motion (vibration) gets transferred from the neck (and body) back into the strings where they are sensed by the pickups. Because the pickup signal is amplified it makes the electric guitar a very sensitive instrument. This is why players can have a preference in fretboard material and actually hear it.

Microphonics are another issue altogether. I do understand that the vibrations of the guitar can also mechanically move the coil windings of unpotted pickups but I think the overall contribution would be like listening to the sound of a dandelion seed pass by in a windstorm. Try removing the strings and see what sort of microphonic signal is present. This is an easy test to perform.

~David

I think the whole notion of the neck transmitting useful string vibration into the body is suspect and perhaps even specious whether you're talking about electric guitars OR acoustic guitars.   The neck certainly has a very important role on tone, but I believe it is the direct effect upon one end of the string, not some convoluted pathway of vibrations down through the neck and heel and into the body.   I agree the neck joint should be solid, but that is so it doesn't rob vibrations from the strings in useless rattling rather than being a transmission juncture from strings to body.