Do Pickguards Rob Your Tone: Revisited

[PaulReedSmith]

[vinterland]

If you played your guitar more you'd know.

[PaulReedSmith]

:o I got rid of all my pickguards ...not

[millsart]

holding the guitar while you play it robs tone you know

I really would like to take mine up into space and play it without needing any undue vibration absorbing contact with it.

[Pete Galati]

Going by this definition of tone:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tone

2.
a. The quality or character of sound.
b. The characteristic quality or timbre of a particular instrument or voice.

Pickguards are part of your tone.

[ericmeyer4]

have we become that anal about tone?

[theodie]

Rob, Robs everyones tone!

[James Rock]

Everything changes tone including where I stand in the room you know all those reflections resonating the body at different angles

[Skarekrough]

The Gnomes that steal my underpants rob my tone as well.

[Rich_T]

My tone went to that big hole in the universe.

[Empty Pockets]

My tone went to that big hole in the universe.

Pff that's nothin...I'm so TRVE KVLT D00M that my tone IS the big hole in the middle of the universe.

[Rich_T]

Pff that's nothin...I'm so TRVE KVLT D00M that my tone IS the big hole in the middle of the universe.

Oh yeah? Well mine made that big hole in the middle of the universe. How'd you like them apples?

[MikeS]

Oh yeah? Well mine made that big hole in the middle of the universe. How'd you like them apples?

Cool, so you have a Zoom 505, too?

[jerryjg]

A lot of little things ad up, so I would say that a i ply gaurd does have some effect on your vintage tone.

[NUNOSLASH]

Cool, so you have a Zoom 505, too?

I do

[MikeS]

Tone is unquantifiable. Robbing tone would necessitate some sort of measurable value for tone. That's why I despise the notion that part X can rob a guitar of tone. It makes no sense.

[Rich_T]

Tone is unquantifiable. Robbing tone would necessitate some sort of measurable value for tone. That's why I despise the notion that part X can rob a guitar of tone. It makes no sense.

Quite. A lot of the time, so called 'faults' actually give the guitar a desirable character.

[guitfiddle]

Quite. A lot of the time, so called 'faults' actually give the guitar a desirable character.

Yup. Off-the-shelf components and guitars and pickups made the best way they knew how are responsible for the most monumental tones in the world, and the boo-teek market is simply splitting hairs on the fundamentals Leo and a few others started with the junk at hand.

[Empty Pockets]

Oh snap oh snap.

[Robert Delahunt]

My opinion: no, we can't prove that they do rob tone without a frequency spectrometer bench and some accelerometers. Even then, that will only tell us if they rob frequencies, not tone. Tone is VERY subjective: I like the tone from my Lite Ash Stratocaster, you may not like it.