The real influence of wood in tone

[Filipe Marquez]

Hey guys, i know this is an old question, but i was just wondering again: Do you really think that wood affects tone so much? Or is it the pickups and construction that influence it WAY more than the type of woods?

I ask it cause in the Where The Wild Things Are DVD, Steve Vai plays his acrilyc guitar, and to be honest it sounds amazing, if not THE SAME as his Evo and others...

So what do you guys think, what real knowledge or guessings do you have about the subject?

[Edgecrusher]

Like most things guitar related its subjective. Steve Vai uses a very heavily processed heavily compressed tone. This will hide any of the subtle nuances that different and varying woods can provide. In the case of Vai's rig the wood plays little difference. In a clean and dynamic rig woods unique characteristics can shine through. As you add dirt and how its added will change how much this of this effect remains. So in the end.. it all depends. Sometimes it matters none.. Sometimes it matters a lot.

[astrozombie]

Like most things guitar related its subjective. Steve Vai uses a very heavily processed heavily compressed tone. This will hide any of the subtle nuances that different and varying woods can provide. In the case of Vai's rig the wood plays little difference. In a clean and dynamic rig woods unique characteristics can shine through. As you add dirt and how its added will change how much this of this effect remains. So in the end.. it all depends. Sometimes it matters none.. Sometimes it matters a lot.

this is a pretty good answer, I was going to say the same.

it's like EMGs... can you tell what guitar is which is they all have EMGs?

[Condemned soul]

Consider my 20+ year old Yamaha acoustic. This is subjective, however, I think it sounds now as it did 20 years ago.

Is the lack of change due to the woods involved, construction techniques used, or both.

In this guitar, I believe both.

In comparable guitars, I suspect the wood plays a great part.

[CTN]

wood affects tone in as much as it affects the kinds of frequencies produced by string vibrations. Very resonant woods/bodies will impart a kind of liveliness to the string vibration, as they "bounce back" the energy of the vibrating string to the string itself. That liveliness is picked up by the pickup.

Different woods resonate differently and absorb different vibration frequencies, so woods that absorb higher frequencies sound dark whereas woods that absorb more low frequencies sound bright. There's a lot of grey area between those two extremes obviously.

Non-resonant bodies absorb a lot of the vibration, so whatever string energy is fed back to the string is severely dampened, producing a "dead" sound. I don't know what the resonance qualities of acrylic are, but you can be damned sure than almost every material in existence has SOME ability to absorb and reflect vibration frequencies.

That's how I understand it as per my relatively short time on this earth playing/occasionally building guitars. This is the internet though, so you could very well dismiss my opinion as a big steaming turd, but hey, that's just my 2 cents.

[ImmortalSix]

= what the afterlife is like

[blueman335]

wood affects tone in as much as it affects the kinds of frequencies produced by string vibrations. Very resonant woods/bodies will impart a kind of liveliness to the string vibration, as they "bounce back" the energy of the vibrating string to the string itself. That liveliness is picked up by the pickup.

Different woods resonate differently and absorb different vibration frequencies, so woods that absorb higher frequencies sound dark whereas woods that absorb more low frequencies sound bright. There's a lot of grey area between those two extremes obviously.

Non-resonant bodies absorb a lot of the vibration, so whatever string energy is fed back to the string is severely dampened, producing a "dead" sound.

+1. Wood makes a big difference; it's tonal proerties and the amount of it. Put the same PU in a Strat and an LP, and you'll have two very different sounding guitars.

[Jessie's ghost]

Like most things guitar related its subjective. Steve Vai uses a very heavily processed heavily compressed tone. This will hide any of the subtle nuances that different and varying woods can provide. In the case of Vai's rig the wood plays little difference.

Vai doesn't always play with those types of tones. He often plays clean, or with varying amounts of dirt. In a typical album or concert set list, you get a pretty good variety of tones from him.

Also, there are JEMs with basswood bodies, and others with alder bodies. They're matched to the pickups and the sounds he wants out of them. I've played both types, and they're pretty different. I've played both Breeds and Evolutions in different guitars with huge amounts of gain, and I've never felt any two guitars under those circumstances sounded the same.

As for the often-repeated notion that EMG's make all guitars sound the same, I just don't think that's true. I've swapped 85's, 81's, 89R's, and SA's in and out of three guitars, and again I never felt any of the guitars sounded identical with the same pickup. I think the differences are somewhat diminished compared to most passives I've tried, but they were still significant. My favorite example was a pair of Steinbergers a friend used to have. They both had EMG 85's in the bridge, but I liked the sound of the neck-through model much, much more than the bolt-on.

[uOpt]

Well in the case of Vai the wood probably doesn't matter, but that is a special tone not used by everybody and can't be used for many kinds of music.

I would also say that if he played slow and "thoughtful" like -say- Gilmour then that tone would lack expression.

[jmh151]

The cleaner the tone, the bigger the difference in body wood- the more you start adding gain and effects, the more the sound compresses, and the harder it is to tell the difference. So it all depends on your playing style

[Jessie's ghost]

I would also say that if he played slow and "thoughtful" like -say- Gilmour then that tone would lack expression.

I would say that, as someone who has owned a good half-dozen Vai albums and has seen him in concert three times, I think this is probably not the case.

[uOpt]

I wouldn't say that all clean tones depend on wood. There are some clean tones that depend on a tremolo sustain block doing most of the work, and the guitar just needs to be stiff for long sustain.

[DankStar]

ever put the same pickup in two different guitars and have them sound vastly different? that ain't hocus pocus!

[Jessie's ghost]

I wouldn't say that all clean tones depend on wood. There are some clean tones that depend on a tremolo sustain block doing most of the work, and the guitar just needs to be stiff for long sustain.

Do you think that's more true of floating trems?

[Filipe Marquez]

wood affects tone in as much as it affects the kinds of frequencies produced by string vibrations. Very resonant woods/bodies will impart a kind of liveliness to the string vibration, as they "bounce back" the energy of the vibrating string to the string itself. That liveliness is picked up by the pickup.

Different woods resonate differently and absorb different vibration frequencies, so woods that absorb higher frequencies sound dark whereas woods that absorb more low frequencies sound bright. There's a lot of grey area between those two extremes obviously.

Non-resonant bodies absorb a lot of the vibration, so whatever string energy is fed back to the string is severely dampened, producing a "dead" sound. I don't know what the resonance qualities of acrylic are, but you can be damned sure than almost every material in existence has SOME ability to absorb and reflect vibration frequencies.

That's how I understand it as per my relatively short time on this earth playing/occasionally building guitars. This is the internet though, so you could very well dismiss my opinion as a big steaming turd, but hey, that's just my 2 cents.

I would never dismiss your opinion if i asked for it, lol. That was my thought too, when i made the thread, i was thinking about solid body guitars, as the acoustics i played unplugged were all REALLY different.

+1. Wood makes a big difference; it's tonal proerties and the amount of it. Put the same PU in a Strat and an LP, and you'll have two very different sounding guitars.

But that has to do with construction too right?

The cleaner the tone, the bigger the difference in body wood- the more you start adding gain and effects, the more the sound compresses, and the harder it is to tell the difference. So it all depends on your playing style

That's what i've been thinking too.

[Filipe Marquez]

I wouldn't say that all clean tones depend on wood. There are some clean tones that depend on a tremolo sustain block doing most of the work, and the guitar just needs to be stiff for long sustain.

I've heard that too, people say floyd roses wreck sustain...

[uOpt]

Do you think that's more true of floating trems?

No. I think a clean chord sounds a bit different on a floating trem with soft springs because the guitar "gives in" for a bit at the beginning of the chord. But overall the difference isn't anywhere close to a hardtail.

[uOpt]

I've heard that too, people say floyd roses wreck sustain...

Cheap ones? I dunno I don't think that this is the case.

Now, the heavy nut on a cheap neck, that can wreck sustain.

[Filipe Marquez]

Cheap ones? I dunno I don't think that this is the case.

Now, the heavy nut on a cheap neck, that can wreck sustain.

Hm, and what would be a cheap neck?

[uOpt]

Hm, and what would be a cheap neck?

Overly large truss rod? Non-resonant wood?

If you have a trem block the neck plays an important role.