How Wood Affects Tone - Ask Zac 48 

I'm just as bad. Without my readers on, at first glance I thought the title was "How WEED Affects Tone." I know it improves mine.

@@JohnNathanCO LOL!!!

x)

Nothing wrong with being Young at Heart😉👍

You had to say that and now I’m cracking up 😂

So good!

Sassafras wood smells like root beer forever

And Persimmon smells like ... never mind.

Or Cheerios lol

@@Sophiedorian0535 Wait a second! What do you mean "never mind"?

The type of wood, moisture content, density, and overall size, all contribute. Not as much as an acoustic guitar, but they def do. Imo, dry wood with less density enhances vibrations and helps carry them throughout the body. Just like an acoustic, you can FEEL it when you strum a chord. A pickup generates a signal by a strings vibration interfering with the pickups magnetic field. More vibration in the wood=more movement to the string=enhances output signal. Thus louder signal, more sustain, and more dynamic articulation. There’s lots of nuances to it, but, I tend to agree with this debate.

Nope. Take a Les Paul as an example. Look how little of the metal of the bridge stud even touches wood. You tihnk the energy of a vibrating string could transfer through that throught the base and saddle to a degree that affects how long the string vibrates? You'd have to hot it with a sledge hammer. Sorry but wood makes NO DIFFERENCE

@@franknstein4340 I have changed bodies on my strat and it's quite noticeable tone wise. If you cant hear that's fine but a lot of us can hear it and it makes a tonal difference.

@@franknstein4340 Does that mean every 1953 Telecaster sounds the same? Vince Gill says that he has never played another '53 that sounds like his. But what does Vince know?? Ask all of the most recognized luthiers if wood makes a tonal difference.

I can guarantee you if I put some Custom Shop pups in my '60s tiesco T-style it won't sound like my pine tele with the same electronics. Wood matters.

Thank you so much!

Awesome! Thank you!

My pleasure!

Right on!

It's fairly obvious a RU-vid video will not easily show any difference in sound. There's a lot of compression going on. I mean, just look at the many tube amp videos and compare to playing using the real deal. There's not a single video that captures that sound accurately. I also would say the wood of any guitar is only a piece of the puzzle. The dominant factors will be pickups, string choice and whatever amp or effects you choose to use, obviously. But those saying it doesn't matter at all which wood a guitar is made of, are simply wrong. Does it matter as much as the marketing wants you to believe? Probably not. But again, doesn't mean there is 'no' difference. Also keep in mind that for any guitar to play well in the hands of a new owner, it should feel good to play on it. 90% of the experience when playing is based on that, not the sound that you can heavily influence by choice of pickups, strings and so on. And then there's also the fun fact, how rarely any two guitars will sound really _exactly_ the same.

More to come

It's about both. Brightness is the perception, grouping of harmonics in the attack rather than in the envelope, is how said perception is being generated. Neither is more real than the other. Trust your ears. It's what musical instruments are made for, after all. Outside of perhaps 'Doc' from 'Back to the Future', I can't imagine anyone take an oscilloscope app to the Crossroads Festival.

@@Sophiedorian0535 Well, that is an even deeper dive in how generated sound waves leads to individual perception of what we call tone. And even so I would say, that the difference in the envelope is not neglectable, you are very right, I would rather have a beer, listen and enjoy sound, tone, art, music :)

@@cahootspastor7855 Wait. Not done yet. No self-respecting pedantrix checks out without some Latin. De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum. I'd rather have a banana milkshake. It's the nerd's Glenfiddich.

Most interesting as well. Experiment and experience-based. Not on hearsay sown together with pool table logic. Maestro indeed. I'm jealous. I'm too pedantic to be able to do what le Zac is doing.

The guy yelling out, “Play your Norlin-era pancake body Les Paul!” cares😉

I’m pretty sure everything that Leo Fender did was motivated by price UNTIL a musician he respected told him “You know Leo, I think it would better is you did ______ because ______.”

Love your playing!

He does great work

@@AskZac Yes, he does. He works on all my guitars and has them all feeling and playing amazing!

Glad you enjoyed it!

In a friend's Tele they worked out great.

A topic for another vid

I saw Bill Kirchen live a few weeks ago. He was playing a pine Tele with a pine neck, no truss rod. He said it wasn't that old though, it was made from some pine that came out of Jim Jarmusch's loft apparently. Sounded great.

Interesting , I've never played an original rosewood Telecaster but a friend of mine still has his first good guitar his parents bought him in the mid 80's ,which is a Japanese Fender rosewood Tele . I don't think it's much heavier than my Avri '52 but I believe the construction of the rosewood Tele was changed on later ones (after Harrison's, that far back I think) , including the Japanese versions in the 80's . My friend's guitar is like a sandwich body , whereas I think the originals were solid (?)

John would likely complain about how he used too much chorus, and put too much stuff in his earlier productions.

Ask Zac That récord made a giant dent in my noggin. I learned LOTS about arranging etc. (...Sidewalk ends etc..)

@@THEItchybruddah I love that record too. It was my intro to him, as I did not hear Colvin till later.

Here are some from my site www.askzac.com/category/articles

Someone can come along and say yes that’s true but your pick ups may have different numbers of windings in them or the magnets may be more or less demagnetized over time, and stuff like that.

As well as different pickup height.

Practice has more affect on tone. If I must be totally honest.

It depends. But I tend to like ash with a maple or maplecap neck.

Further down the rabbit hole. This was an overview. Stiffer wood will produce more fundamental.

Don’t play a ton of bass. All that matters is if it speaks to you

I have played a couple, and they were great. I always look for lighter ones.

Thanks for sharing!

I love you for that reference! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vOHekLZD5i4.html&ab_channel=AdamfulgenceakaEileen

Following your example. Thank you.

Peace and love

I have not played one.

Thanks!

Pine is fine! It will just show wear a bit faster, but those guitars have a pretty hard finish. Do they say it has a pine body?

Pickup is more than 90% of your sound, so start from there.

@ClaudioMartella this does not jive with my experience. Pickup, strings, wood, touch all make a big difference

My pleasure!

Good idea. Another video

Alder

I would not worry about it. Go for it

@@AskZac Thanks, appreciate the rely! Tele is a pretty rugged work horse guitar, as you know. I didn't think it would affect the sound, but good to ask.

So these “vibrations” in the wood generate an electromagnetic impulse that influences the electromagnetic signal induced by the vibrating string over the magnetic poles of the pickup?

@@svgs650r I believe an electric guitar is a system of resonance. Of course the bridge and nut and composition of the string are by far the most significant elements contributing to the nature of the string vibration that in turn creates the electromagnetic impulses. I wouldn't argue that. But if you have a small low mass bridge versus large high mass bridge, the string definitely vibrates differently. That's pretty easy to hear if you've ever swapped out a cheap Japanese bass bridge for a Leo Quan Baddass bridge for instance. I'm not an engineer or scientist so I don't know why, but I suspect the larger mass bridge is more stable at the contact point with the string so it doesn't contaminate the strings vibration with its own wobble. Similarly, the harder and more dense the nut material, the less it vibrates. Most luthiers feel that high quality synthetics work as well as bone and that's probably because they both are dense materials. When it comes to the wood components of an electric guitar, I would admit that differences in string vibrations are probably very small, certainly much smaller than the string material itself. The body and neck of the guitar are part of the system that supports the vibrating string. I work in a guitar shop and many talented electric players pay a lot of attention to how an electric guitar sounds unplugged. They've told me that if the guitar as a whole is lively when unplugged, it will sound better plugged in. It definitely will feel different in their hands which also contributes to playability and therefore to sound. I think there is a lot of hype about "old wood" versus "new wood" and in acoustic guitars it has spawned a mania with baking the top wood (artificially drying out wood) to make it sound better. While that's possible, I suspect it's more a marketing ploy than a real thing. But type of wood (maple vs mahogany vs rosewood, etc.) obviously plays a significant part in the sound signature of an acoustic instrument. I don't think anyone with ears could argue that. With an electric guitar, wood has a much lesser effect. But as I said above. An electric guitar works as a system and every part of the guitar, and even more importantly the players fingers which are also part of the "system," contribute something to the nature of the string vibration and hence the ultimate sound. I apologize for running on and on about this. I'm much more interested in guitar playing than guitar geekery. But your question is an honest one and I wanted to give you an honest answer. As a person who sells guitars for a living, I focus on finding the right instrument for people, one that feels good in their hands and will satisfy their needs. I rarely, if ever, get into the geekery of wood type in electric guitars because there are so many other factors that matter much more.

The bridge makes a huge difference

That is from the old VG article. Those were fun days

Like Steve Cropper's 63 Tele. Same woods

@@AskZac wow... thanks!!!

Not really. There’s subjective reactions and then there’s the hard facts of science. The rest is shamanism. That’s all there is to it.

I was already cringing when I saw the thumbnail for this video! It was amazing to me to see how vicious the Great Online Tonewood Debate of the 90's got, justgo play your guitar, live, and let live! 😎😁

I thought the Mason was great. I hoped that came across in the BM video

@@AskZac It did for sure. I wasn't clear with my question. Your review was great. Heck I ordered one. I was curious if the bm's northern hard rock ash body had any tonal differences say compared to a swamp ash body like a 52' reissue tele. With swamp ash/ash supplies disappearing its going to be interesting seeing what alternatives Fender and other makers use and how they'll sound. I'm very excited about the bm tele. Keep up the excellent work.

Maple.....

heavy

Why do violinist not just put strings up to a mic? Wood makes a difference. Resonance enhances sustain, that the pickup takes in.

@@AskZac Of course, for acoustic instruments, the wood that it is made of is crucial to the sound of the entire instrument. That is not the question. Regarding a solidbody guitar, the pickups are rarely attached to the wood itself but to some kind of plastic holder or to the plastic pickguard. They almost never touch the wood at all. Exceptions to this are Les Pauls and ES-330s and Epiphone Casinos with P-90s which are screwed directly to the body, and the Telecaster neck pickup which is attached similarly. On a Strat, for instance, the pickups are attached to the plastic pickguard. Most electric guitars do not have pickups attached to the wood. So, given that different wood types resonate differently. How is that different resonance transmitted in any significant way to the pickups and by the signal created by them to the amp?

Originals.

Ask Zac do you know how hot the pickups are wound

Science says: don't bother trying to prove a negative.