"Hass Affed" - Kyle Bull 2023 Get the PRS SE McCarty 594 Singlecut I used in the video from Sweetwater HERE - Maple Top - sweetwater.sjv.io/B0OZ5B Standard - sweetwater.sjv.io/rQq7qD
Quick note: I'm 55, with tinnitus, and high frequencies are a bit lost for me. I'm listening through 4" PreSonus monitors. Listening to the A/B of the distorted guitar mix between 5:55 and 6:44, it was very easy for me to determine that I couldn't tell the difference at all. Listening to the differences at the end with the clean and then distorted (but softer playing), I could hear a difference between the two, and I preferred the mahogany body since it sounded brighter to me. With the heavy strumming, I couldn't tell the difference at all. As far as electric guitars go, I no longer worry about the wood type, either the body or the top. For me, that myth was dispelled a while ago.
Any minuscule difference could also be attributed to the slightest difference in pickup height or tolerances in tone pot resistance which can easily be 10 percent and would be noticeable.
this plus all pickups are NOT created equal, i mean it can be the SAME pickup but be slightly voiced different or hotter output. That's coming from someone that has 5 guitars with the same exact out put, same pickup height relative to string...etc
Such a great channel and host. He deserves a much bigger audience and much faster channel growth. Unlike most other channels in the music genre, he doesn't pump out throwaway videos just to be able to say he released something every few days. All of his videos are meaningful and interesting. I dig it. Thanks for what you do, dude!
Jim Lill did a really cool video on this topic that pretty much answered the question for me. At the end of his video he's comparing a regular guitar with an "air guitar" he's basically made by setting up the strings between a bench and a shelf. Same pickups, strings and hardware but literally no tonewood involved. There is essentially no audible difference in tone with a clean or distorted sound. Any differences you're hearing in this video are more likely a result of differences in the pickups that occur during manufacturing. Could be youtube compression but I couldn't hear any significant difference between the two in any of your demo clips. Even if you think wood makes a difference it's nowhere near on the same level as pickups, amp, speakers etc. We can all stop pretending it's not an aesthetic choice, it's okay to buy guitars just because you like the way they look.
Jim Lill's video was well made, but his experiment wasn't. He failed to recreate the specific conditions in which the material of a solid body guitar becomes relevant. He used pickups that were designed to make guitars sound decent regardless of their quality. They weren't the kind of pickups I'd use to bring out the best in a well made guitar with a resonant body. If you're playing in a bedroom most of the time, tonewood won't matter. Tonewood matters when it matters. There are very few luthiers who really understand how to make it matter. The style of music can be a factor in how relevant it will be. For some styles, it won't be important at all. However, there are some songs I play that can't be played without certain notes coming alive when they are fretted, and it only happens on one of my guitars. Even though I have the same pickups and hardware on other guitars, I cannot achieve the same thing on any of those. The difference comes from the guitar's body. It's not that the pickups detect the sound from the wood. That's not how it works. It affects the harmonic vibration of the strings, which is then sent to the pickups. It makes the most difference in a live gig. None of these factors were accounted for in Jim Lill's test. I respect what he was trying to do, but his test was not as comprehensive as he thought it was. Maybe one day I'll publish my own experiment demonstrating how deliberately resonating a solid body guitar using a transducer can change the sounds a guitar is able to make. If the vibration of the wood in a solid body guitar didn't matter at all, it shouldn't be possible to do that, but it is.
@@goblinspy I bet you felt really clever saying that, but I can cause my audience to hear the difference, because there are things that I am able to play using SOLELY the resonant qualities of the right kind of solid body that literally cannot be played using a guitar with a body that doesn't resonate in the same way, even with the same pickups. That's because it is not a function of the pickups, but a function of the sound coming through the wood itself causing strings to vibrate at certain frequencies depending on what you're doing to the wood. How do you think a transducer-based speaker is able to cause a guitar string to vibrate at difference harmonics depending on the note you send into the wood? It's not sending any sound into the pickups. It is affecting the way a guitar string moves by artificially vibrating the material with which the guitar is made. If you play basic music, or only ever play in your bedroom, none of this will matter to you, but like I said, it matters when it matters, and I know how to make it matter.
@@c0lumbo Reel your neck in, son. No audience gives a sh!t about your imaginary differences, they're there to have a good time & most of them don't know the difference between a guitar & a bass, never mind this unicorn tone you allude to. Your kind keeps musical equipment expensive because you are not too bright & will fall for any myth & defend your idiotic position at great length because you spent a small fortune on crap.
@@c0lumbo You're wrong though 😂 tonewood makes 0 difference whatsoever in electric guitars, at all. It's absolutely impossible for the body material of an electric guitar to have any effect on sound because that's not how pickups work. Electric guitar pickups aren't microphones, the only thing they pick up is the metal wires used as strings disrupting the magnetic field of the pickup, that's literally it. If the body emitted magnetic fields then sure, but it doesn't.
Feeling the resonance of a guitar is a thing... I have a Gibson Flying V that is very resonant and light... It makes you play ''harder'' and with intention.... As for Tone, out of the speaker. No, it doesn't make much difference. 😇
Yep, I can second this. Had an Epiphone Les Paul Custom in Ebony. Typical Les Paul construction, and it had a wonderful resonance, and was honestly almost as loud as an acoustic; it sang. When plugged in though, it really doesn't matter, just like you said. But...a thick flame maple cap on a Les Paul is just beautiful.
But it makes a difference, out the speaker. Resonance in the body wood, by definition, will modulate (change) the final waveform of the string. Now, maybe if you're using DSP, you cannot hear a difference, after that much signal manipulation.
@@kennethc2466 I agree in all the tests I could hear the guitar's tone form the top and it's massive for me... But then again I'm perfect pitch, Austic aka high pattern recognition and have a clinitcal mindset.
@@GreenBlueWalkthroughIf the 'tone' was a color, Steve wonder could tell the difference. Alas, the dumb consumer needs their sunk cost fallacy appeased, by the corporate propaganda of, "buy my crap, it's just as good the rest. TRUST ME".
@@jamescarter3708 I've been trying to figure this out for 23 years now. I saved up to buy a Gibson Les Paul an after 2 days, 2 states, and almost a dozen stores, my friend accidentally grabbed me an Epi LP and it felt perfect from the first strum. It's also a 2001 that has an MR serial, which has questionable info about where or how it was made, Either way, glad I'm not alone in this.
Another fun thing you could do with PRS. Test the se ce24 vs the SE custom 24 to see the difference if any tonally there are between the bolt on neck and the set neck.
Good job Kyle! There's something that I want to point out though. As far as these comparisons go we're making a big assumption that the only difference in those guitars is the wood. Guitar pickups, volume/tone pots and capacitors all sound different. F.ex. think about a 4x12 V30 cab and compare it to another 4x12 V30 cab made of another wood species. Wouldn't it be quite a stretch to state that the wood species is the main reason for the tone change when we know that pretty much every single V30 sounds different and varies in brightness? Two of my main Mesa 4x12s are from the same year and they sound nothing alike - I even have separate packs from them. In the case of pickups even though manufacturers aim to produce the same spec pickups we know that the ohms are never identical between pickups of the same make. Coil wire varies in thickness and magnets are not identical. The reason I'm saying this is because I think you could take the pickups and electronics from one of these guitars and throw them to the other and make A/B tests with the same strings. I would bet the sound difference will be just as big as it is here "between different tonewoods". I'm genuinely interested in this kind of a video and think others may be interested as well. :)
@IIIDontLie2MeIII the pickups mainly, there could be some miniscule differences but it's mainly going to be the pickups. I had a strat, it sounded like your standard strat. I also had an ibanez fireman. I replaced my strat pickups with the same ones in my ibanez. Magically the strat sounded exactly the same as the ibanez. I also own some majestys and JPs, I bought a sterling majesty and found it didn't sound anything like my other majesty. New dimarzio pickups installed and bam same sound. Sadly fretboard material doesn't effect "tone" that is a placebo effect. Our mind will always associate brighter colors with brighter sounds. There was a study performed on several different guitars and drums and the people selected consistently believed that the guitar with maple fretboard vs ebony or rosewood was brighter, people also selected the maple fretboards when hearing a major scale vs a minor scale. They also did the same with just the color of the guitar. Our minds will always associate sounds and music this way. Les Paul said it best himself "people listen with their eyes"
The fact that Fender made a Strat out of Cardboard that was playable and sounded great several years ago should have killed the Tonewood discussion already. Pickups only capture magnetic vibration so the string tension, gauge and materials are much more important that the body materials.
I'm also curious if there is a measurable output difference in the pickups. Besides that the difference is so small that I'd rather get the guitar that inspries me more to play. Awesome idea for a video!
I noticed the brightness changed in each of them depending open chord or a chug. Or even a lead . The mahogany would change brightness depending on how you played it open cords or chugs or even a lead sometimes it was darker
I got an electric guitar made of epoxy, how's that for tonewood? It's just not a thing for electric guitars. Same thing with pickups, you can maybe see a slight difference in the sound graph.
@@Sticky_Tea To be honest, no material is 100% identical. I bet having 100 guitars of same model and all that, would have minor sound differences in the recorded sound graphs. Does it matter for rock/metal? Not unless you're a moth I suppose.
I love WOM! Will go there well before I'll hit up GC at the mall. Cool to see them on here! Listening in my studio on the monitors, I agree with WoM all the way. The mahogany guitar almost sounded piezo like on the clean channel. The maple top was definitely darker, if only but a touch. In a mix, though, it won't matter for sure. Very good vid, man!
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, lol, but this video is gonna crush! I hope it gets 10's of thousands of views. Kyle has his finger on the pulse of the guitar community, and I think we can all appreciate the hard work a fellow guitar villain puts in. Thanx brother.
It's geartarded to think an electric guitar's wood has no impact on tone. Things like fret material, nut material, type of strings. And of course, the wood matters. The mass of the guitar.
Differences in sound can be from inconsistencies between pickups. Would love to see multiple identical pickups tested against each other for consistency.
That's kind of the point of the video though. It's not meant to be an ultrascientific test but more of a real world test. And in the real world you never going to take all the parts off of one guitar and swap them onto another to try and hear if there are any tonal differences. It really just kind of comes down to the sum of all parts of each individual guitar
The individual guitar matters more than the slight differences a maple cap could make, especially with thick poly clearcoats. The reason I chose the standard over the custom, was pure cosmetic. Saving another hundo is a bonus too! Paid $629 from Sweetwater.
So from what I hear... the maple top had a little less mids. I really cant say which I like in a gain situation, because, sometimes you just want a different tonality. You could play one in left, one in right. It would give a slightly differnt thing, and spread the stereo seperation. Or use whatever for different styles. I have a few that I bounce around with like that. No real Gibs anymore.
If I’m being pedantic, similar doesn’t mean identical. There are still differences in pick ups values and pot values between the two guitars, which will definitely affect the sound of the guitars.
For me there's a bigger difference from the way you hit the strings than between the guitars themselves. So when you played the same note slightly different during the same sample it had more of an impact than between different samples (that could be easily EQ matched anyway).
I dig! Fun test. The first clip was perfect in demonstrating what Glen F yells about - in a metal sound especially it’s not gonna make a notable difference that can’t be eq’d to taste.
The all mahogany one does sounds brighter on clean/mild of tones through my AirPods. I generally agree with those that say it’s really a guitar by guitar basis and there is no definitive “rule” that one wood type is darker than others. The exception being acoustics of course.
Here's my experience. When they were doing the SE sale in '23, I played a couple McCarty singlecuts. One with the maple top, the other was the all 'hog standard. I don't think that the maple made the one guitar brighter, but it did seem like the notes had more clarity. The standard didn't sound muddy, but I did notice the difference between the two. Maybe people perceive greater clarity as "brighter"? In any case, they were close enough that I bought the cheaper standard. I didn't want to pay the extra money for the relatively blingy cap, which isn't really my style. Strangely enough, I think the standard I bought sounds better and has better note definition than the maple-capped Les Paul Tribute that I also own. So the maple cap on the one I tried in the store may have had nothing to do with the perceived difference. I got the PRS as a back-up, but the Gibson got demoted to the #2 position...lol. I think the difference I think I'm hearing between my PRS and Gibson is the pickups, but who the f#ck knows? We like the guitars we like. That's all we really need to "know".
Really fun video! I'm always a fan of these kind of comparison videos and I feel like you do a great job of trying to be unbiased and really open to what the outcome will be. Since you got these from sweetwater would you happen to know the weight of both guitars? I have a personal theory that the weight/density of tone wood is going to tell you more about how it sounds than what wood is in there specifically, but haven't had the guitars to test this theory
@@vorpalbladesThe tone of the strings can be affected by the resonance of the material of a solid body guitar. This can affect the tone. In some cases, it can even affect what a guitarist is able to do on a particular guitar. You can make strings resonate in different ways by feeding vibrations through the body of a solid body electric guitar using a transducer speaker. If the material made no difference, this wouldn't be possible. Some woods will pick up certain vibrations better than others, and this will make a difference to tone, but only if it is built in a way that allows the body material to make a difference. Tonewood matters when it matters, but few luthiers and even fewer guitarists know how to make it matter, and it is not an easy thing to achieve. For most, it's just easier to use pickups that colour the sound so much that it overrides most of the shortcomings of using lifeless materials, and for most styles of playing, that will be enough anyway.
If the guitar resonates differently in your hands it will affect your perception of how it sounds - that's just how our brains work. To someone not playing the guitar - if they can see the guitar it can affect how they perceive the sound. To someone not playing the guitar who ALSO can't see the guitar it will just come down to the performance and the electronics.
The reason people often hate the sound of their own voice when it's recorded is because you don't feel/hear the resonance that happens inside your head when you speak. You are 100% correct! Resonance affects perceived tone.
Kyle hi brother, I've just bought a brand new Standard 594 singlecut in vintage cherry and Man she's absolutely gorgeous and Awesome. The same that you review here instead of sunburst the Cherry. I would like to say to everyone who has the time to read my comment that get one of these babies before they get more expensive I mean I also bought it from Sweetwater Manuel Robles such a great guy. I've had in the past two PRS a Standard 22 and a Custom 22 both USA built but this Line from PRS are like a Grand Slam on Yankee Stadium. Absolutely Awesome Craftsmanship. I'm in love with these Sweetheart
In your guitars i the biggest difference is that the maple has a slightly wider frequency range , it sounds like it has more of everything and not just brighter, almost like it made it sound louder so The tone wood does matter,,, but people seem to gravitate to guitars that sound similar even when the wood is different, my preference is fender style so I have alder and ash basswood guitars with maple necks the difference is pretty prominent in that the ash guitars can sound fatter and fuller, the alder sounds singy and vocal and the basswood sounds thinner and focused, these are general and might be subtle to anyone else but the tones do accentuate the feel when you're playing, especially lead
any difference I heard (or thought I heard) throughout the video would easily be attributed to playing differences. Pretty much identical. My opinion is that the wood makes more of a feel difference - I've had guitars that feel "alive" and then others that just feel dead where I couldn't really feel the notes ringing out. IDK... I'm probably just yelling into the void at this point. Great video!
This is true. The acoustic response of an electric guitar is influenced by what its made out of. It just doesnt really effect what the pickup picks up.
@@johnbach2380 "The acoustic response of an electric guitar is influenced by what its made out of. It just doesnt really effect what the pickup picks up." -you Completely wrong. The pickups, er, PICK UP THE STRINGS, and the wood, bridge, nut, tuners, etc ALL modulate the string's vibrations. This is string physics, first year. I'm sorry you FEEL that physics is wrong, but it's YOU. There is no free energy machine, and pickups are an inductor, that's only input source is the vibrating string, modulated by what they're attached to. You sound like a person claiming, 'they make carburetors that can burn water instead of fuel', when they couldn't fins the idle circuit in an actual one.
@@kennethc2466 There is no proof of anything you stated. And there's literal examples on youtube, done better that disproves all this... literally someone taking out all variables INCLUDING the body, and the electric tone isn't affected at all. They literally strapped strings to two tables made out of scrap wood and it sounded identical to the alder Telecaster when the same pickup/distance/electronics/strings were used... an IDENTICAL sound... and one literally had no body. You're spilling out personal anecdotal evidence. The Pickup picks up the energy when you hit the strings... and does not give a crap about what sound resonates or reflects off the body. The hardware bridge and nut... well that also is contention exactly how much it makes a difference as someone used wood scraps as bridge parts vs a brass bridge and once again... not really any difference of note. TONEWOOD people never do a real test. They just spew their own experiences, and literally write their own science as they play guitar to guitar. Anti tonewood people actually provide fully done tests and proper control to prove their point. When the same mahogany/maple guitars all sound different... this makes Tonewood people look even more ridiculous. 🤣
@@johnbach2380what RUclipsrs have demonstrated is that the difference is sooo small, that it is not measurable or percievable. He is correct, the entire guitar vibrates and the different substances do resonate differently which does affect the tone, This is matter of physical fact Just not enough to matter, At all.
@@jeremytee2919 "He is correct, the entire guitar vibrates and the different substances do resonate differently which does affect the tone, This is matter of physical fact." Once again, what does this even mean? Are we talking about how a guitar sounds when it's acoustically strummed or the amplified electric signal? How magnetic pickups work, in its basic science tells you it doesn't care what is going around the pickup. That's why you can erase the body and the amplified guitar tone is literally the same tone. How you guys keep saying its "PHYSICS" is ridiculous. Guitars sound different acoustically... tonewood matters for the acoustic sound... no one debates that. The ELECTRIC sound doesn't care about that. That's the debate. Does the pickup/electronics/string care about what's going around the strings or not? The more tests done the answer is a resounding NO.
There is something good in those standard prs's. My guesses were right but I was not going on which One sounded brighter, for whatever that's worth. I picked up a standard tremonti witch I Believe also doesn't have a maple cap and it just had that little extra tude that I Dig, it does need some help thought the standards are probably the most affordable guitars prs makes and I discovered at a practice that it actually needed some fret work. I was a little disappointed but it was cheap and sounded really good so I decided I would get it fixed up. I was also surprised that I found the only new prs with a problem I've played alot of them there consistent and there quality control is on point just unlucky for me I guess but my point is next to other guitars it has a little something extra even next to other prs's
For some reason I felt that the Maple had a little bit more low end on the cleans, which is what I would have expected from the Mahogany only guitar. Where the pickup heights exactly the same? With gain I first thought the Mahogany had more bass but then I felt the Maple had more bass so I guess they must sound basically the same.
I would love to see a comparison between two of "the same" guitar, just to hear if there is any difference in the exact same model. For all we know here any tonal difference might also be down to, well, anything really xD. So I think this test would have been more telling had we had say, 1 pure mahogany and two with a cap, and then see if we could spot which one was without the cap.
I do think you were right. Aaaaand it had more to do with playing style. Maple caps might be perceived as more delicate and therefore played differently. Bear in mind there is almost no difference between the 2, it just might entirely subconscious. Pick angle and strength guided by the very back of the mind. Other perception would be that the maple is more expensive...
In blind tests I've only heard poplar, and maple fretboards, and stuff like that that's kind of abnormal. And anyway, if you're happy with your base (woods, saddles, frets), so much more in difference can be done with picks and picking technique, and going up or down in gauge, all before choosing a boost, then amp and its settings, then 80% of tone determining: Cab, speaker, mic and micing (at least definitely for recorded song production). Oh yeah and pickup height changing can be cool too, as well as pickups themselves and pots. IMO changing woods is only really a smart investment if you're Petrucci-level where he's optimised every part after, to the decimal point
On to the next question. Does a guitar with a scalopped neck have less toan then a guitar with a regular neck (less toan wood, less toan)? If you don't like the sound of a specific guitar, try to find one with different distance between bridge and P.U. (seen some weird difference on the same type of guitar, but different years...) Check out similar models but one a 22 fret and the other a 24 fret neck (same model and hardware) to get a feel of how different the same neck P.U. sounds at a different spacing. $0.02
Came here for this. A veneer is extremely thin, and has zero effect on tone. A Gibson with a maple cap has actual thickness, which causes a viable change in tone
I liked the mohogany better (even tho my bias was the opposite for tonal properties(, so sounds like i shoild just play the guitar. But kinda crazy that the wood makes any difference
Well I have a Studio LP, a Tradish and a Std which all sound slightly different (the tradish and the std have the exact same pickups). The studio has a bit more output which drives the amp a touch harder. But in a recording or live situation I found out, that nothing matters.
I just assume every slab of wood sounds different. And saying all mahogany sounds like mahogany or all alder sounds like alder is a big part of the issue. So even if we can say a guitar sounds different from another, there's just no way to know if a different tree of the same species sounds the same as the first. Or even that a different part of the same tree sounds the same.
FWIW, I have a PRS S2 594 Thinline which is thinner but all-mahogany, and also a PRS S2 594 "regular" which is a bit thicker but has a beautifully figured thick maple cap. Both are U.S. built with the same Korean pickups. The "regular" guitar sounds a lot more brilliant and transparent and clear, for your daily fill of esoteric keywords, whereas the Thinline sounds a little bit darker and more muffled. I also have a Gibson Gothic Explorer (all-mahogany) and a slightly smaller Gibson Melody Maker Explorer (all-maple), both with EMG 81 pickups at the bridge. I always thought mahogany was the way to go with Explorers, but my arse, that little maple bastard melts some serious face! Mids until next year, much more present and focused, and also somehow "tighter" when played hard. I originally bought that little sucker as a joke, but I'll never let it go. I think the take-away from the video should be: wood DOES make a difference, but "it depends" what difference it actually makes. In my personal experience with Gibsons and PRS-es, the maple does make for a snappier sound. Not to forget, the pickup height can also be adjusted to pronounce or subdue the high or low end...
idk if you still have these, but I'd be really curious if there's a difference between the pickups talking to PRS tec support recently they said there is some variance between all the "S" pickups which the s2's and se's have. Tone wood wise - the neck wood and fretboard wood BY FAR has a much larger impact than the body wood - then the scale has a huge impace as well - I mean if you have say two identical guitars mahogany body maple cap and one has a bolt on neck - the bolt on is going to be more snappy and responsive as well as the maple vs mahogany neck, vs maple vs rosewood fretboard. The problem with the "tone" wood argument is really that you aren't going to one hear ANY difference when you are re-amping the mix like with Glen's test - which is why his "scientific" test is actually massivly flawed - he re-amped all the sounds and then played the re-amped sound throuhg a speaker so you lose any response from the strings which would've changed since he didn't play the guitar each time. The only thing Glen got right was that the speakers impact the sound the most, but even with the test he did with difference cabinets he didn't change the size of the cab or try porting or anything like that - it comes down to what ever efffect air pressure effects how the speaker functions With guitar tone, what ever effects how freely and how long the strings can ring out impacts the tone. You could maybe say 60% of tone comes from the speaker/amp/cabinet and 40% comes from the guitar components - not to mention string size and string quality impact the tone a lot as well. If you really want to put a nail in the coffin of the tone wood argument, pick up and play two acoustic guitars - anyone with half a brain can tell it makes a difference. Anyone who has played many guitars or played over a longer period of time can instantly tell - but there's some hidden aspects too - which come down to build quality - you won't get two identical sounding guitars even if they are made with wood from the same tree. It doesn't mean they won't be close, and for many ppl it's splitting hairs, but the better player you are the more you notice the tiny things that make a really great gutiar a really great guitar. I live a bit north of Pittsburgh and I have a LP standard with an ebony fretboard if you'd want to comapre it to one of yours or do a coloaboration at somepoint I'm down to do that - in general it sounds way brighter, but it also has all titantium nut and bridge - which really proababy matter more to tone than the fretboard.
You said the guitars have the same electronics, but did you measure? The volume pot of a guitar is weird with one side to ground and either the wiper or the other side weird to signal input and signal output respectively. The potentiometer works by having a certain value resistor film between the outer pins, and a wiper on the middle pin that can be turned to different points on the resistor increase or decrease the resistance between the signal and ground. The higher the value of the resistor film, the less signal that will be bled off to ground. So if your single coil pickups are too bright, you can put in a 250k pot and while the majority of the electricity will travel through the path of least residence to the signal output jack of the guitar, some will be bled to ground across the resistor. If you use a 500k of 1m pot, there will be more resistance to the signal being bled to ground, so more of the signal will travel to the output. And due to how eddy currents work, high frequencies are going to the the ones that induct themselves past the resistance. Anyways, this is a long winded way to ask... Did you measure the volume pots and make sure they the resistance between the outer lugs was the same on both guitars? If you have a 500k + 10% and a 500k - 10% tolerance pot in each, that 100k ohms of resistance is plenty to make a difference in brightness of tone.
I wish I could do this in person cuz I hear differences in the clean and distorted. The clean mahogany sounds louder to me. But distorted the maple sounds louder to me. So I would like to do this on my own.
great video, definitely want more of this content! How i've been seeing the typical all mahogany vs. mahogany/maple difference for awhile now is that the maple is more 'compressed' and focused, so it tends to focus/narrow the tonal spectrum a bit vs the 'wider spectrum' of mahogany by itself. This means, the mahogany by itself will be 'thicker and fuller' not just in the mids and lows, but also in the high end. So depending on the variables of the guitar the maple will be less bright in most cases--which as you state is the opposite of what we've been told. I think people think its 'brighter' because the sound is more focused and less 'open' sounding, making it appear as if its 'brighter' but in reality its just more compressed so a lot of the 'tone' is in a more narrow spectrum, which may be perceived as 'brighter'.
@@vorpalblades you’re right, but vibrating strings do interact with magnets. Those vibrating strings are part of a system of vibration, which includes wood, among other materials that impact vibration of the system.
actually difference can be coming from difference in pickups (they have tolerance, even polepieces setup, 1mm higher or lower makes differnece), also pots but I still difference is there once you swap pickup totally etc. one thing to remember, is that both microphone and speakers are not able to reproduce real life sound, so there are 2 levels of comparison: recording and real life. I am tired of people saying wood has no impact.
did you weigh the guitars? the lighter guitar will probably sound brighter, everything else being equal. also keep in mind that the main difference you will hear with regards to tone and wood will be on the fingerboard. the tonal difference between a maple and rosewood neck for example is pretty obvious to anyone with good ears.
First test I hear A a bit brighter, just a little bit. I guess A is maple cap. After listening to all tests main differences I hear is more bass on the maple guitar and more byte or sharper attack on the mahogany. I would say the maple sounds fuller and the mahogany more focused. Would be interesting to listen to the higher notes alone.
Tonewood has a great impact on acoustic instruments and a moderate impact on solidbodies with piezoelectric pickups, while a rather negligible impact on the tone of solidbody instruments using electro-magnetic pickups. Now however, the material of the body in a solidbody guitar with electromagnetic pickups will have an effect on the "sustain". But, at the end of the day you can always EQ that slight difference made by the material of the body or resort to sustainiac pickups for a dramatic impact on the sustain of notes.
Are they both SE McCartys? If ones and S2 then it doesn't matter what wood is used.. The SE is 3 slabs of wood connected by a layer of glue which will muffle the natural vibration of the wood. A one piece capped S2 will have a pure, natural, constant wood vibration. Also, three guitarists are using the word *bright* wrong. The last guy was actually correct. The Mahogany one sounds tinny, not brighter. It has as much vibration as a tin can and sounds like one. The capped one is actually brighter as it rings out more as it's a one piece s2.
I don't hear any distinctive difference and I'm not listening on a phone or laptop speakers. I own the 594 double cut and really love it. Seriously thinking about picking up a 594 singlecut standard.
Could not tell the difference in the mix. But when you had your friends play it. It sounded like when you first unboxed the 2. The non maple top is just bright tonally. Both sound great though.
In the second test at the music store the maple top sounded better for the rock and metal they were playing, and the solid body guitar is lacking in the rock metal style, sounds a bit hollow to me
With headphones on, I couldn't hear a difference. I have noticed that if you are playing and hearing the guitar strings resonate like jamming at low volumes, or at the guitar store. But through a recording, you can't hear it. You will hear some differences. So, I want to try putting a microphone on the Amp and the guitar to see if you can actually capture any actual guitar tone wood differences.
I didn't make a guess before I watched the video to the end. I listened to the video while doing other stuff on my computer, and I honestly couldn't hear a difference when the two guitars were swapped out. I have some pretty nice, above average speakers connected. If I have to look to know when the guitar is being swapped out, the difference isn't significant enough in my opinion.
Disclaimer: not at all trying to be a shit-stirrer. In the mix, it’s so damn negligible it’s irrelevant. There’s barely some more top end on one. And if I wasn’t cued visually that the guitar was changing I probably wouldn’t notice. They both sound great and look great. And that’s really it, if it sounds good just run it.
Isolated there is a slight difference with headphones but I can't really pick out what the difference is, almost 1 is louder than the other. The difference could just be 1 pickup has 2 more windings than the other.
I belive wood makes a difference when I have a guitar that is to drak and put a set of pick ups in it that is bright in another guitar but when it go's in the dark guitar it sounds totally different also I belive there is a difference even when the guitars have the same wood say mahogany one mahogany trees wood tone may not be the same as another tree of the same type
Always enjoy your A/B comparisons. Sometimes I find them obvious and other times I can't tell the difference when listening. To me, it sounded like A had a slightly more even and cleaner response while B had a smidge less high and low frequency and a bit more of whatever that compression mid focused thing that I usually notice in mahogany topped guitars. From my experience I would guess A had the maple cap and B was Mahogany. Just a guess though. I don't think anyone would hear a difference outside of an A/B scenario. Edit: Got it completely backwards. 🤣 That figures, but I stick by my analysis that I thought that A sounded even and clearer while B sounded a little more focused and jumped out a little more. I just wasn't expecting the maple cap to do that.... That being said, what I am hearing seems to contradict what everyone heard in the room, so who knows.
Thought I perceived a very slight difference in the blind test. Ran it again with my eyes closed, and it disappeared completely. The only caveat to this statement is that this was done on a cellphone speaker, but I'm of the mind that Glen is correct in his assertion that tonewood doesn't matter at all in the context of a high gain metal application.
Thinking about the standard se McCarty 594 because they are so cheap right now. So coming to this five months late. I have a slight preference towards the mahogany because I hate veneers. In the high gain mix I couldn't tell the difference. But my theory is this. The tone wood probably does make a difference to what the player hears, but not to the amplified signal. An experienced guitarist might play differently because of what they hear. But not me with my sausage fingers.
One thing everyone forgets is the tolerances in the electronics. If there is something different between two guitars, you can't be sure that it's not the resistance value of the pots or something. That stuff probably has a way bigger influence than the wood. Also, you should have blindfolded the guys testing the guitars. 'Cause we all know we listen with our eyes most of the time.
I know that I'm going to get dog-piled for this, but the facts speak for itself. Keep in mind I'm hearing this through studio monitors and I'm also a guitar fiend. When the sound is clean, you can hear a bit of a distinction. The Music Store test has proved that. Everyone agree there was a difference in the tone when clean, but didn't agree on what differentiated the tone. Here's where Glenn's argument hold serious water, when you kick the gain on. Even seeing both guitars being played, yet with gain you really couldn't tell the difference. As far as the blind test goes, you can count me out. I fell for that one and felt like a soul on a shoe after that. Now what would have made the test more Interesting if you were to blindfold them. Now that would have be an eye opener. Keep up the good work Kyle!
As a career test engineer, I caution against *ever* introducing humans to a test bed for measurements. Remove all variables you can, then measure enough times that you can eliminate statistical anomalies. Its frustrating how apophenia (seeing patterns in unrelated things) has crept into just about anything on the internet. I agree with the comment about checking out Jim Lill's channel with his spreadsheets of data and 10mos+ of test efforts. Regardless, love your channel Kyle! \m/
Presbycusis. Aging ears. Certain tones that only young/teens can hear. I try not to worry about 'tone wood' as much as I care about the feel and comfort of an instrument. As I get older I can blame declining hearing on anything that sounds bad to other people. Both guitars sounded the same to me.
Not trying to be mean but not everyone can hear the differences. I can but I’ve been playing for 40 years. Through a modeler would be tough to tell but through a tube amp you can definitely tell a difference. Especially an old Marshall.
The more specifics and caveats you add to it the less relevant to reality any potential difference becomes. I had an epiphany when I realized I've never heard a guitarist on an album or live and never said to myself that I liked or disliked the wood their guitar was made of, or when they were switching guitars. And that kind of tells me it literally just doesn't matter.
Vibration from wood in an electric guitar doesn't transfer through the signal chain. That's not how science works. There isn't enough surface area of any component the strings are attached to to transfer vibration. In two similarly (or identically) constructed guitars, all else being equal, any differences are going to come down to variances in the tolerance of individual components. For example individual pole pieces in each lot of pickup magnets are going to vary, potentiometers are going to vary, etc. I believe this is generally where tonal differences come from. I'd like to the same "experiment" with several identical examples of each guitar. I'm willing to bet with enough samples, any perceived results would be reversed, or at least nullified.
in the mix i couldn’t tell a difference. but isolated i can. i don’t think the all mahogany one was brighter i just thought it was more focused like all midrange which makes it snappier. the maple top one had more low end resonance and a bit more top end shimmer. kinda more “3d”
Your description is backwards on what mahogany and maple are known for 😂😂😂 Does this prove that "tone"woods for electric guitars is really just snake oil? Definitely for looks, maybe feel, not for sound...
"Hass Affed" - Kyle Bull 2023
Get the PRS SE McCarty 594 Singlecut I used in the video from Sweetwater HERE -
Maple Top - sweetwater.sjv.io/B0OZ5B
Standard - sweetwater.sjv.io/rQq7qD
Make it a T-Shirt
I have found that all guitars are individuals, regardless of what they are made of. Two identical guitars can and will sound different.
The moisture content, grain tightness, each piece of wood has it's own characteristics. In the mix, I couldn't tell a difference.
I don't buy guitars for the sake of other people! A nice guitar that's good to play is easier to practice and write riffs on.
@@Mikey__R For sure!
Don't forget the color of the plastic surrounds in the pickups and the color of the pot knobs 🙄
@@eurly93 😆
Quick note: I'm 55, with tinnitus, and high frequencies are a bit lost for me. I'm listening through 4" PreSonus monitors.
Listening to the A/B of the distorted guitar mix between 5:55 and 6:44, it was very easy for me to determine that I couldn't tell the difference at all.
Listening to the differences at the end with the clean and then distorted (but softer playing), I could hear a difference between the two, and I preferred the mahogany body since it sounded brighter to me. With the heavy strumming, I couldn't tell the difference at all.
As far as electric guitars go, I no longer worry about the wood type, either the body or the top. For me, that myth was dispelled a while ago.
Jerry playing the guitars upside down is probably the coolest thing I've seen in a while
I actually prefer it that way and I'm trained ambi so I can do ethier side.
Any minuscule difference could also be attributed to the slightest difference in pickup height or tolerances in tone pot resistance which can easily be 10 percent and would be noticeable.
Why would it sound any like what others think those woods sounds like? wouldn't it be more buzzing and electrical in nature?
This was my first thought. The pot resistance can effect high end, and the tolerances with pots can vary.
this plus all pickups are NOT created equal, i mean it can be the SAME pickup but be slightly voiced different or hotter output. That's coming from someone that has 5 guitars with the same exact out put, same pickup height relative to string...etc
Such a great channel and host. He deserves a much bigger audience and much faster channel growth. Unlike most other channels in the music genre, he doesn't pump out throwaway videos just to be able to say he released something every few days. All of his videos are meaningful and interesting. I dig it. Thanks for what you do, dude!
Jim Lill did a really cool video on this topic that pretty much answered the question for me. At the end of his video he's comparing a regular guitar with an "air guitar" he's basically made by setting up the strings between a bench and a shelf. Same pickups, strings and hardware but literally no tonewood involved. There is essentially no audible difference in tone with a clean or distorted sound. Any differences you're hearing in this video are more likely a result of differences in the pickups that occur during manufacturing. Could be youtube compression but I couldn't hear any significant difference between the two in any of your demo clips.
Even if you think wood makes a difference it's nowhere near on the same level as pickups, amp, speakers etc. We can all stop pretending it's not an aesthetic choice, it's okay to buy guitars just because you like the way they look.
Jim Lill's video was well made, but his experiment wasn't. He failed to recreate the specific conditions in which the material of a solid body guitar becomes relevant. He used pickups that were designed to make guitars sound decent regardless of their quality. They weren't the kind of pickups I'd use to bring out the best in a well made guitar with a resonant body.
If you're playing in a bedroom most of the time, tonewood won't matter.
Tonewood matters when it matters. There are very few luthiers who really understand how to make it matter.
The style of music can be a factor in how relevant it will be. For some styles, it won't be important at all. However, there are some songs I play that can't be played without certain notes coming alive when they are fretted, and it only happens on one of my guitars. Even though I have the same pickups and hardware on other guitars, I cannot achieve the same thing on any of those. The difference comes from the guitar's body. It's not that the pickups detect the sound from the wood. That's not how it works. It affects the harmonic vibration of the strings, which is then sent to the pickups. It makes the most difference in a live gig.
None of these factors were accounted for in Jim Lill's test. I respect what he was trying to do, but his test was not as comprehensive as he thought it was.
Maybe one day I'll publish my own experiment demonstrating how deliberately resonating a solid body guitar using a transducer can change the sounds a guitar is able to make. If the vibration of the wood in a solid body guitar didn't matter at all, it shouldn't be possible to do that, but it is.
@c0lumbo Tonewood does not matter in electric guitars. Whatever difference you're hearing was invented between your ears.
@@goblinspy I bet you felt really clever saying that, but I can cause my audience to hear the difference, because there are things that I am able to play using SOLELY the resonant qualities of the right kind of solid body that literally cannot be played using a guitar with a body that doesn't resonate in the same way, even with the same pickups.
That's because it is not a function of the pickups, but a function of the sound coming through the wood itself causing strings to vibrate at certain frequencies depending on what you're doing to the wood.
How do you think a transducer-based speaker is able to cause a guitar string to vibrate at difference harmonics depending on the note you send into the wood? It's not sending any sound into the pickups. It is affecting the way a guitar string moves by artificially vibrating the material with which the guitar is made.
If you play basic music, or only ever play in your bedroom, none of this will matter to you, but like I said, it matters when it matters, and I know how to make it matter.
@@c0lumbo Reel your neck in, son. No audience gives a sh!t about your imaginary differences, they're there to have a good time & most of them don't know the difference between a guitar & a bass, never mind this unicorn tone you allude to. Your kind keeps musical equipment expensive because you are not too bright & will fall for any myth & defend your idiotic position at great length because you spent a small fortune on crap.
@@c0lumbo You're wrong though 😂 tonewood makes 0 difference whatsoever in electric guitars, at all. It's absolutely impossible for the body material of an electric guitar to have any effect on sound because that's not how pickups work. Electric guitar pickups aren't microphones, the only thing they pick up is the metal wires used as strings disrupting the magnetic field of the pickup, that's literally it.
If the body emitted magnetic fields then sure, but it doesn't.
Feeling the resonance of a guitar is a thing... I have a Gibson Flying V that is very resonant and light... It makes you play ''harder'' and with intention.... As for Tone, out of the speaker. No, it doesn't make much difference.
😇
Yep, I can second this. Had an Epiphone Les Paul Custom in Ebony. Typical Les Paul construction, and it had a wonderful resonance, and was honestly almost as loud as an acoustic; it sang. When plugged in though, it really doesn't matter, just like you said. But...a thick flame maple cap on a Les Paul is just beautiful.
But it makes a difference, out the speaker. Resonance in the body wood, by definition, will modulate (change) the final waveform of the string. Now, maybe if you're using DSP, you cannot hear a difference, after that much signal manipulation.
@@kennethc2466 I agree in all the tests I could hear the guitar's tone form the top and it's massive for me... But then again I'm perfect pitch, Austic aka high pattern recognition and have a clinitcal mindset.
@@GreenBlueWalkthroughIf the 'tone' was a color, Steve wonder could tell the difference.
Alas, the dumb consumer needs their sunk cost fallacy appeased, by the corporate propaganda of, "buy my crap, it's just as good the rest. TRUST ME".
@@jamescarter3708 I've been trying to figure this out for 23 years now. I saved up to buy a Gibson Les Paul an after 2 days, 2 states, and almost a dozen stores, my friend accidentally grabbed me an Epi LP and it felt perfect from the first strum. It's also a 2001 that has an MR serial, which has questionable info about where or how it was made, Either way, glad I'm not alone in this.
Interesting. BUT, the SE with the maple top has the glued-on veneer flame top. Extra glue = dead tone?
Another fun thing you could do with PRS. Test the se ce24 vs the SE custom 24 to see the difference if any tonally there are between the bolt on neck and the set neck.
Good job Kyle! There's something that I want to point out though. As far as these comparisons go we're making a big assumption that the only difference in those guitars is the wood. Guitar pickups, volume/tone pots and capacitors all sound different. F.ex. think about a 4x12 V30 cab and compare it to another 4x12 V30 cab made of another wood species. Wouldn't it be quite a stretch to state that the wood species is the main reason for the tone change when we know that pretty much every single V30 sounds different and varies in brightness? Two of my main Mesa 4x12s are from the same year and they sound nothing alike - I even have separate packs from them. In the case of pickups even though manufacturers aim to produce the same spec pickups we know that the ohms are never identical between pickups of the same make. Coil wire varies in thickness and magnets are not identical.
The reason I'm saying this is because I think you could take the pickups and electronics from one of these guitars and throw them to the other and make A/B tests with the same strings. I would bet the sound difference will be just as big as it is here "between different tonewoods". I'm genuinely interested in this kind of a video and think others may be interested as well. :)
Super true stuff. I would also love to see a video about this
the speaker is the biggest influence i can find...Maple fingerboards seem brighter to me....what makes a les paul sound like a Les Paul? or a strat?
@IIIDontLie2MeIII the pickups mainly, there could be some miniscule differences but it's mainly going to be the pickups.
I had a strat, it sounded like your standard strat. I also had an ibanez fireman. I replaced my strat pickups with the same ones in my ibanez.
Magically the strat sounded exactly the same as the ibanez.
I also own some majestys and JPs, I bought a sterling majesty and found it didn't sound anything like my other majesty. New dimarzio pickups installed and bam same sound.
Sadly fretboard material doesn't effect "tone" that is a placebo effect. Our mind will always associate brighter colors with brighter sounds. There was a study performed on several different guitars and drums and the people selected consistently believed that the guitar with maple fretboard vs ebony or rosewood was brighter, people also selected the maple fretboards when hearing a major scale vs a minor scale. They also did the same with just the color of the guitar. Our minds will always associate sounds and music this way.
Les Paul said it best himself "people listen with their eyes"
In the mix I genuinely couldn’t notice when the switch happened
The fact that Fender made a Strat out of Cardboard that was playable and sounded great several years ago should have killed the Tonewood discussion already. Pickups only capture magnetic vibration so the string tension, gauge and materials are much more important that the body materials.
I'm also curious if there is a measurable output difference in the pickups. Besides that the difference is so small that I'd rather get the guitar that inspries me more to play. Awesome idea for a video!
I noticed the brightness changed in each of them depending open chord or a chug. Or even a lead . The mahogany would change brightness depending on how you played it open cords or chugs or even a lead sometimes it was darker
I got an electric guitar made of epoxy, how's that for tonewood? It's just not a thing for electric guitars. Same thing with pickups, you can maybe see a slight difference in the sound graph.
tone material would be better
I wonder if 2 Aristides guitars would sound the same
@@Sticky_Tea To be honest, no material is 100% identical. I bet having 100 guitars of same model and all that, would have minor sound differences in the recorded sound graphs. Does it matter for rock/metal? Not unless you're a moth I suppose.
I love WOM! Will go there well before I'll hit up GC at the mall. Cool to see them on here! Listening in my studio on the monitors, I agree with WoM all the way. The mahogany guitar almost sounded piezo like on the clean channel. The maple top was definitely darker, if only but a touch. In a mix, though, it won't matter for sure. Very good vid, man!
Does thickness of the wood have something to do with sustain and in turn tone? People say full thickness Les Paul’s sound better.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, lol, but this video is gonna crush! I hope it gets 10's of thousands of views. Kyle has his finger on the pulse of the guitar community, and I think we can all appreciate the hard work a fellow guitar villain puts in. Thanx brother.
Awesome video, it's very nice to see you get out of your comfort zone kyle and offer fresh content. also cool that you go out and get people involved
Hi, what would be interesting is to test the resistance of the volume and tone pot and the pickup resistance.
Super interesting! I love these kind of videos and I would love to see more.
Tone really comes from the tone knob.
Naughty!
Excellent video. I couldn't hear a significant difference. Both guitars were superb. Thanks for including some clean tones!
It's geartarded to think an electric guitar's wood has no impact on tone. Things like fret material, nut material, type of strings. And of course, the wood matters. The mass of the guitar.
Differences in sound can be from inconsistencies between pickups.
Would love to see multiple identical pickups tested against each other for consistency.
That's kind of the point of the video though. It's not meant to be an ultrascientific test but more of a real world test. And in the real world you never going to take all the parts off of one guitar and swap them onto another to try and hear if there are any tonal differences. It really just kind of comes down to the sum of all parts of each individual guitar
@@belligerentamateurexactly 💯
Liked you video...however I do have a question. Was the SE maple top a veneer? Most SE's if not all of them at this price point are veneer.
The individual guitar matters more than the slight differences a maple cap could make, especially with thick poly clearcoats. The reason I chose the standard over the custom, was pure cosmetic. Saving another hundo is a bonus too! Paid $629 from Sweetwater.
So from what I hear... the maple top had a little less mids. I really cant say which I like in a gain situation, because, sometimes you just want a different tonality. You could play one in left, one in right. It would give a slightly differnt thing, and spread the stereo seperation. Or use whatever for different styles. I have a few that I bounce around with like that. No real Gibs anymore.
If I’m being pedantic, similar doesn’t mean identical. There are still differences in pick ups values and pot values between the two guitars, which will definitely affect the sound of the guitars.
10 months later, but this is literally facts!!! that no somehow, no one seems to understand..
For me there's a bigger difference from the way you hit the strings than between the guitars themselves. So when you played the same note slightly different during the same sample it had more of an impact than between different samples (that could be easily EQ matched anyway).
Even changing plectrums makes more of a difference than "tonewood."
@@vorpalbladesthat is true, also, fret hardness. Neck grain, etc. And yes even body mass/weight, density etc.
I dig! Fun test. The first clip was perfect in demonstrating what Glen F yells about - in a metal sound especially it’s not gonna make a notable difference that can’t be eq’d to taste.
Seeing your friend play guitar upside down was pretty cool!
The all mahogany one does sounds brighter on clean/mild of tones through my AirPods. I generally agree with those that say it’s really a guitar by guitar basis and there is no definitive “rule” that one wood type is darker than others. The exception being acoustics of course.
Love this kind of Vid bro! Amazing comparison.
Here's my experience. When they were doing the SE sale in '23, I played a couple McCarty singlecuts. One with the maple top, the other was the all 'hog standard. I don't think that the maple made the one guitar brighter, but it did seem like the notes had more clarity. The standard didn't sound muddy, but I did notice the difference between the two. Maybe people perceive greater clarity as "brighter"? In any case, they were close enough that I bought the cheaper standard. I didn't want to pay the extra money for the relatively blingy cap, which isn't really my style. Strangely enough, I think the standard I bought sounds better and has better note definition than the maple-capped Les Paul Tribute that I also own. So the maple cap on the one I tried in the store may have had nothing to do with the perceived difference. I got the PRS as a back-up, but the Gibson got demoted to the #2 position...lol. I think the difference I think I'm hearing between my PRS and Gibson is the pickups, but who the f#ck knows? We like the guitars we like. That's all we really need to "know".
Great work, KB!! 🤘
Really fun video! I'm always a fan of these kind of comparison videos and I feel like you do a great job of trying to be unbiased and really open to what the outcome will be.
Since you got these from sweetwater would you happen to know the weight of both guitars? I have a personal theory that the weight/density of tone wood is going to tell you more about how it sounds than what wood is in there specifically, but haven't had the guitars to test this theory
It will.affect sustain and resonance slightly, but magnetic pickups won't register any "tone" from wood.
@@vorpalbladesThe tone of the strings can be affected by the resonance of the material of a solid body guitar. This can affect the tone. In some cases, it can even affect what a guitarist is able to do on a particular guitar.
You can make strings resonate in different ways by feeding vibrations through the body of a solid body electric guitar using a transducer speaker. If the material made no difference, this wouldn't be possible.
Some woods will pick up certain vibrations better than others, and this will make a difference to tone, but only if it is built in a way that allows the body material to make a difference.
Tonewood matters when it matters, but few luthiers and even fewer guitarists know how to make it matter, and it is not an easy thing to achieve. For most, it's just easier to use pickups that colour the sound so much that it overrides most of the shortcomings of using lifeless materials, and for most styles of playing, that will be enough anyway.
If I had to guess, I think the maple top was less bright because of the extra layer of glue dampening some vibration between to top and body.
If the guitar resonates differently in your hands it will affect your perception of how it sounds - that's just how our brains work. To someone not playing the guitar - if they can see the guitar it can affect how they perceive the sound.
To someone not playing the guitar who ALSO can't see the guitar it will just come down to the performance and the electronics.
The reason people often hate the sound of their own voice when it's recorded is because you don't feel/hear the resonance that happens inside your head when you speak.
You are 100% correct!
Resonance affects perceived tone.
Kyle hi brother, I've just bought a brand new Standard 594 singlecut in vintage cherry and Man she's absolutely gorgeous and Awesome. The same that you review here instead of sunburst the Cherry. I would like to say to everyone who has the time to read my comment that get one of these babies before they get more expensive I mean I also bought it from Sweetwater Manuel Robles such a great guy. I've had in the past two PRS a Standard 22 and a Custom 22 both USA built but this Line from PRS are like a Grand Slam on Yankee Stadium. Absolutely Awesome Craftsmanship. I'm in love with these Sweetheart
How much gear do I need to learn to play some open position chords?
Do both guitars have the same value pots ?
In your guitars i the biggest difference is that the maple has a slightly wider frequency range , it sounds like it has more of everything and not just brighter, almost like it made it sound louder
so
The tone wood does matter,,, but people seem to gravitate to guitars that sound similar even when the wood is different, my preference is fender style so I have alder and ash basswood guitars with maple necks the difference is pretty prominent in that the ash guitars can sound fatter and fuller, the alder sounds singy and vocal and the basswood sounds thinner and focused, these are general and might be subtle to anyone else but the tones do accentuate the feel when you're playing, especially lead
any difference I heard (or thought I heard) throughout the video would easily be attributed to playing differences. Pretty much identical. My opinion is that the wood makes more of a feel difference - I've had guitars that feel "alive" and then others that just feel dead where I couldn't really feel the notes ringing out. IDK... I'm probably just yelling into the void at this point. Great video!
This is true.
The acoustic response of an electric guitar is influenced by what its made out of.
It just doesnt really effect what the pickup picks up.
@@johnbach2380 "The acoustic response of an electric guitar is influenced by what its made out of. It just doesnt really effect what the pickup picks up."
-you
Completely wrong. The pickups, er, PICK UP THE STRINGS, and the wood, bridge, nut, tuners, etc ALL modulate the string's vibrations. This is string physics, first year. I'm sorry you FEEL that physics is wrong, but it's YOU.
There is no free energy machine, and pickups are an inductor, that's only input source is the vibrating string, modulated by what they're attached to. You sound like a person claiming, 'they make carburetors that can burn water instead of fuel', when they couldn't fins the idle circuit in an actual one.
@@kennethc2466 There is no proof of anything you stated. And there's literal examples on youtube, done better that disproves all this... literally someone taking out all variables INCLUDING the body, and the electric tone isn't affected at all. They literally strapped strings to two tables made out of scrap wood and it sounded identical to the alder Telecaster when the same pickup/distance/electronics/strings were used... an IDENTICAL sound... and one literally had no body.
You're spilling out personal anecdotal evidence.
The Pickup picks up the energy when you hit the strings... and does not give a crap about what sound resonates or reflects off the body. The hardware bridge and nut... well that also is contention exactly how much it makes a difference as someone used wood scraps as bridge parts vs a brass bridge and once again... not really any difference of note.
TONEWOOD people never do a real test. They just spew their own experiences, and literally write their own science as they play guitar to guitar.
Anti tonewood people actually provide fully done tests and proper control to prove their point.
When the same mahogany/maple guitars all sound different... this makes Tonewood people look even more ridiculous. 🤣
@@johnbach2380what RUclipsrs have demonstrated is that the difference is sooo small,
that it is not measurable or percievable.
He is correct,
the entire guitar vibrates and the different substances do resonate differently which does affect the tone,
This is matter of physical fact
Just not enough to matter,
At all.
@@jeremytee2919 "He is correct,
the entire guitar vibrates and the different substances do resonate differently which does affect the tone,
This is matter of physical fact."
Once again, what does this even mean?
Are we talking about how a guitar sounds when it's acoustically strummed or the amplified electric signal?
How magnetic pickups work, in its basic science tells you it doesn't care what is going around the pickup. That's why you can erase the body and the amplified guitar tone is literally the same tone.
How you guys keep saying its "PHYSICS" is ridiculous. Guitars sound different acoustically... tonewood matters for the acoustic sound... no one debates that.
The ELECTRIC sound doesn't care about that. That's the debate.
Does the pickup/electronics/string care about what's going around the strings or not?
The more tests done the answer is a resounding NO.
Shout out to the guy still able to play the guitar while holding it upside down. That's impressive
There is something good in those standard prs's. My guesses were right but I was not going on which One sounded brighter, for whatever that's worth. I picked up a standard tremonti witch I Believe also doesn't have a maple cap and it just had that little extra tude that I Dig, it does need some help thought the standards are probably the most affordable guitars prs makes and I discovered at a practice that it actually needed some fret work. I was a little disappointed but it was cheap and sounded really good so I decided I would get it fixed up. I was also surprised that I found the only new prs with a problem I've played alot of them there consistent and there quality control is on point just unlucky for me I guess but my point is next to other guitars it has a little something extra even next to other prs's
For some reason I felt that the Maple had a little bit more low end on the cleans, which is what I would have expected from the Mahogany only guitar. Where the pickup heights exactly the same? With gain I first thought the Mahogany had more bass but then I felt the Maple had more bass so I guess they must sound basically the same.
Pickup heights are the same i mention this in the video.
@@belligerentamateur Woops. Must have missed that. 😇
I would love to see a comparison between two of "the same" guitar, just to hear if there is any difference in the exact same model. For all we know here any tonal difference might also be down to, well, anything really xD. So I think this test would have been more telling had we had say, 1 pure mahogany and two with a cap, and then see if we could spot which one was without the cap.
I do think you were right. Aaaaand it had more to do with playing style. Maple caps might be perceived as more delicate and therefore played differently. Bear in mind there is almost no difference between the 2, it just might entirely subconscious. Pick angle and strength guided by the very back of the mind. Other perception would be that the maple is more expensive...
I would have like to see if swapping the pickups would have had the same results.
If the electronics aren't swapped as well it's a moot point.
In blind tests I've only heard poplar, and maple fretboards, and stuff like that that's kind of abnormal. And anyway, if you're happy with your base (woods, saddles, frets), so much more in difference can be done with picks and picking technique, and going up or down in gauge, all before choosing a boost, then amp and its settings, then 80% of tone determining: Cab, speaker, mic and micing (at least definitely for recorded song production). Oh yeah and pickup height changing can be cool too, as well as pickups themselves and pots. IMO changing woods is only really a smart investment if you're Petrucci-level where he's optimised every part after, to the decimal point
On to the next question. Does a guitar with a scalopped neck have less toan then a guitar with a regular neck (less toan wood, less toan)?
If you don't like the sound of a specific guitar, try to find one with different distance between bridge and P.U. (seen some weird difference on the same type of guitar, but different years...)
Check out similar models but one a 22 fret and the other a 24 fret neck (same model and hardware) to get a feel of how different the same neck P.U. sounds at a different spacing.
$0.02
Is it really a maple cap? Aren't those only a veneer?
Came here for this. A veneer is extremely thin, and has zero effect on tone. A Gibson with a maple cap has actual thickness, which causes a viable change in tone
I liked the mohogany better (even tho my bias was the opposite for tonal properties(, so sounds like i shoild just play the guitar. But kinda crazy that the wood makes any difference
Love your content Kyle
Well I have a Studio LP, a Tradish and a Std which all sound slightly different (the tradish and the std have the exact same pickups). The studio has a bit more output which drives the amp a touch harder. But in a recording or live situation I found out, that nothing matters.
I just assume every slab of wood sounds different. And saying all mahogany sounds like mahogany or all alder sounds like alder is a big part of the issue. So even if we can say a guitar sounds different from another, there's just no way to know if a different tree of the same species sounds the same as the first. Or even that a different part of the same tree sounds the same.
I think this might be a stupid suggestion but would there be any variance on say 3 guitars of the same models and specs?
FWIW, I have a PRS S2 594 Thinline which is thinner but all-mahogany, and also a PRS S2 594 "regular" which is a bit thicker but has a beautifully figured thick maple cap. Both are U.S. built with the same Korean pickups. The "regular" guitar sounds a lot more brilliant and transparent and clear, for your daily fill of esoteric keywords, whereas the Thinline sounds a little bit darker and more muffled.
I also have a Gibson Gothic Explorer (all-mahogany) and a slightly smaller Gibson Melody Maker Explorer (all-maple), both with EMG 81 pickups at the bridge. I always thought mahogany was the way to go with Explorers, but my arse, that little maple bastard melts some serious face! Mids until next year, much more present and focused, and also somehow "tighter" when played hard. I originally bought that little sucker as a joke, but I'll never let it go.
I think the take-away from the video should be: wood DOES make a difference, but "it depends" what difference it actually makes. In my personal experience with Gibsons and PRS-es, the maple does make for a snappier sound.
Not to forget, the pickup height can also be adjusted to pronounce or subdue the high or low end...
idk if you still have these, but I'd be really curious if there's a difference between the pickups talking to PRS tec support recently they said there is some variance between all the "S" pickups which the s2's and se's have.
Tone wood wise - the neck wood and fretboard wood BY FAR has a much larger impact than the body wood - then the scale has a huge impace as well - I mean if you have say two identical guitars mahogany body maple cap and one has a bolt on neck - the bolt on is going to be more snappy and responsive as well as the maple vs mahogany neck, vs maple vs rosewood fretboard.
The problem with the "tone" wood argument is really that you aren't going to one hear ANY difference when you are re-amping the mix like with Glen's test - which is why his "scientific" test is actually massivly flawed - he re-amped all the sounds and then played the re-amped sound throuhg a speaker so you lose any response from the strings which would've changed since he didn't play the guitar each time.
The only thing Glen got right was that the speakers impact the sound the most, but even with the test he did with difference cabinets he didn't change the size of the cab or try porting or anything like that - it comes down to what ever efffect air pressure effects how the speaker functions
With guitar tone, what ever effects how freely and how long the strings can ring out impacts the tone.
You could maybe say 60% of tone comes from the speaker/amp/cabinet and 40% comes from the guitar components - not to mention string size and string quality impact the tone a lot as well.
If you really want to put a nail in the coffin of the tone wood argument, pick up and play two acoustic guitars - anyone with half a brain can tell it makes a difference.
Anyone who has played many guitars or played over a longer period of time can instantly tell - but there's some hidden aspects too - which come down to build quality - you won't get two identical sounding guitars even if they are made with wood from the same tree.
It doesn't mean they won't be close, and for many ppl it's splitting hairs, but the better player you are the more you notice the tiny things that make a really great gutiar a really great guitar.
I live a bit north of Pittsburgh and I have a LP standard with an ebony fretboard if you'd want to comapre it to one of yours or do a coloaboration at somepoint I'm down to do that - in general it sounds way brighter, but it also has all titantium nut and bridge - which really proababy matter more to tone than the fretboard.
You said the guitars have the same electronics, but did you measure?
The volume pot of a guitar is weird with one side to ground and either the wiper or the other side weird to signal input and signal output respectively.
The potentiometer works by having a certain value resistor film between the outer pins, and a wiper on the middle pin that can be turned to different points on the resistor increase or decrease the resistance between the signal and ground.
The higher the value of the resistor film, the less signal that will be bled off to ground. So if your single coil pickups are too bright, you can put in a 250k pot and while the majority of the electricity will travel through the path of least residence to the signal output jack of the guitar, some will be bled to ground across the resistor.
If you use a 500k of 1m pot, there will be more resistance to the signal being bled to ground, so more of the signal will travel to the output.
And due to how eddy currents work, high frequencies are going to the the ones that induct themselves past the resistance.
Anyways, this is a long winded way to ask...
Did you measure the volume pots and make sure they the resistance between the outer lugs was the same on both guitars?
If you have a 500k + 10% and a 500k - 10% tolerance pot in each, that 100k ohms of resistance is plenty to make a difference in brightness of tone.
Guitar A was just ever so slightly brighter to my ear but just barely noticeable
Tonewood only applies to acoustic guitars....I'll see myself out... 😂
Truth.
Facts. I'll leave with you.😆
I'll leave with you brother. 😂
Facts
I'll leave as well.
I wish I could do this in person cuz I hear differences in the clean and distorted. The clean mahogany sounds louder to me. But distorted the maple sounds louder to me. So I would like to do this on my own.
great video, definitely want more of this content! How i've been seeing the typical all mahogany vs. mahogany/maple difference for awhile now is that the maple is more 'compressed' and focused, so it tends to focus/narrow the tonal spectrum a bit vs the 'wider spectrum' of mahogany by itself. This means, the mahogany by itself will be 'thicker and fuller' not just in the mids and lows, but also in the high end. So depending on the variables of the guitar the maple will be less bright in most cases--which as you state is the opposite of what we've been told. I think people think its 'brighter' because the sound is more focused and less 'open' sounding, making it appear as if its 'brighter' but in reality its just more compressed so a lot of the 'tone' is in a more narrow spectrum, which may be perceived as 'brighter'.
Magnets don't interact with wood.
@@vorpalblades you’re right, but vibrating strings do interact with magnets. Those vibrating strings are part of a system of vibration, which includes wood, among other materials that impact vibration of the system.
actually difference can be coming from difference in pickups (they have tolerance, even polepieces setup, 1mm higher or lower makes differnece), also pots
but I still difference is there once you swap pickup totally etc.
one thing to remember, is that both microphone and speakers are not able to reproduce real life sound, so there are 2 levels of comparison: recording and real life. I am tired of people saying wood has no impact.
did you weigh the guitars? the lighter guitar will probably sound brighter, everything else being equal. also keep in mind that the main difference you will hear with regards to tone and wood will be on the fingerboard. the tonal difference between a maple and rosewood neck for example is pretty obvious to anyone with good ears.
damn dude, your videos are just awesome, hope some day you reach MILLIONS of subscribers because you really deserve it
First test I hear A a bit brighter, just a little bit. I guess A is maple cap. After listening to all tests main differences I hear is more bass on the maple guitar and more byte or sharper attack on the mahogany. I would say the maple sounds fuller and the mahogany more focused. Would be interesting to listen to the higher notes alone.
How do you keep your black t shirts black?
You also have to account for the production differences in the pickups which are the real noisemakers in this scenario.
Tonewood has a great impact on acoustic instruments and a moderate impact on solidbodies with piezoelectric pickups, while a rather negligible impact on the tone of solidbody instruments using electro-magnetic pickups. Now however, the material of the body in a solidbody guitar with electromagnetic pickups will have an effect on the "sustain". But, at the end of the day you can always EQ that slight difference made by the material of the body or resort to sustainiac pickups for a dramatic impact on the sustain of notes.
Even the shittiest guitar I've ever played sustained notes 12-15 seconds easily. Who holds a note for that long?
I had a weird impression what mahogany guitar is a little bit louder somehow, it can explain why it sounded brighter
True. probably slight differences in the pots. despite the pots being the "same", they still might have a subtle difference in value
Are they both SE McCartys? If ones and S2 then it doesn't matter what wood is used..
The SE is 3 slabs of wood connected by a layer of glue which will muffle the natural vibration of the wood.
A one piece capped S2 will have a pure, natural, constant wood vibration. Also, three guitarists are using the word *bright* wrong. The last guy was actually correct.
The Mahogany one sounds tinny, not brighter. It has as much vibration as a tin can and sounds like one.
The capped one is actually brighter as it rings out more as it's a one piece s2.
I don't hear any distinctive difference and I'm not listening on a phone or laptop speakers. I own the 594 double cut and really love it. Seriously thinking about picking up a 594 singlecut standard.
Already bought the vintage cherry version last week lol
Damn! So this means I can buy a les Paul studio for more snappiness 😀 next you should do a comparison with full nitro finish and an open pore/natural
Could not tell the difference in the mix. But when you had your friends play it. It sounded like when you first unboxed the 2. The non maple top is just bright tonally. Both sound great though.
In the second test at the music store the maple top sounded better for the rock and metal they were playing, and the solid body guitar is lacking in the rock metal style, sounds a bit hollow to me
With headphones on, I couldn't hear a difference. I have noticed that if you are playing and hearing the guitar strings resonate like jamming at low volumes, or at the guitar store. But through a recording, you can't hear it. You will hear some differences. So, I want to try putting a microphone on the Amp and the guitar to see if you can actually capture any actual guitar tone wood differences.
I didn't make a guess before I watched the video to the end. I listened to the video while doing other stuff on my computer, and I honestly couldn't hear a difference when the two guitars were swapped out. I have some pretty nice, above average speakers connected. If I have to look to know when the guitar is being swapped out, the difference isn't significant enough in my opinion.
Disclaimer: not at all trying to be a shit-stirrer. In the mix, it’s so damn negligible it’s irrelevant. There’s barely some more top end on one. And if I wasn’t cued visually that the guitar was changing I probably wouldn’t notice. They both sound great and look great. And that’s really it, if it sounds good just run it.
Isolated there is a slight difference with headphones but I can't really pick out what the difference is, almost 1 is louder than the other. The difference could just be 1 pickup has 2 more windings than the other.
I belive wood makes a difference when I have a guitar that is to drak and put a set of pick ups in it that is bright in another guitar but when it go's in the dark guitar it sounds totally different also I belive there is a difference even when the guitars have the same wood say mahogany one mahogany trees wood tone may not be the same as another tree of the same type
Always enjoy your A/B comparisons. Sometimes I find them obvious and other times I can't tell the difference when listening.
To me, it sounded like A had a slightly more even and cleaner response while B had a smidge less high and low frequency and a bit more of whatever that compression mid focused thing that I usually notice in mahogany topped guitars. From my experience I would guess A had the maple cap and B was Mahogany.
Just a guess though. I don't think anyone would hear a difference outside of an A/B scenario.
Edit: Got it completely backwards. 🤣 That figures, but I stick by my analysis that I thought that A sounded even and clearer while B sounded a little more focused and jumped out a little more. I just wasn't expecting the maple cap to do that.... That being said, what I am hearing seems to contradict what everyone heard in the room, so who knows.
The kid playing leftie is amazing. And so quick in his judgements about the guitars.
To my ears the guitars sound exactly the same.
Thought I perceived a very slight difference in the blind test. Ran it again with my eyes closed, and it disappeared completely. The only caveat to this statement is that this was done on a cellphone speaker, but I'm of the mind that Glen is correct in his assertion that tonewood doesn't matter at all in the context of a high gain metal application.
Thinking about the standard se McCarty 594 because they are so cheap right now. So coming to this five months late. I have a slight preference towards the mahogany because I hate veneers. In the high gain mix I couldn't tell the difference. But my theory is this. The tone wood probably does make a difference to what the player hears, but not to the amplified signal. An experienced guitarist might play differently because of what they hear. But not me with my sausage fingers.
Editing this as I listen to the instore section. And they do sound a little different on the room mic. Which might back up my theory.
One thing everyone forgets is the tolerances in the electronics. If there is something different between two guitars, you can't be sure that it's not the resistance value of the pots or something. That stuff probably has a way bigger influence than the wood. Also, you should have blindfolded the guys testing the guitars. 'Cause we all know we listen with our eyes most of the time.
I know that I'm going to get dog-piled for this, but the facts speak for itself. Keep in mind I'm hearing this through studio monitors and I'm also a guitar fiend. When the sound is clean, you can hear a bit of a distinction. The Music Store test has proved that. Everyone agree there was a difference in the tone when clean, but didn't agree on what differentiated the tone. Here's where Glenn's argument hold serious water, when you kick the gain on. Even seeing both guitars being played, yet with gain you really couldn't tell the difference. As far as the blind test goes, you can count me out. I fell for that one and felt like a soul on a shoe after that. Now what would have made the test more Interesting if you were to blindfold them. Now that would have be an eye opener. Keep up the good work Kyle!
As a career test engineer, I caution against *ever* introducing humans to a test bed for measurements. Remove all variables you can, then measure enough times that you can eliminate statistical anomalies. Its frustrating how apophenia (seeing patterns in unrelated things) has crept into just about anything on the internet. I agree with the comment about checking out Jim Lill's channel with his spreadsheets of data and 10mos+ of test efforts. Regardless, love your channel Kyle! \m/
Super cool getting other random opinions on the guitars. 🤘
Presbycusis. Aging ears. Certain tones that only young/teens can hear. I try not to worry about 'tone wood' as much as I care about the feel and comfort of an instrument. As I get older I can blame declining hearing on anything that sounds bad to other people. Both guitars sounded the same to me.
Not trying to be mean but not everyone can hear the differences. I can but I’ve been playing for 40 years. Through a modeler would be tough to tell but through a tube amp you can definitely tell a difference. Especially an old Marshall.
The more specifics and caveats you add to it the less relevant to reality any potential difference becomes. I had an epiphany when I realized I've never heard a guitarist on an album or live and never said to myself that I liked or disliked the wood their guitar was made of, or when they were switching guitars. And that kind of tells me it literally just doesn't matter.
@@KyleP133 You definitely have a point.
would be interesting to see same built guitars but full maple vs full basswood or full mahogany vs full koa ect. imo the maple “top” is too subtle
Vibration from wood in an electric guitar doesn't transfer through the signal chain. That's not how science works. There isn't enough surface area of any component the strings are attached to to transfer vibration. In two similarly (or identically) constructed guitars, all else being equal, any differences are going to come down to variances in the tolerance of individual components. For example individual pole pieces in each lot of pickup magnets are going to vary, potentiometers are going to vary, etc. I believe this is generally where tonal differences come from. I'd like to the same "experiment" with several identical examples of each guitar. I'm willing to bet with enough samples, any perceived results would be reversed, or at least nullified.
Gluing a maple top cap also makes the body stiffer than a single slab of mahogany thereby making it brighter sounding.
in the mix i couldn’t tell a difference. but isolated i can. i don’t think the all mahogany one was brighter i just thought it was more focused like all midrange which makes it snappier. the maple top one had more low end resonance and a bit more top end shimmer. kinda more “3d”
Your description is backwards on what mahogany and maple are known for 😂😂😂
Does this prove that "tone"woods for electric guitars is really just snake oil?
Definitely for looks, maybe feel, not for sound...
@@JohnWiku i don’t think its completely snake oil. But maybe not the way we’ve been told.