Guitar TONEWOODS (Paul Reed Smith Reaction)
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John reacts to Paul Reed Smith's discussion of tonewoods live at the live Chicago Music Exchange event on May 6th.
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John, would you be willing to use your platform and finally put the entire debate to bed completely?
You could probably pull many tens of thousands of views (and maybe a whole lot more) on such a video!
You have a bench and 2 tele’s there made of different materials.
Get four fresh packs of strings of the exact same brand and string gauges.
Change the strings on each tele to fresh strings, setup and intonate accordingly.
How you can create this demonstration video is to record both tele’s as they are right after the string change.
Play each through the *exact same* signal chain from start to finish.
Record each played clean, crunch and lead.
Take note and record all the measurements of each guitar.
Carefully measure and note down the String heights (action at fret 8,12 and 17) and pickup heights (across the pickups from low E to High E.)
Take the strings off each.
Remove **ALL** the electronic components from one guitar and swap it to the other.
Make sure to remove and swap absolutely everything, all wiring, pups, switches, pots and even jack.
Put on new strings again and setup.
Use the original height measurements for each guitar to reset everything as close as possible to exactly where the previous pup heights and actions were.
Now play each and record the tones again, using the same pick, riffs and licks and clean, crunch and lead settings as in the original state demonstration.
Then change the settings so that guitar A gets the measurements originally taken from guitar B and vice verse.
Now play each and record the tones yet again, using the same pick, riffs and licks as in the original state demonstration.
If you get the same exact result for each test in the after as the before, then you’ve proven that it is mainly the wood materials and construction that matters.
If you get a result where guitar A now sounds like B and vice versa, then you’ve proven it is all in the electronics and the materials matter little.
You have the platform and the ability to prove it once and for all, for everyone everywhere.
Rather than any subjective opinions, impassioned pleas, and the rigged tests sometimes seen in any similar video out there you will have the actual video and audio and undeniable proof for yourself and every viewer that finds your video!
Such a video would be worth its weight in tonewoods to every guitarist out there.
Yeah but wood is directly interacting with the sounds generated in acoustic guitars whereas the wood is just not a very significant contributor to the sound. I really would like to see him pick certain woods out in a mix. Have you been following Jim Lill? I think he has made one of the most impressive and extensive experiments partially removing wood from a Telecaster and shortening the scale length to see if affects the sound. Check it out for yourself and see if you can hear a difference.
He won't do unless he rigs it.
The people that most vehemently defend tone woods are the ones that spent thousands on boutique or exotic woods just to find out that, when plugged, they sound pretty much the same as their MIM Strat. Paul is a salesman of expensive guitars, of course he's going to say that 😂
Thing is, I still think having those exotic woods can have value and add to the uniqueness and the look, for some people it will be worth the insane money they ask for them, but let's stop pretending that it adds to the sound because the only thing it does is push beginners away and alienate people who will never be able to afford one by reinforcing the myth that you need some crazy money to get a great sounding guitar. Paul could be honest about it and his guitars would still sell like hotcakes because they're simply great guitars and the big fish would still pay for the uniqueness of having exotic wood if for no other reason than rarity and aesthetics.
Cardboard strat sounds like a strat. Tele pickups picking up floating strings bolted to tables sounds like a tele.
IT'S NOT COMPLEX. The surface of the body DOES NOT AFFECT what the pickup hears.
I wish this video made one coherent argument, just one.
@@joetowers4804 agree. I like how he reframed the discussion to something it is not.
You're asking us to believe "feelings" over "truth" (when comparing hands over a spectrum analyzer). that's a bad comparison.
Do tonewoods matter ? Yes, but ONLY when the nut, saddle, and bolt/glued neck is fitted properly. I think that is an important difference in how we're thinking about this problem... And it IS a problem. What players are being short-changed is when they lay down their cash for an American made guitar, then find it sounds like crap because it was screwed together on Friday afternoon. Case in point. I was gifted a 1963 Strat when i was 19, and it had old growth timber, but it sounded like El Poopo !
I took a 6-hour drive to LA and had it looked at by Valley Arts (yes, Im old). What happened was the lacquer between the neck and body had separated. This caused the neck to "float". No matter what we did, the joint would not lock down solid. I bit the bullet, and we lightly sanded the joint and got rid of the flaking nitro to bare wood. I used tongue oil to protect i, and all was good. The famous '63 neck pickup sound came through easy. That day taught me that yes, tonewoods do matter, but if the mechanicals are out of whack, you aren't going anywhere.
2nd point. I honestly believe, and I've done it, you can make a guitar out of used lumber, and it will sound great, IF you chose properly. You cannot have a 1 piece slab to make a Strat or Tele unless the grains turn inside toward the middle. Otherwise, you'll get a twist in the body. the same goes for the neck.
On a glued neck or a "hippy sandwich" the type of glue could set you back days ! This is why Hide Glue is best on neck joints, it dries fast and hard as nails to transfer the nut and bridge energy INTO the body so you get those wonderful overtones and ghost notes. All said and done, the mechanics and the choice of wood growth are paramount to the end product. Types of wood do allow or remove from the upper and lower end of the register, but nowhere near what you may have in mind. Types of wood and how they interact is a much better way to think of it, and that is ALL skill when picking out your stock.
* tip - take a real tuning fork, A 440, with you to check out a guitar. Strike the fork and touch the hilt to the wood behind the bridge. If the setup is spot on, you should get a sympathetic resonance and make the A string come alive. If it doesn't, check it over well before handing over $$$.
If tonewood is real, then tone belly is real as well. Let that sink in.
I can understand why ten Les Paul's are going to sound different, because the components are different. Pickup magnet strength, pickup wire, potentiometer value +/-, capacitor value +/-, and amount of wire used in hookup will affect an electric guitar's tone.
also les pauls which are described as warm guitars have their neck pickup super close to the neck, which makes it warmer, and the higher frets are harder to reach, making players prefer the lower frets, thus playing with bassier notes
Why do they sound and feel different unplugged tho? And why do ones that sound good unplugged seem to have a better chance of sounding great amped?
@@tom.m Could it be the one that feels the best to play is also the one that sounds the best? One thing I have noticed, a guitar that has been setup sounds better than one that hasn't.
When exactly each guitar was restrung… fresh/dead strings make a massive difference
@@BigfootRunning I forgot about that one.
Let’s do a little comparison… I’m not going to sit here and tout being the most accomplished guitar player on the interwebz, but I’ve been playing for a long time… 38 years or so… I’ve ventured through many different styles of playing, and put in thousands of hours of practice and playing.
That said, I also own golf clubs. I don’t play golf very often… It’s just a fun hobby that I play every now and then. It doesn’t matter what kind of club I use or ball I hit, I can’t tell a difference. But I know some incredible golfers that can absolutely tell the difference or see the improvement from one type or style of club to the next. They can absolutely see the difference between one kind of ball or another. They can absolutely tell the difference between steel and composite shafts, stiff shots vs more flexible. I don’t ridicule them, I’m just not good enough… I haven’t put that much effort into the game of golf to know any better.
I feel the same holds true with the tonewood debate. When I was a young player I was playing whatever I could afford. I changed my strings once a year… I used whatever picks were on sale… Through my fancy Crate amp with built in chorus. 😂
Fast forward 38 years and today I’m a much more discerning player. I have very particular strings I like to use because in my experience they sound best to me. I have certain picks I use because they feel good to me. Give me a guitar with different strings, or a different pick, and I’ll know immediately.
Today instead of just hammering out power chords, I play with much more feel and nuance. I have much better control of the instrument than I ever did when I was young.
I can absolutely hear and feel the difference in woods… Of an electric guitar…
I have a Schecter C-1 Classic with a JB/Jazz pickup set, and a Charvel with a JB/Jazz pickup set, and wouldn’t ya know that Charvel feels and sounds dramatically different. Same strings, same pickups… hmm
I have 2 strats, same Texas special pickups in both… One Mexican, one American… Man, wouldn’t ya know the American sound better?? How though, they’re both alder?
I have a G&L S500 that spanks the tar out of both those strats… but wood doesn’t matter…
A Les Paul that I’m honestly not a fan of… Doesn’t really sound great at all
And of course… A PRS 35th Anniversary Custom 24 that is the most resonant and wonderful sounding guitar, not to mention the most comfortable guitar I have ever played. It’s a work of art, and yes I play the crap out of it. Not just a pretty wall ornament.
I know this is a long read, but the point is, I used to not tell a difference. But after thousands of hours of playing, feeling guitar, I can tell now. It’s not cool aid, it’s just decades of experience, and not limiting myself to only knowing one style.
Expanding my musical journey is where that came from.
I feel bad for the Sweetwater age of guitar players.
You’ll listen to what anyone on the internet tells you and share it as facts… And you’ll buy a guitar from a picture rather than listening to it, feeling it…
Get out there, go to a music store and play every strat there… Play every Les Paul, every McCarty 594, every tele… Then come back and tell us again how wood doesn’t matter.
Yes… Yes it does. Wood, strings, picks, pick attack, amps, pedals, and most importantly, your hands. They all
Matter.
I hope some day you’ll notice too. When it all becomes clear and it finally clicks.
After scratch building a few dozen fender style guitars I would say its all about wood density and not species. Selecting individual boards for your build makes the biggest impact. Light alder sounds different from heavy alder. Same thing with ash and poplar. But its next to impossible to standardize density in production guitars - which is why they market species.
That makes sense to me, thanks for watching
@@PlayandTradeGuitars great channel man! Been enjoying the videos for quite a while. Thanks for making them
Yes for a fender tele OR strat I prefer light woods.
You sure it’s not the difference is pickups you are hearing?
Thank you! I'm convinced that 98% of the anti-tonewood proponents either haven't played that many guitars (or just haven't played very long). Or they're players that play styles that use a shit ton of gain at which point almost nothing matters, any differences are for the most part masked by all the gain.
The argument shouldn't be whether wood affects tone, it should be whether or not you can control it. A luthier has no idea how a solid body electric guitar is going to sound until after the guitar is finished being made. During the construction of the guitar, a luthier who makes solid body electric guitars has no idea what the outcome will be nor can they do anything to the wood in order to affect the tone during or after its construction. People want electric guitars to have the same romance and artistic sophistication that acoustic guitars enjoy. However, they are totally different animals.
My experience on guitars with different tonewoods checking in a guitar store, 3 fender telecaster, all 6 saddle bridges, american standard series, same pickups and setup, same maple neck.
Tele #1: Alder body,
Rosewood fretboard.
Tele #2: Alder body,
Maple fretboard.
Tele #3: Swamp ash body,
Maple fretboard.
I have to say all the 3 sounded different to me, being the #1 darker and mellow, #2 some brighter, #3 the brightest. Amp used was a Roland JC120 for playing clean and capture better any nuances, played each guitar around 20 minutes, also unplugged. Being that tonewoods used for guitars are hardwoods, and the 3 guitars had about the same weight ( thinking wood density ) I could really feel some differences in tone. All 3 also quite resonant unplugged. Although the body slab won't vibrate as a thin acoustic guitar top my conclusion was that different wood species will sound different. On an acoustic guitar the overall sound feels also different depending on tonewoods mostly for the top, but also adding the bracing design can alter the sound significantly. ³
Tone "feels" different.
That says it all.
@@216trixie So... do you agree yes or no ? and why ?
Did you played guutars same model - different tonewoods anytime?
Let the public know too! Thanks
You cannot accurately compare different models and call them "the same except for the wood" unless you can verify that every pot/resistor/cap is all the exact same value... not the "on paper value" but the actual, measured value. All the wires and solder joints have to be identical.
PRS makes nice guitars, but that does not mean that all of Paul's beliefs are accurate. Afterall, PRS is the 3rd biggest maker in the US and much of what he says should be taken as marketing BS and hype to sell his product, no different that marketing BS from any large company. Remember Paul also claims that tuner buttons impact tone too. As far as Leo picking woods that were tone wood, Leo picked the cheapest wood he could get that were stable enough to make a guitar to a price point.
I totally agree that the sound of two solid body guitars played unamplified can be significantly different. This does affect how we play at low volume or even unplugged. However at cranked up live volumes, those differences mostly disappear. The sound coming from the pickup and going through the amp is very measurable. The pickup design, alloy of the strings, string design, string gauge, scale length and tension have huge impacts on the sound. Next is the attack in how and where you pick, type of pick or even using finger style have a significant impact on the sound mainly due to the attach and harmonics it directly produces in the string. These are measurable on frequency analyzers. Bridge material/alloy, fret alloy and nut material have minimal impact unless there is a huge difference in material: (example: a fretless ebony fingerboard sounds different than metal frets as there is a significant density difference in material and is measurable, also the string is in direct contact with the string. The difference between fret alloys is much less so the impact is much less)
Once you get away from parts that are in direct contact, the differences become very minimal. The woods make very subtle differences but in many cases these are hardly measurable if at all. Assuming 2 identical instruments in every aspect except neck and body woods, any difference would barely if at all be noticeable in a real life live performance or recording. I challenge anyone to blind listen to a live band and pick out which guitar uses stainless frets, bone nut, maple top, fretboard material, or body wood without seeing the guitar. I dare say that guessing would be as accurate as what the best eared guitar player would hear. However most seasoned players could pick out whether the guitar has humbuckers or single coils. Again, on a solid body guitar using traditional magnetic pickups, only things that directly impact the magnetic interaction between strings and pickup will come thru to the amp. The acoustic properties of the wood virtually have no impact. Heck, if 5 pounds of wood and 1 pound of parts are so critical, then the amount of fat in ones gut should have a huge impact. If a player weighs 300 pounds, does the 6 pound solid body guitar sustain different that a 150 pound player holding the same guitar??? Does the extra 150 pounds make it sustain more? or less? Probably not. That's the science part.
From a players aspect and the art part, how the instrument "feels" can have a big impact on how one plays the instrument. If the subtle differences are important to a player, then how the instrument vibrates on the body and have may impact the approach of how we play.
My biggest test of this that I did was years back as a bass player in the band I was in at the time. I had a Steinberger (graphite of course), an Aria SB1000 narrow spaced bass with 5 piece maple/walnut neck and ash body and an aluminum neck Kramer. All were 34" scale with Rotosound rounds. All had the same pickups, Dimarzio Model G bass humbuckers (I was into narrow spacing and Dimarzio Model G's back then). Acoustically the three sounded and responded totally different. But when recording or playing at live volume, there was virtually no difference. I'd say more variance in how I played each bass played due to how they hung on my body than anything else.
I've played and built guitars for 40 years. The science is fairly simple. The signal coming thru the pickup to the amp is what the audience will hear either live or recorded. The choice of amp speakers will have way more impact than the woods on a solid body. Saying that., I like exotic woods, especially wenge, padauk, pau ferro, goncalo alves and others for necks as I like the feel of raw wood. I used to buy into the tones woods matter debate, but I don't believe they have significant impact on the actual amplified sound. But I do love how certain woods look and feel. That is important.
My main issue with the tonewood debate as applied to solid body guitars is that wood has some magically property that can never be measured by machines and only a guitar player can hear the difference.
I think Phil McNight said something to the effect of “if you think it matters then it does” and I think that’s a great explanation. I make pickups and of course I believe pickups are the biggest part of the guitars tone, but some folks think pickups don’t matter because of that Canadian dude who yells on RUclips. At the end of the day whatever helps you have a connection with the instrument (wood, electronics, string choice, etc) is cool and makes a difference because you WILL play differently.Hell I used to think the whole “historically mounted” ABR-1 was some custom shop mumbo jumbo but now I can’t imagine using a Nashville style bushing again. I can for sure understand thinking that’s a load of crap though.
That about sums it up, well said by Phil. Thanks for watching
BELIEVER...
Says it all...
No arguments, except for the totally ludicrous whisky, wine comparison, now THAT was hilarious.
That comparison should have been about how much influence the BOTTLE has on the taste.
Me laughing while playing my James Trussart Steelcaster.
The only wood is the neck. Still sounds like a Tele.
I have hand built guitars from pine,ply wood,ash and swamp ash.
There is deadness to the wood, depending on the density of it.
Absolutely it's a bit of heart over facts, but there is a subtle difference (In my opinion)
You should probably spend less time on The Gear Page and more time enjoying what you enjoy.
I don't know what people expected Paul to say. He's a multi-hojillionaire because he makes expensive guitars. Saying anything else is a threat to his business. But if tonewood is all that matters, why did they just put USA pickups on the S2's and jack the prices by $400? The wood is the same!
I think there's a middle ground. The tonewood probably plays a supporting role. But not as big a role as the setup of the wood (hollow/solid as you pointed out) pickups, effects, and amps. I like looking at fancy guitars on RUclips, and I love playing a very fancy Taylor acoustic, but my electrics are relatively inexpensive (under $1000) because it doesn't matter AS MUCH. They still have Paul's name on the headstock, though. Silver Sky SE, 594 SE, Custom 22 SE Semi-hollow...
I think what people miss about Paul is that he is as passionate about every thing that impacts his end results, no matter how small that impact. He's as passionate about the nut as the wood, people just aren't as personally invested in the nut material on their guitar.
So basically forget what science and physics tells us, just "believe" that tone wood matters. That's why this debate will NEVER be settled...EVER. Because if we can't prove through science or use a spectrum analyzer to prove that there is virtually no difference in the effect on tone between various woods, then there's no way to logically debate this topic. This is like the wizard saying "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" don't believe your own eyes or ears, or research...simply believe in your heart. I admire your devotion to this subject and to the PRS brand but none of this would hold up in court, it is all purely opinion. Which is fine. Believe what you want. I mean you're basically in so many words saying "I don't care if tone wood matters or not because I believe it does". So instead of trying to convince us that you and Paul are "right" and everyone who believes the contrary is wrong (despite science) just say "hey, I don't care what you think, I believe tone wood is real and that's enough for me".
Oh and -10 points for not providing any audio examples from any of the guitars you talked about.
It's all about wood resonance for me. I bond with certain guitars which have a certain resonance. If the guitar feels right in my hands and is resonant (singing) unplugged, it will empty my wallet.
The wood is important. The density and resonance.
Paul Reed Smith has been a lightning rod for tonewood deniers and I don’t think he’s done a very good job lately of explaining and defending just what it is that he does. A lot of people seem to dislike him strongly because of the beauty and high cost of some of his guitars. Here’s a guy that started with practically nothing and built a great company that employs many Americans. The materials and workmanship of his guitars is beyond compare. Some RUclipsrs are trying to bring him down because they are jealous of what he’s accomplished. There are also some pickup winders who want to shake faith in the value of tonewood so they can sell more pickups. There’s a guy who posts regularly on music forums that charges over$600.00 for a single PAF replica, and he doesn’t even know that, all other things being equal, more windings on a pickup will give you more output! That’s insane to my way of thinking, when his products are made from the same stuff-plastic, magnets and wire-as the import stuff from Asia. Some tonewood deniers act like they’re “saving” the public from evildoers like PRS who are supposedly overcharging for a product that does not deliver what it promises. Like you are some sort of sucker or chump if you buy a PRS for $10K , that is made with great care from the finest materials with a full factory warranty. Some of the same people would gladly shell out even more for a pair of 1959 double-white Gibson humbuckers that might short out six months after they bought them. I would submit that the real chumps are the ones paying five figures for some plastic, magnets and wire, no matter how revered they are. No matter how hard they try, it’s impossible to prove that something doesn’t exist. They will keep on raising the question but the debate about tonewood will never go away.
Clearly everything in the system matters, but also clearly differences in amps, pickups, picks, attack & style swamp differences in wood. For myself, wood really doesn't matter beyond appearance and weight, because I'm a hack. But the better a player gets, the more wood matters because the strings vibrate the wood which partially attenuates that vibration and feeds it back into the strings in altered form. Maybe it's that last 1%, but that's part of what distinguishes a truly great guitar from very good guitars. In other talks and articles Paul has said that it's the density and resonance of wood that matters, NOT the species. The species can be very important for appearance (absent an opaque finish) and weight but also for likelihood of having those very desirable qualities, but the individual boards are where that 1% appears or doesn't. This compulsive attention to detail is why so many people say PRS guitars have no soul - identical individual PRS guitars sound very, very much the same. Lacking the ability to truly discern that fine a detail, I appreciate the fact that PRS takes that level of care. It's also a key advantage in the age of online shopping - the chance of getting a great PRS guitar (as defined for that price point - I only have an SE) are almost 100%. With a Gibson, the chance of getting a great guitar - meaning one you'd pick out of a hundred identical examples - is pretty darned small because Gibson just doesn't exercise that level of care.
I think no one is saying it doesn’t make any difference at all.. it’s just negligible when compared to something like pickup choice or even the way the player actually picks/plays. You can make a decent sounding guitar out of anything hard and somewhat resonant.
I do
Bake a cake without that pinch of salt and see how it comes out. If you're holding a complete guitar, every part of it is important to the end product... depending on your frame of reference.
I blasted apart a 1996 Epiphone dot, made in Korea. Stripped the ton of polyurethane off and took off all the crappy glue they used on the neck joint. I then transferred as many measurements off my Gibson 335 to remove any stacked tolerances (the neck joints are a little different). I glued it all back up and let it sit for 2 weeks before I sprayed a light coat of nitro after sealing and block sanding. All USA hardware, wiring, and Mullard caps, CTS pots etc. I installed a set of underwound Gibson classic, classic 57's, whatever they're calling them nowadays, and strung it up with Gibson 10's. It played great ! But it was a bit thin. So, I took out the pickups and installed a set of normal Classic 57's, and that was the trick ! The 335 has a 3 ply top where the Epi has a 5 ply. The extra MASS deadened it to no end. I wanted just a bit more out of it so we settled on a set of new T-type Gibson pickups from another 335 setup.🙄 it now has proper output, is sweet where you'd expect, and the setup is miles away from what they did in 1996. Does it sound like a 335... well, sort of. I'd say it sounds more like a 339 because those tops don't resonate as well as a full size. Was it worth $1200, NO. But, it was worth it to the guy I made it for because it sounds great, and if anyone steals it or breaks it, he won't go to prison clubbing some poor schmuck with the neck. It's up to the player I say, personally I cannot play an Epiphone at Guitar Center without wanting to puke. It's just horrible. Once you get used to better guitars, you demand better guitars, and that's just fine. It should progress as the player progresses, I think. 👍
@@jimshorts6751 Blah blah blah. The cardboard strat sounds like a strat. The tele with no body sounds like a tele. All your yapping is useless drivel.
@VVVY777 I've done the work, you're the one "yapping." The magic is the neck joint. If the joint is dead, the whole guitar sounds crappy. If you have a good joint and the proper woods were chosen, it will resonate sympathetically. Just try a carbon fiber or aluminum neck. They have their place, but they get tinny real quick. Wood choice is important, which is why ALL manufacturers have purchasing agents who work closely with the builders. You can take a master builder and a hobbyist to the wood pile and figure out which one is without talking. Grain, direction of the grain, and wood choice do affect the end sound. Or haven't you played a Dan Armstrong Lexan guitar ? With distortion, you can hide a lot, clean... not so much. But thanks for playing who's first to be an a**hole to a stranger game.
People are looking at tone wood - wood giving certain tones to the sound - all wrong. A good analogy would be light. Different surfaces absorb different frequencies of light, and reflect different frequencies of light, hence colour. Woods and materials absorb different frequencies of sound, and reflect different frequencies of sound. They're both waveforms of energy, so focus on the reduction of reflected frequencies in the sound, rather than giving frequencies in the sound...
I own 2 p basses and 2 jazz basses. One of each is alder with a rosewood fretboard and the other two ash bodies with maple fingerboards. They sound completely different from each other. That's all I have to say on the subject.
My conclusion - it makes no difference plugged in, but makes a difference when unplugged. And thats enough for me to prefer certain types of wood and construction.
You obviously are not a decent player. I know
Thanks for watching, I appreciate it. I have some gauge for an unplugged electric guitar that works for me, and if it works for you use it!
Thanks for the video.
I’ve had similar experiences as a player when comparing Les Pauls unplugged. I like your waterlogged analogy.
Ive NEVER played a dead sounding guitar and then plugged it in and it came to life. My experience has been a lively unplugged guitar plugged in sounds great.
Keep up the great content!
I appreciate it, yea I've experienced that plenty! Thanks for watching
Jimmy Page loves the sound of Danelectro guitars (as do many others). So using your argument, Masonite (aka Hardboard) MUST be one of the best tonewoods on the planet. So shoud I use Masonite for the neck on my next guitar build? More tonewood makes a better guitar = more Masonite makes a better guitar - anyone who disagrees is NUTS! according to Paul (G)Read Smith.
I mean, id have to take your word for it as you handle many types of guitars, however I’m more from a punk approach of guitar playing, as-long as I can get a loud noise out of it that’s me done 🤘.
Do the Les Pauls have identical pickups? o.O
I don't know why, but my comments keep going into a black hole here, so I'll try to be more brief.
The previous video was hard to hear but didn't convince me (although I don't have a hard opinion one way or the other). I thought the video here was better in explaining a few things, I will accept that wood might affect tone to some degree, and I appreciated this as a response to some very negative vibes on that last one.
I only have SEs (and one used Reclaimed Vela), including a CE24 Satin I got used for about four hundred dollars recently which is incredible. Kool Aid? Fine, if that's what it means to appreciate something, then when it comes to PRS, I'm drinking it.
John appears to have a very solid musical education and it certainly shows in his playing - this is my go-to channel for reviews.
I agree 100% that type of wood makes a difference. Having said that, why is the SE Silver Sky make out of Poplar???
Alder isn't easily sourced in Indonesia, and sounds similar to Poplar or Basswood.
I'm definitely not making the claim that this video is wrong. The proof will in fact be found in the science. For example, if the pickups have some microphonic properties that pick up the sound outside of just the vibrating strings, that will show up in very high resolution spectrum analyzers. If the wood impacts sustain and somehow provides extra resonance to the vibrations, that too will show up and will be proven by scientific analysis. That being said, the comfort and playability of the instrument is related to wood, shape, weight, balance etc. The perceived beauty of the instrument may impact the attitude and performance of the player. I'm not personally convinced that magic or supernatural forces actually exist but knowledge that feelings and intuitions affect performance. I enjoy buying and playing finely crafted instruments and will continue to do so even if on a scientific level the sound isn't always measurably different.
So are tonewood snobs considered audiophiles???
22:24 You must have missed the part where Paul called his customers smooth-brains for not buying the tonewood hype. That's where many of the criticisms are coming from. Check out Jim Lill's Tested RUclips series to see why it's not good science.
Exactly, Jim Lill has gutted all the marketing hype around all this BS. He is the only one that I have found that has subjected this stuff to the scientific method and shown the results. End of story. The rest is all personal bias. What this guy is saying is, 'These 2 Les Paul guitars sound different' yet offers nothing other than his opinion.
Everyone is arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They should practice instead.
The magic is just things you don't understand, it's fine to understand it as such but it's not good to push this on others and criticize them for thinking rationally which is what we believe Paul is doing, dismissing valid criticism in an unfair, ridiculing way. Some guitars play like magic because they have just the right setup, just the right specs and emotional/spiritual connection is also definitely a thing, those things can be very personal and subjective and no one's denying that. PRS guitars rock and their SE series is one of the most affordable quality guitars you can get, but it doesn't give Paul authority to deny scientific facts. And the facts are that standing waves produced by the strings have a set frequency depending on their length and an amplitude depending on the applied strength when plucking them. The pickups cannot physically register anything other than this. Even most of the differences when it comes to nut materials usually come from brass nuts not providing a single point of contact or very soft plastic nuts slightly deforming and muting the string due to energy transfer. No one wants to put you down for what inspires you, inspiration is fine, owning something unique and special is fine, the reason why we talk about this is beginners being fed myths and thinking they need a 5k guitar to sound like their favourite artist which is simply not true.
Me (on the prior video): "tonewood for solid body electrics makes very little to no difference in the output, vs the amplifer (last part of the sound chain), and pickups.
Response here starting at 4:00 - (holds up a solid body and *semi hollow body* Les Paul, then says) - "according to the arguments that tonewoods don't matter, these Les Pauls don't have any business sounding any different. But here you are with a Les Paul ES that sounds completely different than the solid body Les Paul"
If that's your answer - tonewoods matter when you're talking about instruments that are acoustic or semi-acoustic - there's no argument. Because 1) No one disputes that wood matters when instruments are hollow, and 2) you're not answering the actual point being made.
"Here let me prove to you that tonewoods matter on an electric guitar"
Proceeds to acoustically play a semi-hollow. The boy is dense for sure.
There's a lot of emotion and not much thought in this video, which is unusual for this channel. He also points out that PRS is the only huge company where the founder is involved, but PRS is the only huge company where the founder is still alive. Like Leo Fender got out in the 60s, I get that's his point, but Leo also died three decades ago. Orville Gibson died when Leo was like 10 years old.
And hey I'm all for ranting emotionally. I do it all the time. Calling this video a reaction was spot-on because it's just an emotional response.
I hear you. I was careful to label this a reaction and a rant, as you'll see it's not labeled an argument. a commenter below points out it's emotional, it is. It's unscripted, and it's my honest reaction to the subject. I had no idea that the tonewoods issue was such a thing until I was taken aback by many of the comments in prior videos (by the way, not yours - your comment is a fair comment. Somebody below pointed out it's unusual for me to show "a lot of emotion and not much thought." I'll take that as a compliment. In my regular format demos, it's not about emotion. But here, every now and then after making 100s of videos, there is something that just sticks you the wrong way. It hit me after seeing some of the comments that were not making a particular case, as yours was, but simply being hateful. It's not what I do this for. Thanks for watching, and for your comments.
@@PlayandTradeGuitars I hear you. And look - I own a PRS SE Piezo Hollowbody II; I'm not a PRS hater. Before I bought it, I tried the core equivalent. Core was somewhat more playable; the fit and finish were a bit better; the materials & appointments were significantly higher quallity; the pickup sounded a bit better (but only completely clean). Was it worth paying nearly 7x as much for Core than for an SE version that delivers about 90% of Core, in terms of quality output and experience playing? For me, no way.
I have a slightly nuanced disagreement with a small part of what you said; everything about how an electric guitar works and sounds CAN be fully explained by science. I say this as a scientist. This includes being able to explain how wood DOES matter and DOES affect the sound/tone of an electric guitar.
I do agree though… if you’re a musician, as I am as well as being a scientist, you shouldn’t NEED to explain what is happening scientifically, especially not in the moment where you’re actually playing it and experiencing it.
I appreciate that, I am certainly not a scientist but I really like the way you look at it.
I like carbon fiber tone best.
😎
ruclips.net/user/shortssROPMI7ndB0?si=DtZqJGhx8_nhvd6b I just tried speak into a pickup, and heard my voice go through, i think thats how why tonewood can affect overall characteristic of each guitar.
Kool Aid is a hell of a drug.
P.S. He should change it to POS from PRS😆
Well said! Love the positive vibe you’re sending out! As an older player that has rekindled wanting to play again, this video presentation is so inspiring! Keep up the good work lads!!! I was given a 2006 Epiphone SG special from a customer which in turn kick started my guitar journey again. I watched a video that Rhett Shull had comparing telecaster’s where he picked a squire classic vibe over a player model. I purchased a classic vibe from sweetwater unseen. The guitar rings beautifully unplugged so I get what you’re saying. Thank you for your killer content!
Thank you so much, I am really glad to hear that it inspired you to play. That's all I ever hope to do with this channel. Great choice of guitar and keep playing!
@@PlayandTradeGuitars Yeah but wood is directly interacting with the sounds generated in acoustic guitars whereas the wood is just not a very significant contributor to the sound. I really would like to see him pick certain woods out in a mix. Have you been following Jim Lill? I think he has made one of the most impressive and extensive experiments partially removing wood from a Telecaster and shortening the scale length to see if affects the sound. Check it out for yourself and see if you can hear a difference.
@@PlayandTradeGuitars Like you said there are millions of things affecting tone but I don't think wood is one of the more important ones in electrics. The plektrum, your attack, picking position, pick material have a way bigger impact. Just try a celluloid pick compared to a metal one. The difference is way greater than any tonewood could ever achieve.
@@PlayandTradeGuitars There are a lot of claims in your video like the difference of identically built Les Pauls. Why not make some recordings if the difference is so obvious. Make some comparisons so we can judge for ourselves. That shouldn't be too hard.
Yes tone wood matters,, not it's not the only thing that matters, ,
The problem with PRS is his filter is salesmanship ,his argument was really just a bunch of word salad praising his own status as a builder
I think the thing people are missing is guitars all sound like guitars, we find the ones we like because of these little differences of wire and wood
In the time that some take to debate the influence or effect of wood on tone, regardless of those merits pro/con… I could take time to work on my tone and technique, so that my tone is good, no matter what the guitar I’m playing is made of.
I encourage doubters to check out Jack Pearson:
ruclips.net/video/EW_ajThs8Vo/видео.htmlsi=CF2PBM6pnWEJKPKW
17:10 "completely robbing themselves of the joyful experience"
I disagree. I have a basswood japan strat, and an american alder strat. They resonate very differently tucked into my ribs. Absolutely. So do pine/ash strats I noodle on in stores. But ultimately they all sound like strats and I dont lose any enjoyment from playing either by not believing the wood makes a fundamental difference to their sound. I still get joy from them both. The feel in the ribs is an emotional reaction, not a measured sound difference.
I think theres a danger here that we're conflating how a guitar makes us feel in our hands/ribs and the emotional response from that rib tickling excitement, with the actual sound coming out of it thats almost indistinguishable from sample to sample of the same model along the shelf (of course a semi hollow sounds different to a solid body, thats not really a valid comparison for a tonewood debate). Identical models all feel slightly different for sure. Different weight, different grain - wood is not a consistent repeatable material. But as players we also invent a whole bunch of mystique and mythology too. "Heavy guitars sustain more" - some do, some dont. Just like some eye watering value vintage guitars play great, and many are meh. I dont see it as robbing the joy of playing by wanting to see through unscientific mystique and mythology to gauge the real degree of measurable difference in the sound, so I can try and understand what it really is that contributes to the tangible sound difference, so we can build a better understanding of how to engineer the construction of "better" sounding instruments. That doesnt mean we cant also engineer the emotional rib tickle if thats a feel thing players enjoy too. Art is in the looks and feel, but engineering is in the sound. A guitar is a combination of the two.
Thanks for the reply, sounds like some nice guitars you have! I agree there is a risk in conflating how it feels vs how it sounds, but how it makes you feel affects your playing and fair enough - if you can understand it scientifically without reducing the experience, I'm all for it. I'm not sure that's true for everyone though
@@PlayandTradeGuitars I agree with you that how the player feels absolutely matters to their enjoyment. If John Mayer swapped his dumble/klon/64strat for a Katana/Notaklon/SkySE, I don't think he'd get the same personal buzz out of playing it every night of the tour. Psychology matters. But I also don't think his audience would immediately notice a significant difference in sound. As players we excruciate over nuances that listeners are often indifferent about. Gear is for the player, the listener mostly doesn't care. There's nothing wrong with aspiring to own hallowed expensive gear made of the rarest and most sought after materials - the players enjoyment matters (to them). I just think we also have to admit we're doing it more to chase our own personal marginal gains that the listener is oblivious to. Did anyone ever walk out of a gig early saying "oh man that pau ferro sounded awful, I'm not coming back til he plays brazilian rosewood".
👍
I think your pick makes much more a difference then the species of wood the electric guitar is made out of.
He escaped from the clinic 😜😝
I heard all the raving about the new "Inspired by" Epiphone Les Paul Customs. I found a used one at GC and sat and played it unplugged.
I own a nice 2012 Gibson LP Standard.
The difference between the two cannot be understated.
Strumming the Gibson, you can feel the vibration all the way to the strap buttons, and the unplugged sound is rich and deep.
Strumming the Epiphone - and I experience this with most Epis I strum - all of the sound and resonance seemed to be coming from the bridge. It was bright and metallic, and the guitar did not resonate the same way, or as much as the Gibson. In fact, it had this weird "plastic-y" sound quality.
Plugged in, the Gibson again was quite a bit more complex. My 2012 is a bit more mid-forward than others I've owned, probably due to the "modern weight relief" on the body.
The Epiphone sounded like there was a thin sheet of something covering the speaker, and the front pickup was dark and wooly when driven.
There is a REASON these manufacturers have select woods and "drying" rooms. Do you really think companies like PRS and Gibson would spend as much as they do on their wood processes if it meant absolutely NOTHING? That wouldn't be cost effective at all.
Here is how logic works.....acoustic guitars are made thin...elastic and hollow and anything you change about them changes the sound....we all agree on that...now the illogical part is that since acoustic guitars are made a certain way....why solid body electrics are made very thick,very dense and not hollow..... its almost like we made them the EXACT OPPOSITE way cause we DONT want them to influence the sound(since the amp is there)....fair?
ruclips.net/video/OD6bUq_F8ec/видео.htmlsi=kkBra7MynWOHPMAe This guy he tried use Tonerite on strat and notice tone changes ( increased output and high frequencies) .I think it comes from the wood effects on the string, for ex. On acoustic guitars, different guitars from the same model , one can sound louder because of the different in wood resonance so in electric guitar, what if one guitar sounds louder strung, why wouldnt that will be amplified through amp. I think, with the right kind of proof, we can see where it will lead to, at the end of the road. Theres no such thing as called" debunk" if theres still evidence and factors we can do more tests.
I really enjoyed your perspective. It was so nice to see your passion. Thank you for always rolling out great content and reviewing great guitars.
There are studies that are based in science all over you tube. PRS has not backed any ofvhis views with any proof. I agree that his guitarsbare beautiful.
@Play and Trade Guitars: For whatever reason, this topic is one of the most polarizing in the guitar community. It is far easier to stand up and trumpet your personal opinions than to honestly admit that regardless of whether the wood affects the tone in any way, the amount is so small as to be irrelevant to the end result. It is impossible to discern live, or in a mix. The average listener does not care anyway.
Obviously, you have a passionate investment in the debate, as do many others. But taking a stand and planting your feet on one side diminishes your channel somewhat because it takes away from the experience of playing. People will spend time arguing and debating you rather than pick up their guitar and play. I think that is what is wrong with this whole debate to begin with. There are so many much more important considerations to make than this as a guitar player. Put that passion and emotion into a great performance or write a great song.
You can have the greatest tonewood guitar in the world, but if the playing is bad, or the song stinks, it really becomes a moot point.
I agree that the listener won't care, you're right. And I didn't realize how polarizing this all was. I don't think sharing my honest thoughts every now and then diminishes the channel, because you actually get a sense of where I'm coming from when I play (I guess for better or worse). But behind this video is literally hundreds of objective full demos of brands and guitar models at every price level, so I stand on that library feeling I can speak my experience a little bit here and there. Thanks for watching.
@@PlayandTradeGuitars It's no big deal, I like your channel and of course you can express whatever you want. Just do what you've been doing, all I'm saying is this stuff is a landmine and doesn't add any value to anything. The argument is as pointless as arguing politics or religion. What matters to someone else shouldn't matter to you in this endeavor.
Jim Lill's video on that eventually completely stripped Strat is a truly fantastic myth busting video, ..of that strat and its sound.
Well, in fact all of Jim's video's are of the highest quality - although I also saw a guy commenting here, only using 'big words' and many 😂 emoji's, to prove his point Jim Lill wasn't proving anything...
That guy's reaction made me think he's not so sure of his point himself 😉.
..But any way, Jim's video's are also really fun in a 'and there you have it, do what you wanna do with it' way👍.
Oh, and guys. I hope most will agree on 'the more gain, the less difference in sound'. Otherwise you go and watch some SMG video's on the topic. Those are video's for dumb bass bashers and stubborn guitar freaks. Oh wel, ..stupid musicians in general.
FU Glenn!
We all know it's the sticker on the pickguard that gives you the tone. 😅😅😅😅😅
Again, PRS likes to use the argument with acoustic violins for tonewoods in electric guitars. But electric violins still sound like violins despite often not having anything more than a carbon fibre outline of a body and the only bits of wood they will have is either the neck+fingerboard or just the fingerboard for playing comfort. Paul, like most people, is probably clueless about his biases and psychoacoustics and you just assume he's right because he's built a huge company selling guitars with fancy flame maple.
That is the logical fallacy of argument from authority. Paul's a good luthier and a successful businessman, but he learned how to make guitars in the 70s based on assumptions people built in the 1940s and 50s and simply kept believing. He doesn't build guitars that are meaningfully different from Gibsons in terms of woods used. Still mahogany body with maple top and rosewood fretboard in vast majority of cases, yet they sound different because of the pickups, the scale length and where along that scale length the pickups are placed, and string and neck angles in general. PRS didn't reinvent the guitar building formula, he just stayed true to it with some tweaks and cares deeply about QC and consistency and he can market that well - that's the secret to his success.
Of course you can build a huge brand by believing mumbo jumbo. Gibson's whole business model relies on people believing guitars from the 50s and 60s were some magical unicorns that they still aspire to match, when really they were inconsistent quality-wise and spec-wise and the only reason they're viewed with such reverence is because of what came after with the Norlin takeover when the quality shat the bed so bad you can literally buy Amazon guitars that are better than 70s and early 80s Gibsons.
100%. Materials science has evolved dramatically in the last 50 years. Its possible to 'tune' composites to have specific acoustic properties. For acoustic instruments, they have a long way to go, but for solid body electrics, the only advantage to tonewood is cosmetic. So if you folks who champion tonewoods for those guitars have that preference, fine - but its like wanting an Hermes bag, and for the same reasons - not because an Hermes bag does a better job as a purse than a Target 19.99 handbag.
Paul is a good luthier and successful businessman, and of course you don't have to buy his guitars. But I hear a general attitude that praises getting a $80 electric guitar from Amazon as if it's something to celebrate culturally - to me, that's not something to celebrate. You're not participating in a cultural legacy which is right in front of us. Thanks for the meaningful comments and for watching
@@PlayandTradeGuitars I would never advocate buying $80 guitars from Amazon, my comment mentioning the Amazon guitars was simply in relation to Gibson's 1970s quality. I've played a couple dozen 70s Gibsons over the years and each one was what we'd call "sub-par" even compared to today's Epiphones.
I'm also gonna be the first guy to say, go buy guitars from great independent luthiers or small companies. We need more folks like that in the market and they are more likely to have a guitar that suits your needs or you can ask them to make changes to your liking and you don't necessarily pay more for them than for a Gibson or PRS.
Well, the guitar has to be sell-able...PRS is not for me. Your presentation has valid points, but again, I do not own a PRS among my 11 guitars. One last valid point that should be made is the reason as to why. I am not alone. Like finding a mate, looks, emotion, is all part of inspiration and the equation to justify the purchase of a PRS. PRS has no looks. Not for me. The voice alone is not enough.
I get that. The reason as to "why" is a key behind anything you play or do. If you can answer your own "why," you have all you need. Thanks for watching
On electric guitars, the wood doesn't matter. The colour does. Green guitars usually sound like crap, while red or black guitars usually sound great. Burst guitars sound good too. Blue guitars not so much. And gloss ALWAYS sounds better than matte...
Furthermore, natural wood should be reserved for acoustic guitars. I've only heard one yellow guitar, and it sounded very good. It had black stripes. However, if you own and orange guitar, you might want to rethink your life. If your guitar has a fake "relic", then you probably play using a modeling amp. Therefore, not a real guitarist. You may as well consider yourself a keyboard player...
Agreed. I don't like playing the blues on anything other than a blue guitar.
This is the way.
I've never once bonded with a green guitar, and now I know why.
Lol, Thanks for watching, great comment. Hey, if this way of thinking put you in a mindset to play better, it would in some ways be valid ;)
Oh no I have 2 orange guitars
6:00 10 Les Paul's all sound different with the same pups, pots etc...well not really, no 2 same model pup or pot for example are 100% exactly the same. There's significant differences in the tolerances - 10-15% seems perfectly acceptable from manufacturers. The truly only scientific way is to take the same pots and pups etc and fit them to the next LP and to the same heights etc...hardly practical. But the only way of truly comparing just the woods from 2 different guitars. Just watched an Epi 2024 LP inspired by Gibson Custom vs a real Gibson LP Custom and they sounded pretty damn identical...see! ruclips.net/video/0lgm_v-gZbU/видео.html @3:23-6:03. That all said i do agree a hollow body electric or semi hollow will sound different to a solid as I own both myself and the differences are undeniable. As for solid LP vs solid LP with the same hardware and pups the difference in their plugged in sound is minimal if even noticeable. If the "tonewoods" have any real impact on the guitar its tiny - take a Core PRS with PRS SE pups vs a SE with Core pups - I'd bet on the SE with the better pups sounding better plugged in. And I own 2 PRS Customs (USA 22 & 24) plugged in and in a mix through a dirty amp/pedals and its a joke to think that your "tonewoods" are gonna really shine. Finish and attention to detail and aesthetic beauty are real enough and why my 2 PRS are my favourite 2 guitars.....but its nothing to do with "tonewood" being better. I see more expensive guitars are feeling better to play (usually) and looking better aesthetically...but "tonewood" I don't buy into anymore. If there's anything in it at all its tiny. IME. I have also 2 Gibsons -SG Standard and LP Trad...great guitars, but do they sound better than my Harley Benton Fusion II with upgraded pups ? Not really - just different. I last year had a PRS SE Custom 24:08 - for a few months - was a decent sounding guitar stock...gigged it one time as well and it did fine. Only sold it because I was used to proper core level PRS Customs - they just look and feel better. The tops are veneers and the back of the body was 3 piece glued together...the neck was 3 strips glued together also with a separate pieces glued on for the heel...that's how to get a nice looking guitar on the cheap!! The solid colours like his Gold top DG SE in this video - you can't see all that as its hidden...you can on the translucent colours though!! Sound wise though not much different really if you upgrade the electrics on a like for like.
Everything on a electric guitar has an influence on tone and sound. Some more, some less, but they can add up or substract. It csn not be that the wood properties are the only factor wich has zero influence, because the whole guitar is a vibrating system.
Guitars are already made out of suitable woods (that's what I understand as tone woods) , and the difference between them is not big.
Noticeable more difference would be to non suitable woods (or materials) for guitar building.
That's a fair point - if guitars are already made out of suitable tonewoods, the argument is the marginal difference is so small maybe but - I do feel theres some factor or energy that goes into the guitar when it's built by people who really care, and letting them select choice materials, the best they can find, for asthetic and artistic as well as practical reasons, matters to me. A 10 top is expensive sure, but man are there nice pieces of rosewood for example on SE models at $600. They do care and that's what I really appreciate. Thanks for watching
EVERYTHING Matters in a guitar - and that includes the woods.
However, for most musicians, its not something they can 'change' and if they can't get what they 'really' want, will blame pick-ups and change them - if that doesn't work, they'll sell it without considering the 'woods' . Others play with so much distortion, they don't care - it is all about High Output Pickups. So from some musicians perspective, it doesn't matter to them because they don't care or really consider something they can't change after buying.
For a manufacturer, especially one with their name on the headstock wanting to make the 'best' instruments they can, it starts with the wood, the long process of 'curing' it and careful 'carving' to account for settling after relieving stress in necks to ensure maximum stability/resonance etc - its vital to make sure the 'end' product is a 'great' guitar. Without the effort to source, cut, cure, carefully treat the wood, their guitars wouldn't be as 'reliable' or resonant as they are! That's all because of the 'core' that the bridge, tuners, nut and Pick-ups are all mounted too...
I know wood makes a difference PRS wood library vs Core for example and I have 2 594's - 1 Hollowbody 594 and 1 solid body so I know it makes a difference too.
Ther is no doubt wood changes the sound, but a lot of what you are saying comes down to build quality or at least some of it, the thing about wood species on an electric guitar is that you are going to eq your amp to get to the sound you want to hear and I don’t think wood species should stop you from buying a guitar.
Thank you for watching, that's a fair point too - the amp is going to do a lot of the tone sculpting for sure, but there's something magic to me about having a guitar that just feels like it's alive when it resonates, even unplugged, even if it's a solid body electric
AMEN! And thank you so much for saying it. I think of these modern players as just a giant ear, with no hands or eyes. Or a soul now that i think of it!
The wood, the cut, the pickups, the tuners, the bridge, the saddles, the way the strings are picked, the string height, the pickup height, the amplifier, the speaker, etc. all affect the sound of an electric guitar. The wood in an acoustic guitar is likely the biggest factor.
A company using cheap generic wood will sell very well because of the affordable price. A company using specific high quality pieces of wood will sell well to players that care about the sound & feel when they play a high quality guitar.
I thought the wood was the biggest factor of an acoustic guitar until I tried Martin's Retro strings, and boy do I hate everything about those. It's so much darker and dead sounding. I definitely prefer 80/20 or phosphor bronze.
I appreciate the comments, thanks for watching
Anything that makes the string vibrate differently will make a difference to the sound, that much is unequivocal, it is basic physics and that includes the wood.
How noticeable that difference is after the signal has gone through the signal chain and out of the amplifier speakers is the question. I sure that the differences could be detected with a sufficiently good audio spectrum analyser BUT it is really difficult to set up and ideal A/B test because making two otherwise identical guitars other than just a wood change is not an easy thing to do - so the debate will continue :)
Thanks for watching, I appreciate it! I agree - I doubt this "debate" will go away, so I'll have to remind myself to just focus on what makes us want to play!
Yeah but wood is directly interacting with the sounds generated in acoustic guitars whereas the wood is just not a very significant contributor to the sound. I really would like to see him pick certain woods out in a mix. Have you been following Jim Lill? I think he has made one of the most impressive and extensive experiments partially removing wood from a Telecaster and shortening the scale length to see if affects the sound. Check it out for yourself and see if you can hear a difference.
For such a vague and subjective term, tonewood is a very flammable subject.
Everyone see’s it differently, I mean hears it differently, I mean feels different about it, yep that's it.
Perfectly said, simply said. I get it and I agree. Thanks for watching
I will tell you having listen to Mr Paul Reed Smith speak on tone words, he makes Apple to great connections in every time he speaks. It is never apples to apples. To compare an electric guitar to a ukulele, a violin are acoustic guitar. The argument is simply on an electric guitar. He is coming off as Marjorie Taylor Greene just throwing some words out there. He is using his position as a guitar maker to make it seem that no matter what words come out of his mouth it is Gospel.. there have been many people online who have used gauges, blindfold and everything else to prove that this is bogus. He is a business owner I need to keep that in mind as it does guide his perspective. He may actually believe the words he is saying. I'll give him that. But I've been playing guitars since 1975 and I will not be browbeat or shamed into believing something that I know not to be true. RUclips is a vast proving ground or in his case disproven ground.
How could this not touch your soul as a musician…..
Tonewood lmfao
Hahah beyond science, magic! Cult like explanation
Funny enough music is all about inspiration and emotion. That's not something you measure with science.
@@AuramiteEX Music yes, but building guitars and what makes them tick is still subject to laws of physics.
@@SG710 and yet the instrument needs to inspire you. That isn't something you measure
I agree 100% Thanks for watching
Correct, my answer literally is "magic." If one can't experience that, they're missing out in my opinion! I am not a scientist, I am a musician
Truth being spoken.
Oh almost definitely. I notice a complete difference between my Les Pauls and Stratocaster. So much so I've come to understand that I like mahogany guitars compared to other tone woods.
One example I can think of is my glory which has a unpotted p90. I've noticed how the vibrations caused microphonic feedback but also add these sweet overtones to the guitar.
Thanks for watching, the microphonic feedback thing is a really cool electric guitar phenomenon that I love too.
FFS. The difference between your LP and your Strat is Humbuckers vs Singe coils. That's a vast difference that has nothing to do with the wood.
On a solid body guitar, good wood is important, just not to tone. Every guitar is a little different because electronics vary even in the same models. Tone wood is hocus pocus compared to what actually produces the sound.
Now, wood is important. It's important to how you play. Weight, feel, balance, all that is important to how you play. It's not disrespectful to the guitar builders to say they make a good guitar, but you can do it with ash or alder or different kinds of mahogany just as well. Saying that doesn't diminish your guitar at all. It's not saying PRS are bad guitars. I don't own one but I have no doubt they're high quality instruments. But the wood tone compared to the entire signal chain between th pick and the speaker, would completely eliminate any contribution the wood may possibly make.
I’m the Director of Product Development at a major guitar brand. I have also spent 25 of my 30+ year career in recording technology. You and Paul are 110% correct. Yell or speak into your guitar pickup. Do you hear it though your amp? The string’s raw vibration is the catalyst that initiates the addition of the other ingredients...from the body’s inherent resonant frequency to the amount of brightness the break angles at the bridge and nut add in etc etc etc. Its Cioppino!…and thus only as good as the time attention and love you put in and over the pot!
Wow, Thank you for watching and for your kind comments and insights. I'm sure we have a lot to learn from you and couldn't agree more.
Thanks for chiming in.
I can't imagine how frustrating it is seeing experts who only know 3 chords arguing against decades of professional experience. I'd have to click away.
If you can hear a fretboard you’ve got some special ears. That’s like saying my keyboard has better graphics than that keyboard.
Tone is frequencies, pick ups is frequencies, wood type affects frequencies, weight of guitar and poly or nitro affects freqiencies
I don't dismiss Paul's agument at all. He does come accross like a know it all ass sometimes. I do like him though. But I will say that all woods can have a great feel and sound. No wood is exactly the same. A pine guitar can have the sound for you. You can have the same species of tree and they will be different. For example I have a MIM tele that is just amazing. I did upgrade it but I can't find a USA stock that is better. It is art and the woods can come together right and be great. Maybe my maple neck is just tighter on that day of manufacture. I think the argument that it doesn't matter are from people that don't want to spend the extra money on a different wood. I have been watching Silver Sky vs SE Silver Sky. It sounds a bit different. But I don't think the SE has a bad sound. It has a little different sound. I actually like the SE better on every demo I watch. I can buy the USA or SE. I think it is going to be the SE. Unfortunatly we can't get our hands on the two in my area. Guitar Center put everyone out of business. They don't carry the USA just the SE. It's aggrivating to not be able to feel them both. But also to say a country matters. I have a PRS Zach Myers 594 semi hollow. It is beutiful someone cares in Indonesia. Telling me that other countries don't take pride in their work is crazy. Humans love music. Humans have an attachment to music. Period...PRS, Fender, and Martin have tooled their builders with the right tools. I have MIM Martin SC-E 10. I can't find a flaw. The world is smaller now. The internet has allowed us to come closers in the arts. Also it has done plenty of bad things too. A LOT of bad things. But good things too. This is way too long no one will read this. But I feel better! :)
I concur with your diagnosis. I like Paul’s enthusiasm for the instrument. I want the head of every company I buy from to have the love and enthusiasm he has for guitars, for the products they are manufacturing and selling.
I agree that the resonance of the body wood makes a difference to sustain. And resonance and sustain = tone. But tone woods seem like the brass saddles and brass nut argument of today.
It goes even beyond tone wood. Even two guitars of the same model with the same pickups can sound different. If you make the smallest adjustment on an electric guitar, like bridge height or neck relief, the guitar will sound different. The smallest possible height adjustment of a pickup, the pick you use, the tailpiece height, everything. Not everything is going to make differences that others will notice or differences that youll notice in a recorded mix, but that doesn't really matter. The way that a guitar responds and how we perceive the sound, response, and feel as we're playing is what really matters to most of us. The audience doesn't care, and the sound can be manipulated in so many ways on a recording, what really matters is your perception while playing. When Glen Fricker always says that pickups dont matter he is missing the point, everything that matters to you while youre playing, matters.
Well said. Last line here is very good, "everything that matters to you while you're playing, matters." Thanks for watching
“Everything that matters to you while you’re playing, matters” - 100% true. The actual truth of the matter in one sentence!
A $6000 guitar that doesn’t inspire you to want to play it, is truly of less value to you than a $600 guitar (or even a $60 guitar) that, as Foreigner famously said, is that one guitar that felt good in your hands and inspired you to play, practice and learn.
The big price tags on a guitar does not make for a better guitar for *you.* They make decent collectibles and decorative pieces but not by default a “better guitar” just because it costs more.
That big price tag guitar isn’t going to make you magically sound better, or make you into a better musician just because you had to sell your car to buy it!
At whatever price, between free and multiple million$, you find that “one guitar that feels good in your hands”…
that is the guitar for you!
Paul's argumentn is twisted and he's very clever at doing it.
He talks about using the very best materials available to make the instrument and it all affects tone.
But here's how he twists it. He says OK instead of using the best materials let's use the worst materials we can find like rubber..... how do you think that's going to make the guitar sound?
And there is his argument for tonewood and it's very hard to argue back. Because everything he is saying is 100% correct except for the one thing........ The thing he never ever addresses.......
All of that becomes meaningless when the volume of the amplifier is louder than the acoustic qualities of the instrument.
You take the very best guitar Paul Reed Smith or any other company produces... Put a wireless device on it and turn on the amplifier.
Will you please explain to me how the vibrations of the materials of the guitar are transferring from an acoustic organic vibration into a digital Signal and being processed at the amplifier and then magically reappearing through sound waves out of the speaker in the amplification device?
That should be the end of the tone wood discussion.
Do These materials hurt ?
The answer is no. Quality materials do not hurt the process.
But they have absolutely nothing to do with the sound coming out of the amplifier.
Nothing.
Tone woods do not matter! Or at least not enough to matter! Can’t compare a solid body to a hollow…… has nothing to do with wood. If so……. Compare an acoustic with a solid electric……all guitars sound diff….. tone wood is a focus that is a waste of time, unless you like the aesthetics. Not enough of a difference to make any difference. Industry ploy! Aristides? Strandberg? Hint: people like fancy things…… woods included. $$$
*Holds up a semic acoustic / hollow body guitar when talking about how "solid body electric guitars tone is HEAVILY affected by the type of wood"... ok... nope. At least provide some sort of audio samples or videos of evidence.
My issue with Paul is when he talks about the tone wood debate he just throws out a bunch of strawman arguments and makes up stuff that people are apparently saying.
"So they're saying we can just replace the strings with rubber strings and the bridge with a rubber bridge because the pickup is all that matters in the tone".
AT LEAST use sense/evidence when taking part in a debate instead of gibberish and making stuff up.
The wood used plays a very very small part in the overall sound. The cost and look of the wood plays no part in it at all.
It is more about overall resonance of the entire guitar and not so much the type of wood itself.
The way the strings and pickups are anchored to the body has many times more effect on tone.
Kramer made guitars from MDF at times - They sound just as good as their guitars made from more expensive woods and the fart sniffers would never know until you tell them a particular guitar has an MDF body.
You also used a semi hollow vs solid body in an example - On a semi hollow the tinner top of the guitar moves up/down very slightly along with the vibration of the strings. This is why they sound so different and the reason they feed back so easily compared guitars with pickups mounted firmly to a solid body. Again it is a resonance issue - not woods.
There is bit more to go into with this topic regarding the pickup behaviour on a semi hollow body vs solid body but I am not here to write a book.
Then you get into pickups mounted on scratch plates - The wood now plays even less of a role than when the pickups are mounted direct to the body. This is why Fender could use all different woods and the guitars all sound basically the same. The wood becomes such a small part in the overall tone it becomes practically irrelevant.
Full respect to PRS for what he has built - He make beautiful guitars - But he is a snake oil salesman when it comes to the tone issue.
And if he knows so much about tone - Why are PRS pickups so terrible sounding?
This is the best and most inspiring video I’ve watched all week. There are just some things that science (as we know it) cannot explain. If you don’t think that woods matter, you haven’t played enough guitars and you haven’t done your own personal research trying to compare them.
I really appreciate that. Thank you for watching
It is Ok if you feel sorry for those of us who choose to exercise our critical thinking.
You're 100% right! Everything matters! And not only in the sound, but in the feel. How a note blumes, and sustains, it all makes a difference! An alder bodied Fender sounds completely different than a swamp ash one. Same with rosewood and maple. And yes, PRS core series guitars are very expensive, but they are works of art, and worth every penny. And if you don't agree, fine. Don't agree. But don't criticize someone who doesn't agree with you!
Amen. When I picture the modern player I see a giant ear, with no hands or eyes, and they never need to FEEL anything. And to a giant disembodied ear everything exists in some great universal mix in a cosmic recording session. But the fact of the matter is that most players will never record a thing, and may only ever be "in a mix" in a garage or local bar. But that guitar is going to be with you a long time. It would be nice to enjoy it for reasons other than the electrified sound. Maybe we could make them feel lively when you play them, or maybe we could make them beautiful to look at, those would be other ways to enjoy a guitar for a long time. But damn that would take a nice piece of wood to make those things enjoyable, and as we all know, "TONEWOOD doesn't matter"! 🤮
People need to stop pushing marketing on tone wood when it comes to electrical instruments. The pickups, speaker and amp make the signal not the woods but People don't like when science proves them wrong and it's getting old. Don't give in People, even Leo fender said tonewood was crap
100% matters. Ive experience enough guitars to hear the difference. Every thing matters including how heavy the finish is. Dont believe it... touch the top of your guitar when playing or put the guitar to your body or away from your body. You will hear a difference. If not get your ears checked. Your pick thickness, material, where you pick. ..
man you totally get it! thats all i got to say.
I appreciate that, thanks for the support and keep playing! Have a great one
@@PlayandTradeGuitars i sure will man, you too.
Your argument isnt based on a acoustic and electro magnetic principles it is 100% based on perceived authority and speculation. Do a deign of experiments ( already done for you). You understanding of physical principles are flawed and your logic is non sequitur.
If you're this passionate about arguing that tonewoods making a difference is a fact, then don't patronize the opposing argument by saying that they just need to play more and basically "get on your level". We're in religious argument territory whenever someone says "believe your own experience over science". And saying that all the people who don't buy into this are missing out on what guitar is truly about is also just making the claim that there's a "correct" way of enjoying playing guitar. Why does this argument have to become about insulting each other instead of just looking at provable facts. Otherwise there's simply no argument, just appeals to authority and hearsay.
The subjective experience of playing guitar is indeed magical like you point out in the video. I don't think believing or not believing in tonewoods can diminish that.
Thanks for a thought provoking video, peace and love
Yeah that argument really sucks. I wonder how much all the lawyers and dentists that buy PRS core guitars play their instruments. ;)
I was careful not to label my video an argument, but rather a reaction because - yes, to me it is in religious argument territory when it comes to a subject like this - it's just too big to "argue" based on science, although people have data points. I also make it clear that the only correct way to enjoy playing guitar is where it suits your own experience, sound, and playing goals. To those saying I make a bad "argument," that wasn't really my intention except to say that for me unequivocally, the wood that even a solid body guitar is made of matters to me in a way I can feel in my bones. If others feel different, that's cool - it's when it they start coming at somebody in a hateful way that I get really put out
@@PlayandTradeGuitars I hear you. Thank you for the clarification. I realize a lot of what I interpret as condescending or patronizing is a reaction to hateful and bad arguments from the opposing side. Stuff like that needs to go. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Science beats poetry bra. I choose to believe people who are not selling stuff and back their claims with other than pretty words. Jim Lill. Specte Sound Studios. Scientific experiments. PRS is a doosh and Glenn Fricker too, but at leas Glenn walks the walk. And I know he's peddling Asian made stuff but not Jim Lill bra
Show me on this doll where the internet touched you
You misrepresent the arguments both for and against the role of solid wood in solid-body guitars.
The anti-tonewood argument is not "it's ALL the pickups". You're using a strawman argument. The evidence-based position is that there are MANY things that can influence the sonic profile of a guitar, as several decades of measurements of real guitars have shown (see in particular the independent work of Fleischer, Zollner, and Pate). In that work, you see the evidence for the sonic effect of the long, thin, flexible, composite neck. You don't find similar evidence for the solid body. So that's the first key lesson - you can't conflate the neck and the body. Many of those measureable sonically influential factors are not widely known by players and are invisible to the eye.
You showed a solid LP and a semi-hollow. A semi-hollow is a different structure, that has been shown by direct measurement to function sonically in a different way to a solid-body guitar (see Ch 7 of Zollner's "Physics of the Electric Guitar"). So again you are using a strawman argument. Semi-hollow or hollow-body guitars tell us nothing about the role of solid wood in solid-body guitars - that's what we're talking about. Bridge admittance is much less in the latter.
You overestimate the extent of solid body vibrations, because the only way you have to sense them are your skin's mechanoreceptors. Those are highly sensitive (which leads to your over-estimation), but also very band-limited. So that "experience" you seem to trust above all is based on poor "data". Read up on the neuroscience of how you feel vibrations. Compare that to the several decades of direct measurements that have been made on real guitars - by different labs, measuring different things, with different equipment, on many, many different guitars ... but all pointing to similar conclusions. That's what solid science looks like. None of those measurements are made by any major US guitar manufacturer. You don't need them to build great guitars. Only to fully understand how they work.
Your interpetation of solid body resonance as a positive sonic influence is inconsistent with the Conservation of Energy Law. It's physics nonsense.
Your "10 Les Pauls" that sound different are not all "the same" as a result of the simple adjustments you suggest ... "except for the wood". Everyone will likely hear those differences (so it's got nothing to do with hearing acuity). They just don't all conclude simplistically that it must be due to the body wood.
Attempts to "mystify" guitar playing in order to downplay their real physics is a poor argument. Paul Reed Smith himself is actually trying to use physics arguments to justify his belief in the role of solid body tonewood. Unfortunately those arguments don't seem to go much beyond "violins".
Understanding the real physics of guitars is just as "joyful" as your experiences are to you. Look up physicist Richard Feynman's "Ode to a flower".
And it's got nothing to do with negativity. It's got to do with what are the actual relevant physics. Which requires that poor arguments be called out.
None of this detracts from the fact that PRS guitars are great guitars. It only goes to the precise physics of how they work. You don't need to fully understand that to build great guitars. Paul Reed Smith is not a physicist. Nor are you. But both of you are pretending as if you are one.
Yes the mechanical impedence mismatch between the string and suspending structure of a solid body guitar implies less influence of the structure on the timbre and ADSR of the signal from the pickup.But to claim that there is no influence is a bit silly.
The damping and characteristic wave speed of various wood species will also have a small effect.
As an obvious and easily detected example try investigating the dull note at around the fifth fret on the G string of many electric basses that have a high Q torsional neck/body resonance that sucks the sustain from the string.
I do have a science education and fifty years as a luthier so I'm happy to tell you that your reply is shaky.
I’m convinced you’re not a good player. You’ve not spent enough time with the instrument
@@peterstephen1562 you seem to be agreeing with me. Your example is of the physics of dead spots. Which are due to the resonant modal frequencies of the neck. They have been shown to directly predict sustain time, using just those measured modal frequencies and the string properties.
That is exactly what I said the research on real guitars (including basses) has shown - that the neck has a clear sonic infuence. The large difference in measured mechanical impedance between the nut/frets and the bridge at most frequencies is fundamental to the very different significance of the neck and body in solid-body guitars.
With your science education you would enjoy reading the several decades of research on real solid-body guitars, that provides explanations for all our heard experiences of guitars, in terms of their actual physics. The independent work I mentioned - that of Fleischer, Zollner, and Pate - is a good start. The science does not dispute people's experiences - only some common interpretations of those experiences which have been shown to be wrong.
Paté, A., Le Carrou, J.-L., & Fabre, B. (2014). Predicting the decay time of solid body electric guitar tones. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 135(5), 3045-3055.
Sproßmann, R., Zauer, M., Pfriem, A., & Wagenführ, A. (2013). Zum Einfluss der Holzart in Bassgitarrenhälsen auf das Schwingungs- und Klangverhalten [Investigation of the vibration and sound behaviour of bass guitars depending on the used wood species in the neck of the instrument]. Holztechnologie, 54(4), 19-25.
First, I will say this is one of the better quality comments I've seen on RUclips, period. Thank you. I will never pretend to be a physicist or a scientist, but whether I know the laws, rules, what have you - I can consistently pick great guitars for *my* purposes by using the unnamed experience I describe, it somehow works and that's the real point. My advice is that each person develop for themselves, for their own purposes, something similar, and that relying on science alone to do it will not work. Again, I did not label this an argument (on purpose). This is my honest reaction to the subject
I do have a science education and fifty years as a luthier so could give a thesis on why wood matters.
I'm not going to do that.
What I will point out is that we don't hear the most accomplished solid body players ranting about the lack of influence of wood species.
The better players can recognize chord quality.
The better players can play ensemble , balance and complement other players.
The better players do hear the wood's influence.
Accuity is accuity. It is a hard learned skill.
Rather than participating in proletarian wingeing why not start listening to the thoughts of successful minds.
Unless you have super human hearing what you say is total crap lol and science can prove it
Thank you for watching, Yes I agree - what you do with the guitar after you've chosen one is really the point - how you use your ear, how you play with others. I appreciate it
Sound and tone are different concepts. Conflating wood species with construction is a mistake. Of course construction changes the sound. But species does not change the tone.
But the wood used is a major factor of “construction” so you point simply isn’t logical. Different pieces of wood of the same species, and certainly woods of different species, have different densities, hardnesses, etc. which makes them CONSTRUCTIONALLY different! What you’re trying to argue would be like saying that when you build a bridge the only thing that matters is what shape the bridge is, and what orientation and shape the supports are, and it makes no difference whether you build it out of steel, aluminium, copper or lead.
@@davidburke2132 Guitars made of steel, carbon fiber, acrylic or wood. Makes no difference for tone. It doesn't make it "darker" or "brighter" or "snappier" or any of these terms. Properties of the materials make way more sense to argue. Species have tons of overlap, making them irrelevant. Things like density makes a difference for sustain for example. But it does that regardless of species, or materials overall.
@@erikpeterson778 and you’re missing the point… different pieces of wood of the same species vary in density and hardness and there is overlap between different wood species but this doesn’t change the fact that there is a generality, a set range, of material properties for a given species of wood which leads to an overall sense of end result which is further reinforced by high quality guitar builders who select specific woods to an even tighter tolerance of material properties such as density.
And it’s utterly illogical to try to argue that what a guitar is made of can affect sustain whilst simultaneously arguing it makes no wider difference to tone (sustain being an element of tone anyway!). If sustain is being affected then this means the way the string is vibrating is being affected and if the string’s vibration is being affected in this way it makes no sense to suggest that it won’t be changed with respect to things like frequency content by the material the guitar is made of.