@@HunnysPlaylists I didn't hear anything..duh..I saw what you typed but I didn't understand what you were trying to communicate...but if your saying P R Smith is right about wood effecting tone on electric guitars then 😂
I wonder what high end violin luthiers have to say about PRS buying up the good tonewoods that they really want for their craft, only to watch him build solid body electric guitars with the lot. I think they would say, "That's nuts!"
And they're charging thousands extra for that "tonewood" the violin cost that much because of the work and craftsmanship. PRS is cutting em out on cnc machines so...yea that is nuts! Tip buy a nice chunk of "tonewood" and make your own. that 7000 dollar prs all of the sudden costs about 600 and some work. And it's not 6400 dollars worth of work I promise. That 6400 dollars would buy the cnc machine you need to make tons more at little cost.
From the University of Paraná “On string-body coupling in electric guitars and its relationship with the instrument's timbre” Conclusions were : Summary 9 electric guitar bodies were built in the Telecaster model by the author RMP, these were assembled using the same set of arm and pickup. Once each body was assembled, the mechanical excitation of two electric guitar strings was performed, the sound obtained directly from the musical instrument was recorded for later analysis. A musical excerpt played with each electric guitar was also recorded. For these sounds, a treatment was carried out in order to obtain the harmonics that form them via Fourier transform, these harmonics are responsible for the timbre of the instrument. The harmonic spectra of each guitar are compared to each other and there are no significant differences between them. Thus, the timbre variations of electric guitars, according to the results obtained here, depend on factors other than the body wood itself, a fact that stems from the non-existence of a significant coupling between the string and the body of the instrument. A proposal for modeling the string-body coupling is also made, which shows that only a negligible amount of energy from the vibrating string reaches the body of the instrument and that an even smaller amount returns to the string.
@@leonbrownmusic of course econtents.bc.unicamp.br/inpec/index.php/physicae/article/view/13384/8764 econtents.bc.unicamp.br/inpec/index.php/physicae/article/view/13384
Why compare telecaster shaped guitars only? why nok compare tele and strat types and also Les pauls... Shurely they sounds different, if not by the wood, then by the type of bridge and body shape... If that comparison/theory is right, the sound should be pretty identical, even if the body shape is different...
Paul is trying to sell tonewood.... he lost all credibility there. that people pay 5K for his guitars is nuts. I'll never play anything with PRS on it.. snakeoil salesman. he is just taking your money folks
Paul Reed Smith is the same guy that just released new tuner "buttons" for his most expensive line of guitars and claimed in a Guitar World article that excess weight on the headstock by metal tuning buttons (knobs) "robs the guitar of midrange". I took a lot of heat from PRS lovers for a video I did calling the new tuners a SCAM. I also did a video testing his claim. I played two different electric guitars through a spectrum analyzer plugin, then added a few C clamps to the headstock of each guitar and played them again. There was almost no difference (imperceptible to my ear). I liken Paul to PT Barnum! He's a showman and a salesman. But all your arguments are spot on. I tried to explain this in my video about the PRS tuners and had all kinds of arguments in the comments. I had one commenter say that the guitar is a "circle of vibration" and that the vibrations started at the pickup, ran up the neck, over the headstock, around the back, and back to the pickup (you can't make this stuff up!). Not sure why people get so worked up over "tonewood" anyway. I guess to help justify the cost of their USA made Gibson or Fender.
Tonewood is bullshit in electric guitars. Paul I think has debunked himself many times in his own clinics. Paul reed smith builds a fine guitar…. But this comparison is wild. I love them, but as you state a violin is an acoustic instrument. It makes no sense.
With all my respect, Paul makes great guitars but his argument doesn’t make any sense. I believe that we can’t be naïf and assume that he is illiterate about it. The guy makes some of the best electric guitars out there and his company has a R&D department. He could easily backup his statement with evidence. However, why would he do that if he can sell more expensive guitars made from “better tonewood”? PRS even has a private stock of selected pieces of wood that you can personally select for your one of a kind super expensive guitar. Telling that tonewood matters is simply better for his business.
After they knock on the block of wood they take it home and cut it all up into smaller pieces and coat them in lacquer. I don't understand how PRS can draw the comparison between a violin and an electric guitar. He knows the difference but continues to use the argument. I love my electric guitars that have a nice acoustic resonance, like my ES-335 and Duo Jet, they are nice to play unplugged. But, once I plug them in and crank the amp I can't hear the acoustics anymore.
Lots of people don't understand basics and electronics. Acoustic instruments: Yes. Electrics plugged in through an amp: No. Microphonic pickups: Yes. Electric guitar unplugged" Yes. Guitar vibration through your hands and body: Yes.
The principle by which an electric guitar pickup works is somewhat different than what you described. The string does not change the constant magnetic field of a permanent magnet. The string is magnetized because it is ferromagnetic (iron, cobalt, nickel). The magnetized string itself is a magnet; when it oscillates, it induces an alternating current in the copper coil that is in the pickups, at the frequency with which it oscillates.
The wood that both end of the strings are connected to should have some impart on how the string reacts, how long it vibrates and how much intensity it vibrates with. That is what the pickup is listening to.
Acoustic guitars are speakers. Electric guitars are inductors. The acoustic guitar is a vibrating box of air. The electric guitar is a set of vibrating strings modulating a magnetic field.
@@fluxxpiee pickups project an electrical field via a copper wire solenoid created from the input signal of your guitar. this is projected upwards through the slugs/screws in your pickups and is magnetic due to a magnet under the solenoid. the strings cause vibrations into the body and back to the strings, and the electrical field now detects disturbances into the projected magnetic field. this changes the signal that moves back as your output signal to complete the circuit.
Paul is a one of a kind! I'll concede it makes a difference but the difference is so small that it doesn't matter. That's the question in my opinion - not does it exist but does it really matter.
@@doknox False, it's fine to not understand the effect the wood has on the vibration of the bridge and nut. It's cool you made a guitar out of pine but that isn't evidence of anything other than you made a guitar out of pine that sounds good. I really wish public schools taught science to people because they clearly failed you here.
@@StupidGuitar isnt the point to have a instrument that plays and sounds good? I've built guitars out of cherry, oak, walnut, pine. What it does prove is the difference is minuscule and what sounds better is subjective. When using high gain it's nearly impossible to tell the difference. You can say otherwise but you are wrong. I dont care what wood it's made out of if it looks nice and plays nice it's a good guitar.😉 pretty sure danelectro was building guitars out of fiberboard and no one says a word. Lol. I'll build you a guitar outta plywood that plays and holds tune better than any gibson out there. But hey to each his own. Ps. Your public schools and science argument is hilarious. I can repair fix or build just about anything. The next time any of your appliances go out have fun spending hundreds getting it fixed or buying new. Lol. Most problems dont cost anymore than 20 bucks to fix but because you dont know anything we charge you 20 times the amount. Public schools...You must own a gibson.😂😂😂😂😂
I have a status graphite slipstream (not made of wood!) and the tone is to die for, so if the wood is so important, where is all this tone coming from?
A hollow body guitar sounds different than a solid body with the same hardware and pickups. That alone is proof that there’s more to it than those parts.
@@lukasfronzoli9866 yeah? Which one is the hollow body: ruclips.net/video/TX0UuMPU2ZI/видео.htmlsi=JCZQdTAzbucS1xKx Bonus: three DIFFERENT sets of hardware and pickups (all humbuckers). No change to the amp settings.
I don't have a dog in the tonewood fight, but there must be something wrong with the argument here that it *couldn't* matter because of Faraday's laws. Hollowbody electrics sound different from solid bodies, presumably because the wooden structure affects the *way* the string vibrates (which is why using a solid center block makes a difference, etc.). I don't know whether wood species makes an audible difference in solid bodies, but the fact that it's all about electromagnetic induction doesn't mean it couldn't.
They don't sound different because of the wood. There are ways of making either the same guitar sound different or 2 guitars sound different from each other. The argument isn't that all guitars sound the same. It's that the wood is either not contributing to any difference at all or it has such a small difference that no one can tell. And not only has that been demonstrated by removing wood on a guitar it's been demonstrated time and again in double blind tests. The only way to get an audience to hear a difference is to show them a difference. Like if you see a blue guitar and a red guitar then you hear some difference that magically disappears when you hear an audio clips and you're asked when the blue guitar is playing and when the red guitar is. This has been proven true when people have used the same audio clip but changed the video shown and then people have claimed they hear a different tone between the 2 clips of identical audio. One aspect is that you might get more sustain and thus hollowbody or an amplified acoustic gets more feedback - but this is typically an undesirable thing and sustain isn't tone. Another thing to consider is piezo pickups or hearing the guitar's sound when you strum it when it's not plugged into an amp - this sound is going to vary based on the wood in the way that acoustic guitars sound different.
@@michael1 Fine, then that's the argument, not the argument from Faraday's laws. I'm probably with you on the conclusion; I just don't think you get there from Faraday's laws.
You get a much bigger effect from the nut material and the saddle material because the strings come into direct contact with these parts of the guitar. There is going to be a small influence from the wood because the nut and saddles are mounted into the neck wood and body wood and that will effect the vibrations of the system as a whole. However, the overwhelming quality of your sound is the shaping of the signal by your pick-ups and then passed to your amplifier. You can also achieve much greater tonal variations by things such as the type of strings, picking nearer or further from the bridge, the pick that you use and how hard you pick than you will ever hear from different types of wood.
@@nihilistlivesmatter Try reading what I wrote before posting a stupid comment or go ahead and waste your time and money by jumping down the 'tonewood' rabbit-hole. PRS has a bunch of very expensive pretty guitars for disciples of tonewood.
Paul Reed Smith keeps comparing electric guitars with violins... My God what a fool, that's like a little boy comparing his Cassio Keyboard with a Steinway & Sons piano
I play jazz. I have and have played a great number of archtops. Acoustically they are like night and day due to scalelength, bracing and plywood vs solid wood. But put same PU and pots in very acoustically different archtops and its very hard to hear the difference. And completely impossible when giggin. So tonewood. I doubt.
Yeah, it's interesting that many jazz people think archtop electrics will sound better electrically if they sound good acoustically, but the physics makes me skeptical. The acoustic sound comes mostly from relatively near the bridge, including a side-to-side twisting mode of the part between the f-holes, where one side is going down and up as the other side goes up and down, creating weird interference effects in different directions. (You don't want the guitar top pointed straight at you or a mic, because that's where the two mostly cancel out.) But the pickup is usually mounted near the neck, where things are very different. I suspect that's a good place to pick up the vibration of the strings, which is what matters most, but not a particularly good place to pick up the vibrations of the top.
PS, does a piece of resonant wood enhance or absorb vibrations.? We need to look at harmonic sympathetic frequencies.. which are ALL negated by simple distance from amp... Why else would virtuosos like Satriani spend time soundchecking and X marking areas of the stage that he can get optimal note feedback distances. If in doubt, watch the experts.
Fun recap you have here! I've watched/re-watched the PRS interview video then I stumbled across your recap. I found the same points you reference to be a bit... fishy. The focus seemed to range from stating wood as a big deal, to saying nut & saddle/bridge are most important, to discussing finding "the sound" by dissecting some vintage pickups and reverse engineering that "sound". Sooo, ...what? I thought there was some anger management issues in that interview that needed to be touched on, LOL. Great video!
There has also been a scientific study using 9 Telecasters of different woods and even frequency analysis only showed a miniscule difference that is not anywhere big enough to be heard. I actually wasn't that surprised. He did blow my mind with his series on amps and cabs. Apparently with amps it's just where the tone stack (EQ) is in relation to gain stages. He made a box full of pedals and a few pots sound like a Marshall, Vox and Fender just by putting the EQ pots in a different place between a few distortion pedals. And power stage distortion, pre amp distortion and diode clipping sounded exactly the same when isolated. Identical!
Just a traveling electromagnetic technician here. Good on ya for going back to Faradays Laws of Induction! Wood is electromagnetically inert. You are 100% correct that wood has zero practical/measurable effect on the tone of an electric guitar. That said, the construction of the neck, the fretboard material, the nut & bridge material all have subtle effects on the tone but that can be said for all guitars.
I might be being paranoid here but to me it always seems like the people who sell things made from "tonewood" always say it makes a difference and the people who say it doesn't make a difference aren't selling guitars and so don't stand to lose anything from the opinion.
Thank you for using logic and speaking sensibly! 🤗 I do NOT believe that PRS is a stupid man. Certainly, he knows how both an ACOUSTIC guitar AND an electric guitar work. He is simply spouting MARKETING to justify the high cost of his products. The higher the price of his guitars, the more money he makes! 🤑
Ok so , Paul Reed Smith has a vested interest in "tone woods" (granted , acoustic guitars are a different animal) so he didn't end the debate but you certainly went a long way in ending it. Thank You !!
Tone comes from the string movement in both acoustic and electric, the clue is in that it's called a stringed instrument, the vibration in the string moves the acoustic sound board which moves air which your ears receive, in electric string movement is ' picked up' by magnets and converted to an electrical signal. In both cases how the strings move dictates tone. Play a note, you get a tone, play the same note palm muted and you get a different tone, because the string moves differently. Tone wood in electrics effects the tone because it plays a part in recycling the string vibrations back into the string via the anchor points, creating timbre or tone. Make an electric guitar from wet balsa and ply and see where the tone disappears. Aluminium, concrete and other material guitars prove the tone wood case, they do a great job of recycling the vibrations back into the strings, tone wood is just commercially easier to work with in volume. You can change the tone of an electric by changing the pick up proximity, where by the stronger closer magnet field restricts the string movement. Poor wood restricts string movement and hence tone. Although much of this is moot, as most electric players output via a distortion box and squash the timbre complexity. As visible on a spectrometer.
One clue is that you often see electric violins made of composite materials, or ones that have no real body and are just the apparatus to bow and finger the strings. Electric violin makers seem to know about this, so why not guitar makers? Well, its Mr Smith's job to sell you high priced guitars made from exotic woods with fancy finishes! Not that that's a bad thing though, if a guitar looks and feels great to play generally you will 'sound' better playing it.
Not the best analogy, though I agree PRS is just lying for money. Electric violins are usually acoustic-electric, using a piezo or other vibration-sensing pickup at the bridge, not magnetic pickups like an electric guitar's. (Or they were last time I paid much attention to them.) And they sound pretty nasty until you EQ and otherwise process the sound to make up for the lack of filtering effects that an acoustic violin body provides. (Often EQ, Chorus & reverb.) An electric guitar is a very different kind of thing, although it also depends on a bit of implicit EQ in the pickup and amp/speaker frequency response to sound nice.
Your last comment is true. Your connection to the guitar is an emotional connection, and while I failed the class in university where we were taught how to evaluate intangibles, I understand that intangibles can be important. I would go so far as to speculate that intangibles are the most important factor for very high-end guitars.
@@cimmerian100 A lot depends on what you mean by intangible. (One of the meanings is "incapable of being perceived." Another is just "not well-defined.") I'd like to see some really good experiments where several guitars are made in different ways and the differences are obscured, for example (1) lightweight cheap wood bodies weighted to weigh the same as expensive "tonewood" bodies, (2) all guitars played in total darkness so the players can't see the differences, (3) players not allowed to touch the headstock or other revealing features of the guitar, (4) swapping necks of bolt-ons to see whether the perceived sound depends more on neck wood than body wood (or neither, or a weird function of both), etc. (5) lots of objective measurements using a mechanical picking/strumming machine for consistency, to see what actual features people are noticing or preferring, and what they're calling them. (For example, does "warmer" usually just mean "less trebly"? Do people notice the same things listening to someone else as they do playing? How do people's preferences change with modest changes in the EQ curve?) You could do this much better than it's been done to date, in the usual ways people do good psych experiments: control for a bunch variables, blind the subjects AND the experimenter telling them what to do (the experimenter handing a guitar to the player should not know which guitar it is, either, so the player can't pick up on the experimenter's tells), and have enough subjects and enough trials that you get statistically significant results. Unfortunately all that costs time, effort and money. Doing good, convincing science is kind of a pain in the ass. It's a lot easier to measure the resonant frequencies of a guitar with open strings suspened by bungie cords than to figure out how they affect the sound in actual playing circumstances.
@@cimmerian100 It's a joke. Intangibles are intangibles because they can't be evaluated. Also if you like a particular guitar because it is relic'ed, obviously in a dark room you wouldn't know it was relic'ed so the affect of the relic'ing would be eliminated.
So have a rubber nut, a rubber bridge, two concrete blocks for scale length and away you go ? Or, do you try a bone nut, a metal bridge, and perform the same test ? Or, a wooden sliding clamp, versus a metal one ? I doubt that a spectrometer would fail to expose the differences in tonal quality sustain and playing feel.
Your only partly correct about the action between the strings and the pickup, the other half or the facts, no one seems to want to talk about. Ive layed this out many times and never even gotten a response so ill try again! The string vibrates above the pickups. This disturbs the magnetic field creating the signal that is sent to the amplifier. Ok thats a fact! Another fact is that when the body of the guitar vibrates the pickup mounted in it vibrates too. This viibration of the magnetic field, beneath the string disturbs the field as well creating another tone. This is also a fact. Wrap a towel around the neck of your guitar so that the strings cant vibrate at all. Now vibrate the guitar either by tapping your fingers like a drom roll on the back of the guitar. You will hear it through your pickups even though there is no string vibration. The string moving within the field is the same as the field moving around the string. So if the body vibrates, which it does, then changing the wood will effect the tone. Its physically impossible for this not to be the case.
The strings are still vibrating in your towel scenario, muffled but vibrating. Thats still where the magnetic field disturbance is coming from when rapping the body of your plugged in guitar. Take all the strings off and try that
@@cimmerian100 i already have. Im working on a new experiment that shakes the pickup, on springs, beneath strings that are not attached to the same rig. I can tell you that the reason im building a rig is because the crude version of this experiment worked so well.
@@cimmerian100 forget what is attached to what. Break it down for me. Describe to me, scientifically, how the magnetic field can move around the strings without being disturbed. Its like saying you can stir water by moving a spoon around in the glass, but if you hold the spoon still and move the glass instead, the water will just stay still.
@@stevenpipes1555 I meant without any strings there would be nothing inducing current in the coils. I know the physics, I think I misunderstood your original question. I see you're talking about relative movement of something ferrous though the magnetic field. Either the string or the pickup relative to the string. Still though I think experiments of this kind have been done before that put the same rig through different wood species and no meaningful impact on tone has been observed. It would be interesting to see the results of your experiments nonetheless.
What's funny is you can knock on several different guitar blanks from the same type of wood (not the same tree) and hear variances in the same species. So 2 guitars made of Alder..or Mahogany whatever may resonate differently creating a tonal variation, but its SOOOO minute and you can't hear the variation in the mix, the 2 guitars will sound exactly the same. Yes, some woods will sustain longer or produce slightly different frequencies better or worse....but the pickup is "hearing" how the string is vibrating...not "the wood".
Honest question, if the resonance from the wood isn't picked up by the magnetic field of the pick up then why does a chambered body sound different from a solid body when all other things are equal?
Does it? Has anyone produced any repeatable, quantifiable evidence? Or is that just what manufacturers are telling the public and amplified by hear say? But try this. Put a magnet on a tree. If it sticks then wood can affect the magnetic field. If it doesn't it can't.
@Leon Brown Music it does. It's nowhere near as noticeable as on an acoustic guitar obviously but there are a ton of videos on here of different custom shops showing the differences, some of them claiming they notice no difference when you can clearly hear one is brighter or crisper than the other. And since they are custom shops they use the same hardware, pick ups, neck, strings, wood, everything is the same aside from the fact that one body is chambered and one isn't. It's far more subtle than an acoustic like I said because the wood makes the sound there, but it is noticeable.
@@leonbrownmusicdude LOLOL are you being serious??? Just play them.. they sound radically different amplified. Maybe your hearing is crap or you don't own enough guitars..
@@leonbrownmusic check it out genius.. pick your guitar up and strum the open strings.. now place it on a table while ringing.. where do you think the energy to vibrate the table comes from??? Don't you think guitar woods soak up certain frequencies from the strings differently resulting in THE STRINGS THEMSELVES sounding/vibrating differently?
When sound goes into a mic it moves a piece of metal in a magnetic field as well though.... in both cases the signal is from moving metal. And moving wood moves metal (obviously if you bump your guitar it will ring without directly hitting the strings)... so what wood does is enhance of diminish different frequencies effecting how the strings moves. All that matters is how the metal moves in either case, but many factors effect how the metal moves.
There is very little disagreement among guitar players that the way the neck is mounted to the body has an impact on sustain. It is quite easy to verify that, e.g., a good Gibson Les Paul will have markedly longer sustain than a Fender Stratocaster. Now, how can the body have an effect on sustain if it does not have an effect on how the string vibrates? This can only mean that the body in fact does have an impact on the sound. This impact may be a relatively small impact, it may even be hardly audible. There may also be no reproducible characteristics of, e.g., mahogany vs. maple, but there is an impact. Most importantly, this is not even what counts the most. What really counts is how the guitar feels in the hands of the player. The vibration of the wood may not directly translate to what we hear from the speaker, but it certainly translates into how you interact with the instrument which then translates to the sound coming out of the speaker.
Actual woods aren't too important. In my personal experience, it has to do with overall density of the materials. You can group them together and be very similar. An all mahogany body vs swamp ash isn't gonna be too different with same pickups. However, I've had huge tone differences between my PRS and a novelty silicone resin guitar even after swapping out the same PUPS in both. I wouldn't trust a biased opinion from a guitar maker (favorite guitars, btw) because he has a vested interest in continuing tonewood to sell guitars. I'd still use better wood for the neck because cheap wood tends to warp or be knotted, but that's not for tone.
Pickups aren’t microphones. Just the fact that he made that comparison means that he has no understanding of how an electric guitar works. Solid body guitars were meant to eliminate body resonance as much as possible. Acoustic instruments are fundamentally different beasts. The thing that galls me is that these arguments prevent builders of electric instruments from using more sustainable woods and benefitting the industry and the environment. It’s very harmful and counterproductive.
And do you think denser woods like mahogany do a better job at minimizing that resonance than balsa? So the better the wood/material the more stable the tone? Do I believe one mahogany tree to the next makes a difference? No. Do I think mahogany vs ash makes a difference? Yeah. The notes will sustain differently.
@@bestmonkna7720 you’re welcome to think anything you want, buy anything you want. If you can hear the difference, go ahead! You do you. When we start using words like ‘believe’ for things which can be so easily measured objectively, well…you may want to question some stuff.
@@bestmonkna7720 AFAIK what you mainly want is some mass and rigidity in and around the bridge, and a reasonably solid connection between that and the neck. After that the losses at the bridge are small relative to the losses at the nut or fret. Cheap, fairly light wood is a fine material for guitar bodies. The main things you want are lengthwise rigidity and some mass, so that the body acts as a rigid mass to immobilize the bridge and one end of the neck. Laminated wood is fine, but not normal hardware-store plywood where the different plies have grain running at right angles. You want the grain running pretty much the same lengthwise direction, to resist the string tension and maximize longitudinal stiffness. (The good news about that is that no production guitars are actually made of plain plywood. Some do use laminates with parallel lengthwise grain, and that's just fine.) Sustain comes only from keeping the vibration of the string IN the string, by reflecting it back with a rigid and massy bridge and nut or fret, solidly attached to a reasonably massy and rigid body around the bridge and neck around the nut/fret. Once vibrations get into the neck/body, they quickly die; almost none of the energy gets back into the strings. It would be interesting to see experiments using particle board, plywood, and MDF vs. dense woods vs. light woods with weights embedded in them near the bridge. You should be able to tune the resonances by placing the weights strategically, or by routing the wood so it's not just a slab... Notice that marimba pieces are chunks of wood hollowed out from the bottom in a simple way, to tune the vibratory modes into something closer to a harmonic series. (For a guitar body you'd more likely ensure they're NOT close to a harmonic series, so you don't end up with dead notes and bad sounds in certain keys.) But no manufacturer is going to admit that they get good tone with cheap fishing weights or a little extra routing, instead of expensive woods they can charge a hefty markup for.
It's the force of your hand that makes the sound or is it the thought going through your brain to control your hand or is the oxygen that carries the sound to your ear.
You are making the assumption that (for example ) every 46 gauge string tuned to E across 25.5" scale will vibrate exactly identically regardless what they are fixed to
Several other factors and principles contribute to the sound differences between electric guitars, aside from Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction. Some of these include: Newton's laws of motion: These laws govern the vibration of the guitar strings. When a string is plucked or strummed, it vibrates according to the principles of wave mechanics, producing sound waves that propagate through the air. Acoustics principles: The resonance and reverberation of sound within the guitar body are governed by principles of acoustics, such as the Helmholtz resonance and modes of vibration in solid bodies. Materials science: The properties of the materials used in constructing the guitar, including the type of wood, finish, and hardware, can significantly impact the instrument's sound. For example, different woods have varying densities, stiffness, and damping characteristics, which affect the resonance and tone of the guitar. Mechanical engineering principles: The design and construction of the guitar, including factors like body shape, size, bracing, neck construction, and hardware, influence the instrument's sound. For instance, the shape and thickness of the guitar body can affect the distribution of sound waves and the instrument's sustain. Electronic principles: The design and configuration of the pickups, wiring, and electronic components in the guitar's circuitry influence the signal output and tone shaping capabilities. Different pickup configurations (e.g., single-coil vs. humbucker) and wiring schemes can produce distinct tonal characteristics. Psychoacoustics: Human perception of sound is influenced by psychoacoustic factors such as frequency response, harmonic content, and spatial characteristics. These perceptual elements play a role in how we interpret and appreciate the sound of different guitars. Overall, the sound differences between electric guitars are the result of a complex interplay of physical, mechanical, and perceptual factors, encompassing principles from various scientific disciplines. While Faraday's law is essential in understanding the fundamental process of signal generation in electric guitars, it is just one piece of the puzzle in explaining the diversity of tones produced by different instruments.
It's just the vibrations of the strings? So that means old strings sound the same as new stings, right? Oh, so there are some subtleties involved? The wood doesn't 'add' anything.The bridge and the nut subtract frequencies depending on materials used, but it doesn't just end there. I can stick a tuner on the far tip of a flying V body and it will work. The density of all materials used will subtract certain frequencies from the string, which in turn, affects the pickup. Contrary to popular belief, it's not always fixed by a 'twist of the EQ knob on the amp'. Yes, it's a small part of the equation, but it's part of the equation.
I leave my electric strings on for six months (playing 2-3 hours a week) and I leave my acoustic strings on for 2 months (2-3 hours a week). The acoustic really gets perked up and the electric really doesn't sound any better. I'm avoiding breaking an E or B string really.
The only argument I could ever possibly concede here (and you did kind of touch on this when you mentioned the strings being held firmly between two points) is IF the resonance of the guitar body/neck, can "feedback" and interfere with, or in another way influence the vibration of the string, in a manner significant enough to alter the vibration characteristics of that string, AND perhaps more importantly, in a way that can be audibly detected. Given the forces at work in a naturally vibrating string, the weakness of any such external vibratory feedback, and the ability of the human ear to detect it, I'm inclined to dismiss any such argument.
If there is someone who claims that his research and multiple tests allowed him to transform every component of a guitar to influence the tone, it’s Paul Reed Smith. PRS marketing capains beeing based of wood selection for their sonic values, he really ought to puts vids up front to prove it - he would certainly end the debate. I totally agree with your video Leon, Paul should provide evidences of his claims rather than saying “it’s nuts”…. Oh and by evidences, that is not to do a close micing of a guitar while he sweeps the strings to show that it vibrates (cause we only mic acoustic instruments that way ;) )… he should do like Jim Lill or Warmoth have done, a simple scientific approach :) Can you image if HE showed us tonewood doesn’T matter?!?!? It would end his business ;) Nb : I love PRS and find them as nice looking and playing as they are expensive😊
The strings of a solid body are not held between more or less solid points.There is a path for the energy on the string to pass to the neck/ body via those points in proportion to the mechanical impedance match. The ADSR profile and harmonic content of the strings energy will be altered according to what passes to the body / neck . What is left is what will effect the pickups. Sure a solid body is designed to be less effected by the structure and it's acoustic environment but to assert that it isn't is silly and sad. Just think of the feedback situation. Would anyone assert that different guitars don't feedback in different ways? This is exactly analogous to different woods and guitars sounding different.
PRS teaches agriculture: The public: Do apples really need warm temperatures to grow? PRS: I was in an orange grove, watching people harvest oranges, and they told me that temperatures under 50 degrees Fahrenheit will ruin a crop. This idea that apples trees can grow in the cool mountains is just NUTS.
PRS’ take on tone woods is not surprising. He’s made a literal fortune by convincing people to pay THOUSANDS of dollars for a guitar with tone woods. Don’t get me wrong the custom PRS instruments are truly phenomenal ! However if he took and made a guitar out of Bass wood and poplar in the same way and also gave it the exact same level of care that he would a $10,000 custom. There would be virtually no difference in to tone. There might be a difference in sustain. But tone itself would be no different.
I see a lot of comments saying the guitar companies have been ripping people off buy charging so much for their guitars. I disagree, tone wood debate aside, these companies aren’t charging you thousands for the fact they have used mahogany, maple, and/or rosewood. They are charging you for the craftsmanship of the instrument. Sure these companies charge a premium for the beauty of the instrument such as the highly flamed maple tops, but again, tone wood debate aside, wouldn’t you expect to pay more for a more visually appealing guitar? Anytime you see a budget guitar they still have the same bones as their more expensive counterpart. Epiphone Les Paul’s still have mahogany backs and necks with maple caps only the flamed top is replace with a plain top and then a veneer is added. I think guitar makers just follow the same recipe of making instruments but they aren’t charging you for the specific wood, they’re charging you for their craftsmanship. The only time you’ll pay for the specific wood is when the guitar is made with an exotic wood species like Brazilian Rosewood.
The vibration of the wood affects the vibration of the string, which will be picked up by the pickup. Watch the video from warmoth where he tests different bodies. Do it! You will hear a difference! When I find people who can’t believe wood makes a difference, I know they haven’t really experienced it. I have one guitar (a strat style with a mahogany & maple body) with a thick ebony fingerboard and it is so bright and hard sounding that I can’t stand it, no matter what pickups I use.
I watched that video seems to make a difference. How big of a difference or is it a tone difference, I don’t know. I’ll just buy what I like and call it a day.
He didn't precisely set pickup height. Watch Jim Lill instead. He actually shows us in detail that he eliminated all variables. Once he used precise pickup height his Telecaster and Tele hardware mounted between two tables sounded identical.
@@221b-l3t I think the main problem with his vid is that bridge pickups are much less affected by wood choice, because they have a much narrower tonal range. I find that the neck pickup is where you can hear the (admittedly) subtle differences.
You have focused on acoustics as an entirely different thing from electrics. So here's a question: I trust that you can discern the differences between, say, cedar-top and sitka-top acoustics. If you start increasing the thickness of the tops, Is there a certain thickness at which cedar and sitka will sound identical?
I don't get it, the electric guitar's "tone wood" is literally the speaker. Single coil or humbucker makes a difference, but after that, the biggest difference is going to be preamp/amp, which act like the bridge and soundpost in an acoustic instruments, and then the speaker, which is the freaking resonator, just like the tonewood in an acoustic instrument. How do people not understand that? Fender has made guitars out of pine and poplar, and people never realized it. Some of the earliest broadcasters that are worth a fortune now are made from pine.
The material type and density of everything to string contacts matters a great deal. The nut, bridge, trem block, etc. Finally pickups that pick up the sound. The rest is the amp and effects. Any difference in sound because of wood can be eq’ed out.
Doesn't the most expensive PRS guitars have special woodtops that looks spectacular? But from what Iv'e heard, the special exotic variants with birdseye, flamed , and burled wood, in fact have less tonal qualities than their regular types. Isnt that the reason why they mostly use those exotic woods as a thin layer on top of regular wood? Because a guitar made from just those exotic woods would sound inferior to the regular woods? I'd say that a lot of guitars are bought first and mostly for the looks of it and not for the tone in it...
It is funny that PRS comes with those statements because his company is selling special guitars that cost more than their regular ones. Apparently the biggest difference to the regular ones are the quality of the wood. If they all sound the same what is the point of buying the expensive one.🤔
I'm aware that the tonewood case is weak on electric guitars, but what would you answer to someone saying that you can knock your guitar wood, and the pickups are able to pick up that sound, being audible on the speakers? Implying that the pickup not only picks the strings vibrating but the wood too.
I would say than knocking on the guitar makes the strings vibrate and the pickup detects it. Just the same as it will detect your voice if you get close and shout into it. Take the strings and bridge off. Remove any metal that might be able to vibrate and then try it.
@@leonbrownmusic Knocking vibrates the pickup relative to the strings, creating a relative motion between their magnetic field and the strings, which they pick up. Presumably in normal playing a little energy from the strings vibrates the body and those body vibrations ARE picked up by the pickups, but that signal is very, very faint compared to the direct effect of the strings vibrating over the pickup, and usually entirely inaudible. (See my longer comment about physics and psychophysics above.)
I love PRS guitars but Paul is such a politician and manipulator that I barely can stand him when he talks. The argument was about solid body guitars that if you change the wood of a solid body electric guitar it does not have a big enough impact to notice it, the argument was never about acoustic instruments like violins or classical guitars. Nor was it about what happens when you change the metal bridge of a guitar with rubber one. Everyone knows now that nobody can distinguish the sound of a solid body electric guitar made from plywood from a mahogany one, when their eyes are closed.
Paul (like many sales people) is in the business of selling electric guitars made out of expensive wood = greater profit That's fine if you want to pay for a certain 'look', if looks are important to you. And as most guitarists are men 'looks' are very likely to be a huge part of the reason to buy anything I've yet to see Paul 'blindfold' identify the 'tonewood' sound differences in any meaningful way
To say that choosing the right woods doesn't take special abilities is nonsense though. Tonewood doesn't really matter for electrics. But the building capabilities of violin makers are next to none. It really is a true art.
Everyone who says you're not hearing the piece of wood is partially right and also partially wrong. You even said it yourself sort of... as long as it's held firmly. The wood affects how the string vibrate as your bridge and your tuners/nut are all attached to it. Is it noticeable to an ear? Maybe or maybe not, but I've definitely personally played two identical guitars sans fretboard wood and they do sound substantially different even to my non caring ears. There's also no evidence of tonewood not being a thing FWIW. Funny you didn't point that out and yet you call him out on it, isnt it?
Does an electric violin not use piezo pickups as opposed to electro magnetic? If that’s the case then of course the wood would make a difference. I gotta say though, I stumbled across Paul’s tonewood bullshit whilst shopping for a PRS. I’ve decided to boycott them and make another guitar.
I make guitars and pickups for living. Since years. Well.... It's not that simple. Try to use the same pickups, same hardware and strings and all but changing the body from a solid one to a "thinline" one. And tell me. Another thing: pickups' are made of parts that, even if you don't want, vibrate itself due to mechanical obvious reasons. So, try to knock on a pickup. Then, imagine this pickup screwed directly or very close to the wood or other vibrating material.
Oh yeah! Well I’ve planted some truly magnificent trees known for their tonal qualities under high voltage power lines as far north into the Boreal forest as they’ll grow and I’ve also supplemented their fertilizer regimen with lots of bio-available Fe… by doing so these trees will highly exaggerate a trees “natural” electromagnetic properties and create the most “tonal” solid-body electric guitar wood possible, hell, you won’t even need magnetic pick-ups! Place your orders soon to reserve 10bf of this very, very special 8/4lumber for delivery in 2060!
Agree that Paul's argument isn't valid here. However, it's too reductive to say that wood doesn't matter. The pickup voicing is probably the biggest contributing factor to an electric guitars tone. But other elements also have an effect. In Leon's video he says, "as long as those strings are attached to something pretty solid at both ends..." However, wood isn't as solid as you think. Each piece of wood will have it's own resonant frequency, which in turn allows different vibration frequencies to persist stronger in the strings. Which do get "felt" by the pick ups. In addition, a badly made guitar can dampen the energy and suck the tone. So everything matters, but not necessarily in the same proportions.
It's silly. An acoustic instrument is way different form an electric one. I played violin for years and tried many different instruments. Sure there can be a huge (and I mean HUGE) difference between violins. But that's apples and oranges to an electric guitar. You can easily close your eyes and pick out which violin is being played, between a good an poor instrument. I have yet to see credible evidence that proves tone wood makes any real difference for an electric guitar. If it's so easy to prove, why hasn't anyone been able to do it yet.
But a microphone also works by having a magnetic field and a wire. And the wire moves because it is connected to a diaphram that is excited by the sound waves and thus a current is created. So why wouldn't the pattern of movement that the solid electric guitar body has - due to previously being excited by the strings - create a pattern of movement in the strings in turn that depends on the natural pattern of movement that the body material has? Like I genuinely don't really know
You are correct by saying microphones are driven by air movement, which in turn generates a disturbance of it's magnetic field. The amount of air moved by the guitar body, though, is completely negligible, not enough to influence the vibrating patterns of the strings.
@@phabi0 Im not talking about any air. Im talking about the wood which resonates which may transfer its resonance back to the strings since the strings rest on the bridge and nut which rest on the wood. You can clearly feel an electric guitar bodys vibration when you play so I'm wondering if the vivrating body wouldn't reexcite the strings through the bridge and nut at least in a small way and potentially in a way that depends on the body and neck material...
@@flosse1993You're right that the body vibrates and that it makes the pickup vibrate in return. But firstly in a good guitar you want the body and neck to vibrate as little as possible, because if they do vibrate they take energy away from the string and lessen the sustain. This energy transfer happens more easily if the body/neck resonates with the strings so you don't want them to do that (basicaly the wood can only take energy away from the strings not reexcite them.) Secondly, good wood for electric instruments should be very rigid, because you don't want unstable tuning or a neck that warps etc. The more rigid an object is, the more energy it takes to bend. So the amplitude of the guitar's body's movement will get smaller the better the wood is. So at any given frequency, a good guitar transmits almost no energy to its body, and the small amounts of energy that does manage to get through has a very small impact because wood is rigid. So really, the better the wood is, the less it plays a role on sound. Wood playing no influence on sound is a prerequisite of an electric instrument with long sustain and overall stability.
I was watching a video where he basically called a large portion of his customer base idiots... RIP PRS guitars.. I own prs se... I won't own another one.
I don’t know, I have 34 electric guitars and I still don’t know if wood makes a meaningful difference. I know one thing though. PRS is one of the most unlikable interview subjects out there in my opinion. Every time I manage to sit through an interview with him it convinces me to not want one of his machines. I do have a Silver Sky but I feel like getting rid of that just because I find him so arrogant
So your theory is if you take the pickups out of a 1959 Gibson Les Paul and put them in a Epiphone 59 it will sound the same? Then why are there so many different pickup models? Guitars have fundamental frequencies that influence the sound. Right?
The pickups as well as the electronics need to be pulled out of the 59 les Paul. The setup has to be exact scale length… or other variables need to be identical. Then you can start the tonewood stuff. Which does not exist.
Guitars have several resonance modes that affect the acoustic sound, but for a solid-body electric the differences are far less noticeable in the electric sound, if they're noticeable at all. Most of the energy of string vibration is reflected off the bridge or the fret or nut, right back into the string; that's why you have sustain on any guitar. On a solid body electric guitar, even less of the string vibration hitting the bridge is transmitted into the wood, just a tiny bit... it's almost all reflected back into the string, and the body doesn't move much because it's much more rigid and massive than the top of an acoustic. For the purposes of resonances that might be audible in the electric sound, the body acts mostly as a rigid mass to immobilize the bridge and one end of the neck. It only has two flexing modes that might matter a little, its first and second longitudinal bending modes. A Les Paul body is very rigid longitudinally, not mostly because it's made of expensive tonewoods, but because it's thick. (There is no characteristic sound of a particular tonewood, independent of its thickness.) Stiffness depends on the cube of thickness, so a body that's over 2 1/4 inches thick like a Gibson Les Paul will be more than twice as stiff as a body that's 1 3/4" thick like a Fender Strat, even if they're made of the same wood. You can make a body made of cheap wood equally stiff just by making it a little thicker, and if you want the extra mass, too, you can add some weights to it. There is no tonewood magic. There's just rigidity and mass. The neck may be a somewhat different story. The neck plays a much bigger role in guitar resonances because it's long and spindly and thin, therefore flexible. But nobody likes a thick neck, so they try to sell you expensive tonewood bodies instead. They don't want you to know that the neck is more important, if resonances are noticeable at all, and the body is basically just ballast.
On an electric guitar, everything happens between the bridge and the nut. The voicing of a(n electric) guitar is dictated by the distance between the P.U. and the BRIDGE. Tonewood is a wood grade (fire wood, deck wood, furniture wood, construction wood, TOAN WOOD). Just like a diamond is graded. 1. It needs to be stable 2. It needs to be nice to work with (no a lot of oak guitars. Oak is one of the nicest looking types of wood, but I don't see them because it is a pain in the behind to work with. Tools dull easily etc. etc.). I know only 1 famous oak guitar (not personally) and that is Brian May's "Red Special"... Luthiers are on to something, I guess. 3. Has to look nice (ebony fretboards, yummy. flame maple tops, whooooo!!!! Burls etc. 4. Profit!!! People who go: "But the sustain, man". (while having their guitar cushoned by a big beerbelly and grabbing the neck with sausage fingers... Try ringing a tuningfork on a beerbelly). My Fernandes APG 80 has more sustain then my 2001 LP Std (honeyburst plaintop, 60's neck). 5 pc. Fernandes with a veneer top vs 1pc mahogany body with maple caps. more sustain. Anywho as a carpenter/joiner (in my spare time) I support wood grades. but there is no such thing as tonewood dictating tone (TAONWOULD).
On a solid body electric guitar, if the wood is resonating, it's stealing energy from the pickup and the pickup isn't resonating. This is Physics 101. On a solid body electric guitar, I would argue you want the wood that resonates the least... that sustains the least, to avoid stealing that energy from the pickups. Which is why in tests, when they have replaced the solid body of the electric guitar with a steel beam, it sustains forever. (Forever is an exaggeration, but much, much longer than a wooden body electric guitar). It's also why hollow body and semi-hollow-body electric guitars tend to have poor sustain.
If you dampen the strings over the pickup so that they dont ring, and then knocks on the back ov the body of the guitar, don't you get some signal from the pickups? Isn't that knock the sound of strings and wood resonating, fed back to the strings via the bridge, even if the pickups supposedly just picks up the strings movement in the magnetic field?
According to physics, the less the body moves, the more energy stays in the string. Whether a musician actually wants that is another question altogether.
Whether or not the wood has an impact it has to be so minute to be rendered inconsequential by the environment it is captured in. In other words, it cannot be discerned live with a band, nor can it be discerned in a mix of a song. So arguing about it is pointless.
As a guitarist who is currently looking for a high end investment, PRS are still and will now always remain at the bottom of my list. PRS, like many company owners eg.Egobshite Musk, needs to be kept busy in his garden as everything they do destroys confidence in their brand.
Play an all-mahogany Les paul and one with a Maple cap. Identical Strats with Maple Vs Rosewood fretboard. He may not have stated his argument effectively but tone woods matter in electric guitars. Nowhere near as much as in acoustic instruments though. He is famous for saying "Everything the string touches is God" which is also very true. Everything from the metal composition of bridges and saddles to nut materials. An even larger impact of materials on an electric guitar is the way it feels. Sustain and resonance etc. Hardtail vs tremolo.. Some builders spend so much effort choosing materials that resonate and sustain, they wind up creating a guitar that to me sounds more like a piano. Talk to vintage Telecaster fans and they will tell you part of the tone and charm of a vintage tele lies in the thin metal bridge. Thanks for posting this video!
you cannot prove that. there are many many things that matter so much more than wood. the amp is more important. the pedals are more important, the pickup are more important
Tone wood is a myth in electric guitar. Too much PROOF on youtube. With the all air guitar, concrete guitar, 2x4 guitar, pencil guitar, aluminum guitar, plastic, etc etc etc etc etc etc
@@TedSchoenling Actually you can. You can also go do this experiment yourself at a guitar store. Several videos even of the same guitars with different fretboard woods where maple sounds quite a bit brighter. Dont let facts get in your way though
A tonewood seller saying tonewood is important, very legit
Yes, who has worked with it his whole life. How does the vibration of everything but the wood matter to you?
Exactly..the fact people can't see this is unreal
@@HunnysPlaylistswhat?
@@Jeremya74 you heard me.
@@HunnysPlaylists I didn't hear anything..duh..I saw what you typed but I didn't understand what you were trying to communicate...but if your saying P R Smith is right about wood effecting tone on electric guitars then 😂
I wonder what high end violin luthiers have to say about PRS buying up the good tonewoods that they really want for their craft, only to watch him build solid body electric guitars with the lot. I think they would say, "That's nuts!"
Lol
And they're charging thousands extra for that "tonewood" the violin cost that much because of the work and craftsmanship. PRS is cutting em out on cnc machines so...yea that is nuts! Tip buy a nice chunk of "tonewood" and make your own. that 7000 dollar prs all of the sudden costs about 600 and some work. And it's not 6400 dollars worth of work I promise. That 6400 dollars would buy the cnc machine you need to make tons more at little cost.
He can pay for it, they probably own a few too.
@@doknox Tonewood is real, wood vibrates differently.
@@doknox PRS' cnc machines are also designed to mimic human hands to make perfect replicas of the 80's bodies and necks.
From the University of Paraná “On string-body coupling in electric guitars and its relationship with the instrument's timbre”
Conclusions were : Summary
9 electric guitar bodies were built in the Telecaster model by the author RMP, these were assembled using the same set of arm and pickup. Once each body was assembled, the mechanical excitation of two electric guitar strings was performed, the sound obtained directly from the musical instrument was recorded for later analysis. A musical excerpt played with each electric guitar was also recorded. For these sounds, a treatment was carried out in order to obtain the harmonics that form them via Fourier transform, these harmonics are responsible for the timbre of the instrument. The harmonic spectra of each guitar are compared to each other and there are no significant differences between them. Thus, the timbre variations of electric guitars, according to the results obtained here, depend on factors other than the body wood itself, a fact that stems from the non-existence of a significant coupling between the string and the body of the instrument. A proposal for modeling the string-body coupling is also made, which shows that only a negligible amount of energy from the vibrating string reaches the body of the instrument and that an even smaller amount returns to the string.
Love it man. That's amazing! Will you please send me the link to that research?
@@leonbrownmusic of course
econtents.bc.unicamp.br/inpec/index.php/physicae/article/view/13384/8764
econtents.bc.unicamp.br/inpec/index.php/physicae/article/view/13384
Why compare telecaster shaped guitars only? why nok compare tele and strat types and also Les pauls... Shurely they sounds different, if not by the wood, then by the type of bridge and body shape... If that comparison/theory is right, the sound should be pretty identical, even if the body shape is different...
@@gjenferd because all the variables have to be the same except the one you want to test.
in this case the type of wood
@@gjenferdpickups, bro. Totally different pickups are used on those models.
Most guitar / drum companies have been talking how the wood is a huge tone element. They will never say- 'we were wrong'.
You got my subscription!
He has to say that or he would have.to admit he's been ripping people off for decades
Paul is trying to sell tonewood.... he lost all credibility there. that people pay 5K for his guitars is nuts. I'll never play anything with PRS on it.. snakeoil salesman. he is just taking your money folks
He has to sell his exotic woods for the dads out there so he can pay for the building he has em at. He is a businessman first, a guitar player second.
Show me a single.time where he claims the more rare expensive woods he upcharges for sound better.. I'll wait.
Except that real life high caliber musicians play prs) but what do they know?)
Paul Reed Smith is the same guy that just released new tuner "buttons" for his most expensive line of guitars and claimed in a Guitar World article that excess weight on the headstock by metal tuning buttons (knobs) "robs the guitar of midrange". I took a lot of heat from PRS lovers for a video I did calling the new tuners a SCAM. I also did a video testing his claim. I played two different electric guitars through a spectrum analyzer plugin, then added a few C clamps to the headstock of each guitar and played them again. There was almost no difference (imperceptible to my ear). I liken Paul to PT Barnum! He's a showman and a salesman. But all your arguments are spot on. I tried to explain this in my video about the PRS tuners and had all kinds of arguments in the comments. I had one commenter say that the guitar is a "circle of vibration" and that the vibrations started at the pickup, ran up the neck, over the headstock, around the back, and back to the pickup (you can't make this stuff up!). Not sure why people get so worked up over "tonewood" anyway. I guess to help justify the cost of their USA made Gibson or Fender.
Tonewood is bullshit in electric guitars.
Paul I think has debunked himself many times in his own clinics.
Paul reed smith builds a fine guitar…. But this comparison is wild. I love them, but as you state a violin is an acoustic instrument. It makes no sense.
Tonewood is easy real.
@@HunnysPlaylists aa real as the Easter bunny hunny 🤣
@@johnbach2380 As Real As The Blessed Virgin Mary? Sure why not.
@@HunnysPlaylists whatever gets the point across. 🤣
@@johnbach2380 you don't understand.
With all my respect, Paul makes great guitars but his argument doesn’t make any sense.
I believe that we can’t be naïf and assume that he is illiterate about it. The guy makes some of the best electric guitars out there and his company has a R&D department. He could easily backup his statement with evidence.
However, why would he do that if he can sell more expensive guitars made from “better tonewood”? PRS even has a private stock of selected pieces of wood that you can personally select for your one of a kind super expensive guitar.
Telling that tonewood matters is simply better for his business.
I can back it up with observations. The entirety of History. Also just cmmn snse.
Wood matters, each vibrates differantly, it's what 90% of the guitar is made out of.
@@HunnysPlaylistsfirst of all, what types of guitar you talking about? Electric or accoustic? 😊
@@fluxxpiee I am clearly speaking about electric guitars.
@wind016 the whole guitar vibrates and is made of wood.
After they knock on the block of wood they take it home and cut it all up into smaller pieces and coat them in lacquer.
I don't understand how PRS can draw the comparison between a violin and an electric guitar. He knows the difference but continues to use the argument. I love my electric guitars that have a nice acoustic resonance, like my ES-335 and Duo Jet, they are nice to play unplugged. But, once I plug them in and crank the amp I can't hear the acoustics anymore.
To PRS, I would've asked "when have you ever recorded an electric guitar with a microphone?"
Lots of people don't understand basics and electronics. Acoustic instruments: Yes. Electrics plugged in through an amp: No. Microphonic pickups: Yes. Electric guitar unplugged" Yes. Guitar vibration through your hands and body: Yes.
The principle by which an electric guitar pickup works is somewhat different than what you described. The string does not change the constant magnetic field of a permanent magnet. The string is magnetized because it is ferromagnetic (iron, cobalt, nickel). The magnetized string itself is a magnet; when it oscillates, it induces an alternating current in the copper coil that is in the pickups, at the frequency with which it oscillates.
Preach!
I love fancy wood because it looks nice.
Pickups are where the sound is.
The wood that both end of the strings are connected to should have some impart on how the string reacts, how long it vibrates and how much intensity it vibrates with. That is what the pickup is listening to.
Acoustic guitars are speakers. Electric guitars are inductors. The acoustic guitar is a vibrating box of air. The electric guitar is a set of vibrating strings modulating a magnetic field.
"Tonewood" in a solid-body electric guitar is a myth. End of story. Smith is just fighting for prestige at this point.
Tonewood is real. Do you not know how vibration works?
@@HunnysPlaylistsTonewood is myth ,do you not know how pickups/electronics works?
@@fluxxpiee I do, you do not,
@@fluxxpiee wood vibrates differently, some do to recognizable notes.
@@fluxxpiee pickups project an electrical field via a copper wire solenoid created from the input signal of your guitar. this is projected upwards through the slugs/screws in your pickups and is magnetic due to a magnet under the solenoid. the strings cause vibrations into the body and back to the strings, and the electrical field now detects disturbances into the projected magnetic field. this changes the signal that moves back as your output signal to complete the circuit.
Paul is a one of a kind! I'll concede it makes a difference but the difference is so small that it doesn't matter. That's the question in my opinion - not does it exist but does it really matter.
Only matters acoustically so for an electric instrument who cares. I made a guit out of pine. It's super light and plays and sounds great.
@@doknox False, it's fine to not understand the effect the wood has on the vibration of the bridge and nut. It's cool you made a guitar out of pine but that isn't evidence of anything other than you made a guitar out of pine that sounds good. I really wish public schools taught science to people because they clearly failed you here.
@@StupidGuitar isnt the point to have a instrument that plays and sounds good? I've built guitars out of cherry, oak, walnut, pine. What it does prove is the difference is minuscule and what sounds better is subjective. When using high gain it's nearly impossible to tell the difference. You can say otherwise but you are wrong. I dont care what wood it's made out of if it looks nice and plays nice it's a good guitar.😉 pretty sure danelectro was building guitars out of fiberboard and no one says a word. Lol. I'll build you a guitar outta plywood that plays and holds tune better than any gibson out there. But hey to each his own. Ps. Your public schools and science argument is hilarious. I can repair fix or build just about anything. The next time any of your appliances go out have fun spending hundreds getting it fixed or buying new. Lol. Most problems dont cost anymore than 20 bucks to fix but because you dont know anything we charge you 20 times the amount. Public schools...You must own a gibson.😂😂😂😂😂
@@StupidGuitar name checks out
@@lochnessmonsterrr290 poor guy has nothing to add so he resorts to personal attack. Such a big man. Look at you go big guy.
I have a status graphite slipstream (not made of wood!) and the tone is to die for, so if the wood is so important, where is all this tone coming from?
I am STILL waiting for Paul to demonstrate his claim. Let's see the blind back-to-back test.
A hollow body guitar sounds different than a solid body with the same hardware and pickups. That alone is proof that there’s more to it than those parts.
@@lukasfronzoli9866 yeah? Which one is the hollow body:
ruclips.net/video/TX0UuMPU2ZI/видео.htmlsi=JCZQdTAzbucS1xKx
Bonus: three DIFFERENT sets of hardware and pickups (all humbuckers). No change to the amp settings.
I don't have a dog in the tonewood fight, but there must be something wrong with the argument here that it *couldn't* matter because of Faraday's laws. Hollowbody electrics sound different from solid bodies, presumably because the wooden structure affects the *way* the string vibrates (which is why using a solid center block makes a difference, etc.). I don't know whether wood species makes an audible difference in solid bodies, but the fact that it's all about electromagnetic induction doesn't mean it couldn't.
that´s the right point to put our here I think
It does make a difference though. The magnets only perceive disturbances in magnetic field. That comes from vibration.
They don't sound different because of the wood. There are ways of making either the same guitar sound different or 2 guitars sound different from each other. The argument isn't that all guitars sound the same. It's that the wood is either not contributing to any difference at all or it has such a small difference that no one can tell. And not only has that been demonstrated by removing wood on a guitar it's been demonstrated time and again in double blind tests. The only way to get an audience to hear a difference is to show them a difference. Like if you see a blue guitar and a red guitar then you hear some difference that magically disappears when you hear an audio clips and you're asked when the blue guitar is playing and when the red guitar is. This has been proven true when people have used the same audio clip but changed the video shown and then people have claimed they hear a different tone between the 2 clips of identical audio. One aspect is that you might get more sustain and thus hollowbody or an amplified acoustic gets more feedback - but this is typically an undesirable thing and sustain isn't tone.
Another thing to consider is piezo pickups or hearing the guitar's sound when you strum it when it's not plugged into an amp - this sound is going to vary based on the wood in the way that acoustic guitars sound different.
@@michael1 Fine, then that's the argument, not the argument from Faraday's laws. I'm probably with you on the conclusion; I just don't think you get there from Faraday's laws.
@@michael1 Wood has a notable difference.
You get a much bigger effect from the nut material and the saddle material because the strings come into direct contact with these parts of the guitar. There is going to be a small influence from the wood because the nut and saddles are mounted into the neck wood and body wood and that will effect the vibrations of the system as a whole. However, the overwhelming quality of your sound is the shaping of the signal by your pick-ups and then passed to your amplifier. You can also achieve much greater tonal variations by things such as the type of strings, picking nearer or further from the bridge, the pick that you use and how hard you pick than you will ever hear from different types of wood.
So the nut & saddle just float over the guitar & are fixed by magic?
@@nihilistlivesmatter Try reading what I wrote before posting a stupid comment or go ahead and waste your time and money by jumping down the 'tonewood' rabbit-hole. PRS has a bunch of very expensive pretty guitars for disciples of tonewood.
@@jjjddd231 I did read it & the tone of your answer says everything about where the stupidity lies in this exchange
@@nihilistlivesmatter If you did read it then your English comprehension is woefully inadequate.
Paul Reed Smith keeps comparing electric guitars with violins... My God what a fool, that's like a little boy comparing his Cassio Keyboard with a Steinway & Sons piano
He did the same with singers. he said Barbra Streisand doesn't sound the same as Whitney Houston, therefore tonewood.
I play jazz. I have and have played a great number of archtops. Acoustically they are like night and day due to scalelength, bracing and plywood vs solid wood. But put same PU and pots in very acoustically different archtops and its very hard to hear the difference. And completely impossible when giggin. So tonewood. I doubt.
Yeah, it's interesting that many jazz people think archtop electrics will sound better electrically if they sound good acoustically, but the physics makes me skeptical. The acoustic sound comes mostly from relatively near the bridge, including a side-to-side twisting mode of the part between the f-holes, where one side is going down and up as the other side goes up and down, creating weird interference effects in different directions. (You don't want the guitar top pointed straight at you or a mic, because that's where the two mostly cancel out.)
But the pickup is usually mounted near the neck, where things are very different. I suspect that's a good place to pick up the vibration of the strings, which is what matters most, but not a particularly good place to pick up the vibrations of the top.
PS, does a piece of resonant wood enhance or absorb vibrations.?
We need to look at harmonic sympathetic frequencies.. which are ALL negated by simple distance from amp... Why else would virtuosos like Satriani spend time soundchecking and X marking areas of the stage that he can get optimal note feedback distances.
If in doubt, watch the experts.
Fun recap you have here!
I've watched/re-watched the PRS interview video then I stumbled across your recap.
I found the same points you reference to be a bit... fishy.
The focus seemed to range from stating wood as a big deal, to saying nut & saddle/bridge are most important, to discussing finding "the sound" by dissecting some vintage pickups and reverse engineering that "sound". Sooo, ...what?
I thought there was some anger management issues in that interview that needed to be touched on, LOL.
Great video!
How does one measure how long a "knock" will ring? Milliseconds?
Jim Lill's video settled this debate for me. It's DEAD.
There has also been a scientific study using 9 Telecasters of different woods and even frequency analysis only showed a miniscule difference that is not anywhere big enough to be heard. I actually wasn't that surprised. He did blow my mind with his series on amps and cabs. Apparently with amps it's just where the tone stack (EQ) is in relation to gain stages. He made a box full of pedals and a few pots sound like a Marshall, Vox and Fender just by putting the EQ pots in a different place between a few distortion pedals. And power stage distortion, pre amp distortion and diode clipping sounded exactly the same when isolated. Identical!
What about hollow body electric though? Seems to affect the sound.
Just a traveling electromagnetic technician here. Good on ya for going back to Faradays Laws of Induction! Wood is electromagnetically inert. You are 100% correct that wood has zero practical/measurable effect on the tone of an electric guitar.
That said, the construction of the neck, the fretboard material, the nut & bridge material all have subtle effects on the tone but that can be said for all guitars.
Long time ago I had my looper pedal turn on and talk over the guitar pick ups. Once played back, I heard my voice through the amp.
Yea you would do. The sound from your voice makes the strings vibrate and the pickups do their thing.
I might be being paranoid here but to me it always seems like the people who sell things made from "tonewood" always say it makes a difference and the people who say it doesn't make a difference aren't selling guitars and so don't stand to lose anything from the opinion.
the people who say it doesn't are "kids who read" looking for "dunks" and "secret knowledge."
Thank you for using logic and speaking sensibly! 🤗
I do NOT believe that PRS is a stupid man. Certainly, he knows how both an ACOUSTIC guitar AND an electric guitar work. He is simply spouting MARKETING to justify the high cost of his products. The higher the price of his guitars, the more money he makes! 🤑
Ok so , Paul Reed Smith has a vested interest in "tone woods" (granted , acoustic guitars are a different animal) so he didn't end the debate but you certainly went a long way in ending it. Thank You !!
Tone comes from the string movement in both acoustic and electric, the clue is in that it's called a stringed instrument, the vibration in the string moves the acoustic sound board which moves air which your ears receive, in electric string movement is ' picked up' by magnets and converted to an electrical signal. In both cases how the strings move dictates tone. Play a note, you get a tone, play the same note palm muted and you get a different tone, because the string moves differently. Tone wood in electrics effects the tone because it plays a part in recycling the string vibrations back into the string via the anchor points, creating timbre or tone. Make an electric guitar from wet balsa and ply and see where the tone disappears. Aluminium, concrete and other material guitars prove the tone wood case, they do a great job of recycling the vibrations back into the strings, tone wood is just commercially easier to work with in volume. You can change the tone of an electric by changing the pick up proximity, where by the stronger closer magnet field restricts the string movement. Poor wood restricts string movement and hence tone. Although much of this is moot, as most electric players output via a distortion box and squash the timbre complexity. As visible on a spectrometer.
One clue is that you often see electric violins made of composite materials, or ones that have no real body and are just the apparatus to bow and finger the strings. Electric violin makers seem to know about this, so why not guitar makers?
Well, its Mr Smith's job to sell you high priced guitars made from exotic woods with fancy finishes!
Not that that's a bad thing though, if a guitar looks and feels great to play generally you will 'sound' better playing it.
Not the best analogy, though I agree PRS is just lying for money. Electric violins are usually acoustic-electric, using a piezo or other vibration-sensing pickup at the bridge, not magnetic pickups like an electric guitar's. (Or they were last time I paid much attention to them.) And they sound pretty nasty until you EQ and otherwise process the sound to make up for the lack of filtering effects that an acoustic violin body provides. (Often EQ, Chorus & reverb.) An electric guitar is a very different kind of thing, although it also depends on a bit of implicit EQ in the pickup and amp/speaker frequency response to sound nice.
Your last comment is true. Your connection to the guitar is an emotional connection, and while I failed the class in university where we were taught how to evaluate intangibles, I understand that intangibles can be important. I would go so far as to speculate that intangibles are the most important factor for very high-end guitars.
@@peterwilson8039 Agreed. Out if interest , how does one go about 'evaluating' intangibles when it seems to be a deeply individual thing?
@@cimmerian100 A lot depends on what you mean by intangible. (One of the meanings is "incapable of being perceived." Another is just "not well-defined.") I'd like to see some really good experiments where several guitars are made in different ways and the differences are obscured, for example (1) lightweight cheap wood bodies weighted to weigh the same as expensive "tonewood" bodies, (2) all guitars played in total darkness so the players can't see the differences, (3) players not allowed to touch the headstock or other revealing features of the guitar, (4) swapping necks of bolt-ons to see whether the perceived sound depends more on neck wood than body wood (or neither, or a weird function of both), etc. (5) lots of objective measurements using a mechanical picking/strumming machine for consistency, to see what actual features people are noticing or preferring, and what they're calling them. (For example, does "warmer" usually just mean "less trebly"? Do people notice the same things listening to someone else as they do playing? How do people's preferences change with modest changes in the EQ curve?)
You could do this much better than it's been done to date, in the usual ways people do good psych experiments: control for a bunch variables, blind the subjects AND the experimenter telling them what to do (the experimenter handing a guitar to the player should not know which guitar it is, either, so the player can't pick up on the experimenter's tells), and have enough subjects and enough trials that you get statistically significant results. Unfortunately all that costs time, effort and money. Doing good, convincing science is kind of a pain in the ass. It's a lot easier to measure the resonant frequencies of a guitar with open strings suspened by bungie cords than to figure out how they affect the sound in actual playing circumstances.
@@cimmerian100 It's a joke. Intangibles are intangibles because they can't be evaluated. Also if you like a particular guitar because it is relic'ed, obviously in a dark room you wouldn't know it was relic'ed so the affect of the relic'ing would be eliminated.
So have a rubber nut, a rubber bridge, two concrete blocks for scale length and away you go ? Or, do you try a bone nut, a metal bridge, and perform the same test ? Or, a wooden sliding clamp, versus a metal one ? I doubt that a spectrometer would fail to expose the differences in tonal quality sustain and playing feel.
I like the feeling of a resonant and light electric guitar. I call them Good vibes... :)
Pickups are also microphones. They are. Not in a strict way, but they are. And not so "unidirectional".
Your only partly correct about the action between the strings and the pickup, the other half or the facts, no one seems to want to talk about. Ive layed this out many times and never even gotten a response so ill try again! The string vibrates above the pickups. This disturbs the magnetic field creating the signal that is sent to the amplifier. Ok thats a fact! Another fact is that when the body of the guitar vibrates the pickup mounted in it vibrates too. This viibration of the magnetic field, beneath the string disturbs the field as well creating another tone. This is also a fact. Wrap a towel around the neck of your guitar so that the strings cant vibrate at all. Now vibrate the guitar either by tapping your fingers like a drom roll on the back of the guitar. You will hear it through your pickups even though there is no string vibration. The string moving within the field is the same as the field moving around the string. So if the body vibrates, which it does, then changing the wood will effect the tone. Its physically impossible for this not to be the case.
the second you put that through a cable into an amp all the wood disappears.
The strings are still vibrating in your towel scenario, muffled but vibrating. Thats still where the magnetic field disturbance is coming from when rapping the body of your plugged in guitar. Take all the strings off and try that
@@cimmerian100 i already have. Im working on a new experiment that shakes the pickup, on springs, beneath strings that are not attached to the same rig. I can tell you that the reason im building a rig is because the crude version of this experiment worked so well.
@@cimmerian100 forget what is attached to what. Break it down for me. Describe to me, scientifically, how the magnetic field can move around the strings without being disturbed. Its like saying you can stir water by moving a spoon around in the glass, but if you hold the spoon still and move the glass instead, the water will just stay still.
@@stevenpipes1555 I meant without any strings there would be nothing inducing current in the coils. I know the physics, I think I misunderstood your original question.
I see you're talking about relative movement of something ferrous though the magnetic field. Either the string or the pickup relative to the string.
Still though I think experiments of this kind have been done before that put the same rig through different wood species and no meaningful impact on tone has been observed. It would be interesting to see the results of your experiments nonetheless.
Let's all remember, regardless of our opinions, to just play our guitars and enjoy them.
Paul RS embarrassed himself in that discussion / thanks for providing the science behind this. I didn’t know it was faradays law
What's funny is you can knock on several different guitar blanks from the same type of wood (not the same tree) and hear variances in the same species. So 2 guitars made of Alder..or Mahogany whatever may resonate differently creating a tonal variation, but its SOOOO minute and you can't hear the variation in the mix, the 2 guitars will sound exactly the same. Yes, some woods will sustain longer or produce slightly different frequencies better or worse....but the pickup is "hearing" how the string is vibrating...not "the wood".
Honest question, if the resonance from the wood isn't picked up by the magnetic field of the pick up then why does a chambered body sound different from a solid body when all other things are equal?
Does it? Has anyone produced any repeatable, quantifiable evidence? Or is that just what manufacturers are telling the public and amplified by hear say? But try this. Put a magnet on a tree. If it sticks then wood can affect the magnetic field. If it doesn't it can't.
@Leon Brown Music it does. It's nowhere near as noticeable as on an acoustic guitar obviously but there are a ton of videos on here of different custom shops showing the differences, some of them claiming they notice no difference when you can clearly hear one is brighter or crisper than the other. And since they are custom shops they use the same hardware, pick ups, neck, strings, wood, everything is the same aside from the fact that one body is chambered and one isn't. It's far more subtle than an acoustic like I said because the wood makes the sound there, but it is noticeable.
@@leonbrownmusicdude LOLOL are you being serious??? Just play them.. they sound radically different amplified. Maybe your hearing is crap or you don't own enough guitars..
@@leonbrownmusic check it out genius.. pick your guitar up and strum the open strings.. now place it on a table while ringing.. where do you think the energy to vibrate the table comes from???
Don't you think guitar woods soak up certain frequencies from the strings differently resulting in THE STRINGS THEMSELVES sounding/vibrating differently?
@@leonbrownmusictake the strings off your guitar. Plug it into an amp. Scream into a pickup. Why are you hearing yourself through the amp???? 🤔
So that would mean there is no diffrence between a solid and a semi or fully hollow electric guitaer right?
When sound goes into a mic it moves a piece of metal in a magnetic field as well though.... in both cases the signal is from moving metal. And moving wood moves metal (obviously if you bump your guitar it will ring without directly hitting the strings)... so what wood does is enhance of diminish different frequencies effecting how the strings moves. All that matters is how the metal moves in either case, but many factors effect how the metal moves.
Nope
There is very little disagreement among guitar players that the way the neck is mounted to the body has an impact on sustain. It is quite easy to verify that, e.g., a good Gibson Les Paul will have markedly longer sustain than a Fender Stratocaster.
Now, how can the body have an effect on sustain if it does not have an effect on how the string vibrates? This can only mean that the body in fact does have an impact on the sound.
This impact may be a relatively small impact, it may even be hardly audible. There may also be no reproducible characteristics of, e.g., mahogany vs. maple, but there is an impact.
Most importantly, this is not even what counts the most. What really counts is how the guitar feels in the hands of the player. The vibration of the wood may not directly translate to what we hear from the speaker, but it certainly translates into how you interact with the instrument which then translates to the sound coming out of the speaker.
Actual woods aren't too important. In my personal experience, it has to do with overall density of the materials. You can group them together and be very similar. An all mahogany body vs swamp ash isn't gonna be too different with same pickups. However, I've had huge tone differences between my PRS and a novelty silicone resin guitar even after swapping out the same PUPS in both. I wouldn't trust a biased opinion from a guitar maker (favorite guitars, btw) because he has a vested interest in continuing tonewood to sell guitars. I'd still use better wood for the neck because cheap wood tends to warp or be knotted, but that's not for tone.
Pickups aren’t microphones. Just the fact that he made that comparison means that he has no understanding of how an electric guitar works. Solid body guitars were meant to eliminate body resonance as much as possible. Acoustic instruments are fundamentally different beasts.
The thing that galls me is that these arguments prevent builders of electric instruments from using more sustainable woods and benefitting the industry and the environment. It’s very harmful and counterproductive.
Tbh.it baffles me why we are still using wood at all. There must be better materials than bits of tree.....?
@@leonbrownmusic I’m sure there are tons of recycled materials that would be just as good.
And do you think denser woods like mahogany do a better job at minimizing that resonance than balsa? So the better the wood/material the more stable the tone?
Do I believe one mahogany tree to the next makes a difference? No. Do I think mahogany vs ash makes a difference? Yeah. The notes will sustain differently.
@@bestmonkna7720 you’re welcome to think anything you want, buy anything you want. If you can hear the difference, go ahead! You do you.
When we start using words like ‘believe’ for things which can be so easily measured objectively, well…you may want to question some stuff.
@@bestmonkna7720 AFAIK what you mainly want is some mass and rigidity in and around the bridge, and a reasonably solid connection between that and the neck. After that the losses at the bridge are small relative to the losses at the nut or fret.
Cheap, fairly light wood is a fine material for guitar bodies. The main things you want are lengthwise rigidity and some mass, so that the body acts as a rigid mass to immobilize the bridge and one end of the neck. Laminated wood is fine, but not normal hardware-store plywood where the different plies have grain running at right angles. You want the grain running pretty much the same lengthwise direction, to resist the string tension and maximize longitudinal stiffness. (The good news about that is that no production guitars are actually made of plain plywood. Some do use laminates with parallel lengthwise grain, and that's just fine.)
Sustain comes only from keeping the vibration of the string IN the string, by reflecting it back with a rigid and massy bridge and nut or fret, solidly attached to a reasonably massy and rigid body around the bridge and neck around the nut/fret. Once vibrations get into the neck/body, they quickly die; almost none of the energy gets back into the strings. It would be interesting to see experiments using particle board, plywood, and MDF vs. dense woods vs. light woods with weights embedded in them near the bridge. You should be able to tune the resonances by placing the weights strategically, or by routing the wood so it's not just a slab... Notice that marimba pieces are chunks of wood hollowed out from the bottom in a simple way, to tune the vibratory modes into something closer to a harmonic series. (For a guitar body you'd more likely ensure they're NOT close to a harmonic series, so you don't end up with dead notes and bad sounds in certain keys.)
But no manufacturer is going to admit that they get good tone with cheap fishing weights or a little extra routing, instead of expensive woods they can charge a hefty markup for.
Then why is it that muting the strings and tapping the guitar gets amplified?
It's the force of your hand that makes the sound or is it the thought going through your brain to control your hand or is the oxygen that carries the sound to your ear.
You are making the assumption that (for example ) every 46 gauge string tuned to E across 25.5" scale will vibrate exactly identically regardless what they are fixed to
If it doesn't then it is not E.
@@ronj9448 Two E's on two different guitars will have frequency in common but not much else
Can someone tell Mr. PRS that ELECTRIC Violins barely have any wood since they don't need wood at all to function? (Aside from structural purposes)
Several other factors and principles contribute to the sound differences between electric guitars, aside from Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction. Some of these include:
Newton's laws of motion: These laws govern the vibration of the guitar strings. When a string is plucked or strummed, it vibrates according to the principles of wave mechanics, producing sound waves that propagate through the air.
Acoustics principles: The resonance and reverberation of sound within the guitar body are governed by principles of acoustics, such as the Helmholtz resonance and modes of vibration in solid bodies.
Materials science: The properties of the materials used in constructing the guitar, including the type of wood, finish, and hardware, can significantly impact the instrument's sound. For example, different woods have varying densities, stiffness, and damping characteristics, which affect the resonance and tone of the guitar.
Mechanical engineering principles: The design and construction of the guitar, including factors like body shape, size, bracing, neck construction, and hardware, influence the instrument's sound. For instance, the shape and thickness of the guitar body can affect the distribution of sound waves and the instrument's sustain.
Electronic principles: The design and configuration of the pickups, wiring, and electronic components in the guitar's circuitry influence the signal output and tone shaping capabilities. Different pickup configurations (e.g., single-coil vs. humbucker) and wiring schemes can produce distinct tonal characteristics.
Psychoacoustics: Human perception of sound is influenced by psychoacoustic factors such as frequency response, harmonic content, and spatial characteristics. These perceptual elements play a role in how we interpret and appreciate the sound of different guitars.
Overall, the sound differences between electric guitars are the result of a complex interplay of physical, mechanical, and perceptual factors, encompassing principles from various scientific disciplines. While Faraday's law is essential in understanding the fundamental process of signal generation in electric guitars, it is just one piece of the puzzle in explaining the diversity of tones produced by different instruments.
It's just the vibrations of the strings?
So that means old strings sound the same as new stings, right?
Oh, so there are some subtleties involved?
The wood doesn't 'add' anything.The bridge and the nut subtract frequencies depending on materials used, but it doesn't just end there.
I can stick a tuner on the far tip of a flying V body and it will work. The density of all materials used will subtract certain frequencies from the string, which in turn, affects the pickup.
Contrary to popular belief, it's not always fixed by a 'twist of the EQ knob on the amp'. Yes, it's a small part of the equation, but it's part of the equation.
I leave my electric strings on for six months (playing 2-3 hours a week) and I leave my acoustic strings on for 2 months (2-3 hours a week). The acoustic really gets perked up and the electric really doesn't sound any better. I'm avoiding breaking an E or B string really.
@@ronj9448 That's your experience, and it's all good.
I think most people notice a difference when they put new strings on an electric guitar.
The only argument I could ever possibly concede here (and you did kind of touch on this when you mentioned the strings being held firmly between two points) is IF the resonance of the guitar body/neck, can "feedback" and interfere with, or in another way influence the vibration of the string, in a manner significant enough to alter the vibration characteristics of that string, AND perhaps more importantly, in a way that can be audibly detected. Given the forces at work in a naturally vibrating string, the weakness of any such external vibratory feedback, and the ability of the human ear to detect it, I'm inclined to dismiss any such argument.
It's barely enough to be picked up by scientific analysis. It's not 1% more like 1/1000000000000000
If there is someone who claims that his research and multiple tests allowed him to transform every component of a guitar to influence the tone, it’s Paul Reed Smith. PRS marketing capains beeing based of wood selection for their sonic values, he really ought to puts vids up front to prove it - he would certainly end the debate.
I totally agree with your video Leon, Paul should provide evidences of his claims rather than saying “it’s nuts”…. Oh and by evidences, that is not to do a close micing of a guitar while he sweeps the strings to show that it vibrates (cause we only mic acoustic instruments that way ;) )… he should do like Jim Lill or Warmoth have done, a simple scientific approach :)
Can you image if HE showed us tonewood doesn’T matter?!?!? It would end his business ;)
Nb : I love PRS and find them as nice looking and playing as they are expensive😊
The strings of a solid body are not held between more or less solid points.There is a path for the energy on the string to pass to the neck/ body via those points in proportion to the mechanical impedance match. The ADSR profile and harmonic content of the strings energy will be altered according to what passes to the body / neck . What is left is what will effect the pickups.
Sure a solid body is designed to be less effected by the structure and it's acoustic environment but to assert that it isn't is silly and sad.
Just think of the feedback situation. Would anyone assert that different guitars don't feedback in different ways? This is exactly analogous to different woods and guitars sounding different.
"If the pickup is all that matters then how about this instrument without a pickup. Checkmate."
PRS teaches agriculture:
The public: Do apples really need warm temperatures to grow?
PRS: I was in an orange grove, watching people harvest oranges, and they told me that temperatures under 50 degrees Fahrenheit will ruin a crop. This idea that apples trees can grow in the cool mountains is just NUTS.
Whats the difference between Rosewood vs Maple necks? Tone...
One is dark one is light.
PRS’ take on tone woods is not surprising. He’s made a literal fortune by convincing people to pay THOUSANDS of dollars for a guitar with tone woods. Don’t get me wrong the custom PRS instruments are truly phenomenal ! However if he took and made a guitar out of Bass wood and poplar in the same way and also gave it the exact same level of care that he would a $10,000 custom. There would be virtually no difference in to tone. There might be a difference in sustain. But tone itself would be no different.
I see a lot of comments saying the guitar companies have been ripping people off buy charging so much for their guitars. I disagree, tone wood debate aside, these companies aren’t charging you thousands for the fact they have used mahogany, maple, and/or rosewood. They are charging you for the craftsmanship of the instrument. Sure these companies charge a premium for the beauty of the instrument such as the highly flamed maple tops, but again, tone wood debate aside, wouldn’t you expect to pay more for a more visually appealing guitar? Anytime you see a budget guitar they still have the same bones as their more expensive counterpart. Epiphone Les Paul’s still have mahogany backs and necks with maple caps only the flamed top is replace with a plain top and then a veneer is added. I think guitar makers just follow the same recipe of making instruments but they aren’t charging you for the specific wood, they’re charging you for their craftsmanship. The only time you’ll pay for the specific wood is when the guitar is made with an exotic wood species like Brazilian Rosewood.
The vibration of the wood affects the vibration of the string, which will be picked up by the pickup. Watch the video from warmoth where he tests different bodies. Do it! You will hear a difference!
When I find people who can’t believe wood makes a difference, I know they haven’t really experienced it. I have one guitar (a strat style with a mahogany & maple body) with a thick ebony fingerboard and it is so bright and hard sounding that I can’t stand it, no matter what pickups I use.
I watched that video seems to make a difference. How big of a difference or is it a tone difference, I don’t know. I’ll just buy what I like and call it a day.
Was he plugged in ?
He didn't precisely set pickup height. Watch Jim Lill instead. He actually shows us in detail that he eliminated all variables. Once he used precise pickup height his Telecaster and Tele hardware mounted between two tables sounded identical.
@@221b-l3t I think the main problem with his vid is that bridge pickups are much less affected by wood choice, because they have a much narrower tonal range. I find that the neck pickup is where you can hear the (admittedly) subtle differences.
You have focused on acoustics as an entirely different thing from electrics. So here's a question:
I trust that you can discern the differences between, say, cedar-top and sitka-top acoustics.
If you start increasing the thickness of the tops, Is there a certain thickness at which cedar and sitka will sound identical?
I don't get it, the electric guitar's "tone wood" is literally the speaker. Single coil or humbucker makes a difference, but after that, the biggest difference is going to be preamp/amp, which act like the bridge and soundpost in an acoustic instruments, and then the speaker, which is the freaking resonator, just like the tonewood in an acoustic instrument.
How do people not understand that? Fender has made guitars out of pine and poplar, and people never realized it. Some of the earliest broadcasters that are worth a fortune now are made from pine.
The material type and density of everything to string contacts matters a great deal. The nut, bridge, trem block, etc. Finally pickups that pick up the sound. The rest is the amp and effects. Any difference in sound because of wood can be eq’ed out.
If there was one which there isn't. Watch Jim Lill.
Doesn't the most expensive PRS guitars have special woodtops that looks spectacular? But from what Iv'e heard, the special exotic variants with birdseye, flamed , and burled wood, in fact have less tonal qualities than their regular types. Isnt that the reason why they mostly use those exotic woods as a thin layer on top of regular wood? Because a guitar made from just those exotic woods would sound inferior to the regular woods? I'd say that a lot of guitars are bought first and mostly for the looks of it and not for the tone in it...
It is funny that PRS comes with those statements because his company is selling special guitars that cost more than their regular ones. Apparently the biggest difference to the regular ones are the quality of the wood. If they all sound the same what is the point of buying the expensive one.🤔
I'm aware that the tonewood case is weak on electric guitars, but what would you answer to someone saying that you can knock your guitar wood, and the pickups are able to pick up that sound, being audible on the speakers? Implying that the pickup not only picks the strings vibrating but the wood too.
I would say than knocking on the guitar makes the strings vibrate and the pickup detects it. Just the same as it will detect your voice if you get close and shout into it. Take the strings and bridge off. Remove any metal that might be able to vibrate and then try it.
@@leonbrownmusic Knocking vibrates the pickup relative to the strings, creating a relative motion between their magnetic field and the strings, which they pick up. Presumably in normal playing a little energy from the strings vibrates the body and those body vibrations ARE picked up by the pickups, but that signal is very, very faint compared to the direct effect of the strings vibrating over the pickup, and usually entirely inaudible. (See my longer comment about physics and psychophysics above.)
I love PRS guitars but Paul is such a politician and manipulator that I barely can stand him when he talks. The argument was about solid body guitars that if you change the wood of a solid body electric guitar it does not have a big enough impact to notice it, the argument was never about acoustic instruments like violins or classical guitars. Nor was it about what happens when you change the metal bridge of a guitar with rubber one. Everyone knows now that nobody can distinguish the sound of a solid body electric guitar made from plywood from a mahogany one, when their eyes are closed.
Does an alder strat sound different than a
ash strat?
Paul (like many sales people) is in the business of selling electric guitars made out of expensive wood = greater profit
That's fine if you want to pay for a certain 'look', if looks are important to you. And as most guitarists are men 'looks' are very likely to be a huge part of the reason to buy anything
I've yet to see Paul 'blindfold' identify the 'tonewood' sound differences in any meaningful way
Best argument: if the wood woodn't matter, then why so often dead notes on a PRS? :-) (btw, I am a PRS fan, had about 7 of them)
To say that choosing the right woods doesn't take special abilities is nonsense though. Tonewood doesn't really matter for electrics. But the building capabilities of violin makers are next to none. It really is a true art.
Everyone who says you're not hearing the piece of wood is partially right and also partially wrong. You even said it yourself sort of... as long as it's held firmly. The wood affects how the string vibrate as your bridge and your tuners/nut are all attached to it. Is it noticeable to an ear? Maybe or maybe not, but I've definitely personally played two identical guitars sans fretboard wood and they do sound substantially different even to my non caring ears. There's also no evidence of tonewood not being a thing FWIW. Funny you didn't point that out and yet you call him out on it, isnt it?
Does an electric violin not use piezo pickups as opposed to electro magnetic?
If that’s the case then of course the wood would make a difference.
I gotta say though, I stumbled across Paul’s tonewood bullshit whilst shopping for a PRS. I’ve decided to boycott them and make another guitar.
I make guitars and pickups for living. Since years. Well.... It's not that simple. Try to use the same pickups, same hardware and strings and all but changing the body from a solid one to a "thinline" one. And tell me. Another thing: pickups' are made of parts that, even if you don't want, vibrate itself due to mechanical obvious reasons. So, try to knock on a pickup. Then, imagine this pickup screwed directly or very close to the wood or other vibrating material.
Tonewood doesn't matter with an electronic guitar. Only with acoustic. This has been tested and busted.
Oh yeah! Well I’ve planted some truly magnificent trees known for their tonal qualities under high voltage power lines as far north into the Boreal forest as they’ll grow and I’ve also supplemented their fertilizer regimen with lots of bio-available Fe… by doing so these trees will highly exaggerate a trees “natural” electromagnetic properties and create the most “tonal” solid-body electric guitar wood possible, hell, you won’t even need magnetic pick-ups!
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Agree that Paul's argument isn't valid here. However, it's too reductive to say that wood doesn't matter. The pickup voicing is probably the biggest contributing factor to an electric guitars tone. But other elements also have an effect.
In Leon's video he says, "as long as those strings are attached to something pretty solid at both ends..."
However, wood isn't as solid as you think. Each piece of wood will have it's own resonant frequency, which in turn allows different vibration frequencies to persist stronger in the strings. Which do get "felt" by the pick ups. In addition, a badly made guitar can dampen the energy and suck the tone.
So everything matters, but not necessarily in the same proportions.
How can Paul possibly think the violin, microphone theory stands up?
Man, those tuners sure do make a colossal difference. Lol
It's silly. An acoustic instrument is way different form an electric one. I played violin for years and tried many different instruments. Sure there can be a huge (and I mean HUGE) difference between violins. But that's apples and oranges to an electric guitar. You can easily close your eyes and pick out which violin is being played, between a good an poor instrument. I have yet to see credible evidence that proves tone wood makes any real difference for an electric guitar. If it's so easy to prove, why hasn't anyone been able to do it yet.
I think the same pickups in a hollow body and in a les Paul would sound different.. so that's not the hollow body being miked up
But a microphone also works by having a magnetic field and a wire. And the wire moves because it is connected to a diaphram that is excited by the sound waves and thus a current is created. So why wouldn't the pattern of movement that the solid electric guitar body has - due to previously being excited by the strings - create a pattern of movement in the strings in turn that depends on the natural pattern of movement that the body material has? Like I genuinely don't really know
You are correct by saying microphones are driven by air movement, which in turn generates a disturbance of it's magnetic field. The amount of air moved by the guitar body, though, is completely negligible, not enough to influence the vibrating patterns of the strings.
@@phabi0 Im not talking about any air.
Im talking about the wood which resonates which may transfer its resonance back to the strings since the strings rest on the bridge and nut which rest on the wood. You can clearly feel an electric guitar bodys vibration when you play so I'm wondering if the vivrating body wouldn't reexcite the strings through the bridge and nut at least in a small way and potentially in a way that depends on the body and neck material...
@@flosse1993You're right that the body vibrates and that it makes the pickup vibrate in return.
But firstly in a good guitar you want the body and neck to vibrate as little as possible, because if they do vibrate they take energy away from the string and lessen the sustain. This energy transfer happens more easily if the body/neck resonates with the strings so you don't want them to do that (basicaly the wood can only take energy away from the strings not reexcite them.)
Secondly, good wood for electric instruments should be very rigid, because you don't want unstable tuning or a neck that warps etc. The more rigid an object is, the more energy it takes to bend. So the amplitude of the guitar's body's movement will get smaller the better the wood is.
So at any given frequency, a good guitar transmits almost no energy to its body, and the small amounts of energy that does manage to get through has a very small impact because wood is rigid.
So really, the better the wood is, the less it plays a role on sound. Wood playing no influence on sound is a prerequisite of an electric instrument with long sustain and overall stability.
I was watching a video where he basically called a large portion of his customer base idiots...
RIP PRS guitars..
I own prs se...
I won't own another one.
Search this video if you think tonewood doesn't make a difference: "Can You Hear the Difference? - Maple vs Rosewood Guitar Fretboards"
Nope! He skated over most of the facts and drifted into things not even related to tone wood.
Paul Reed needs to look at this RUclips video: Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar?
I don’t know, I have 34 electric guitars and I still don’t know if wood makes a meaningful difference. I know one thing though. PRS is one of the most unlikable interview subjects out there in my opinion. Every time I manage to sit through an interview with him it convinces me to not want one of his machines. I do have a Silver Sky but I feel like getting rid of that just because I find him so arrogant
So your theory is if you take the pickups out of a 1959 Gibson Les Paul and put them in a Epiphone 59 it will sound the same? Then why are there so many different pickup models? Guitars have fundamental frequencies that influence the sound. Right?
Do they? If you have seen some measurable evidence? I would like to see it.
@@leonbrownmusic my 13 guitars do
Yea all mine sound a bit different acoustically. But plug them in with the same pickups and height it's a different story.
The pickups as well as the electronics need to be pulled out of the 59 les Paul.
The setup has to be exact scale length… or other variables need to be identical.
Then you can start the tonewood stuff.
Which does not exist.
Guitars have several resonance modes that affect the acoustic sound, but for a solid-body electric the differences are far less noticeable in the electric sound, if they're noticeable at all. Most of the energy of string vibration is reflected off the bridge or the fret or nut, right back into the string; that's why you have sustain on any guitar. On a solid body electric guitar, even less of the string vibration hitting the bridge is transmitted into the wood, just a tiny bit... it's almost all reflected back into the string, and the body doesn't move much because it's much more rigid and massive than the top of an acoustic.
For the purposes of resonances that might be audible in the electric sound, the body acts mostly as a rigid mass to immobilize the bridge and one end of the neck. It only has two flexing modes that might matter a little, its first and second longitudinal bending modes.
A Les Paul body is very rigid longitudinally, not mostly because it's made of expensive tonewoods, but because it's thick. (There is no characteristic sound of a particular tonewood, independent of its thickness.) Stiffness depends on the cube of thickness, so a body that's over 2 1/4 inches thick like a Gibson Les Paul will be more than twice as stiff as a body that's 1 3/4" thick like a Fender Strat, even if they're made of the same wood. You can make a body made of cheap wood equally stiff just by making it a little thicker, and if you want the extra mass, too, you can add some weights to it.
There is no tonewood magic. There's just rigidity and mass.
The neck may be a somewhat different story. The neck plays a much bigger role in guitar resonances because it's long and spindly and thin, therefore flexible. But nobody likes a thick neck, so they try to sell you expensive tonewood bodies instead. They don't want you to know that the neck is more important, if resonances are noticeable at all, and the body is basically just ballast.
On an electric guitar, everything happens between the bridge and the nut.
The voicing of a(n electric) guitar is dictated by the distance between the P.U. and the BRIDGE.
Tonewood is a wood grade (fire wood, deck wood, furniture wood, construction wood, TOAN WOOD). Just like a diamond is graded.
1. It needs to be stable
2. It needs to be nice to work with (no a lot of oak guitars. Oak is one of the nicest looking types of wood, but I don't see them because it is a pain in the behind to work with. Tools dull easily etc. etc.). I know only 1 famous oak guitar (not personally) and that is Brian May's "Red Special"... Luthiers are on to something, I guess.
3. Has to look nice (ebony fretboards, yummy. flame maple tops, whooooo!!!! Burls etc.
4. Profit!!!
People who go: "But the sustain, man". (while having their guitar cushoned by a big beerbelly and grabbing the neck with sausage fingers... Try ringing a tuningfork on a beerbelly). My Fernandes APG 80 has more sustain then my 2001 LP Std (honeyburst plaintop, 60's neck). 5 pc. Fernandes with a veneer top vs 1pc mahogany body with maple caps. more sustain.
Anywho as a carpenter/joiner (in my spare time) I support wood grades. but there is no such thing as tonewood dictating tone (TAONWOULD).
On a solid body electric guitar, if the wood is resonating, it's stealing energy from the pickup and the pickup isn't resonating. This is Physics 101.
On a solid body electric guitar, I would argue you want the wood that resonates the least... that sustains the least, to avoid stealing that energy from the pickups.
Which is why in tests, when they have replaced the solid body of the electric guitar with a steel beam, it sustains forever.
(Forever is an exaggeration, but much, much longer than a wooden body electric guitar).
It's also why hollow body and semi-hollow-body electric guitars tend to have poor sustain.
If you dampen the strings over the pickup so that they dont ring, and then knocks on the back ov the body of the guitar, don't you get some signal from the pickups? Isn't that knock the sound of strings and wood resonating, fed back to the strings via the bridge, even if the pickups supposedly just picks up the strings movement in the magnetic field?
Do you strum and knock on your guitar at the same time?
Does the wood that resonates more help the strings vibrate longer? “Sustain”?.
According to physics, the less the body moves, the more energy stays in the string. Whether a musician actually wants that is another question altogether.
I challenge you to google "electric violin". Oops no wood.
Whether or not the wood has an impact it has to be so minute to be rendered inconsequential by the environment it is captured in. In other words, it cannot be discerned live with a band, nor can it be discerned in a mix of a song. So arguing about it is pointless.
As a guitarist who is currently looking for a high end investment, PRS are still and will now always remain at the bottom of my list. PRS, like many company owners eg.Egobshite Musk, needs to be kept busy in his garden as everything they do destroys confidence in their brand.
Play an all-mahogany Les paul and one with a Maple cap. Identical Strats with Maple Vs Rosewood fretboard. He may not have stated his argument effectively but tone woods matter in electric guitars. Nowhere near as much as in acoustic instruments though. He is famous for saying "Everything the string touches is God" which is also very true. Everything from the metal composition of bridges and saddles to nut materials. An even larger impact of materials on an electric guitar is the way it feels. Sustain and resonance etc. Hardtail vs tremolo.. Some builders spend so much effort choosing materials that resonate and sustain, they wind up creating a guitar that to me sounds more like a piano. Talk to vintage Telecaster fans and they will tell you part of the tone and charm of a vintage tele lies in the thin metal bridge. Thanks for posting this video!
you cannot prove that. there are many many things that matter so much more than wood. the amp is more important. the pedals are more important, the pickup are more important
Tone wood is a myth in electric guitar. Too much PROOF on youtube. With the all air guitar, concrete guitar, 2x4 guitar, pencil guitar, aluminum guitar, plastic, etc etc etc etc etc etc
@@TedSchoenling Plug a Les Paul then a 339 with identical pickups into the same amp. If you can't hear the difference see a doctor.
@@TedSchoenling Actually you can. You can also go do this experiment yourself at a guitar store. Several videos even of the same guitars with different fretboard woods where maple sounds quite a bit brighter. Dont let facts get in your way though