Titebond and hide glue both cure to a glass like structure, bonding two pieces of wood into one. It's not like strips of rubber. The only difference between a 1 piece and 4 piece body is aesthetics.
My Gibson Firebird V is an 11 piece sandwich of wood and it sustains like you wouldn't believe. Yea it's neck through, which helps, but the neck/center itself is 9 pieces glued together.
May we take a moment and appreciate what this guy does? He cuts guitars, he buys lots of guitars, amps, pedals, pickups, different strings etc...just to give us the knowledge and facts for free, meanwhile costing him big bucks. Cheers up, mate! As a thank you i like on all videos and watch em until the end as a way to return the favor. Keep up the good work and we will keep supporting you. All the best from Bulgaria!
If you were constantly buying guitars and losing money, he wouldn't be smiling all the time. Either he can afford to buy stuff to try, or he makes enough from RUclips and t-shirts to cover the cost.
Actually I'd think it's 40,124.30 now, lol! Edit: oops excuse me, thought that was a comma (,) not a period (.). Never read posts while riding a bus that's rattling and banging along on a bumpy road. All ye see are a blur as the phone (and ye) gets rattled up/down.
I've been saying this for years. The bridge affects 95% of the sustain along with the density of it's metal composition. Fixed bridges sustain longer than floating since the springs absorb string oscillation. The density of the wood the bridge rests on will give or take a negligible amount(denser wood=longer) since soft wood resonates and absorbs string oscillation (energy). It's simple physics.
That depends on what your goals are and the metal composition. Cheaper Floyd Rose bridges have softer metal whereas the Original FR has hardened metal and critical contact points. You can also buy thicker blocks for these tremolos which also help sustain since more metal makes oscillation absorption from this bridge more difficult, hence increased sustain.
@@JD-mn7sv I have original FR. When I bend a string and do a vibrato after my tone dies too soon, so I have to hit the string multiple times in 1 vibrato that it lasts and it's annoying.
It's normal to lose sustain after a string bend regardless of bridge, especially after returning to the original note. Keep in mind when you bend a string you are increasing the pitch which means string oscillation is faster. That stored energy while bending up, now dissipates once the string returns to it's original pitch. Add to that the sustain of that string has now opened back up further decreasing sustain. This is why bending up sounds more even in volume, but releasing a bend tends to warrant an extra pluck depending on note duration.
Back before this debate was a “thing”, I thought it was a no brainer. Once I dove into it and watched all these tests, I eventually came to this conclusion. The parts of the guitar most responsible for your sound are the nut, saddle, pickups and most importantly, your technique. The reason you buy an expensive guitar is because the attention to detail means it’ll be more stable....tuning and intonation will stay put and your setups will last. Fret ends won’t poke out as much and often times it’ll feel better to play which will, in turn, make you play better. Not always but often. Not only that but you buy into a company’s legacy when you buy one of their best instruments. My American made fenders and martins (this is a different story...wood matters more here) are very inspiring to play because I’m strumming an instrument which has a storied lineage with roots tracing back not only to some of the most significant events in popular music but our country’s history as well. Don’t buy a high end solid body electric because you think the mahogany is going to sound better. Buy it because you want one...because it feels good to play...and because, in some weird way, it connects you to some of the greatest musical minds who’ve ever lived. And you know what? If you don’t wanna shell out the cash or somehow feel that these companies are “ripping you off” by charging what they do, buy something cheaper. There are so many great offerings under $500 nowadays, it’s almost mind-boggling.
What's crazy about this is my cheapest guitar is actually built better than the one I paid 6x the price for. It's heavier, body is thicker, notes sustain longer, it's got a 1 piece maple neck with figuring and some striping. It stays in tune better and has more overall playability. The bridge is made better and returns to pitch or whatever its called. The thing is amazing. E Especially for the $24 I paid for it in that auction! 😁
I play lots of instruments from piano to guitar and drums. As a musician, I have never played a more expensive instrument because of it's "lineage"--forgive me but I can't think of anything better to say than "that is stupid". I play an instrument that responds to my playing style and delivered the tone I need. Sometimes (where wood is involved), that means playing an older instrument because it has resonated and cured and "played in" over time. Buying and playing something for it's "storied lineage" has nothing to do with music and everything to do with ego and hubris.
@@jayz6008 yup me too ive been telling ppl for a while now ... also for tone ... wood isnt magnetic so unless your pups are truly microphonic , forget it
I heard it completely differently. For me, the low end boosted as the body got smaller. Maybe it did go more into the low-mid bands and my ears pick that up better?
@@KeithBlade We're kidding, dude. It's obvious that cutting away parts of an acoustic guitar will deprive it of its resonance. I get the impression that you're genuinely trying to help, so no hard feelings, okay?
That is probably the best way to look at it. And, if you got one you are happy with, don't compare, ever - don't go looking for "greener grass" - because it's an neverending endeavour :)
Les Paul already demonstrated this with a paper mache guitar, playing with real musicians, no one knew the difference. There seemed to be some skepticism regarding the concept of a solid body guitar verses a hollow body such as the old f hole guitars. This was when electric guitars were first being experimented with.
You really need a warning on this. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, for fear of having dreams about a smiling guy with a chainsaw coming after my guitars. Oh, jeez, it's gonna be a long night...
I thought to myself, "surely he's not going to REALLY cut that guitar up" and then ZZZZZZZZZ he does. I had to push my eyes back into my head and pick my jaw up off of the floor. Oh, the PAIN. lol
Hey at least he didn't do that with a $5k+ American Fender...or did he...?! (Frantically scrolls back video, no sign of the headstock, oh no!, checks the description, YES!) A Squier Affinity Strat. Ok, couldn't get much lower than that except perhaps a Starcaster. You can rest easy. ...Altho my 2 modded Starcasters may have nightmares tonight. LOL
@@DarrellBraunGuitar I fully expect a video where you put that back together in some artistic fashion, so get those bits out of the trash. Frankenfretless ?
How did it destroy the myth? The heaviest guitar sustained the most. I don’t know how he comes to the conclusion when the data shows it did have a consistent effect on sustain
Not sure if anyone picked up on this, but what seems to make the difference is the distribution of the mass of the body in terms of how even it is around the pickups. Thus, what you saw in the data and heard in the tone is a curvilinear U-Shaped effect. Greater sustain (and tone) the more even the bodyweight around the pickups, less sustain/tone the more uneven the mass around the pickups. The visual and audio data support it in this case.
Well, after this at least you know those strap-locks and locking tuners you added aren't gonna change your tone! :p The guitar did become slightly more "mid/upper-mid" focused as I mentioned in the video, but the EQ charts show that it still had a nice usable balance across all frequencies :)
Small changes like those (even big changes like cutting chunks of wood) are pretty safe for the tone. The big differences are between wood species and maybe in the bridge
He's the coolest, chillest guitar dude on here dude that's why I like him man i don't need cheesy bros tryin get some laughs, i need my guy DB he's the man chill gets to the point cool accent and just a likeable guy, keep rockin Darrell!
That one wackyJim Carrey-esque bespectacled Canadian guitar dude on You Tube is very knowledgeable about guitar equipment and has some great reviews, but his guitar expertise is often marred by his hyper facial gesticulations and sudden jolting body movements, which I find overbearing at times. I understand the appeal, but it's just not my cuppa tea.
I’m guessing the strap was why the sustain went up for the last cut. Mass helps with sustain a little bit, but only because it makes it harder for your body to dampen the vibrations. The strap isolates the guitar from your body, so it meets less resistance.
Interesting comparison Darrell. Thanks. It's really illuminating and really silences the BS discussions and claims about "tone woods". Your point about the feeling and resonance against your body is more meaningful when choosing a guitar. Thanks much mate!
Do you think it is a fair comparison using a Strat??? The Tremolo keeps the strings suspended and the bridge not in the wood like a non Trem guitar!! Might be an interesting second examination.
"Weight" or "size" in my experience only comes up (intentionally or not) in regards sustain as a surrogate for density - e.g., a 10 lb Les Paul vs. a 8 lb Les Paul - same size but very different density, and some argue different sustain. Further, the resonance that might matter is probably most centered on the bulk of material between the headstock and the bridge, including the density of the neck, with the rest of the guitar contributing less to sustain. The question would be: would a very dense-wood bodied guitar have more or less sustain than a very light-wood bodied guitar - of the same size.
@@bobboitt3126 I think it is likely important to also consider the bridge type in head-to-head comparisons, like string-thru tele vs Les paul style ("Tone Pro" is probably not the right word since that is a brand name). I think that Paul Reed Smith is correct when he says that guitars are subtractive... if that is correct, I suspect that LPs are probably warmer because the highest treble frequencies are lost due to the softer density of the mahogany. Since you are the LP owner here, what do you think?
@@isodoublet Also we are giving no consideration to the direction of the wood's grain with regard to whether or not it is parallel with the strings (of course it is the neck covers most of the distance between the nut and bridge). Important to note: I am not a physicist and I don't have a clue what I am talking about!
A Stratocaster is probably not the best guitar to test this concept on, since the springs in the vibrato bridge tend to dampen the sustain already. A hard tail guitar like Telecaster or a Les Paul would be a much better test.
This doesn't make sense. Dampened sustain doesn't matter so long as the tests remain on the same equipment. Here's a vague analogy to help you understand: 200% of 100 is 200. 200% of 10 is 20. Guess what? The ratio is still 2/1 despite using a smaller number in the second calculation (Purposefully did this to help draw the connection of sustain that isn't dampened vs sustain that is dampened). no matter what the initial number we multiply is, its still getting multiplied by 2. This is what we call a *control* (the type of guitar would be the control here since this video only uses one guitar) and is why we are able to make accurate measurements while having a *variable* (a variable is something that can change, root of the word bring vary which basically means different), in this case the independent variable (the variable we chAnge i.e. watering grass with different liquids) being how much weight is cut off, which determines the outcome of the dependent variable (the variable that changes based on the conditions we apply i.e. how well the grass grows based on what liquid was used to water it) which in this case is the sustain time.
@@SchielMusic what does it matter? This video is determining how weight impacts sustain. Decoupled or dampened or whatever it may be there was still a correlation between dropping mass and losing sustain. The % of sustain lost based on the % of weight cut will be the same.
@@XIIImmoralist It matters because if we're testing the effect of increased mass on sustain, it's better to eliminate the additional variable of the springs in the bridge. If mass really does increase the sustain, it should be MUCH more noticeable on a hard tail guitar.
@@SchielMusic but that's the point of using the guitar as the control, which leads back to my original statement to where it doesn't matter as long as he continues to do this test *on this guitar and this guitar only* which he does. Edit: the percentages stay the same and are accurate so long as this control is kept
I was always skeptical about weight and tone woods ever since i was a teenager in the mid 90's. You just confirmed my suspicions with this experiment. Thank you so much.
Great video. This initiatives help a lot to put an end to many unscientific conceptions regarding guitars and their construction. May I suggest you another topic? Tele bridge stringing: through bridge vs through body
I was wondering if my new Soloist had more sustain because it's body is bigger and 3 more pounds on average than my Strats. I never noticed a difference, but I thought it was my playing...thanks for the experiment Darrell!
All this reminds me of an old avant-garde classical organist/pianist in Sweden, Karl-Erik Welin who once "played" a grand piano in a televised concert with a chainsaw. He sawed it too scraps during a 10-15 minutes piece (ha!), and actually accidentally cut himself in the leg, so the blood flowed quite visibly. Directly after it he got interviewed and was asked "Oh dear, that didn't wen't very well, you hurt yourself", in which he replied "No, I played a wrong note..." .
Drill some holes across the body thru the sustaining blocks and see if that changes things? Maybe Les Paul was right building the first guitar on a plank of a 2x4? Electric guitars just need a foundation to bolt down the mechanical parts. The wood is just window dressing then and a way to boost up the cost? Might save the rainforest by using a cheap composite material.
@@wiseguy9202 Still. Barely an effect is still an effect. So the thesis, that the body has no effect at all is falsified. And who`s to say that it may not be more noticeable with better pickups for example, or when pickups are mounted directly to the body?
Sustain is all about keeping the energy in the string and not radiating it away. For this you want the bridge to be as high impedance as possible, so the pulse traveling down the string is more completely reflected. Trem block mass will matter. The saddles may matter. Also, a "loud" unplugged guitar is losing sustain. The energy to produce the sound comes directly from the strings. One way I was able to massively improve sustain was to block the tremolo bridge very solidly (I used D&D dice, haha). It was pretty much a 50% increase in sustain, although this effect will be less with a better bridge and/or a heavier trem block. Of course I could no longer use the tremolo system that way, but I was sampling the guitar rather than playing it in the conventional manner, so that was fine.
Szten I think I could *probably* reliably tell the difference, but not which one was the “heavier” guitar. They just sounded different, kinda like maybe the same kind of difference you’d get between two strats that came off the factory on different days or something. Detectable, but nothing to worry about.
After seeing guitars made from cigar boxes....oil cans....shovels....2x4 lumber....etc etc....and they all sounded pretty good...I decided that as far as electric guitars are concerned....the wood really doesn't make much difference. Mahogany, Alder, Ash.....it really doesn't matter that much. Another myth that I believed for years is that heavy string gauges give you better tone....they really don't. Now, before anybody goes on a rant that I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about....don't waste your time. It's been proven.
I will say I heard a noticeable difference in the bass. The full body seemed to sustain the bass a lot more than the cut down version. If that is real and not an internet artifact it would make some sense. If the body was going to affect something it would be more in the bass because they are lower frequencies. What would be really interesting is a way to test/ tune the body to have harmonics that alter the sound. The body / neck etc. will have harmonic frequencies that are inherent in the mass/ geometry. So the right cuts should reinforce some frequencies. It would not be a denser is better but a "certain geometry/ mass" is better for some frequencies. So it would not be a general rule but a guitar maker could tune a body/neck to make a given guitar "friendlier" to certain tonalities. Of course to go crazy with that the "ideal" would be a guitar with six sections that each resonated with it's corresponding string to sweeten the tone in a specific way. At this point even guitar freaks will think I am crazy!
You can hear in the video that the more of the guitar is removed, the less bass there is and the sound becomes thinner and more thock-y. You can see it if you look at the EQs from 8:40 onward: The more the guitar is removed, the faster and more the bass fades after playing a note.
I'm thinking that possibly the increased sustain that players believe exists in a heavier instrument, is not a function of the total mass at all but rather a function of the density of the wood itself. I would love to see this demonstration, swapping the neck and electronics between a very heavy strat body and very light strat body. Obviously the woods would be different and this may the source of increased sustain that may (or may not) be real..Cheers and Thanks
Bravo to you. There are audiophile sites that insist on the noticeable difference between types of power cable or usb patch cable but curiously none of those people seem to have the basic technology for actually measuring and displaying waveforms of the end results of the different setups. I love this video, thank you!
Darrel, --- [1] you have provided a masterpiece of a vid. Finally, after 65 years of rock-n-roll, guitar size & weight does make a difference. --- [2] Thus, for many years, with my Steinberger-style, small-body, headless guitars, I have been correct. My most lovely, light, small, & beautiful headless [a] two Steinberger Spirit GT-Pro Deluxes (HSH; one white & one black) & [b] one Hohner G3T (HSS) with replacement Seymour Duncan pickups are genius strokes on my part. My back appreciates these three wonders of practicality ... & now tone & sustain. --- [3] I almost feel like a genius. :) :) :) Richard
If more weight made guitars sound better, we'd be gluing blocks of lead to the body. If higher density made guitars sound better, we'd better make the body out of cast iron or steel. Plywood can get surprisingly heavy too, especially if it's made out of very thin aircraft grade sheets. If lower weight made the guitar sound better, we'd be better off dumping wood. Funny that some people don't like the sound of a metallic nut, but most everyone seems happy with metallic frets! Where are my bone frets?! I am left wanting a stainburger style guitar.
Indeed, a lot of the discourse is contradictory. I hear people say things like "this guitar is made of a super dense wood and is really heavy, it must have great sustain" but they'll also say "this guitar is so light and resonant, it must have great sustain"
Great video. Really insightful test results (although I am not too surprised). I also think you did an excellent job putting the results into perspective, especially for a topic that can bring out strong emotions on both sides of the argument.
Interesting!!! Having this mythbuster issue solved can you try a lighter weight guitar with Temperament Fret vs. a normal weight that is to test what really causes sustain to improve significantly
Hot take: vary "weight" not by cutting off the body, but by comparing solid body vs hollow body for a more comprehensive sustain test. e.g. solid Les Paul vs chambered Les Paul, or a full hollow archtop vs an archtop with a solid block down the middle. The cavities in the body should affect how the guitar resonates (particularly down the centre of the body/through the neck) which may lead to a more significant sustain difference!
wonderful video on sustain...truly eye-opening experiment. very well done. excellent experiment technique..thank you sir, very informative not to mention very brave! Musta been fun cutting it up though...
By the way I think you drew the exact wrong conclusion from the data. To me the data shows that sustain goes down directly as you take away mass. It’s not by very much but it does go down. Tone is all about chasing that little edge and clearly more mass gives a little edge to sustain
Indeed. Anyone don't notice the difference, pay attention to the analyzer of picking test. You should notice that the attenuation of low frequencies level (below 100 kHz) is so fast as to cut the body. Human ears are more sensitive than we think. There are many times being misled but don't think, feel. And yes, tone chasing is the accumulation of detailed things. When you try mixing music, you can realize that the subtle things involved a huge difference on the result. But, if you feel comfortable to playing your guitar whatever your guitar is, it's okay! keep playing!!!
Steinberger proved your point on a mass produced scale almost 40 years ago, yet I’m glad you did this experiment to illustrate the relatively minor changes to body shape and mass and did so in an unambiguous manner. Thank you for making the effort.
I imagine the difference is due to the effecting wood being mostly contained around the contact points, i.e. bridge and nut. Much farther away from those areas the effects would be dampened out of the picture. A better test would be to repeat it all with a heavy dense strat body with the same hardware transfered over, then compare both sets if grafts
I don't think the weight of the whole instrument matters, but the density of the wood. A more dense kind of wood is probably heavier also. Like plywood compared to mahogany for example. Maybe you should compare bodys made from different kinds of wood.
Its funny you did this video. I had seen John Mayall and the bluesbreakers. And John Mayall plays a strat configuration guitar with a basically chopped up body and is really small. Hearing it being played it diddnt seemed it didnt loose any sustain and still sounded great
This is what I've been saying for years. It does not affect sustain, the construction does. Only the pitch of the tone is different due to amounts of wood but the difference is very small. So if you want deeper/darker sounding guitar go with bigger body.
I always think that “heavier guitar sustain more” myth comes from the density of the wood not the body shape. It already doesn’t make sense cutting some wood out of your guitar affects the sustain since you can’t change the density. In theory bigger bodies may create richer lower harmonics but i dont think it is audible in a guitar scale. I am not a luthier but in my experience center line which starts from saddles through the center block and neck is more important then the sides. Ofc I am specifically talking about electric guitars.
PLEASE READ: After watching these 2 videos i stumbled across THE answer about sustain. ITS THE NECK THAT MATTERS MOST. Your other video showed the Ibanez sustaining the shortest. Even shorter than the other guitar with a trem. It initially made me think that the 2 vs 6 point trem was what made such a big difference long before it was mentioned in the video. Then i played a Kotzen telecaster. it was then that i realized it was the neck that was the biggest factor in sustain. Which was why the RG in your test had the lowest sustain. it has a paper thin neck. FATTEST neck i have ever played. SHOCKINGLY LONG SUSTAIN. Literally shocking how long this thing sustains. A little noodling seemed to confirm this. I have 9 guitars and they all seemed to sustain according to neck thickness and whether or not they had a trem. I cant believe i never noticed this before. It honestly has WAY less to do with the body than i ever realized
That isn't necessarily a fair comparison. I have to believe that if you used that guitar on gigs for months and then chopped off 5 pounds and took it to a gig -- you'd notice a difference in sound.
the main factor affecting sustain is how much vibrational energy is lost or absorbed. using harder materials for saddles, bridges, and nuts ensures that most of the vibrational energy stays in the string. checking out the PRS rules of tone is a good start to understanding this
Well, you're just removing mass, without regard to density or resonance, and a waveform view tells little about either sustain or tone; you can measure amplitude against time, but unless you use a calibrated machine to do the picking, you can't even be sure your pickstrokes are matched. Next, tone and sustain are complex phenomena, because we're studying a system with a feedback loop; we have a vibrating string attached to a neck at one end and a body at the other; pluck the string and it produces a fundamental and a series of harmonic partials. (google Karplus-Strong for details) These overtones and the fundamental all sustain for different lengths of time and density (or rigidity) and resonance of the body and neck affect both to varying degrees at all the different frequencies, absorbing here and reinforcing there, resulting in what we refer to as tone.The tool for measuring that is a waterfall plot, but you'd need very fine calibration, because the differences are very small on an electric guitar, though very much measurable. The key is that you hear the most difference in the E string, which is not coincidentally the largest, heaviest string, thus driving the neck and body with the most kinetic energy, which feeds back to the string through the nut and bridge. Generally, greater rigidity/less resonance equals more sustain, but the devil's in the details. HTH
yeah you beat me to it. w/o knowing the resonate frequencies, we don't have a great basis for comparison... that said, i don't think it was a total waste, or the worst "experiment" i've seen on YT. he produced interesting results, within a limited format.
Check this out: only old people fall for the tonewood myth on electric guitars. It's all about the pickups, amp and speakers. And in recording, even Mic placement matters far more than woods.
Very cool experiment!!!! Great! It seems to me that lesser wood is more sustain if you look at the waveforms! You could take snips between 3rd and 4th second of the recordings and analyze them for RMS levels! It seems there is more energy in that region on the last takes... If you send me the wavs of your recording or share them on the net I could test that! Please share the raw data so us crazy guitar fools can analyze further!! Maybe I could do a test where we put a guitar body in a vice to make the body weightier... Myths are busted right here!!!!
Well I don't know if people are deaf and blind, but you can clearly head how the low end disappears and guitar starts to sound thin. On the graphic equalizer you can see the reduction of low frequencies between 100-200 Hz. Not that it's something huge but you can definitely hear and see that. Also a question which one you prefer is another topic.
Due to issues with my spine, guitar weight as well as physical size is really important to me. I now have both Tele and a Strat style guitars made with paulownia wood bodies by Gordon Smith here in the U.K. Both come in under 6lbs and both are absolutely stunning both in playability and in tone. They look amazing and, for the quality level you’re getting, they’re great value for money too. I love ‘em!
Darrell, you forgot to define what "heavy" means. For example, does heavy mean dense or expensive? A LesPaul made with heavy/dense wood will sound and sustain differently, than a LP made out of basswood and chambered or a semi-hollow LP. However, will the average listener notice? Of course not. Just guitar geeks like us, geeking out on goofy guitar nonsense. Later nerds \m/
YES!! the question is; can this difference be heard over the noise of clanking beer glasses, fist fights and drunk audiences?? Hey! and that is just while playing in the church praise group....it is a rough church!!!
I'm so sorry to be 'that person' to bring up Spongebob in a totally unrelated situation but cutting away parts of that guitar bit by bit reminded me of that Halloween episode of Spongebob where he gets pieces and corners of him lopped off to achieve a certain look for his costume
Darrell, Here’s a great experiment; Compare 2 bodies using identical hardware. First body, a block of steel. Second body, the strongest foam you can find or cardboard. That would really interesting.
Hey Darrell, why not glue it back together and bust the myth that multi-piece bodies aren't as good for tone?
Good idea!
I'll add it to my list :)
The original guitar was many pieces to begin with. It makes zero difference in either tone or sustain.
Actually, glue isn't resonant. It does affect the instrument.
Titebond and hide glue both cure to a glass like structure, bonding two pieces of wood into one. It's not like strips of rubber. The only difference between a 1 piece and 4 piece body is aesthetics.
My Gibson Firebird V is an 11 piece sandwich of wood and it sustains like you wouldn't believe. Yea it's neck through, which helps, but the neck/center itself is 9 pieces glued together.
"That's when I learned people listen with their eyes!""
- Les Paul, 1940.
How is this not more upvoted?
it’s the most upvoted
Isaac Williams no it’s not there’s one with 400 and one with 1.4K, and that just looking at the first five.
Exactly. Most of the discussion about "tonewoods" with electric guitars is snake oil.
Tone wood and pickups are the 2 biggest wastes of time.
Err Darrell, ..when I said you could borrow my guitar....
😂😂😂👍
@@onesource9527 Doh!!
Hahateeheeteehee...gafawww
😆😜
LMAO
I think it's because it's red. Red guitars have the best tone.
DA RED SONDZ CULA
Joe. Walsh always said that.
Never give up with artificial reasons.
Yep
OI DIZ HUMIE HAZ A BIG NOB!
RED GOEZ FASTAH N HAZ KILLA TONZ
May we take a moment and appreciate what this guy does? He cuts guitars, he buys lots of guitars, amps, pedals, pickups, different strings etc...just to give us the knowledge and facts for free, meanwhile costing him big bucks. Cheers up, mate! As a thank you i like on all videos and watch em until the end as a way to return the favor. Keep up the good work and we will keep supporting you. All the best from Bulgaria!
Absolutely man! I was actually hoping to do some work to shape my left handed Jackson . Now I know I can afford to cut some off.
Cheers indeed
If you were constantly buying guitars and losing money, he wouldn't be smiling all the time. Either he can afford to buy stuff to try, or he makes enough from RUclips and t-shirts to cover the cost.
He makes more money from the video
How many guitars do you have?
Darrell: 40.125
Actually I'd think it's 40,124.30 now, lol!
Edit: oops excuse me, thought that was a comma (,) not a period (.). Never read posts while riding a bus that's rattling and banging along on a bumpy road. All ye see are a blur as the phone (and ye) gets rattled up/down.
Always one short of enough.
@Florian Späth 40 + 0.125
Because he just trimmed this guitar into pieces
4
Lol
That’s the most extreme relic job I’ve seen someone do. It must be worth a lot of money now.
HAHAAH
:)
I've seen some pretty heavy relic jobs, but this is a whole new level.
I've been saying this for years. The bridge affects 95% of the sustain along with the density of it's metal composition. Fixed bridges sustain longer than floating since the springs absorb string oscillation. The density of the wood the bridge rests on will give or take a negligible amount(denser wood=longer) since soft wood resonates and absorbs string oscillation (energy). It's simple physics.
So there is no other way than sustain pedal to have longer sustain on floating bridge?
That depends on what your goals are and the metal composition. Cheaper Floyd Rose bridges have softer metal whereas the Original FR has hardened metal and critical contact points. You can also buy thicker blocks for these tremolos which also help sustain since more metal makes oscillation absorption from this bridge more difficult, hence increased sustain.
@@JD-mn7sv I have original FR. When I bend a string and do a vibrato after my tone dies too soon, so I have to hit the string multiple times in 1 vibrato that it lasts and it's annoying.
It's normal to lose sustain after a string bend regardless of bridge, especially after returning to the original note. Keep in mind when you bend a string you are increasing the pitch which means string oscillation is faster. That stored energy while bending up, now dissipates once the string returns to it's original pitch. Add to that the sustain of that string has now opened back up further decreasing sustain. This is why bending up sounds more even in volume, but releasing a bend tends to warrant an extra pluck depending on note duration.
@@JD-mn7sv How do u get those long ass sustained Nothing Else Mattere bends at the end of the song? :D
Alternate title: How To Make A Travelcaster.
Lol
do heavier gutarists sustain longer?
Yes. Havent you seen jared dines video on a phat bass tone??
td tom lol or just eat more ?
I’m pretty big and I can only last a few seconds
alas, it is too late to ask B B King or Leslie West... or even cousin IZ.
I have an '84 Les Paul and I know the back pain sustains longer. I think the tree they cut it from was petrified.
*to show you the power of flex tape I sawed this guitar in half*
That's a lot of damage
But does the flex tape add more sustain? Hmm......
@@JohnSmith-ns4ip thinking emoji
HA! Good one.
NOW THATS A LOT OF DAMAGE!
How to convert your strat to a steinberger
Squierberger !
I was going to say this!
Bite your tongue. That's like chipping away at a rotting tree stump until you have an exquisite marble statue.
Nice
thinking the same
Back before this debate was a “thing”, I thought it was a no brainer. Once I dove into it and watched all these tests, I eventually came to this conclusion. The parts of the guitar most responsible for your sound are the nut, saddle, pickups and most importantly, your technique.
The reason you buy an expensive guitar is because the attention to detail means it’ll be more stable....tuning and intonation will stay put and your setups will last. Fret ends won’t poke out as much and often times it’ll feel better to play which will, in turn, make you play better. Not always but often. Not only that but you buy into a company’s legacy when you buy one of their best instruments. My American made fenders and martins (this is a different story...wood matters more here) are very inspiring to play because I’m strumming an instrument which has a storied lineage with roots tracing back not only to some of the most significant events in popular music but our country’s history as well. Don’t buy a high end solid body electric because you think the mahogany is going to sound better. Buy it because you want one...because it feels good to play...and because, in some weird way, it connects you to some of the greatest musical minds who’ve ever lived. And you know what? If you don’t wanna shell out the cash or somehow feel that these companies are “ripping you off” by charging what they do, buy something cheaper. There are so many great offerings under $500 nowadays, it’s almost mind-boggling.
manifestgtr gibberish. I make nuts out of 12 different materials. It’s the fit that makes the only difference.
What's crazy about this is my cheapest guitar is actually built better than the one I paid 6x the price for. It's heavier, body is thicker, notes sustain longer, it's got a 1 piece maple neck with figuring and some striping. It stays in tune better and has more overall playability. The bridge is made better and returns to pitch or whatever its called. The thing is amazing. E Especially for the $24 I paid for it in that auction! 😁
@@JC-11111 he said the fit... so u assume your cheap plastic nut had a good fit? And make this conclusion after a single test?
I play lots of instruments from piano to guitar and drums. As a musician, I have never played a more expensive instrument because of it's "lineage"--forgive me but I can't think of anything better to say than "that is stupid". I play an instrument that responds to my playing style and delivered the tone I need. Sometimes (where wood is involved), that means playing an older instrument because it has resonated and cured and "played in" over time. Buying and playing something for it's "storied lineage" has nothing to do with music and everything to do with ego and hubris.
@@JC-11111 lol:) we all own that guitar and resent the little bastard for being so good:)
That looks totally sick! Can you test on a 1959 gold top Les Paul? I'm thinking of doing this mod.
Currency Lad oh no
@@drakey27 Refin of a Burst, so it's basically worthless anyway
This is what expensive experiment means
Do it with a 59 gold top Les Paul vs 68 strat with that RUclips money!
You should use wood glue and put it back together to look like Frankenstein stitches
That's do-able with biscuit joints. ;)
That would be cool
To have real franken-guitar it should be nailed or stapled together
Sounded like the low end thinned out a bit as the body got smaller.
attack yes, but it resolve at the the same level
I had always said this and I even posted about it on a forum and most people called me crazy.
@@jayz6008 yup me too ive been telling ppl for a while now ... also for tone ... wood isnt magnetic so unless your pups are truly microphonic , forget it
He picked the one note different. Nothing changed..
I heard it completely differently. For me, the low end boosted as the body got smaller. Maybe it did go more into the low-mid bands and my ears pick that up better?
I guess we can say that you've made CAstratocaster
This needs to be pinned! Amazing comment!
Winner.
Marat not enough people got your joke
Best comment ever, period!!!
I did it on my acoustic guitar and there is a huge difference!;) Studio one❤️
@@KeithBlade lol....😮
@@KeithBlade
I'm not sure that I believe your assertion. Please cite your references.
@@KeithBlade We're kidding, dude.
It's obvious that cutting away parts of an acoustic guitar will deprive it of its resonance.
I get the impression that you're genuinely trying to help, so no hard feelings, okay?
@@KeithBlade I think you may have missed that he was being a bit funny 😉
This can off course only be done on acoustic guitar if an acoustic saw is used...
When I was running a music store my opinion was always “If it sounds better to you,
then it sounds better.”
That is probably the best way to look at it.
And, if you got one you are happy with, don't compare, ever - don't go looking for "greener grass" - because it's an neverending endeavour :)
Les Paul already demonstrated this with a paper mache guitar, playing with real musicians, no one knew the difference. There seemed to be some skepticism regarding the concept of a solid body guitar verses a hollow body such as the old f hole guitars. This was when electric guitars were first being experimented with.
You really need a warning on this. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, for fear of having dreams about a smiling guy with a chainsaw coming after my guitars. Oh, jeez, it's gonna be a long night...
😂 Keep your guitars close to you tonight! 😄😄😄
I thought to myself, "surely he's not going to REALLY cut that guitar up" and then ZZZZZZZZZ he does. I had to push my eyes back into my head and pick my jaw up off of the floor. Oh, the PAIN. lol
Hey at least he didn't do that with a $5k+ American Fender...or did he...?! (Frantically scrolls back video, no sign of the headstock, oh no!, checks the description, YES!) A Squier Affinity Strat. Ok, couldn't get much lower than that except perhaps a Starcaster. You can rest easy.
...Altho my 2 modded Starcasters may have nightmares tonight. LOL
@@DarrellBraunGuitar I fully expect a video where you put that back together in some artistic fashion, so get those bits out of the trash. Frankenfretless ?
@@TheGhostGuitars Actually a Starcaster is more of a guitar then an Affinity. It's full size , unlike the thinner Affinity.
I love how this demonstration destroyed the sustain myth ! That was so informative !
How did it destroy the myth? The heaviest guitar sustained the most. I don’t know how he comes to the conclusion when the data shows it did have a consistent effect on sustain
Not sure if anyone picked up on this, but what seems to make the difference is the distribution of the mass of the body in terms of how even it is around the pickups. Thus, what you saw in the data and heard in the tone is a curvilinear U-Shaped effect. Greater sustain (and tone) the more even the bodyweight around the pickups, less sustain/tone the more uneven the mass around the pickups. The visual and audio data support it in this case.
After the sawing part ,i involuntarily blow at the screen.😂😂
Well, after this at least you know those strap-locks and locking tuners you added aren't gonna change your tone! :p
The guitar did become slightly more "mid/upper-mid" focused as I mentioned in the video, but the EQ charts show that it still had a nice usable balance across all frequencies :)
white guitars sound better. ask Billy Corgan 😄
Small changes like those (even big changes like cutting chunks of wood) are pretty safe for the tone. The big differences are between wood species and maybe in the bridge
what is the white stuff in the video?
@@tdtom1376 Canada
@@landonbailey Oh! Sorry, it's summer here in New Zealand. glad someone caught my being cheeky.
He's the coolest, chillest guitar dude on here dude that's why I like him man i don't need cheesy bros tryin get some laughs, i need my guy DB he's the man chill gets to the point cool accent and just a likeable guy, keep rockin Darrell!
Agreed!
That one wackyJim Carrey-esque bespectacled Canadian guitar dude on You Tube is very knowledgeable about guitar equipment and has some great reviews, but his guitar expertise is often marred by his hyper facial gesticulations and sudden jolting body movements, which I find overbearing at times. I understand the appeal, but it's just not my cuppa tea.
Kudos to Darrell. Man, talk about going the extra mile. What a fantastic video!
I’m guessing the strap was why the sustain went up for the last cut. Mass helps with sustain a little bit, but only because it makes it harder for your body to dampen the vibrations. The strap isolates the guitar from your body, so it meets less resistance.
It makes such a small difference that its not worth worrying about.. you cant tell me how heavy a guitar is just from hearing it.
Interesting comparison Darrell. Thanks. It's really illuminating and really silences the BS discussions and claims about "tone woods". Your point about the feeling and resonance against your body is more meaningful when choosing a guitar. Thanks much mate!
The test that every guitarist wished to see but no guitarist in the world dared to do!!
Do you think it is a fair comparison using a Strat??? The Tremolo keeps the strings suspended and the bridge not in the wood like a non Trem guitar!! Might be an interesting second examination.
Plus the pickups are screwed on a floating plastic plate.
Yess! Thank you, sir! I'd love to see this brilliant idea come to life.
A wax potted pickup also changes sustain qualities
"Weight" or "size" in my experience only comes up (intentionally or not) in regards sustain as a surrogate for density - e.g., a 10 lb Les Paul vs. a 8 lb Les Paul - same size but very different density, and some argue different sustain. Further, the resonance that might matter is probably most centered on the bulk of material between the headstock and the bridge, including the density of the neck, with the rest of the guitar contributing less to sustain. The question would be: would a very dense-wood bodied guitar have more or less sustain than a very light-wood bodied guitar - of the same size.
Im going to guess NO. I had a pine telecaster that sustained just as long as my Mahogany/maple top Les Paul. Pine is no where near as dense.
@@bobboitt3126 I think it is likely important to also consider the bridge type in head-to-head comparisons, like string-thru tele vs Les paul style ("Tone Pro" is probably not the right word since that is a brand name).
I think that Paul Reed Smith is correct when he says that guitars are subtractive... if that is correct, I suspect that LPs are probably warmer because the highest treble frequencies are lost due to the softer density of the mahogany.
Since you are the LP owner here, what do you think?
The overall acoustic impedance of the body is effectively a function of mass, actually. The density comes out integrated over the volume.
@@isodoublet Also we are giving no consideration to the direction of the wood's grain with regard to whether or not it is parallel with the strings (of course it is the neck covers most of the distance between the nut and bridge).
Important to note: I am not a physicist and I don't have a clue what I am talking about!
Grasping onto straws 🤣🤣
(Just kidding)
As a musician, I really appreciate this video.
A Stratocaster is probably not the best guitar to test this concept on, since the springs in the vibrato bridge tend to dampen the sustain already. A hard tail guitar like Telecaster or a Les Paul would be a much better test.
This doesn't make sense. Dampened sustain doesn't matter so long as the tests remain on the same equipment. Here's a vague analogy to help you understand: 200% of 100 is 200. 200% of 10 is 20. Guess what? The ratio is still 2/1 despite using a smaller number in the second calculation (Purposefully did this to help draw the connection of sustain that isn't dampened vs sustain that is dampened). no matter what the initial number we multiply is, its still getting multiplied by 2. This is what we call a *control* (the type of guitar would be the control here since this video only uses one guitar) and is why we are able to make accurate measurements while having a *variable* (a variable is something that can change, root of the word bring vary which basically means different), in this case the independent variable (the variable we chAnge i.e. watering grass with different liquids) being how much weight is cut off, which determines the outcome of the dependent variable (the variable that changes based on the conditions we apply i.e. how well the grass grows based on what liquid was used to water it) which in this case is the sustain time.
@@XIIImmoralist Sorry but I disagree. The springs in the bridge of a stratocaster decouple the strings from the mass of the body.
@@SchielMusic what does it matter? This video is determining how weight impacts sustain. Decoupled or dampened or whatever it may be there was still a correlation between dropping mass and losing sustain. The % of sustain lost based on the % of weight cut will be the same.
@@XIIImmoralist It matters because if we're testing the effect of increased mass on sustain, it's better to eliminate the additional variable of the springs in the bridge. If mass really does increase the sustain, it should be MUCH more noticeable on a hard tail guitar.
@@SchielMusic but that's the point of using the guitar as the control, which leads back to my original statement to where it doesn't matter as long as he continues to do this test *on this guitar and this guitar only* which he does.
Edit: the percentages stay the same and are accurate so long as this control is kept
That poor Fender Elite Stratocaster! Well now you have a travel guitar 😁
its a squier...
That's exactly what I thought!
@@HogGaming9000 i know 😊
Close!
It's a Custom Shop 60s Heavy Relic Strat 😉
@@DarrellBraunGuitar Well you won't get any heavier relic, will you?
you now own the heaviest relic Stratocaster in the world courtesy of curiosity science and a black and decker jigsaw 😂😂😂
And also the lightest.
VERY worn down, lol!
mmmoris1360 Yeah, and wait til the Fender Custom Shop sees this. I can see a Masterbuilt version pushing 10 grand.
I think the neck has more impact to sustain. I have a headless guitar and there is a noticeable difference. Great video.
You should have left it plugged in a recorded it while cutting!
Need tabs
@@wolfelliza7850 also need a cover to follow correct timing
@@きいろ-f8b 21/32 time signature
@@wolfelliza7850 what was this comment about, i forgot lmaoo
@@きいろ-f8b
That's a mystery!
I was always skeptical about weight and tone woods ever since i was a teenager in the mid 90's. You just confirmed my suspicions with this experiment. Thank you so much.
Great video. This initiatives help a lot to put an end to many unscientific conceptions regarding guitars and their construction. May I suggest you another topic? Tele bridge stringing: through bridge vs through body
I was wondering if my new Soloist had more sustain because it's body is bigger and 3 more pounds on average than my Strats. I never noticed a difference, but I thought it was my playing...thanks for the experiment Darrell!
You're not auditioning for Discovery Channel, are you? 😁
All this reminds me of an old avant-garde classical organist/pianist in Sweden, Karl-Erik Welin who once "played" a grand piano in a televised concert with a chainsaw. He sawed it too scraps during a 10-15 minutes piece (ha!), and actually accidentally cut himself in the leg, so the blood flowed quite visibly. Directly after it he got interviewed and was asked "Oh dear, that didn't wen't very well, you hurt yourself", in which he replied "No, I played a wrong note..." .
Now you have a Strandberg!!
Drill some holes across the body thru the sustaining blocks and see if that changes things? Maybe Les Paul was right building the first guitar on a plank of a 2x4? Electric guitars just need a foundation to bolt down the mechanical parts. The wood is just window dressing then and a way to boost up the cost? Might save the rainforest by using a cheap composite material.
The resonance changed as you cut the guitar
What's the difference between resonance and sustain?
@@CesarCordova sustain is the length of the sound. resonance is the composition over overtones.
Barely
@@wiseguy9202 Still. Barely an effect is still an effect. So the thesis, that the body has no effect at all is falsified.
And who`s to say that it may not be more noticeable with better pickups for example, or when pickups are mounted directly to the body?
Barely regarding resonance which mass does play an effect. Tone, not so much.
Love these myth buster videos.
Sustain is all about keeping the energy in the string and not radiating it away. For this you want the bridge to be as high impedance as possible, so the pulse traveling down the string is more completely reflected. Trem block mass will matter. The saddles may matter.
Also, a "loud" unplugged guitar is losing sustain. The energy to produce the sound comes directly from the strings.
One way I was able to massively improve sustain was to block the tremolo bridge very solidly (I used D&D dice, haha). It was pretty much a 50% increase in sustain, although this effect will be less with a better bridge and/or a heavier trem block. Of course I could no longer use the tremolo system that way, but I was sampling the guitar rather than playing it in the conventional manner, so that was fine.
I would glue it back together :D Thank you so much for the great experiment Darrell!!!
I can hear differences in the tone, the 30% body was way thinner than the full body, but of course it was not HUGE
Wondering if you could have heard it in a blind test.
Szten I think I could *probably* reliably tell the difference, but not which one was the “heavier” guitar. They just sounded different, kinda like maybe the same kind of difference you’d get between two strats that came off the factory on different days or something. Detectable, but nothing to worry about.
Absolutely I could hear less lower end when he took off the 30%!
@@Szten I did it in a blind test. Less lower end at 30% less. No question.
@@jimcarter6669 You did it on blind test? How?
“ Oh by the way.....this video was sponsored by Steinberger...”
Love my Steinbergers!!!
After seeing guitars made from cigar boxes....oil cans....shovels....2x4 lumber....etc etc....and they all sounded pretty good...I decided that as far as electric guitars are concerned....the wood really doesn't make much difference. Mahogany, Alder, Ash.....it really doesn't matter that much. Another myth that I believed for years is that heavy string gauges give you better tone....they really don't. Now, before anybody goes on a rant that I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about....don't waste your time. It's been proven.
I will say I heard a noticeable difference in the bass. The full body seemed to sustain the bass a lot more than the cut down version. If that is real and not an internet artifact it would make some sense. If the body was going to affect something it would be more in the bass because they are lower frequencies. What would be really interesting is a way to test/ tune the body to have harmonics that alter the sound. The body / neck etc. will have harmonic frequencies that are inherent in the mass/ geometry. So the right cuts should reinforce some frequencies. It would not be a denser is better but a "certain geometry/ mass" is better for some frequencies. So it would not be a general rule but a guitar maker could tune a body/neck to make a given guitar "friendlier" to certain tonalities. Of course to go crazy with that the "ideal" would be a guitar with six sections that each resonated with it's corresponding string to sweeten the tone in a specific way. At this point even guitar freaks will think I am crazy!
Did the owner of that guitar slug you in the right eye after he simply asked for a neck adjustment?
TonePilot Can you relic my guitar for me?
Um . . . Yes. Yes I can.
Awesome video and you have just upset so many people who will swear the heavier the guitar the "better". LOL
You can hear in the video that the more of the guitar is removed, the less bass there is and the sound becomes thinner and more thock-y. You can see it if you look at the EQs from 8:40 onward: The more the guitar is removed, the faster and more the bass fades after playing a note.
I'm thinking that possibly the increased sustain that players believe exists in a heavier instrument, is not a function of the total mass at all but rather a function of the density of the wood itself. I would love to see this demonstration, swapping the neck and electronics between a very heavy strat body and very light strat body. Obviously the woods would be different and this may the source of increased sustain that may (or may not) be real..Cheers and Thanks
Bravo to you. There are audiophile sites that insist on the noticeable difference between types of power cable or usb patch cable but curiously none of those people seem to have the basic technology for actually measuring and displaying waveforms of the end results of the different setups. I love this video, thank you!
Darrel, --- [1] you have provided a masterpiece of a vid. Finally, after 65 years of rock-n-roll, guitar size & weight does make a difference.
--- [2] Thus, for many years, with my Steinberger-style, small-body, headless guitars, I have been correct. My most lovely, light, small, & beautiful headless [a] two Steinberger Spirit GT-Pro Deluxes (HSH; one white & one black) & [b] one Hohner G3T (HSS) with replacement Seymour Duncan pickups are genius strokes on my part. My back appreciates these three wonders of practicality ... & now tone & sustain.
--- [3] I almost feel like a genius. :) :) :) Richard
Dude, awesome shirt!
I’ll be damned... i was totally expecting a different result,.. huh, wow ok then awesome. Thanks for sacrificing your guitar!
Dan Greving I agree. Thank you for taking one for the team
If more weight made guitars sound better, we'd be gluing blocks of lead to the body. If higher density made guitars sound better, we'd better make the body out of cast iron or steel. Plywood can get surprisingly heavy too, especially if it's made out of very thin aircraft grade sheets. If lower weight made the guitar sound better, we'd be better off dumping wood. Funny that some people don't like the sound of a metallic nut, but most everyone seems happy with metallic frets! Where are my bone frets?!
I am left wanting a stainburger style guitar.
Indeed, a lot of the discourse is contradictory. I hear people say things like "this guitar is made of a super dense wood and is really heavy, it must have great sustain" but they'll also say "this guitar is so light and resonant, it must have great sustain"
You can see right at the end when the recordings trail off that the heavy guitar always had more volume at the end.
Great video. Really insightful test results (although I am not too surprised). I also think you did an excellent job putting the results into perspective, especially for a topic that can bring out strong emotions on both sides of the argument.
Interesting!!!
Having this mythbuster issue solved can you try a lighter weight guitar with Temperament Fret vs. a normal weight
that is to test what really causes sustain to improve significantly
Nigel Tufnel would disagree as a '59 Les Paul would maintain it's sustain even while you go down to the pub.
Hot take: vary "weight" not by cutting off the body, but by comparing solid body vs hollow body for a more comprehensive sustain test. e.g. solid Les Paul vs chambered Les Paul, or a full hollow archtop vs an archtop with a solid block down the middle. The cavities in the body should affect how the guitar resonates (particularly down the centre of the body/through the neck) which may lead to a more significant sustain difference!
Adrian Yong solid body and thinline telecasters definitely have different tone and sustain also
wonderful video on sustain...truly eye-opening experiment. very well done. excellent experiment technique..thank you sir, very informative not to mention very brave! Musta been fun cutting it up though...
Darrel you beat me to it! This was on my list. Great job!!
By the way I think you drew the exact wrong conclusion from the data. To me the data shows that sustain goes down directly as you take away mass. It’s not by very much but it does go down. Tone is all about chasing that little edge and clearly more mass gives a little edge to sustain
And as someone commented, the extra sustain on the last cut was likely due to reducing the context of body and leg as it was resting on the pick guard
Indeed.
Anyone don't notice the difference, pay attention to the analyzer of picking test.
You should notice that the attenuation of low frequencies level (below 100 kHz) is so fast as to cut the body.
Human ears are more sensitive than we think. There are many times being misled but don't think, feel.
And yes, tone chasing is the accumulation of detailed things.
When you try mixing music, you can realize that the subtle things involved a huge difference on the result.
But, if you feel comfortable to playing your guitar whatever your guitar is, it's okay! keep playing!!!
Maybe would've been worth weighing it as you cut it off. Cool video though.
Yes. Darrell should put all the pieces in a pile and provide the weights.
Would love to actually see the change that boiling your strings makes!
Dark_Matter it will djent
Don't be so damned cheap! :-P
Are you for real
Steinberger proved your point on a mass produced scale almost 40 years ago, yet I’m glad you did this experiment to illustrate the relatively minor changes to body shape and mass and did so in an unambiguous manner. Thank you for making the effort.
I imagine the difference is due to the effecting wood being mostly contained around the contact points, i.e. bridge and nut. Much farther away from those areas the effects would be dampened out of the picture. A better test would be to repeat it all with a heavy dense strat body with the same hardware transfered over, then compare both sets if grafts
I don’t think this is what papa roach meant when he said “cut my life into pieces”
🤣😂
I don't think the weight of the whole instrument matters, but the density of the wood. A more dense kind of wood is probably heavier also. Like plywood compared to mahogany for example. Maybe you should compare bodys made from different kinds of wood.
I will not be happy until I hear a concrete guitar
I'm asking out of ignorance...Doesn't more dense suggest heavier? Thanx for replying.
Yes, that's what I meant. :-)
Its funny you did this video. I had seen John Mayall and the bluesbreakers. And John Mayall plays a strat configuration guitar with a basically chopped up body and is really small. Hearing it being played it diddnt seemed it didnt loose any sustain and still sounded great
This is what I've been saying for years. It does not affect sustain, the construction does. Only the pitch of the tone is different due to amounts of wood but the difference is very small. So if you want deeper/darker sounding guitar go with bigger body.
One of the most interesting videos I've ever seen on electric guitars! You are a genius!
*2:00** when you buy that "Used - Like New" guitar on Reverb*
LOL
I always think that “heavier guitar sustain more” myth comes from the density of the wood not the body shape. It already doesn’t make sense cutting some wood out of your guitar affects the sustain since you can’t change the density. In theory bigger bodies may create richer lower harmonics but i dont think it is audible in a guitar scale. I am not a luthier but in my experience center line which starts from saddles through the center block and neck is more important then the sides. Ofc I am specifically talking about electric guitars.
Someone with a brain... Nice to meet you!
Kutay Kockar gibberish
PLEASE READ: After watching these 2 videos i stumbled across THE answer about sustain.
ITS THE NECK THAT MATTERS MOST.
Your other video showed the Ibanez sustaining the shortest. Even shorter than the other guitar with a trem. It initially made me think that the 2 vs 6 point trem was what made such a big difference long before it was mentioned in the video. Then i played a Kotzen telecaster. it was then that i realized it was the neck that was the biggest factor in sustain. Which was why the RG in your test had the lowest sustain. it has a paper thin neck.
FATTEST neck i have ever played. SHOCKINGLY LONG SUSTAIN. Literally shocking how long this thing sustains. A little noodling seemed to confirm this. I have 9 guitars and they all seemed to sustain according to neck thickness and whether or not they had a trem.
I cant believe i never noticed this before. It honestly has WAY less to do with the body than i ever realized
Darrell, you make the coolest darn videos! Always informative and entertaining! Thank you sir!
That isn't necessarily a fair comparison. I have to believe that if you used that guitar on gigs for months and then chopped off 5 pounds and took it to a gig -- you'd notice a difference in sound.
A myth I would love to see here: bolt on vs neck through.
diy x-mas gift: a stratocaster puzzle...
I got a steinburger. No, bigger and heavier guitars dont sustain longer
I've got an assburger
WaxP3 LOL
I've got a cheeseburger.
the main factor affecting sustain is how much vibrational energy is lost or absorbed. using harder materials for saddles, bridges, and nuts ensures that most of the vibrational energy stays in the string. checking out the PRS rules of tone is a good start to understanding this
Love it! Fretless as well? Whenever I get the tone wood guy in my ear, I have my 2 words ready: Holdsworth, Steinberger
Well, you're just removing mass, without regard to density or resonance, and a waveform view tells little about either sustain or tone; you can measure amplitude against time, but unless you use a calibrated machine to do the picking, you can't even be sure your pickstrokes are matched. Next, tone and sustain are complex phenomena, because we're studying a system with a feedback loop; we have a vibrating string attached to a neck at one end and a body at the other; pluck the string and it produces a fundamental and a series of harmonic partials. (google Karplus-Strong for details) These overtones and the fundamental all sustain for different lengths of time and density (or rigidity) and resonance of the body and neck affect both to varying degrees at all the different frequencies, absorbing here and reinforcing there, resulting in what we refer to as tone.The tool for measuring that is a waterfall plot, but you'd need very fine calibration, because the differences are very small on an electric guitar, though very much measurable. The key is that you hear the most difference in the E string, which is not coincidentally the largest, heaviest string, thus driving the neck and body with the most kinetic energy, which feeds back to the string through the nut and bridge. Generally, greater rigidity/less resonance equals more sustain, but the devil's in the details. HTH
lol....good writing---but nope. nope to all that BS:)
yeah you beat me to it. w/o knowing the resonate frequencies, we don't have a great basis for comparison... that said, i don't think it was a total waste, or the worst "experiment" i've seen on YT. he produced interesting results, within a limited format.
Check this out: only old people fall for the tonewood myth on electric guitars. It's all about the pickups, amp and speakers. And in recording, even Mic placement matters far more than woods.
"Not so Heavy relic"
Very cool experiment!!!! Great!
It seems to me that lesser wood is more sustain if you look at the waveforms!
You could take snips between 3rd and 4th second of the recordings and analyze them for RMS levels! It seems there is more energy in that region on the last takes...
If you send me the wavs of your recording or share them on the net I could test that!
Please share the raw data so us crazy guitar fools can analyze further!!
Maybe I could do a test where we put a guitar body in a vice to make the body weightier... Myths are busted right here!!!!
I was wondering if it was just me visually noticing this about the audio clips... Thanks for confirming that it's not! 😂
Well I don't know if people are deaf and blind, but you can clearly head how the low end disappears and guitar starts to sound thin. On the graphic equalizer you can see the reduction of low frequencies between 100-200 Hz. Not that it's something huge but you can definitely hear and see that. Also a question which one you prefer is another topic.
Due to issues with my spine, guitar weight as well as physical size is really important to me.
I now have both Tele and a Strat style guitars made with paulownia wood bodies by Gordon Smith here in the U.K.
Both come in under 6lbs and both are absolutely stunning both in playability and in tone.
They look amazing and, for the quality level you’re getting, they’re great value for money too. I love ‘em!
sustain is about the neck,not the body...Look at contrabass or chambered instruments ther's not much wood init!
Nope. It's about the bridge and the nut
Now the question is... does it djent?
The real question!
Darrell, you forgot to define what "heavy" means. For example, does heavy mean dense or expensive? A LesPaul made with heavy/dense wood will sound and sustain differently, than a LP made out of basswood and chambered or a semi-hollow LP. However, will the average listener notice? Of course not. Just guitar geeks like us, geeking out on goofy guitar nonsense. Later nerds \m/
YES!! the question is; can this difference be heard over the noise of clanking beer glasses, fist fights and drunk audiences??
Hey! and that is just while playing in the church praise group....it is a rough church!!!
I'm so sorry to be 'that person' to bring up Spongebob in a totally unrelated situation but cutting away parts of that guitar bit by bit reminded me of that Halloween episode of Spongebob where he gets pieces and corners of him lopped off to achieve a certain look for his costume
Darrell,
Here’s a great experiment; Compare 2 bodies using identical hardware. First body, a block of steel.
Second body, the strongest foam you can find or cardboard.
That would really interesting.
I just wrote a similar comment except asking to compare a glass body with acrylic or some other comparison beyond comparing wood tones.
I still think it would more humane to take it out in the woods and shoot it. Hahaha
He's in Canada, which I think is technically all "the woods".
@@stankfanger1366 I remember when he made a cheap used guitar he made fretless and reliced it. I thought he should if taken it out and shot it then.
@@955rocket This was that guitar, and this was worse than shooting it.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 the mental image 😂😂😂😂