Glen lacks the ability to discriminate tone(as well as most of the unwashed masses). Save your money and stay away from Spectre Studios. Just another example of unequal people dragging down everyone else, believing their deficit *must* be universal.
@@BlackPhillip666 ^^^^buthurt of the week vote right here lmaoooo!
3 года назад+422
Hey Glenn, as a luthier I want to share an anecdote from my apprenticeship (three year vocational collage for instrument building over here in germany with classes for guitarbuiding, violin making and accordeon making. And since we are old fashioned I graduated as a journeyman-luthier whith an official certificate and all..) During one semester we had to do projects in small groups and our group decided to make an experiment in psycho-acoustics. We prepared a presentation that showed several different acoustic guitars, including stats like tonewoods, maker and price and we asked the rest of the class to fill out a qestionaire rating the sound quality of every shown guitar by a short recording of the instrument. What they did not know was that every sample was recorded on the same guitar. When processing the data from the questionaires, we got statistically significant differences in the percived sounds of the different guitars. The effect was not huge, but still every guitar was rated to sound like one would expect it to sound. So even a room full of luthiers, violin-makers and accordeon-makers (do they count in this context? :P) can get fooled by psycoacustic effects. Especially if you tell people to find differences, they will find some. In our case some of the violin makers insisted they heared different guitars when we presented our findings some weeks later. To cut a long story short: even in acoustic Instruments tonewood is not as important a some might want it to be. The best wood won't make an otherwise badly build guitar sound good. If everything else is done correctly, then one can shape the sound by the wood to some extend. But in my opinion the size and model of the guitar shape the tone of a guitar far more than the materials used. As an extreme example, you will never build a parlor-guitar that has the low end of a dreadnougt or jumbo, regardless of the woods you use. I stop rambling before I loose myself in too much detail. Rant over
Well, many years ago, a friend had a music store that specialized in acoustic guitars. Back then, Breedlove was all American built and had an extensive custom shop. My friend, knowing a lot about wood, stocked his store with custom instruments instead of the normal stuff. (He did very well, but family drama made him close down.) He used to have me play the various instruments, and there were noticeable differences between them. I also have a normal "maple top" Les Paul, and also an all-mahogany body Les Paul. With distortion they sound pretty similar, but on the clean setting, especially a jazz amp setting? Oh, very noticeable. So congrats on fooling your class, but I've seen the difference that different woods can make. Glenn is a metal guy, so for his musical world he is correct.
2 года назад+28
@@a2ndopynyn thanks for your reply. I never said that wood has no effect at all, especially with acoustic instruments. Just wanted to point out that psychoacoustic effects shouldn't be neglected. To give an exaggerated example, if you have an heavily overbuild guitar with a millimeter thick polyurethane finish, the species of spruce for the soundboard won't make much of a a difference. If the instrument is built light enough, of course the material properties of the wood will have an influence. Especially things like mass, stiffness, speed of sound, inner dampening etc. But there are many more factors that influence the sound: body shape and depth, size of sound hole, bracing pattern, string material and age, pick thickness and material, playing position and some more I am sure I forgot to mention. So yes, the specific material properties of the wood used in an acoustic guitar have some influence on the sound of the finished instrument, but there are more factors than just the wood. Fun experiment to show the effect of the playing position: put the guitar on your lap with the back resting on your legs and tap the top or bridge, then lift the guitar up and tap again. There should be a huge difference between dampened and resonating back. I'm rambling again.. In short, the properties of the materials used do of course have an influence, but there is way more to it especially when one adds amplification of any kind. Maybe it's my background in mechanical engineering but I like my measurements and repeatability. If a piece of wood has the properties needed for a specific job, I don't care about which species it is..
@@a2ndopynyn where did this notion that metal can't have clean guitar tone come from? There's a bunch of metal artists that have clean tones on their songs. Metallica usually has one or two every album. There's only so much chugga chugga I can handle on a 75 minute release. I'm sure if I thought about it I could come up with quite a few other bands that do that too.
@@a2ndopynyn Those Les Paul guitars are not exactly the same. There are likely some differences in the way they were built, and you didn't play them with the exact same pickups. Also, they were not held in the exact same position and played with a robot arm to keep everything consistent. Therefore that "test" is invalid, as it doesn't adhere to the basics of a scientific experiment.
@@MrClassicmetal Blah blah blah. I've had those two guitars for over 20 and over 25 years. I've played them through the EXACT same setup of amps and effects. No, the pickups aren't exactly the same - but I'm telling you, the all mahogany Paul has a darker and woodier tone than the maple cap Paul. Please don't try to tell me what my guitars, which you've never even seen much less heard, sound like.
@@therealdavegrohl1098 thats not allowed. Stop with this "thinking" bullshit. OBVIOUSLY the most expensive guitar sounds the best. Not sure which one that is yet but when I find out the prices then I'll know which sounds the best
I replaced the Black SD Hotrails p/u in my strat with a White one and it sounded brighter and with more punch. Had nothing to do with improper vs. proper wiring at all :p (Side note... 20 years later learning how to wire it for both Series AND Parallel was life changing ;) PS - Always wanted a Surf Green Strat - But then my Son got me a Teal Gretsch and I think my life MAY be complete.
@Lars Norberg Nah, the strap colour makes no difference. What matters is the colour of the plectrum. They can be made from the same material, be the same shape and thickness, but blue ones always produce the nicer sound.
I was in a John Mayer concert, I really love how the nitro finish sounds. And yep, his sunburst strat has a lot more tighter bottom end compared to his white strat, all because of the color I should add.
Funnily enough Billy Corgan says he likes the way a certain color guitar sounds, that he prefers the tone of one guitar over another based on color I can't remember which guitar he was talking about, but he believes this to be true lol
@@joebeefhash3455 But Billy Corgan really is a great musician though? Isnt making great music that connects with people and means something the real barrier of becoming a great musician? Im not a John Mayer fan at all, but because I dont like his music even the smallest bit, Im not gonna say he sucks. His music has made a really big impact on people. Why would I just randomly announce my distaste of someones music when, hey, its subjective. Also, because I dont listen to his music, I probably dont pick up on any nuances or anything that someone who actually cares about the music can pick up on. I think The Smashing Pumpkins has a wonderfully built wall of sound that sounds absolutely massive that really works well with Billy's strange way of singing. HIs leads are genuinely inspiring because they're so powerful and iconic. Everytime I hear the solo on Quiet I just get so hyped to pick up my guitar and play. You dont need to like him or his music or his big muff laden tones. But you can at the very least respect him for the effort he's put into his music, and you can respect the fact that his music means a lot to people. And speaking of power chords, do I really need to talk about how Nirvana has inspired and continues to inspire generations of musicians, especially in the whole alt-rock sphere of things? TLDR: Making music that people connect to is what makes a great musician. Not playing complex chords or crazy fast solos. Dont pick fights online for no reasons.
Why do people hate on plywood? Even some of the most expensive Gibsons have a laminate over body. Sandwiching wood with laminate layers... Sounds a lot like plywood. Also Danelectros rock.
“Tone wood”, as a term, came about because within the acoustic industry, luthiers began tap tuning their lumber and used that lumber in a build suited to the note the wood naturally resonated. They would market this practice as “tap tone wood”. The rest of the industry saw the snob appeal in this, dropped the “tap”, and used the term to market the generic ash, maple, mahogany, rosewood, alder, and ebony lumber as something “special”. Not one of these woods is rare, particularly valuable, or impossible to find.
For an instrument like the Guqin the tapped tone of the board it is carved from can make or break the instrument, but that is a very large carved wood box resonator for the strings on it. Less so for the standard acoustic guitar but still a possible variable consideration there, though it seems it's not wood but how it was processed to treat it for wood worm and fungus that makes a Stradivarius a Stradivarius so maybe that would have a bigger effect than wood on modern acoustics as well. Electric guitars, not so much.
@@drpibisback7680 they exist cause these woods are endangered species now cause of excessive demand and extremely slow growth. so yeah, ebony and rosewood are rare, valuable, hard to find, and i'd also say they're something special cause they're extremely hard and have a rather unique appearance. if you want a black tough as nails fretboard you don't have a readily available alternative to ebony for example. similar woods like african blackwood are even rarer, that's why for example gibson went the full synthetic route.
LOL someone watched the Stradivarius video that dropped last week Honestly? Just throw active pickups in the cheapest thing you can find and get producer man some raws. It wasn't going to sound like you in the end anyhow - it was going to be the sum total of your signal chain and producer - talent is irrelevant in the studio, didn't you know?
I care about how the instrument FEELS in my hands. After that, everything else can be adjusted... Pickups, hardware, strings, amp, settings, effects, and the list can go on. A $145 Harley Benton can feel better than some $3000 guitars.
Tonewood is only important for acoustic guitars because the color of the tone is affected by the air that is moved inside it. That's not the case for an electric guitar. There's a quite interesting video about it from a luthier for anyone interested: ruclips.net/video/V76yWZ3-OuM/видео.html
it does indeed. Since he's totally happy to completely ignore the fact that played clean the two guitars actually do sound a bit different in order to back his original premise that tonewood is BS. I wasn't expecting to really hear any difference but was quite surprised when the two guitars played clean did have a difference.
Actually the drums were just a toddler banging on pots and pans but you were fooled because they played a clip of a guy playing a drums kit. Ha, ha fooled you 🤣.
Most of the guitar's sound is in the electronics, scale length, and signal chain. Anything else is personal preference. Not to change the focus but I really hope the guitar community focuses on the sustainability of the wood rather than the "tone" of the wood. Swamp ash is in a shortage and wenge is considered endangered. I would love to see more synthetic materials similar to what Aristides is doing. Sadly, musicians clinge to tradition a little too hard.
@@matturner6890 With the prevalence of typos caused by mobile devices with tiny keypads is it really necessary to do the grammar correction thing? Do you really think after spelling all those words perfectly fine they're too dumb to know how to spell cling? Really? Quit being obnoxious.
Synthetic usually means petrol based polymers like the resins Aristides are using. Not so great for the environment either. Granted you can produce those resins by chemically altering sustainable resources but that takes a lot of work and is probably just as harmful. Maybe you could use mycelium or other bio-polymers
@@martinportelance138 Here's a video showing otherwise ;) basswood Ibanez RG with fantastic sustain compared to others ruclips.net/video/Y4DYzhG4MRg/видео.html
@@cederickforsberg5840 I don't put much credit on this test's methodology. How do you know the RG was basswood? Looked like a mahogany body with a maple top to me.
As I'm sure many know, moving your picking hand 1cm closer to or further from the bridge will have more of an effect than the wood the guitar is made of... 🙄 Thank you for going through the trouble of doing this Glenn! I know I'm late to the party, but I've been looking for something like this duo of videos!
In fact, I kinda encourage people to enlighten me about how certain woods "sound" on solid body electric instruments. It's fun to see someone talking with such confidence about something that doesn't make any sense.
When it comes to wood, I'm more concerned about the engineering issues: neck stability, balance, durability, weight, sustain, and so on. If we look at it mathematically, wood type should affect tone. But in practice, it's so minor that it's simply not worth the mental effort (especially not in high-gain metal). There are so many more practical concerns that warrant our attention.
It should mathematically affect the tone means what? It does effect all you said by different parameters, even sustain because it varies in stiffness, but tone? Which parameter would that be? We are not talking resonance (acoustic instruments) here...
@@Jayarbal Everything that impacts how your strings vibrate affects the sound generated by the instrument, by imposing dampening effects, resonance, feedback, etc between the wood and strings. These effects induce additional (an)harmonics or dampen them, or change how they evolve over time. The impacts are not always at high-enough amplitudes to stand out audibly, but they should still be measurable. Mathematically it's like a function that tracks the numerous vibrations and all of the forces being imposed upon the strings and body and whatnot, and translates all of that into a series of sines whose amplitudes (and even frequencies) vary over time. But yeah, it is just not significant enough to matter when playing metal. Partly because the amplitudes aren't high-enough to impose a noticeable difference, and also partly because the harmonics that make up guitar tone are kind of a mess anyway.
@@ChamiCh Well you're right that everything that influences string vibration has an effect on timbre and tone. But resonance does not do that, imagine feedbacks on acoustic guitars... String vibration is translated into audible resonance on/in the instruments body and in the room after beeing released from the string, not before. When then resonance is created on any given surface through reflection (like the guitars body), it immediately gets diffused into the room, as it expands spherically from any given reflecting point, lots of interferences happen. What arrives back to the string is nothing but "white noise" with no clear direction, and more importantly no pressure (amplitude), hence no impact. Soundwaves like resonances are air pressure waves. No air is actually transported from A to B (unlike wind, that causes mechanical impact on stuff). And they also aren't vibrating electromagnetic fields. That's what pickups hear. And all we hear from an electric guitar is what the pickups hear. Ok, what we hear in the room besides that directly from the guitar when it's played, is the acoustic resonance of it. It's what you hear from it as an ACOUSTIC instrument. The acoustic sound of an electric guitar IS dependent of it's resonance hence tonewood. But the signal you pick up using pickups is not.
Having your pickups like .001mm higher or lower also has an effect on tone, but in the grand scheme of every other effect or amp character, tone wood is minor. Good construction and good hardware is more important.
The tonewood argument really falls apart when you can make a bigger difference by angling the pick slightly in one direction, or strumming at a different point that its honestly hilarious people still defend it
Difference in pick materials can make a HUGE sound difference too. But I think that wouldn't surprise most people. They're also a lot easier to A/B than guitars so anyone can find the sound they like most without recording tones and switching guitars every 2 minutes
Going this path you could argue no gear actually matters. Why have good pickups when a magnet with copper wire can make a signal? The point of ALL these things you mention, is that they can stack in a certain direction and make a unique sound. Honestly this test would be the same if they switched pickups. Or switched strings. The whole thing is so biased because it just highlights that changing one element about the chain can be drowned out by putting it in the mix. Not being able to tell what is different does not mean its not different. But this is the point Glenn is making
@@ileutur6863 why not agree with a simple notion that EVERYTHING matters? even the wood. some guitars sound like they sound no matter how you pick and what pickups you use and you can't jump any higher than that. great guitars sound great effortlessly (strong mids, little to no bass, super tight response into the amp without pedals) - those I consider great guitars and it takes a bit of a hunt to aquire one.
Well, there's some polemic half-truths being touted here, as Glenn likes to do. Still, some actual insights for you here: 1) Wood does actually make a difference. 2) It doesn't matter in the mix, or on stage. People who think it does live in a fantasy world. What most of you think of as tone will depend on: cab --> amp --> scale length --> pickups 3) Much like the pickups, the type of wood won't make a difference to the recording engineer or mixer. But also remember that recording and mixing is not reality. Details of the construction of your instrument WILL, or at least SHOULD matter for your playing FEEL and performance as a musician. There clearly are aspects of the response and resolution that are influenced by your guitars' material, and most of the time, you can attribute certain qualities to certain woods. Also, the exact same pickup will do different things depending on the guitar's wood. 4) If you don't feel it, it's you. Learn to develop an ear for tone and a sense for your playing dynamics. 5) If you don't care, it's perfectly fine. It really isn't anything essential or game changing in any way. 6) In reality, nothing is really that important. Most of you guys are simple metal bozos. Nothing wrong with that. I'm a metal bozo myself. But you play with way too much distortion and the stuff you play doesn't allow for, or requires, any kind of tonal nuance anyway. Taste and tone in Metal are very much a thing of the past nowadays. So it doesn't stop with the wood, even if Glenn chooses to harp on that part the most. 7) If you want to stay with Glenns logic, then amps don't really matter either. He clearly prefers tube amps, which is quite ironic. Guess what? The amp sim will be just fine. The good ones sound great nowadays and none of you will hear a difference, nor will the listener. 8) Sure, don't fuss about with the woods. But please, also stop fussing around with the pickups. For most of you, it will just not matter. Especially with the amounts of gain compression and the low tunings everyone prefers today. 9) In fact, since we're talking about guitar truisms: why don't you get active pickups? You're a metal dood. They're the best thing that could happen to you. But you don't do it because smartasses on the internet started telling you how actives are "undynamic". What dynamics are we talking about again? It's as much nonsense as the tonewood cork sniffing. 10) Don't listen to engineers and mixers too much when it comes to these things. You're the musician. He's there to capture your performance and has no business lecturing you. 11) I'm saying all of this because videos like this have a tendency to make the unassuming audience stupidly opinionated on the one side, but ultimately simple-minded on the other. Try developing a nuanced, rigorous thinking. That has way more to do with "critical thinking" than this kind of cantankerous polemics. Not throwing shade at Glenn, he's a great guy and the general premise of this video is good and correct. But trying to add a bit more perspective to all of this.
Underrated comment right here. Guitarists get stuck in so many money traps when it comes to their sound. All of these little things used to matter when the technology was still in its infancy, but these days you're pretty much covered on all fronts with a minimal investment.
FEEL...aka cognitive bias. Tonewoods have been tested at the waveform level and found to be nearly identical. There's videos of this on YT. It reminds me of wine connoisseurs who claim a wine has a particular "soul", yet can't distinguish their favorite wine from a cheaper imitation in a blind test. What you "feel" and what's really going on are usually two different things
@@sidgar1 Do you even play guitar? I guess you're one of these nerds who symphatize with the idea that the world and all of life is just a set of 1s and 0s. It's a comforting idea when you're fucking awkward and any kind of interaction with anything is scary. Music and metal is not for you, dude ... The fact that you would go as far to equate "feel" to "cognitive bias" speaks volumes about your immaturity.
This is why when I want a change in guitar sound, I change the pickups and probably the amp as well. Pickups and speakers make the difference since this is about electric signals taken from the strings. This is why we have guitars made out of concrete, resin, carbon fiber, plastic etc. and still sound like an electric guitar
@@andrewt836 yes but the tone wood atheists main argument Is that only the pickups matter as if they’re isolated from the vibrations of the body. In my view however how the guitar sound unplugged has some impact on how it sounds plugged in
@@riheg The UK 70's guitarist Robin Trower agrees with your assessment. He says that a guitar (he prefers Strats) that sounds better unamplified usually sounds better when amped.
Why is this still a thing? Weve all known for decades that tonewood can be extremely important in an Accoustic guitar,and much less important in Elecrric guitars.
The guitar sound is created by the interaction between string and pickup. The guitar body can be made from pretty much any sturdy material, I made a pretty nice replacement body for an old precision bass out of a scaffolding plank
@@Fluf-lv1iu I'm just convinced that people that don't think tonewood or wood matters, that they just can't hear the difference. It's not nothing. If it didn't there wouldn't be so much variability between the same exact model of guitar.
@@jhref well, not directly but the strings are coupled with the body via the bridge, what makes it a vibrating system as a whole. Therefor each body resonaces diffrent, depending on material and even due diffrent structures in the same material. Of course this differences are small but not zero.
If there were any differences in the tone, it was so minimal that it could just as easily be attributed to a subtle difference in the performance as it could be the type of wood the guitar was made from. But quibbling over such miniscule differences really does seem like a waste of time. As the wise sage Carl Brutananadilewski would say, "It don't matter. None of this matters."
the ash guitar has annoying supertrat like tone which i don't like. it does matter because the more inspiring the guitar is the better the music and this subtle difference is actually huge in a real world scenario with a good amp. as any guitarist would tell you
@@olegoleg1838 That was also a different performance. Did you not notice that part of the comment? The difference is negligible, and could easily be attributed to the angle the pick was hitting the strings in each performance. He's playing the same part on both guitars, but it's a separate performance and there are a million variables that can change. It could even have something to do with the wiring of the guitar. In no way does this demonstrate a difference between wood types alone, *especially* in the crunch full mix example.
I did always find it suspect that people said maple necks sound "brighter" and rosewood sounded "darker." and that just happened to line up with the darkness of the wood....
plywood actually sounds great. very tight. theres a channel on youtube where some dude builds guitars out of all those shitty materials like foam etc, and it always sounds like shit compared to a usual fender lmao. check it out
There’s a section in this video comparing two electric Les Paul’s acoustically. Two of the same woods sounding completely different. Put on some headphones. This proves Glenn’s crusade is frivolous to say the least. Ask your favourite guitar player. Not Glenn, who has not spent serious time with an instrument to know it/them intimately
On that clean sound I actually do hear a distinct different between the cut of both guitars. But there’s no fucking way that’s going to translate once distortion is added.
Exactly. Glenn is a metal guy, so for his musical world he is correct. For different stuff, like jazz, and also acoustic instruments, it is noticeable, although it isn't as big a difference as some claim. These "tone woods are bullshit" videos he makes every so often are intended to start arguments - aka, they're _click bait._
@@Zeta9966 What? That makes no sense. The only folks I know that care about tonal woods are jazz cats and acoustic players. Then again, I don't hang with a lot of metal heads, so I'll take your word for it. But that's definitely stupid. Load any guitar up with heavy metal/metal distortion and it sounds pretty much like every other guitar. I'd think pickups and amp are the only two elements that can really affect one in that case.
I honestly think that the actual reason the two takes sound different is because he's picking the strings slightly different. On the mahogany take, he's picking a little softer and more hesitant, so the output is a little warmer. Also he makes a few more mistakes on that version than the ash version, so some of the notes are dead. I do think tonewood makes a small difference, but it's so minimal that it doesn't matter.
For shits and giggles, you should have included some of the cheaper woods like basswood and poplar. I know making 4 guitars would be ridiculously expensive just to show there’s no difference. It still would have been interesting seeing no difference between cheapest and most expensive wood.
i always found it funny that a high end guitar maker like Ernie Ball can make some of the best sounding and playing guitars out there out of basswood. even the EVH signatures have all mostly been basswood. i just play whatever sounds good to my ears and learned to stop being so nitpicky
@@musek5048 at this point, im not even that picky. Im still starting out (1 year exactly) and i just pick what feels good in my hands. Im going to get the best sound from the one im most comfortable playing.
I think that's more the quality of how it's built than the wood. You can get a Fender and Squire supposedly made out of same wood, but the Squire sounds like crap - even if you threw in the same pick-ups as the Fender..
@@jeffreymorreale7223 exactly, im a true believer that an instrument can inspire your creativity when it clicks with you just right, whether it be with guitars or amps.
@@grumpyitcushmeta4riaproduc189 And I would be willing to call BS on that, because I've hot-rodded a Squier with Fender pickups and a thicker tremolo block, and the end result can easily stand toe-to-toe with my Fenders.
Talking wood, there only really seems to be a difference in weight and feel on your fingers, but speaking of sound I never seemed to understand the tonewood thing, really opened my eyes on this one.
So...nobody knows the go-to guitar in making most Deathmetal recordings is the First Act (from Walmart) finished in hot pink with Hello Kitty stickers all over it.
I was half expecting to have yet another switch out and have Glenn tell us that we weren't actually hearing the drummer, but a full sample replacement with the ironic drums...
In the clean mode the ash definitely sounds brighter, with less midrange than the mahogany. Why do famous guitarists say over and over that if a guitar doesn't sound good unplugged they won't buy it. Most of them won't even plug it in if they don't like the sound unplugged.
Tone is in the fingertips. I have seen many videos with guitarists who have their own tone play a no name guitar and WHAM you can tell its them! I don't care about tonewood but I do like me a good looking guitar :)
Tone wood is only for acoustic guitar where the wood make the sound, depending on the size of the body and etc. Fender made the first Telecaster/Esquires out of pine wood.
And even when it comes to acoustic guitars, size & shape of the body affects the sound more than the wood itself. But yeah, when it comes to solid body electrics, there's less difference than the number of my ex-girlfriends (0).
I mean....yeah physics says the tone would be "different", and I would say they will have subtle differences when played clean... But once you add distortion those differences will be squashed into oblivion, and add a full band and it's totally irrelevant. A good example is Steven Wilson being asked repeatedly about his recording rig and he warned that it would be disappointing, finally revealing he uses almost exclusively amp sims for recording proving that people can't tell the difference. Hell I remember the same thing happening with the old proguitarshop intro, people asking what amp they used even claiming that it was "obviously real tube tone" and then it was revealed to be an amp sim.
It's kind of like the guys with walls of Marshall Orange, or Mesa full stacks behind them on stage, You think that's what it took to get that sound. Nope. The song was recorded using a small combo amp in the studio. Cranked all the way up, in a decent room, and with room mikes they sound HUGE with epic tone.
I hate when people say "if it sounds good unplugged, it's a keeper" NO! It means the body is resonating and pissing away all your sustain. If you like a thumpy, low sustain tone, then that's great... Hence jazz boxes. If you want sustain though, it's a terrible way to pick a guitar. I ordered my last guitar online, and it has this problem. Very light, resonant body, very loud and "acoustic" sounding unplugged, but sustain is lacking plugged in. Solid bodies and acoustic guitars have opposite needs in many ways.
I am a hobbyist luthier and I can confirm that tonewood is bullshit. The only difference in different wood types are stability and weight. Some wood species are more humidity resistant, some are prone to warping etc. But in general I do tell everyone I do guitar for, that that poplar burr top will add to your ego not the sound.
well almost all necks (the most common point to warp on a guitar) are made of maple a super hard wood. If the body is warping , you got bigger issues to work out than what kind of wood it's made of (because it's such a thick slab of wood it wouldn't warp unless you been just soaking it in water).
Woodworking doesn’t require or make you a good listener. There is a difference in tone and he states that in this video. Its a small difference but it is there if you listen. Amplification and effects will allow you to modify that difference and so in the end, like he states, you shouldn’t spend too much time on it. Unless you are a tone snob.
Great video Glenn! I couldnt hear a difference, but when you did the reveal and you wrote the tone wood in the bottom corner, those visual cues STILL made it sound different to me. Even after you had already proved me wrong! Its amazing how powerful our eyes are!
My 200 dollar Chinese guitar, with bolt on keck, resonates just as much as my 3700 dollar reissue. I play my 200 dollar guitar more; it's lighter, and more comfortable. Sound difference is minimal.
I'm the type of guitarist who wants a beautiful metal machine. I confess, I go 80% for the looks, because guitar playing is fun, recording is fun and I want to have fun looking at my guitars and picking it up.. who the fuck cares what this thing is made of. And I can't remember if I ever asked for the wood in a guitar. But one thing: a guitar HAS to be wood, I saw things in my life..
I do puzzles while videos play in the background. Therefore when the clean tones were playing, they sounded different to me but until you said which was which, I couldn't have said which was "warmer" (mahogany seemed warmer.) With any kind of distortion, it no longer made a difference which was playing. Since your work is all about metal, then I agree in that capacity tone wood does NOT matter. For clean quiet playing, there is a mild difference but in a mix, again i agree it does NOT matter.
I feel like the fact that they had to record the guy playing twice probably made the biggest difference. Any minor tonal difference is nothing compared to the individual player's touch at this point. They probably could have sounded the exact same given a hypothetical guitar robot that would repeat the exact same programmed performance.
@@SocialNetwooky Not necessarily a Placebo. Pick angle, slightly other angle on the left hand or how much the guitar weighs in a sitting position can have minor impact to the sound, which again is nearly impossible to notice in a mix and speaking for myself I couldn't tell what is better. Anything you change on the tone knob will have more impact to the sound.
My friend was adamant when telling me how Gibson Custom shop one piece "Triple AAA mahogany" wood sounds so much better than wood on a more affordable guitar, because in his words and I quote "Me and a buddy put an EMG 81 in a cheap guitar and it sounded like shit." I mean. How could I possibly argue with that!?! Tone wood confirmed. This also is the same friend who didn't know how to plug in a DI on his own bass amp, so that tells you all you need to know, lol. Great video Glenn. Keep up the awesome work!
I 100% agree that in a mix, the wood the guitar is made out of is the least of someone's concerns. Differences will be minor, and those differences can probably be adjusted for with EQ. Having said that, listening on Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones out of my computer's standard headphone jack, on the isolated guitar tracks I can hear the difference (and also guessed you swapped the 2 audio tracks as they seemed backwards from what I was expecting). Ash is a bit brighter / snappier, the Mahogany is a little darker. Again, in a mix, much too difficult to tell without some kind of cue when the switches occurred. I think people get upset because of the extreme declarations made about the subject (both for and against). The wood makes a subtle difference that most likely only the guitarist and engineer will notice, but there is a difference. Hence saying it's nonsense, or the opposite and that it's the most important factor, really isn't that productive in the overall conversation as it's just going to upset people and let the tribalism commence. But it overall does help with vibe / feel of an instrument. Yeah any good guitarist will pickup and any axe and make it sound great, but also that same guitarist will tell you there are just some guitars that "sing" to them or play and feel just a bit better. All in the subtle details of course. Also check out the Warmoth YT page as they did this experiment as well, but arguably one level further. All they did was swap out the 1 part of the guitar and kept the rest the same. They did one for the body and also one just swapping the neck as well. Great content as usual!! Love these discussions that can challenge the norms... if we all keep open minds, we all learn cool things :D
Leo Fender picked his wood species based on availability. Gibson picked mahogany because it was a “premium” wood and the brand needed to be premium as opposed to Fender. None of these choices were made from “tone.” After the 50’s and 60’s guitars from both brands people started ascribing properties to each tonewood based on the sound of each guitar. Alder is “brighter” because Fenders used it and have a longer scale + single coils. Mahogany is “warmer” or “mid-focused” because Gibsons had slightly shorter scale + humbuckers.
Hey Glen, have you measured the outputs of the pickups by any chance? Pickup wiring can cause slight difference in output and thus volume, explaining why people hear (want to hear?) a difference. Keep up to good work!
Glenn, your playing has gotten so much tighter! Keep it up dude. You should showcase your playing more. Also: For cleans, I heard more clarity on the Ash guitar. Mahogany sounded ever so slightly muffled. However, like you said, in a mix that all goes out the window especially with added gain (which the tones were imperceivable from one another) . Although, that does essentially prove tonewood as a real thing for cleans anyways. I think the tonewood debate delved from a time when many players played what was available to them. Just a guitar and an amp (if they even had an amp). Meaning: not running through a bazillion pedals or into a computer. When you’re forced to play the bare minimum gear, you can really learn all of the subtle differences things can make for your sound. I also believe that’s where the cable debate came from too. For what it’s worth, I don’t let wood species dictate my electric guitar choices. Acoustics are a different story all together though.
They made a Strat out of treated cardboard some years ago and it sound´s just a normal Strat with single coils. There´s a video here on youtube, where they take that cardboard Strat to the Fender Custom Shop and give it so some of the luthiers/ techs there to try it out. Afterwards they take it to the guitarist of Linking Park, Brad Delson, in his studio, where he actually uses it to record some demos with the late Chester Bennington ( bless his soul) . Both the Fender luthiers/ guitar techs and the LP guys literally say: "We could not tell a significant difference between this and a proper Stratocaster made out of alder or ash, the cardboard Strat sounds just like a normal Strat..." You can look the video up, yourselves.
I'll tell you where the wood makes a noticeable difference on solid guitars, the weight. I have a question though, do you think the results would be the same on a hollow body guitar? In my mind, the resonance from the wood should make a difference, but probably not enough for it to matter when you add distortion and other instruments.
@@zanzeroth And that's exactly how it is. This short clip explains how an electric guitar works, and also debunks tonewood: ruclips.net/video/lBAZepM5F_0/видео.html
@@zanzeroth yeah with a piezzo pickup I think it would definitely matter maybe I should've been clearer, but I meant the resonance of the guitar affecting the vibration of the strings which could be picked by the magnetic pickups
It shouldn't make a difference on hollow bodies either because pickups are wax potted to specifically avoid picking up body resonance that creates feedback, especially on hollow bodies.
People hear the guitar acoustically if not turned up loud enough. People feel how the guitar vibrates differently in their hands and body. But in a recording or a loud amp, nope.
Ok I'm gonna be completely honest here and feel free to call me out but I have no reason to lie: I play mostly mahogany guitars because you tend to get a brighter tone from them, which I personally like. I was watching the clip with the clean guitars and I swear to you guys I was SHOCKED at how dark the tone sounded compared to my mahogany guitars. Glen then said he switched the audios around which made sense because mahogany does sound brighter. I'm not an a aficionado over tone concepts. I don't mind playing other types of guitars. I prefer mahogany because they feel a bit heavier and better built, but I've also come to appreciate the subtle difference in tone. The differences aren't enough to make or break your sound, which is what I think Glen was getting at, but there are differences between wood types
Thanks so much, Glenn. Comparing clean tones is crucial for a lot of arguments even if it's not very relevant for metal. I'd be interesting to have a tone-match challenge, matching not just levels but overall EQ, to see how nearly identical you can make the guitars sound. (Same for amp cabs and speakers... they all have different frequency response functions, and it's an interesting question whether you can EQ one with a broad and flat FRF to sound like any of the others by rolling off the bass or treble, or boosting the upper mids, or whatever.) One of the things that's weird about guitar audio is that we're used to having non-flat FRFs from our guitars AND our amps, with no clear FLAT reference to start from in figuring out EQ issues.
As a recreational luther, I've done the research. For years I've been building guitars out of exotic wood species, mostly for aesthetic reasons. I noticed that there was, as Glenn states, very little difference in tone between different species of wood. So I decided to run a test. Using the same template, I created two bodies, one walnut and one a pine tabletop rescued from a dumpster, with identical necks and the same pickups and electronics. They sounded the same, and hooking them up to an oscilloscope, the waveforms were also identical. Tonewood myth busted.
Well, first... OSCILLOSCOPE IS TIME DOMAIN BRO NOT FREQUENCY DOMAIN Also, if you plug the guitar straight into the test gear, you have to realize that you're going to get a LOT of the same reading - like the pickup impedance isn't going to measurably change relative to the wood its mounted on. You have to AT THE LEAST do a difference measurement on the two instruments so you can common mode out the parts that are the same and isolate the differences, which depending on your test methods may be nonextant or orders of magnitude above what's expected, again, because of basic lack of comprehension of the difference between such basic topics as the frequency and time domains of different and what you can and cannot measure with them. If you were just eyeballing the oscope display and not pulling the waveform data points and running MATH on them, then YOU DON'T KNOW but instead are GUESSING WITH AUTHORITY you don't have.
@@russellzauner interesting thoughts. I was thinking about attaching a speaker on the guitar body and running a sweep to get the frequency nods of the blank.
The problem is that people are dead set on wood. I live close to a farm that raises cattle for wagyu beef. The unique TMR blend they feed their cattle revealed a hidden gem. I purchased a few kilograms of dung and slow-baked a block of it in the oven overnight at a medium temperature. The result was a hard material with a beautiful shit-burst pattern. Even better was the tonal qualities in the guitar, giving it an incredible bottom end. For the finish we used a blend of bull semen mixed with polyurethane for a clear, rock-solid clear finish that helps in the reproduction of the high frequencies. My guitar is pure bullshit, and it sounds great.
It's not a question of "Can you tell which guitar is which?" The question is, "is there a difference between the two?" And by extension, though never mentioned, is does the _material_ make a difference? The answer to these questions is yes. But the single, most important question that each person has to ask themselves is, "Do I really care that much?". And if a person is really focused on the music, the answer is "no". ...And before someone spouts "confirmation bias" (most people like to say it without fully understanding what it is) Just remember that confirmation bias works _both_ ways. "Shut up and play yer guitar" ~ Zappa
oh my. These two guitars sound so different, I don't know what you guys are smoking. I have no idea what wood is supposed to do what, but what I hear is one guitar with peaky mids around 1k and the other has more low mid. It is a massive difference between the two. In the first clip is sounds like one of the guitars is playing through a compressor while the other has the lows rolled off.
GLEEEENNNN!!! your guitar playing sure has come such a long way since I started watching you forever ago. Nice work sir. Please never stop making content! Cheers from Salem Oregon. 😁
Okay, setting myself up for a complete roasting here, but on the clean tests (about 2 minutes in), I thought: "Yeah, that second guitar does sound different" Then I thought, "hang on, that second guitar sounds darker than the first - surely it should sound brighter". Then Glenn declares that he switched the audio tracks. Now don't get me wrong - there's no way I could spot the difference with heavy guitars buried in an audio mix. I love the channel's content. The toys are still firmly in the pram 😃. But I also have a lot of love for music with clean tones, and whether it's a fat strat or a twangy tele, the alder/ash thing has always made a difference to me. Anyway, fuck you Glenn. Keep up the quality content, and greetings from Nottingham, UK
Wood choice will, in fact, affect the sound, in that literally every part of the guitar will affect the sound, same as how every part of the performance will affect the sound. That's just the physics of playing an instrument, and that shouldn't be up for debate. The issue, however, is whether or not the difference is significant, relative to the difference made by everything else contributing to the sound. The difference in sound between two different woods is nothing next to the difference between two different pickups, or two different amps. For a solid body electric guitar, the pickups and amps will make up almost all of your sound. The difference that tone wood makes is so little that it disappears completely once it's in a mix.
the difference is gone pretty much because of all the other instruments taking up the frequency spectrum in the mix and the sound compression used by youtube or mp3s. even when you go to a live show its much harder to tell whats going on because the way human hearing works when something is really loud compared to more normal volumes. at higher volumes you hear mainly bass and treble and since the guitar is mainly a mids instrument you lose a lot of the "tone". and i havent even listed speakers mic selection and placement which just adds to how recordings change everything.
I love all those people who claim they hear the difference and even specify how those 2 guitars sound differently. AND YET LITERALLY NOBODY was able to tell them apart in the mix. *slow clap* You guys are amazing, please keep us entertained
I can tell a difference in both clean and mix but I do have good ears. It's like TV's easy to tell the difference when side to side. Harder if they are not in the same house. Having the specs and both samples I can guess but it would be crazy had to find specs based on samples tho. Comparative is still much easier as you do have datapoint.
Even in tests like this, where they miiiiiiight sound slightly different, it could just as easily be attributed to the micro differences between the pickups and other electrical components. They are never exactly the same. I've always called BS on tonewood, this video is a great proof of that.
That was kinda surprising the ash/maple guitar has a slightly scooped mids comparing to the mahogany one... Till Glenn confessed he has flipped the samples 😁
I had the same exact thought... like 'why is the maple fretboard guitar darker than the mahogany'? Then he came clean and it made sense. Of course he did. It actually proves Glenn wrong, but whatever. It's a metal channel, I'm not mad.
@@JuiceboxDesmond It doesn't though, because it was two separate performances of the same thing. Something as subtle as the picking angle could change the tone substantially, and if that guitarist isn't super precise, that could easily be the difference. Glen's point is that the *wood* doesn't make a difference, which seems to be true especially in the full mix examples, which he challenged people to identify when the guitars changed in a previous video, and literally nobody could do it.
@@koalanectar9382 Yeah, pick angle won't make that much of a difference, only position potentially, but he played pretty much at the same place. I won't hear that much varience in tone from such a similar performace, what you are hearing my friend is tonewood. Almost everyone here in the comment section are deaf.
I've watched maybe the first 30 seconds and I can already tell that there is going to be SOOO much "Butthurt of the Week" material to choose from for the next VC episode.
Without the full mix, one sounded just a teeny smidge darker and the other just a teeny smidge brighter (I forget which one was which), but in the full mix, you can't tell. The difference is so small as to be unimportant.
I've been "building" (hobby assembling kits and warmoth) guitars for a bit now and I don't really hear any differences from the woods. Honestly I think weight, part material, and body construction have more to do with it than anything. I've found that the cheap offshore parts aren't usually great but tone improves when you swap out cheap pewter cast alloy for real brass and steel parts things seem to resonate more. Then again, I've heard dudes pick up off the shelf squires and plug into a 10 watt shit amp and absolutely murder and the tone still sounds okay. I think at the end of the day you just need to find something that works for you and focus on getting better with your playing. Tom Morello even said something similar that he never found the tone he was looking for so he just ended up keeping the gear he had and started focusing on writing music. I don't think his gear has changed much in the last 30 years.
I would make sure to really emphasize the "pretty much" bullshit on that. There are differences in sound from the woods that are pretty easy to hear, especially on cleans. But the difference is minimal when cranked up. ALSO any differences are basically just related to the weight/density. A heavy block of maple and a heavy block of mahogany are going to sound about the same but both sound different than a really light basswood. Especially when talking about sustain. That said, spending money on "exotic" tonewoods is bullshit. There are plenty of light and heavy woods that are reasonably priced. A more expensive wood won't make you sound any better. (or worse)
I would say its not pretty much bullshit, its all out bullshit and Ill even explain the difference in tone that you hear. There are a few things that will affect how a guitar sounds outside of how they are played. When it comes to the build of the guitar, the type of pickups will make a difference, example is a single coil will always sound different than a humbucker. The next difference you can hear between guitars is going to be based on the electronics, I am talking about the pots and such, dime size pots do not sound exactly like quarter size pots. Then there is the scale, 25.5 inch scale guitars do not sound like 24.75, and these have all been easily ones we can all agree on. The next one is not something that people think about much, and its actually a trick that Fender uses all the time with there guitars, and Gibson does it as well. The next thing that can actually affect the sound a guitar makes, is the exact position of the pickup on the scale of the guitar. If we were building guitars by hand, it would be insanely hard to ensure two guitar had there pickups in the exact same spot on the scale of the guitar. Some will be up to a couple mm's different from others, and I wish I was kidding. Go grab a cheap squire and the best measuring tape you have, and check the scale and then where the front and back of any pickup are, and do the same to a Fender branded Strat, you will see they don't match.. This is done on purpose, its to create a difference where one does not need to be, Fender does not want people liking the sound of a Squire more than the sound of a Fender strat, so they manufacture a actual difference between them, that honestly doesn't save them a single red cent for. Now if you try to test tone wood, and you want to be as scientific as possible, you will have to ensure the two guitars are built to the exact same specs, and the more exact they are the better. So the pickups will need to have the same amount of wraps in them, they need to be in the exact same spot on each guitar, not close, but the exact same spot. The electronics have to match exactly, and then we get to how they are played. The notes tested need to be played exactly the same each time, which means the pick angle needs to be the same, the speed of the strum has to be the same, where on the pick the strings hit need to be the same, everything needs to be the same, even the action needs to be the same.. Because you need to take out as many variables as possible, leaving only the wood type as being different. Anyhow, the difference you are hearing are going to be nothing more than how they are being played and of course the exact position of the pickups on the scale and of course difference in the pickups themselves. So now that I told you one of the dirty secrets held by guitar manufactures, do you honestly think you are hearing something different in the clean tones that is caused by the wood differences, or maybe the other factors than can easily affect the tone?
@@JC-fj7oo I did watch the video, but my points are in fact not addressed at all, just saying they are the same, does not mean they are the same. Go ahead and try this one to see my point, the next time you are looking at guitars, find two that are said to be the exact same guitar, even with the same finish as well. Test the pickups, you will see the outputs will be close but not the same. Go ahead and measure where the pickups are between a Squire and a Fender, they won't be the same. These guitars sound great, but that does not mean they are the exactly the same. The very small difference you hear, if you hear anything at all, is going to be being caused by the location of the pickup, and the slight difference in the pots, and the slight difference between someone playing the same sequence of notes a couple times. Even the best of players will play the same notes slightly differently when they repeat them a few times, because we are human and thus are not perfect. I like this video, and it does go a long way in showing the whole tonewood thing is fantasy, but until we start controlling every single possible variable, some folks are not going to accept it. In my case, I was explaining why you might have heard a difference.. the Sheer amount of work that anyone would have to put into building two guitars to the exact same measurements with the only difference being wood type, is staggering. But it would have taken this fella only a few minuets to measure the location of the pickups, which is most likely where the difference you hear is coming from, but he likely just believed the guitars were exactly the same excluding wood choice. I am not saying he was being dishonest or anything, or that you are stupid or smart, only that the difference you hear has a much more simple and easier explanation than some made up stuff about how wood vibrates and subtraction of frequency's due to differences in absorption caused by the bonds in different woods being different. I come from a world where it is understood and known that no two items are exactly the same, and sometimes they are not even close to being the exact same lol. People are not perfect, and that is likely what happened here. He asked for two guitars that are the exact same with only the wood choice being different, and what he got was two guitars with very small but sometimes noticeable differences between them. There is always room for improvement, and I think the next time he covers this topic, maybe he should take those measurements to ensure they are as close to being exactly the same as possible. You know just as well as I do, that the strings vibrate at different frequency's at different places on the strings along the scale of the guitar. In fact, even if you were to move your neck pickup into the bridge spot, it wouldn't sound the same as it did in the neck. Sorry, I went off on a bit of a almost rant there, but I wanted to respond in the best way I knew how lol. I hope all is well, good day and good luck :)
@@lfaf9509 these guitars aren't handmade by some guy in a shed, they are made with CNC machines. The pickups will be within a few thousandths of an inch. These are the type of machines I used to run. I already explained what the differences are. The video showed you the differences. Accept reality, or don't. Your choice.
In both of the demonstrations it didn't sound like the audio clips were actually swapped, I didn't even look at my phone, I use this stuff as background noise while I'm working. Both times he played it whichever was second sounded brighter to me.
In the 80's and 90's we were rockin the frick out with whatever we had and nobody was talking about tonewood or any of that junk. It was always about the amp!!!!!!!!
The difference between tone is so minimal I find it far more likely that the differences are due to electronic tolerance differences and tiny differences in construction and intonation. And if you're that hellbent on getting that 'mahogany' sound it will be far far far cheaper to just use a cheap EQ pedal then drop $2000 on a custom build guitar with your favorite wood. Sadly you will never EVER convince the toan aficionados. Once something becomes an article of faith only a different faith can replace it.
I was thinking the same thing, the only way to be sure is to use the same electronics in each guitar because pickups, pots and caps all have tolerances are never going to be the same electrically even in the same batches. I would bet that was the bulk of any slight tamber changes between the guitars which as far as I could tell were more like tone control adjustment variances than anything else and really quite insubstantial in any case.
@@ExpatZ266 Nail on the head right there. The pickups themselves could have slightly different output levels too, so they would respond differently even though they are the same model. Fact is there is more variation from individual units of the same model than there is across woods...
This was such a cool experiment to see you do; I kept my eyes closed while listening and as hard as I tried I couldn’t differentiate them haha. Good to know the wood isn’t as big of a factor in a guitars sound as I thought it was for so long! 👍🏾
Quoting the Spinal Tap movie :- “sometimes what you need in the music industry is a great big lump of Ash in your hands” in my case it’s a swamp Ash Telecaster
Dead on conclusion as usual. I could hear a slight difference in the clean and even thought it was odd that the Ash/Maple sounded more like Mahogany/(don't remember if it was rosewood) then you said you swapped the audio and I felt better about life again. Add some dirt and that difference becomes all but impossible to spot. The difference is stupidly small and absolutely would not stand out in a mix even to the most anal retentive tonewood snob. There is no difference to be found that can't be completely ironed out with tone controls/amp settings/etc. It really is a stupid debate with solid body guitars. Does the wood type make a difference? Technically.... yes. Does it matter in the least in any practical way? No... not one bit. Its just a bunch of snobs trying to justify over priced purchases that perhaps left them with some buyers remorse and most of them are not even actual players, any player will tell you it's not a waste if you love the guitar and it makes you happy to play. Sometimes a guitar just speaks to you and if you have the money for it, hell, you better walk out of there with a guitar case and lighter wallet.
bigger low end from the mahogany. I preferred the tighter sound of the ash but the difference would disappear with dirt and be completely negligible with final mix eq
@@derekscanlan4641 Nope, the low end is the same. The difference is in the mids, mainly 2-3k, you could say mahagony is scooped in that region or ash is boosted in the same region. But you can negate the difference with a simple eq.
But seriously, how many metal players are tone wood snobs? That's more for jazz players and that type of music, really. And I can tell you, the difference isn't as big as some claim, but it's definitely there. Of the dozen or so guitars I have, I have one guitar which gives me "that" jazz tone, and it's an all-mahogany Les Paul. Funny thing, I can't tell it from my Gibson L4 if I switch them back and forth without changing the amp, when they both have the same strings. So I strung the L4 with flat wounds because why not? THAT is really "the tone."
I believe I could hear a difference during the clean section. However it might not be tonewood and could easily be different picking angle/distance from pickup/picking strength, maybe variance between the actual electronic components maybe the capacitors weren't exactly the same or maybe one had slightly more worn strings. Definitely not enough to justify spending more on tonewoods though
I remember watching videos on multitrack guitars and wondering why they don't just copy/paste the same riffs, after a long time I learned they record it again for the differences you describe which eliminate phasing issues or something like that
The small difference in the clean one doesn't probably have to do with woods either. normal electronics have a +- variable of 3-5% so it might be the pots or the cap on the tone knob. Might even be a different amount of winding on the pickups.
Or the setup of the guitar, or the height of the pickups, or a number of other factors. It's really hard to pin minuscule differences on one variable when there are so many others that are so hard to control.
"Normal" electronics have tolerances around 20%. "Precision" electronics are rarely better than 5% in that form factor. SMT pieces might be 1% or even 0.1%, but not through-hole-style caps and generic pots. Good luck estimating the exact cutoff frequency on that tone knob anywhere except full open, for example.
Normal electronics like resistors are commpn at 5% sometimes 10%. There is 1% and 0.1% classs but its not cheap ( and I ve seeen old ZSRR guitar innards with better electronic design then most modern ones ( they literally had pcb under pcb copper shield plus aluminium screen. Pickups might fry an amp and I was figuring out tone circuit for a long time. Then again single coils in this are bigger then humbucks) so yeah a difference in resistance of pot from nominal can make it sound different. Non log pots or log pots in place of linear will make it sound different. A lot of ppaces it can be effed up but you can replace all electronics to higher quality with little cash. Just the coils are annoying to replace but im trying out thicck wire ones soon from an old book about diy electronics when I get to building a guitar.
And even with drums the tone of the wood is gone in just about every mix you can throw it into. The low end in Birch toms and kick tends to last longer than say a maple but thats the only difference ive ever heard is basically just the attack and sustain of the drums
EXACTLY! I even don't care about pickups if it's cheap. My favorite pickups are 15 dollar Amazon pickups. Found out they were the same ones that were in my base model ibanez s series I got for 200 bucks. I've had guitar techs and professional musicians ask me where I got them and they just think I'm an asshole when I say "15 bucks on amazon"
I could tell a small difference between the mahogany and ash when they were not in a mix even on an iphone, but since it’s all the same hardware and pickups it is just that, a small difference. At the end of the day “tonewood” shouldn’t be a big factor in your choices for a guitar, the comfortabilty and weight balance are much more important. In a mix it was indistinguishable (at least on an iphone speaker) and whatever small difference there might be you could change with a small EQ tweak.
The difference in sound is, at most, insignificant. Great test. Great video. Any chance of a similar test with body shapes? I know that would be much harder, but same pickups, same wood in, say a strat style, a V style, something more modern like a Meteora shape? Or whatever shapes, so long as they're significantly different. I'm really just genuinely interested in hearing what would happen. Maybe get the wave forms too? I know that's just more visual, when we shouldn't be relying on visual, but I just think it would be interesting. I know, how magnanimous of me to suggest a topic that would require a great deal of someone else's resources!
Wood absolutely has an effect on the tone of the guitar, however with a very subtle and small effect. But comparing some guitars you can definitely hear it. It is amazing to me that this debate continues, but really it is just an example of how little musicians know about physics. I say all this as somebody who actually has degrees in physics and electrical engineering. Wood affects the tone but there are many other variables to an electric guitar tone. The order of what affects the tone the most goes like this: The first thing that has the most effect are the SPEAKERS. The speakers set the overall EQ of the guitar sound. But also the cabinet, the enclosure and the wood and construction matter a lot in how the sound is projected into the room. So speaker cabinet is number one. The second thing is the AMP. The amplifier’s circuit and it’s frequency response matters a lot. Unless the amp is totally clean, completely linear and has a totally flat frequency response, it will affect the tone the most after speaker cab. The next thing is the guitar, and that is a sum of everything from the pickups, bridge, nut, strings and yes, also wood. The type of pickups (single coils vs humbucker, etc) is going to have a big effect. The next thing is the scale length and the location of the pickups. That’s why strats sound different then Les Pauls even with the same humbuckers (because strats have longer scale length). The last thing is going to be the bridge and the nut. The angle at which the strings make at the nut and bridge matter a lot. Now, you wonder where wood comes in? Well, the strings are held by the bridge and nut, but those things are attached to wood. If the wood or whatever material the guitar were made of were absolutely perfectly rigid and hard, then it would not matter at all because the strings would just vibrate freely and the pickups would be the only thing that mattered to tone. But the wood is not perfectly hard and rigid. The wood itself is porous and it also vibrates. So the wood behaves as sort of a mechanical dampener. The entire guitar with the bridge and nut and wood can be modeled as a mechanical oscillator and there is loss that goes into the wood. Different types of woods have different degrees of hardness based on the grain. Hard woods with tight grain like maple will tend to give brighter sound because the sound waves from the string vibrations will reflect more easily. Woods with looser grain like mahogany will sound darker because they absorb more of the higher frequency. But another thing here is that the NECK wood matters more than the BODY wood, since the strings are vibrating over the neck and frets. But overall, the wood will affect the tone in that it acts as sort of a mechanical dampener, which gives a subtle filter effect. And some guitars that use shitty wood that absorbs too much vibration from the strings will give the guitar an overall dead sound. That’s why also that the wood has to be properly dried to get rid of any moisture which can absorb too much sound from the vibration of the strings. But overall, yes, wood DEFINITELY affects the tone, however there is a very subtle effect. A brighter maple neck guitar can be made to sound similarly to a darker mahogany neck guitar by simply adjusting the amp. Changing speakers and even pickups will have more effect as well. But this whole idea of wood doesn’t matter is simply wrong. It matters, but not as much as other things. It’s amazing to me this debate continues, but musicians don’t know physics and just want to argue about why expensive guitars with nice wood don’t matter. It definitely matters but it’s not everything.
I read your essay and you're completely wrong mate. Your argument falls flat for one simple reason - a pickup is an electromagnet, not a microphone. It doesn't matter that the wood is vibrating, or has an effect on the sound acoustically. The signal that goes to the amp is not effected in any way by the wood of the guitar vibrating. It doesn't effect sustain, tone, not a single thing. " some guitars that use shitty wood that absorbs too much vibration from the strings will give the guitar an overall dead sound" tell that to brian may, he made his out of blockboard LOL. Cope harder mate
As an electrical engineer, I'm always baffled by this debate. It's almost like people don't know how an electric guitar works. How is the composition of the guitar body gonna alter how the pickups work interact with the strings? lol
My only guess is that if there is any sort of difference with these two guitars is with the pick ups, no 2 sets of pick ups will be exactly the same, woods types is purely an vanity thing!!
So many butthurt toanwood afficionados. Keep up these mythbusting videos Glenn they're always entertaining.
It's like a cult!😁
It only confirmed that people working with sound can also be tonedeaf 😆
So funny
Glen lacks the ability to discriminate tone(as well as most of the unwashed masses). Save your money and stay away from Spectre Studios. Just another example of unequal people dragging down everyone else, believing their deficit *must* be universal.
@@BlackPhillip666 ^^^^buthurt of the week vote right here lmaoooo!
Hey Glenn, as a luthier I want to share an anecdote from my apprenticeship (three year vocational collage for instrument building over here in germany with classes for guitarbuiding, violin making and accordeon making. And since we are old fashioned I graduated as a journeyman-luthier whith an official certificate and all..)
During one semester we had to do projects in small groups and our group decided to make an experiment in psycho-acoustics. We prepared a presentation that showed several different acoustic guitars, including stats like tonewoods, maker and price and we asked the rest of the class to fill out a qestionaire rating the sound quality of every shown guitar by a short recording of the instrument.
What they did not know was that every sample was recorded on the same guitar. When processing the data from the questionaires, we got statistically significant differences in the percived sounds of the different guitars. The effect was not huge, but still every guitar was rated to sound like one would expect it to sound. So even a room full of luthiers, violin-makers and accordeon-makers (do they count in this context? :P) can get fooled by psycoacustic effects. Especially if you tell people to find differences, they will find some. In our case some of the violin makers insisted they heared different guitars when we presented our findings some weeks later.
To cut a long story short: even in acoustic Instruments tonewood is not as important a some might want it to be. The best wood won't make an otherwise badly build guitar sound good. If everything else is done correctly, then one can shape the sound by the wood to some extend. But in my opinion the size and model of the guitar shape the tone of a guitar far more than the materials used. As an extreme example, you will never build a parlor-guitar that has the low end of a dreadnougt or jumbo, regardless of the woods you use.
I stop rambling before I loose myself in too much detail.
Rant over
Well, many years ago, a friend had a music store that specialized in acoustic guitars. Back then, Breedlove was all American built and had an extensive custom shop. My friend, knowing a lot about wood, stocked his store with custom instruments instead of the normal stuff. (He did very well, but family drama made him close down.) He used to have me play the various instruments, and there were noticeable differences between them. I also have a normal "maple top" Les Paul, and also an all-mahogany body Les Paul. With distortion they sound pretty similar, but on the clean setting, especially a jazz amp setting? Oh, very noticeable. So congrats on fooling your class, but I've seen the difference that different woods can make. Glenn is a metal guy, so for his musical world he is correct.
@@a2ndopynyn thanks for your reply. I never said that wood has no effect at all, especially with acoustic instruments. Just wanted to point out that psychoacoustic effects shouldn't be neglected. To give an exaggerated example, if you have an heavily overbuild guitar with a millimeter thick polyurethane finish, the species of spruce for the soundboard won't make much of a a difference. If the instrument is built light enough, of course the material properties of the wood will have an influence. Especially things like mass, stiffness, speed of sound, inner dampening etc.
But there are many more factors that influence the sound: body shape and depth, size of sound hole, bracing pattern, string material and age, pick thickness and material, playing position and some more I am sure I forgot to mention. So yes, the specific material properties of the wood used in an acoustic guitar have some influence on the sound of the finished instrument, but there are more factors than just the wood.
Fun experiment to show the effect of the playing position: put the guitar on your lap with the back resting on your legs and tap the top or bridge, then lift the guitar up and tap again. There should be a huge difference between dampened and resonating back.
I'm rambling again..
In short, the properties of the materials used do of course have an influence, but there is way more to it especially when one adds amplification of any kind. Maybe it's my background in mechanical engineering but I like my measurements and repeatability. If a piece of wood has the properties needed for a specific job, I don't care about which species it is..
@@a2ndopynyn where did this notion that metal can't have clean guitar tone come from? There's a bunch of metal artists that have clean tones on their songs. Metallica usually has one or two every album. There's only so much chugga chugga I can handle on a 75 minute release. I'm sure if I thought about it I could come up with quite a few other bands that do that too.
@@a2ndopynyn Those Les Paul guitars are not exactly the same. There are likely some differences in the way they were built, and you didn't play them with the exact same pickups.
Also, they were not held in the exact same position and played with a robot arm to keep everything consistent.
Therefore that "test" is invalid, as it doesn't adhere to the basics of a scientific experiment.
@@MrClassicmetal Blah blah blah. I've had those two guitars for over 20 and over 25 years. I've played them through the EXACT same setup of amps and effects. No, the pickups aren't exactly the same - but I'm telling you, the all mahogany Paul has a darker and woodier tone than the maple cap Paul. Please don't try to tell me what my guitars, which you've never even seen much less heard, sound like.
I especially like the lighter tones you get with a Daphne Blue finish, though I find Surf Green to be very balanced.
Weird I thought the other way round
Surf Green is best for surf guitar with heavy spring reverb, and Daphne Blue or Lake Placid Blue are best for authentic Chicago blues. 😆🤞🏽
@@therealdavegrohl1098 thats not allowed. Stop with this "thinking" bullshit. OBVIOUSLY the most expensive guitar sounds the best. Not sure which one that is yet but when I find out the prices then I'll know which sounds the best
I replaced the Black SD Hotrails p/u in my strat with a White one and it sounded brighter and with more punch. Had nothing to do with improper vs. proper wiring at all :p (Side note... 20 years later learning how to wire it for both Series AND Parallel was life changing ;) PS - Always wanted a Surf Green Strat - But then my Son got me a Teal Gretsch and I think my life MAY be complete.
@Lars Norberg Nah, the strap colour makes no difference. What matters is the colour of the plectrum. They can be made from the same material, be the same shape and thickness, but blue ones always produce the nicer sound.
I was in a John Mayer concert, I really love how the nitro finish sounds.
And yep, his sunburst strat has a lot more tighter bottom end compared to his white strat, all because of the color I should add.
Funnily enough Billy Corgan says he likes the way a certain color guitar sounds, that he prefers the tone of one guitar over another based on color
I can't remember which guitar he was talking about, but he believes this to be true lol
@Joe Beef Hash That’s why your so much more famous than Billy? Your amazing tone? Everyone buy the latest Joe Hash album? Lol 🤡
i guess its John who choosed an instrument that he plays a music for you, and you like that music huh? maybe ask John about that?
@Joe Beef Hash nothing needs to be “intricate” for you to enjoy it.
@@joebeefhash3455 But Billy Corgan really is a great musician though? Isnt making great music that connects with people and means something the real barrier of becoming a great musician?
Im not a John Mayer fan at all, but because I dont like his music even the smallest bit, Im not gonna say he sucks. His music has made a really big impact on people. Why would I just randomly announce my distaste of someones music when, hey, its subjective. Also, because I dont listen to his music, I probably dont pick up on any nuances or anything that someone who actually cares about the music can pick up on.
I think The Smashing Pumpkins has a wonderfully built wall of sound that sounds absolutely massive that really works well with Billy's strange way of singing. HIs leads are genuinely inspiring because they're so powerful and iconic. Everytime I hear the solo on Quiet I just get so hyped to pick up my guitar and play.
You dont need to like him or his music or his big muff laden tones. But you can at the very least respect him for the effort he's put into his music, and you can respect the fact that his music means a lot to people.
And speaking of power chords, do I really need to talk about how Nirvana has inspired and continues to inspire generations of musicians, especially in the whole alt-rock sphere of things?
TLDR: Making music that people connect to is what makes a great musician. Not playing complex chords or crazy fast solos. Dont pick fights online for no reasons.
I'm disappointed that there isn't a "plywood from your local home improvement store" guitar in this experiment.
Why do people hate on plywood? Even some of the most expensive Gibsons have a laminate over body. Sandwiching wood with laminate layers... Sounds a lot like plywood. Also Danelectros rock.
“Tone wood”, as a term, came about because within the acoustic industry, luthiers began tap tuning their lumber and used that lumber in a build suited to the note the wood naturally resonated. They would market this practice as “tap tone wood”. The rest of the industry saw the snob appeal in this, dropped the “tap”, and used the term to market the generic ash, maple, mahogany, rosewood, alder, and ebony lumber as something “special”. Not one of these woods is rare, particularly valuable, or impossible to find.
For an instrument like the Guqin the tapped tone of the board it is carved from can make or break the instrument, but that is a very large carved wood box resonator for the strings on it.
Less so for the standard acoustic guitar but still a possible variable consideration there, though it seems it's not wood but how it was processed to treat it for wood worm and fungus that makes a Stradivarius a Stradivarius so maybe that would have a bigger effect than wood on modern acoustics as well.
Electric guitars, not so much.
not sure what you're on about with the last sentence. rosewood and ebony are a fucking nightmare to source at the moment cause of trade restrictions.
@@drpibisback7680 they exist cause these woods are endangered species now cause of excessive demand and extremely slow growth. so yeah, ebony and rosewood are rare, valuable, hard to find, and i'd also say they're something special cause they're extremely hard and have a rather unique appearance. if you want a black tough as nails fretboard you don't have a readily available alternative to ebony for example. similar woods like african blackwood are even rarer, that's why for example gibson went the full synthetic route.
@@ExpatZ266 Exactly. And even less so on electric guitars heavily disturbed and layered in recording.
LOL someone watched the Stradivarius video that dropped last week
Honestly?
Just throw active pickups in the cheapest thing you can find and get producer man some raws.
It wasn't going to sound like you in the end anyhow - it was going to be the sum total of your signal chain and producer - talent is irrelevant in the studio, didn't you know?
“Paint colour actually changes the sound of a guitar”. -Billy Corgan
Your logical fallacy is: “appeal to authority “
@@SpectreSoundStudios it's a fallacy that Billy has any authority.
@@SpectreSoundStudios Maybe it was sarcasm.
@@SpectreSoundStudios i think he's making a joke here
Kurt Cobain said it was all in the hands though 🤔
I care about how the instrument FEELS in my hands. After that, everything else can be adjusted... Pickups, hardware, strings, amp, settings, effects, and the list can go on. A $145 Harley Benton can feel better than some $3000 guitars.
Dude, it just proves that we all have our own cognitive biases. Blind tests are always the way to go! And man, those drums sounded awesome in the mix!
Twist, the drums were Glenn's sample pack! :p /S
@@Lawrence330 😂 😯
Tonewood is only important for acoustic guitars because the color of the tone is affected by the air that is moved inside it. That's not the case for an electric guitar. There's a quite interesting video about it from a luthier for anyone interested: ruclips.net/video/V76yWZ3-OuM/видео.html
it does indeed. Since he's totally happy to completely ignore the fact that played clean the two guitars actually do sound a bit different in order to back his original premise that tonewood is BS. I wasn't expecting to really hear any difference but was quite surprised when the two guitars played clean did have a difference.
Actually the drums were just a toddler banging on pots and pans but you were fooled because they played a clip of a guy playing a drums kit. Ha, ha fooled you 🤣.
Most of the guitar's sound is in the electronics, scale length, and signal chain. Anything else is personal preference.
Not to change the focus but I really hope the guitar community focuses on the sustainability of the wood rather than the "tone" of the wood. Swamp ash is in a shortage and wenge is considered endangered. I would love to see more synthetic materials similar to what Aristides is doing. Sadly, musicians clinge to tradition a little too hard.
*cling
@@matturner6890 maybe he was making a new word out of cling and whinge
@@matturner6890 With the prevalence of typos caused by mobile devices with tiny keypads is it really necessary to do the grammar correction thing? Do you really think after spelling all those words perfectly fine they're too dumb to know how to spell cling? Really? Quit being obnoxious.
Synthetic usually means petrol based polymers like the resins Aristides are using. Not so great for the environment either. Granted you can produce those resins by chemically altering sustainable resources but that takes a lot of work and is probably just as harmful. Maybe you could use mycelium or other bio-polymers
Carbon Fiber works great for me.
Tonewood doesn't matter.
However: Having the guitar in tune and picking the strings with precision does.
Yeah sure. Les Pauls would sustain absolutely the same if made out of poplar, or presswood for that matter, instead of mahogany, right? Riiiiight.
@@martinportelance138 Here's a video showing otherwise ;) basswood Ibanez RG with fantastic sustain compared to others ruclips.net/video/Y4DYzhG4MRg/видео.html
@@cederickforsberg5840 I don't put much credit on this test's methodology. How do you know the RG was basswood? Looked like a mahogany body with a maple top to me.
@@martinportelance138 Actually I dont even car,e I just play guitars without looking at the wood specs. :)
@@martinportelance138 See? You said 'looks like' instead of 'sounds like'...
As I'm sure many know, moving your picking hand 1cm closer to or further from the bridge will have more of an effect than the wood the guitar is made of... 🙄
Thank you for going through the trouble of doing this Glenn! I know I'm late to the party, but I've been looking for something like this duo of videos!
In fact, I kinda encourage people to enlighten me about how certain woods "sound" on solid body electric instruments. It's fun to see someone talking with such confidence about something that doesn't make any sense.
When it comes to wood, I'm more concerned about the engineering issues: neck stability, balance, durability, weight, sustain, and so on. If we look at it mathematically, wood type should affect tone. But in practice, it's so minor that it's simply not worth the mental effort (especially not in high-gain metal). There are so many more practical concerns that warrant our attention.
It should mathematically affect the tone means what? It does effect all you said by different parameters, even sustain because it varies in stiffness, but tone? Which parameter would that be? We are not talking resonance (acoustic instruments) here...
@@Jayarbal Everything that impacts how your strings vibrate affects the sound generated by the instrument, by imposing dampening effects, resonance, feedback, etc between the wood and strings. These effects induce additional (an)harmonics or dampen them, or change how they evolve over time. The impacts are not always at high-enough amplitudes to stand out audibly, but they should still be measurable.
Mathematically it's like a function that tracks the numerous vibrations and all of the forces being imposed upon the strings and body and whatnot, and translates all of that into a series of sines whose amplitudes (and even frequencies) vary over time.
But yeah, it is just not significant enough to matter when playing metal. Partly because the amplitudes aren't high-enough to impose a noticeable difference, and also partly because the harmonics that make up guitar tone are kind of a mess anyway.
@@ChamiCh Well you're right that everything that influences string vibration has an effect on timbre and tone. But resonance does not do that, imagine feedbacks on acoustic guitars... String vibration is translated into audible resonance on/in the instruments body and in the room after beeing released from the string, not before. When then resonance is created on any given surface through reflection (like the guitars body), it immediately gets diffused into the room, as it expands spherically from any given reflecting point, lots of interferences happen. What arrives back to the string is nothing but "white noise" with no clear direction, and more importantly no pressure (amplitude), hence no impact. Soundwaves like resonances are air pressure waves. No air is actually transported from A to B (unlike wind, that causes mechanical impact on stuff). And they also aren't vibrating electromagnetic fields. That's what pickups hear. And all we hear from an electric guitar is what the pickups hear. Ok, what we hear in the room besides that directly from the guitar when it's played, is the acoustic resonance of it. It's what you hear from it as an ACOUSTIC instrument. The acoustic sound of an electric guitar IS dependent of it's resonance hence tonewood. But the signal you pick up using pickups is not.
Having your pickups like .001mm higher or lower also has an effect on tone, but in the grand scheme of every other effect or amp character, tone wood is minor. Good construction and good hardware is more important.
The tonewood argument really falls apart when you can make a bigger difference by angling the pick slightly in one direction, or strumming at a different point that its honestly hilarious people still defend it
Difference in pick materials can make a HUGE sound difference too. But I think that wouldn't surprise most people. They're also a lot easier to A/B than guitars so anyone can find the sound they like most without recording tones and switching guitars every 2 minutes
Going this path you could argue no gear actually matters. Why have good pickups when a magnet with copper wire can make a signal?
The point of ALL these things you mention, is that they can stack in a certain direction and make a unique sound. Honestly this test would be the same if they switched pickups. Or switched strings. The whole thing is so biased because it just highlights that changing one element about the chain can be drowned out by putting it in the mix.
Not being able to tell what is different does not mean its not different. But this is the point Glenn is making
@@stefanfyhn4668 not really, some things matter much more than others
@@ileutur6863 why not agree with a simple notion that EVERYTHING matters? even the wood. some guitars sound like they sound no matter how you pick and what pickups you use and you can't jump any higher than that. great guitars sound great effortlessly (strong mids, little to no bass, super tight response into the amp without pedals) - those I consider great guitars and it takes a bit of a hunt to aquire one.
Like the "string through" design......
Until we bring up classical instruments lol
Well, there's some polemic half-truths being touted here, as Glenn likes to do. Still, some actual insights for you here:
1) Wood does actually make a difference.
2) It doesn't matter in the mix, or on stage. People who think it does live in a fantasy world. What most of you think of as tone will depend on: cab --> amp --> scale length --> pickups
3) Much like the pickups, the type of wood won't make a difference to the recording engineer or mixer. But also remember that recording and mixing is not reality. Details of the construction of your instrument WILL, or at least SHOULD matter for your playing FEEL and performance as a musician. There clearly are aspects of the response and resolution that are influenced by your guitars' material, and most of the time, you can attribute certain qualities to certain woods. Also, the exact same pickup will do different things depending on the guitar's wood.
4) If you don't feel it, it's you. Learn to develop an ear for tone and a sense for your playing dynamics.
5) If you don't care, it's perfectly fine. It really isn't anything essential or game changing in any way.
6) In reality, nothing is really that important. Most of you guys are simple metal bozos. Nothing wrong with that. I'm a metal bozo myself. But you play with way too much distortion and the stuff you play doesn't allow for, or requires, any kind of tonal nuance anyway. Taste and tone in Metal are very much a thing of the past nowadays. So it doesn't stop with the wood, even if Glenn chooses to harp on that part the most.
7) If you want to stay with Glenns logic, then amps don't really matter either. He clearly prefers tube amps, which is quite ironic. Guess what? The amp sim will be just fine. The good ones sound great nowadays and none of you will hear a difference, nor will the listener.
8) Sure, don't fuss about with the woods. But please, also stop fussing around with the pickups. For most of you, it will just not matter. Especially with the amounts of gain compression and the low tunings everyone prefers today.
9) In fact, since we're talking about guitar truisms: why don't you get active pickups? You're a metal dood. They're the best thing that could happen to you. But you don't do it because smartasses on the internet started telling you how actives are "undynamic". What dynamics are we talking about again? It's as much nonsense as the tonewood cork sniffing.
10) Don't listen to engineers and mixers too much when it comes to these things. You're the musician. He's there to capture your performance and has no business lecturing you.
11) I'm saying all of this because videos like this have a tendency to make the unassuming audience stupidly opinionated on the one side, but ultimately simple-minded on the other. Try developing a nuanced, rigorous thinking. That has way more to do with "critical thinking" than this kind of cantankerous polemics.
Not throwing shade at Glenn, he's a great guy and the general premise of this video is good and correct. But trying to add a bit more perspective to all of this.
Underrated comment right here. Guitarists get stuck in so many money traps when it comes to their sound.
All of these little things used to matter when the technology was still in its infancy, but these days you're pretty much covered on all fronts with a minimal investment.
FEEL...aka cognitive bias. Tonewoods have been tested at the waveform level and found to be nearly identical. There's videos of this on YT. It reminds me of wine connoisseurs who claim a wine has a particular "soul", yet can't distinguish their favorite wine from a cheaper imitation in a blind test. What you "feel" and what's really going on are usually two different things
@@sidgar1 Do you even play guitar? I guess you're one of these nerds who symphatize with the idea that the world and all of life is just a set of 1s and 0s. It's a comforting idea when you're fucking awkward and any kind of interaction with anything is scary. Music and metal is not for you, dude ... The fact that you would go as far to equate "feel" to "cognitive bias" speaks volumes about your immaturity.
How to pedantic in a nutshell
Swap the speaker. Spend your money on what matters.
The cab genuinely seems to make the biggest difference of all.
@@skatepark02 from everything I’ve heard, the cab definitely has a bigger affect on the tone than the amp itself.
Nothing sounds brighter than a "Sunburst" finish, it's the whole reason why it was called as such. Sunburst = brightest tones. /S
Nothing changes tone more than mentioning the country of manufacturing.
"Sounds thai"
@Alex | No wait, I think you may be onto something...
It’s science. 👍
And an Ebony is the darkest sounding, right?
@@FEAROWNAGE racist
This is why when I want a change in guitar sound, I change the pickups and probably the amp as well. Pickups and speakers make the difference since this is about electric signals taken from the strings.
This is why we have guitars made out of concrete, resin, carbon fiber, plastic etc. and still sound like an electric guitar
But huge hollow body guitars sound huge and hollow and almost acoustic thru the pick up. Strange If Guitar construction didn’t matter
@@riheg Probably matters more in non-high-gain playing.
@@riheg you’re comparing the medium to the design. It’s actually the air inside that makes hollow bodies sound good not the wood itself.
@@andrewt836 yes but the tone wood atheists main argument Is that only the pickups matter as if they’re isolated from the vibrations of the body. In my view however how the guitar sound unplugged has some impact on how it sounds plugged in
@@riheg The UK 70's guitarist Robin Trower agrees with your assessment. He says that a guitar (he prefers Strats) that sounds better unamplified usually sounds better when amped.
Why is this still a thing?
Weve all known for decades that tonewood can be extremely important in an Accoustic guitar,and much less important in Elecrric guitars.
The guitar sound is created by the interaction between string and pickup. The guitar body can be made from pretty much any sturdy material, I made a pretty nice replacement body for an old precision bass out of a scaffolding plank
But, the way the strings vibrate is indeed influenced by the material they are on....
@@Fluf-lv1iu I'm just convinced that people that don't think tonewood or wood matters, that they just can't hear the difference. It's not nothing. If it didn't there wouldn't be so much variability between the same exact model of guitar.
@@Fluf-lv1iu but the strings don't touch the body at all?
@@jhref well, not directly but the strings are coupled with the body via the bridge, what makes it a vibrating system as a whole. Therefor each body resonaces diffrent, depending on material and even due diffrent structures in the same material. Of course this differences are small but not zero.
@@Fluf-lv1iuIf only someone had done something like tested guitar tone with no body for the guitar. Oh well.
Here’s an actually important question: which guitar weighs more?
I know swamp ash compared to Alder is a lot heavier
@@gavintimson5940 but what about mahogany?
My 2 swamp ash guitars are lighter than my 2 mahagony ones, but they also differ in their shapes and the finish so...
@@bridgestreetdesign No idea. I haven`t got one :)
The weight of the guitar can matter for sure, but the density matters a bit more.
If there were any differences in the tone, it was so minimal that it could just as easily be attributed to a subtle difference in the performance as it could be the type of wood the guitar was made from. But quibbling over such miniscule differences really does seem like a waste of time. As the wise sage Carl Brutananadilewski would say, "It don't matter. None of this matters."
the ash guitar has annoying supertrat like tone which i don't like. it does matter because the more inspiring the guitar is the better the music and this subtle difference is actually huge in a real world scenario with a good amp. as any guitarist would tell you
@@olegoleg1838 key word there, guitarist. Nobody else gives a shit. The difference is negligible.
until you find out that les paul forum users care what kind of inlays they have, for "muh fretboard resonance"
@@olegoleg1838 That was also a different performance. Did you not notice that part of the comment? The difference is negligible, and could easily be attributed to the angle the pick was hitting the strings in each performance. He's playing the same part on both guitars, but it's a separate performance and there are a million variables that can change. It could even have something to do with the wiring of the guitar. In no way does this demonstrate a difference between wood types alone, *especially* in the crunch full mix example.
"I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!"
I did always find it suspect that people said maple necks sound "brighter" and rosewood sounded "darker." and that just happened to line up with the darkness of the wood....
Unless you're playing acoustic guitar, the most important thing about tone wood is the weight.
That settles it! From now on I'm building my guitars out of melamine particleboard. Just don't spill your beer on it. 😂
I have a Danelectro made out of plywood and the thing rocks.
You can try a totally different material as well: ruclips.net/video/fQxxpBDkoRQ/видео.html
Keep bassists and vocalist away from it 😂😂
Funny you should say that. Danelectro actually does, or did, make their guitars out of what was, for all intents and purposes, exactly that.
plywood actually sounds great. very tight. theres a channel on youtube where some dude builds guitars out of all those shitty materials like foam etc, and it always sounds like shit compared to a usual fender lmao. check it out
There’s a section in this video comparing two electric Les Paul’s acoustically. Two of the same woods sounding completely different. Put on some headphones. This proves Glenn’s crusade is frivolous to say the least. Ask your favourite guitar player. Not Glenn, who has not spent serious time with an instrument to know it/them intimately
On that clean sound I actually do hear a distinct different between the cut of both guitars. But there’s no fucking way that’s going to translate once distortion is added.
Exactly. Glenn is a metal guy, so for his musical world he is correct. For different stuff, like jazz, and also acoustic instruments, it is noticeable, although it isn't as big a difference as some claim. These "tone woods are bullshit" videos he makes every so often are intended to start arguments - aka, they're _click bait._
@@a2ndopynyn To be fair, the only people that beat off over tone wood ARE metal guys. So it's still a valid argument.
@@Zeta9966 What? That makes no sense. The only folks I know that care about tonal woods are jazz cats and acoustic players. Then again, I don't hang with a lot of metal heads, so I'll take your word for it. But that's definitely stupid. Load any guitar up with heavy metal/metal distortion and it sounds pretty much like every other guitar. I'd think pickups and amp are the only two elements that can really affect one in that case.
@@a2ndopynyn I don’t disagree. You’d be surprised though lol. It really came into big prevalence with the advent of Djent and other modern prog
I honestly think that the actual reason the two takes sound different is because he's picking the strings slightly different. On the mahogany take, he's picking a little softer and more hesitant, so the output is a little warmer. Also he makes a few more mistakes on that version than the ash version, so some of the notes are dead. I do think tonewood makes a small difference, but it's so minimal that it doesn't matter.
For shits and giggles, you should have included some of the cheaper woods like basswood and poplar. I know making 4 guitars would be ridiculously expensive just to show there’s no difference. It still would have been interesting seeing no difference between cheapest and most expensive wood.
i always found it funny that a high end guitar maker like Ernie Ball can make some of the best sounding and playing guitars out there out of basswood. even the EVH signatures have all mostly been basswood. i just play whatever sounds good to my ears and learned to stop being so nitpicky
@@musek5048 at this point, im not even that picky. Im still starting out (1 year exactly) and i just pick what feels good in my hands. Im going to get the best sound from the one im most comfortable playing.
I think that's more the quality of how it's built than the wood. You can get a Fender and Squire supposedly made out of same wood, but the Squire sounds like crap - even if you threw in the same pick-ups as the Fender..
@@jeffreymorreale7223 exactly, im a true believer that an instrument can inspire your creativity when it clicks with you just right, whether it be with guitars or amps.
@@grumpyitcushmeta4riaproduc189 And I would be willing to call BS on that, because I've hot-rodded a Squier with Fender pickups and a thicker tremolo block, and the end result can easily stand toe-to-toe with my Fenders.
It is a marketing gimmick. Wood might matter in acoustic, but not in an electric.
it matters so little it's not worth A fuss on electric
Talking wood, there only really seems to be a difference in weight and feel on your fingers, but speaking of sound I never seemed to understand the tonewood thing, really opened my eyes on this one.
So...nobody knows the go-to guitar in making most Deathmetal recordings is the First Act (from Walmart) finished in hot pink with Hello Kitty stickers all over it.
I was half expecting to have yet another switch out and have Glenn tell us that we weren't actually hearing the drummer, but a full sample replacement with the ironic drums...
Hear them drums?? HA HA HA HA that's me beatboxing into the DAW!
HA HA HA HA SUCKERS
@@russellzauner That would be amazing
I wonder where I could get an ironic drumset?
@@russellzauner N O T H I N G I S R E A L
Quite possibly the best video you've ever made a guitar doesn't have to look like furniture to sound good.
Pine furniture is more common than pine electric guitars. checkmate
In the clean mode the ash definitely sounds brighter, with less midrange than the mahogany. Why do famous guitarists say over and over that if a guitar doesn't sound good unplugged they won't buy it. Most of them won't even plug it in if they don't like the sound unplugged.
Tone is in the fingertips. I have seen many videos with guitarists who have their own tone play a no name guitar and WHAM you can tell its them! I don't care about tonewood but I do like me a good looking guitar :)
Tone wood is only for acoustic guitar where the wood make the sound, depending on the size of the body and etc. Fender made the first Telecaster/Esquires out of pine wood.
And even when it comes to acoustic guitars, size & shape of the body affects the sound more than the wood itself.
But yeah, when it comes to solid body electrics, there's less difference than the number of my ex-girlfriends (0).
I Built my friend Kurt an Esquire style guitar from a Pine Golden Age tele from Stewmac, it sounds amazing.
And man, you know how trash people think the old Esquires sound! /s
I mean....yeah physics says the tone would be "different", and I would say they will have subtle differences when played clean... But once you add distortion those differences will be squashed into oblivion, and add a full band and it's totally irrelevant.
A good example is Steven Wilson being asked repeatedly about his recording rig and he warned that it would be disappointing, finally revealing he uses almost exclusively amp sims for recording proving that people can't tell the difference. Hell I remember the same thing happening with the old proguitarshop intro, people asking what amp they used even claiming that it was "obviously real tube tone" and then it was revealed to be an amp sim.
It's kind of like the guys with walls of Marshall Orange, or Mesa full stacks behind them on stage, You think that's what it took to get that sound. Nope. The song was recorded using a small combo amp in the studio. Cranked all the way up, in a decent room, and with room mikes they sound HUGE with epic tone.
I hate when people say "if it sounds good unplugged, it's a keeper" NO! It means the body is resonating and pissing away all your sustain. If you like a thumpy, low sustain tone, then that's great... Hence jazz boxes. If you want sustain though, it's a terrible way to pick a guitar. I ordered my last guitar online, and it has this problem. Very light, resonant body, very loud and "acoustic" sounding unplugged, but sustain is lacking plugged in. Solid bodies and acoustic guitars have opposite needs in many ways.
I really dig the look of maple fingerboards. Wish more manufacturers offered them across their lines.
I am a hobbyist luthier and I can confirm that tonewood is bullshit. The only difference in different wood types are stability and weight. Some wood species are more humidity resistant, some are prone to warping etc. But in general I do tell everyone I do guitar for, that that poplar burr top will add to your ego not the sound.
well almost all necks (the most common point to warp on a guitar) are made of maple a super hard wood. If the body is warping , you got bigger issues to work out than what kind of wood it's made of (because it's such a thick slab of wood it wouldn't warp unless you been just soaking it in water).
Woodworking doesn’t require or make you a good listener. There is a difference in tone and he states that in this video. Its a small difference but it is there if you listen. Amplification and effects will allow you to modify that difference and so in the end, like he states, you shouldn’t spend too much time on it. Unless you are a tone snob.
most luthiers are known to be absolutely tone deaf.
Great video Glenn! I couldnt hear a difference, but when you did the reveal and you wrote the tone wood in the bottom corner, those visual cues STILL made it sound different to me. Even after you had already proved me wrong! Its amazing how powerful our eyes are!
My 200 dollar Chinese guitar, with bolt on keck, resonates just as much as my 3700 dollar reissue. I play my 200 dollar guitar more; it's lighter, and more comfortable. Sound difference is minimal.
I'm the type of guitarist who wants a beautiful metal machine. I confess, I go 80% for the looks, because guitar playing is fun, recording is fun and I want to have fun looking at my guitars and picking it up.. who the fuck cares what this thing is made of. And I can't remember if I ever asked for the wood in a guitar. But one thing: a guitar HAS to be wood, I saw things in my life..
I do puzzles while videos play in the background. Therefore when the clean tones were playing, they sounded different to me but until you said which was which, I couldn't have said which was "warmer" (mahogany seemed warmer.) With any kind of distortion, it no longer made a difference which was playing. Since your work is all about metal, then I agree in that capacity tone wood does NOT matter. For clean quiet playing, there is a mild difference but in a mix, again i agree it does NOT matter.
On clean, the mahogany is warmer sounding.
I was going to say to me Ash sounded *slightly* warmer, but then Glen did the switcharoo .. so I agree.
I feel like the fact that they had to record the guy playing twice probably made the biggest difference. Any minor tonal difference is nothing compared to the individual player's touch at this point. They probably could have sounded the exact same given a hypothetical guitar robot that would repeat the exact same programmed performance.
@@drpibisback7680 maybe. In the end, the difference was so minute it might as well have been a placebo.
@@SocialNetwooky Not necessarily a Placebo. Pick angle, slightly other angle on the left hand or how much the guitar weighs in a sitting position can have minor impact to the sound, which again is nearly impossible to notice in a mix and speaking for myself I couldn't tell what is better. Anything you change on the tone knob will have more impact to the sound.
OOOOOO I love the mahogany one!!!
I'll be super stoked if I get this bad boy!!!
Never won shit in my life what a glorious first win!
Surely the density should have a little effect on the sustain, but if the woods are similar it should basically inaudible
My friend was adamant when telling me how Gibson Custom shop one piece "Triple AAA mahogany" wood sounds so much better than wood on a more affordable guitar, because in his words and I quote "Me and a buddy put an EMG 81 in a cheap guitar and it sounded like shit." I mean. How could I possibly argue with that!?! Tone wood confirmed.
This also is the same friend who didn't know how to plug in a DI on his own bass amp, so that tells you all you need to know, lol.
Great video Glenn. Keep up the awesome work!
I 100% agree that in a mix, the wood the guitar is made out of is the least of someone's concerns. Differences will be minor, and those differences can probably be adjusted for with EQ.
Having said that, listening on Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones out of my computer's standard headphone jack, on the isolated guitar tracks I can hear the difference (and also guessed you swapped the 2 audio tracks as they seemed backwards from what I was expecting). Ash is a bit brighter / snappier, the Mahogany is a little darker. Again, in a mix, much too difficult to tell without some kind of cue when the switches occurred.
I think people get upset because of the extreme declarations made about the subject (both for and against). The wood makes a subtle difference that most likely only the guitarist and engineer will notice, but there is a difference. Hence saying it's nonsense, or the opposite and that it's the most important factor, really isn't that productive in the overall conversation as it's just going to upset people and let the tribalism commence. But it overall does help with vibe / feel of an instrument. Yeah any good guitarist will pickup and any axe and make it sound great, but also that same guitarist will tell you there are just some guitars that "sing" to them or play and feel just a bit better. All in the subtle details of course.
Also check out the Warmoth YT page as they did this experiment as well, but arguably one level further. All they did was swap out the 1 part of the guitar and kept the rest the same. They did one for the body and also one just swapping the neck as well.
Great content as usual!! Love these discussions that can challenge the norms... if we all keep open minds, we all learn cool things :D
Wood does have an effect on performance. If I'm gonna be playing for two hours, I'd rather have a lighter guitar. But yeah, tonewood is bull.
"Lacquer on the headstock changes the tone of the tonewood." -Fender
Leo Fender picked his wood species based on availability. Gibson picked mahogany because it was a “premium” wood and the brand needed to be premium as opposed to Fender.
None of these choices were made from “tone.” After the 50’s and 60’s guitars from both brands people started ascribing properties to each tonewood based on the sound of each guitar.
Alder is “brighter” because Fenders used it and have a longer scale + single coils.
Mahogany is “warmer” or “mid-focused” because Gibsons had slightly shorter scale + humbuckers.
We all know the only thing that affects tone is the fretboard inlays tbh
Hey Glen, have you measured the outputs of the pickups by any chance? Pickup wiring can cause slight difference in output and thus volume, explaining why people hear (want to hear?) a difference. Keep up to good work!
The point of the video wasn't to focus on slight differences. It was to point out that there are only slight differences.
A good pickup will accentuate these differences
Glenn, your playing has gotten so much tighter! Keep it up dude. You should showcase your playing more.
Also: For cleans, I heard more clarity on the Ash guitar. Mahogany sounded ever so slightly muffled. However, like you said, in a mix that all goes out the window especially with added gain (which the tones were imperceivable from one another) . Although, that does essentially prove tonewood as a real thing for cleans anyways. I think the tonewood debate delved from a time when many players played what was available to them. Just a guitar and an amp (if they even had an amp). Meaning: not running through a bazillion pedals or into a computer. When you’re forced to play the bare minimum gear, you can really learn all of the subtle differences things can make for your sound. I also believe that’s where the cable debate came from too.
For what it’s worth, I don’t let wood species dictate my electric guitar choices. Acoustics are a different story all together though.
They made a Strat out of treated cardboard some years ago and it sound´s just a normal Strat with single coils.
There´s a video here on youtube, where they take that cardboard Strat to the Fender Custom Shop and give it so some of the luthiers/ techs there to try it out. Afterwards they take it to the guitarist of Linking Park, Brad Delson, in his studio, where he actually uses it to record some demos with the late Chester Bennington ( bless his soul) .
Both the Fender luthiers/ guitar techs and the LP guys literally say: "We could not tell a significant difference between this and a proper Stratocaster made out of alder or ash, the cardboard Strat sounds just like a normal Strat..."
You can look the video up, yourselves.
Why is this guy sad? It breaks my heart.
I'll tell you where the wood makes a noticeable difference on solid guitars, the weight. I have a question though, do you think the results would be the same on a hollow body guitar? In my mind, the resonance from the wood should make a difference, but probably not enough for it to matter when you add distortion and other instruments.
I've always felt that tone wood only matters in acoustic instruments and non magnetic pickups. I.E. piezo pickups.
@@zanzeroth And that's exactly how it is. This short clip explains how an electric guitar works, and also debunks tonewood: ruclips.net/video/lBAZepM5F_0/видео.html
@@zanzeroth yeah with a piezzo pickup I think it would definitely matter maybe I should've been clearer, but I meant the resonance of the guitar affecting the vibration of the strings which could be picked by the magnetic pickups
It shouldn't make a difference on hollow bodies either because pickups are wax potted to specifically avoid picking up body resonance that creates feedback, especially on hollow bodies.
@@tinystar3010Good fact. I didn't knew it, thank you!
People hear the guitar acoustically if not turned up loud enough. People feel how the guitar vibrates differently in their hands and body. But in a recording or a loud amp, nope.
Ok I'm gonna be completely honest here and feel free to call me out but I have no reason to lie:
I play mostly mahogany guitars because you tend to get a brighter tone from them, which I personally like. I was watching the clip with the clean guitars and I swear to you guys I was SHOCKED at how dark the tone sounded compared to my mahogany guitars. Glen then said he switched the audios around which made sense because mahogany does sound brighter.
I'm not an a aficionado over tone concepts. I don't mind playing other types of guitars. I prefer mahogany because they feel a bit heavier and better built, but I've also come to appreciate the subtle difference in tone. The differences aren't enough to make or break your sound, which is what I think Glen was getting at, but there are differences between wood types
Thanks so much, Glenn. Comparing clean tones is crucial for a lot of arguments even if it's not very relevant for metal. I'd be interesting to have a tone-match challenge, matching not just levels but overall EQ, to see how nearly identical you can make the guitars sound. (Same for amp cabs and speakers... they all have different frequency response functions, and it's an interesting question whether you can EQ one with a broad and flat FRF to sound like any of the others by rolling off the bass or treble, or boosting the upper mids, or whatever.)
One of the things that's weird about guitar audio is that we're used to having non-flat FRFs from our guitars AND our amps, with no clear FLAT reference to start from in figuring out EQ issues.
As a recreational luther, I've done the research. For years I've been building guitars out of exotic wood species, mostly for aesthetic reasons. I noticed that there was, as Glenn states, very little difference in tone between different species of wood. So I decided to run a test. Using the same template, I created two bodies, one walnut and one a pine tabletop rescued from a dumpster, with identical necks and the same pickups and electronics. They sounded the same, and hooking them up to an oscilloscope, the waveforms were also identical. Tonewood myth busted.
Well, first...
OSCILLOSCOPE IS TIME DOMAIN BRO NOT FREQUENCY DOMAIN
Also, if you plug the guitar straight into the test gear, you have to realize that you're going to get a LOT of the same reading - like the pickup impedance isn't going to measurably change relative to the wood its mounted on.
You have to AT THE LEAST do a difference measurement on the two instruments so you can common mode out the parts that are the same and isolate the differences, which depending on your test methods may be nonextant or orders of magnitude above what's expected, again, because of basic lack of comprehension of the difference between such basic topics as the frequency and time domains of different and what you can and cannot measure with them.
If you were just eyeballing the oscope display and not pulling the waveform data points and running MATH on them, then YOU DON'T KNOW but instead are GUESSING WITH AUTHORITY you don't have.
You're going to have a LOT of fun checking spectral energy density over time for regeneration and decay attributes with an oscope lol
lmfao an oscilloscope
@@russellzauner interesting thoughts. I was thinking about attaching a speaker on the guitar body and running a sweep to get the frequency nods of the blank.
@@russellzauner Best comment yet, I applaud sir, at least one person knows something in the fckin comments, I bet you are gen X or older :)
The problem is that people are dead set on wood. I live close to a farm that raises cattle for wagyu beef. The unique TMR blend they feed their cattle revealed a hidden gem. I purchased a few kilograms of dung and slow-baked a block of it in the oven overnight at a medium temperature. The result was a hard material with a beautiful shit-burst pattern. Even better was the tonal qualities in the guitar, giving it an incredible bottom end. For the finish we used a blend of bull semen mixed with polyurethane for a clear, rock-solid clear finish that helps in the reproduction of the high frequencies. My guitar is pure bullshit, and it sounds great.
It's not a question of "Can you tell which guitar is which?"
The question is, "is there a difference between the two?"
And by extension, though never mentioned, is does the _material_ make a difference?
The answer to these questions is yes. But the single, most important question that each person has to ask themselves is, "Do I really care that much?". And if a person is really focused on the music, the answer is "no".
...And before someone spouts "confirmation bias" (most people like to say it without fully understanding what it is) Just remember that confirmation bias works _both_ ways.
"Shut up and play yer guitar" ~ Zappa
oh my. These two guitars sound so different, I don't know what you guys are smoking. I have no idea what wood is supposed to do what, but what I hear is one guitar with peaky mids around 1k and the other has more low mid. It is a massive difference between the two. In the first clip is sounds like one of the guitars is playing through a compressor while the other has the lows rolled off.
Go claim the free guitar then, golden eardrums. 🙄
GLEEEENNNN!!! your guitar playing sure has come such a long way since I started watching you forever ago. Nice work sir. Please never stop making content! Cheers from Salem Oregon. 😁
Well what do you know, a guy who's not trying to sell me something is saying that more expensive woods are not the best by default.
Okay, setting myself up for a complete roasting here, but on the clean tests (about 2 minutes in), I thought: "Yeah, that second guitar does sound different"
Then I thought, "hang on, that second guitar sounds darker than the first - surely it should sound brighter".
Then Glenn declares that he switched the audio tracks.
Now don't get me wrong - there's no way I could spot the difference with heavy guitars buried in an audio mix. I love the channel's content. The toys are still firmly in the pram 😃. But I also have a lot of love for music with clean tones, and whether it's a fat strat or a twangy tele, the alder/ash thing has always made a difference to me.
Anyway, fuck you Glenn. Keep up the quality content, and greetings from Nottingham, UK
Wood choice will, in fact, affect the sound, in that literally every part of the guitar will affect the sound, same as how every part of the performance will affect the sound. That's just the physics of playing an instrument, and that shouldn't be up for debate.
The issue, however, is whether or not the difference is significant, relative to the difference made by everything else contributing to the sound. The difference in sound between two different woods is nothing next to the difference between two different pickups, or two different amps. For a solid body electric guitar, the pickups and amps will make up almost all of your sound. The difference that tone wood makes is so little that it disappears completely once it's in a mix.
the difference is gone pretty much because of all the other instruments taking up the frequency spectrum in the mix and the sound compression used by youtube or mp3s.
even when you go to a live show its much harder to tell whats going on because the way human hearing works when something is really loud compared to more normal volumes.
at higher volumes you hear mainly bass and treble and since the guitar is mainly a mids instrument you lose a lot of the "tone".
and i havent even listed speakers mic selection and placement which just adds to how recordings change everything.
I love all those people who claim they hear the difference and even specify how those 2 guitars sound differently.
AND YET LITERALLY NOBODY was able to tell them apart in the mix.
*slow clap*
You guys are amazing, please keep us entertained
I can tell a difference in both clean and mix but I do have good ears. It's like TV's easy to tell the difference when side to side. Harder if they are not in the same house. Having the specs and both samples I can guess but it would be crazy had to find specs based on samples tho. Comparative is still much easier as you do have datapoint.
how does NOBODY come close to guessing the tonewood in the mix - when there are only 2 options? that's not even how numbers work, my man
Even in tests like this, where they miiiiiiight sound slightly different, it could just as easily be attributed to the micro differences between the pickups and other electrical components. They are never exactly the same. I've always called BS on tonewood, this video is a great proof of that.
That was kinda surprising the ash/maple guitar has a slightly scooped mids comparing to the mahogany one... Till Glenn confessed he has flipped the samples 😁
I was actually watching and thinking - Did he just swap the clips around ?
I had the same exact thought... like 'why is the maple fretboard guitar darker than the mahogany'? Then he came clean and it made sense. Of course he did. It actually proves Glenn wrong, but whatever. It's a metal channel, I'm not mad.
@@JuiceboxDesmond It doesn't though, because it was two separate performances of the same thing. Something as subtle as the picking angle could change the tone substantially, and if that guitarist isn't super precise, that could easily be the difference. Glen's point is that the *wood* doesn't make a difference, which seems to be true especially in the full mix examples, which he challenged people to identify when the guitars changed in a previous video, and literally nobody could do it.
@@koalanectar9382 Yeah, pick angle won't make that much of a difference, only position potentially, but he played pretty much at the same place. I won't hear that much varience in tone from such a similar performace, what you are hearing my friend is tonewood. Almost everyone here in the comment section are deaf.
I've watched maybe the first 30 seconds and I can already tell that there is going to be SOOO much "Butthurt of the Week" material to choose from for the next VC episode.
Without the full mix, one sounded just a teeny smidge darker and the other just a teeny smidge brighter (I forget which one was which), but in the full mix, you can't tell. The difference is so small as to be unimportant.
I wonder if the same holds true for bass, esp. without distortion/effects. The instrument seems to resonate more, since it has thicker strings.
I've been "building" (hobby assembling kits and warmoth) guitars for a bit now and I don't really hear any differences from the woods. Honestly I think weight, part material, and body construction have more to do with it than anything. I've found that the cheap offshore parts aren't usually great but tone improves when you swap out cheap pewter cast alloy for real brass and steel parts things seem to resonate more. Then again, I've heard dudes pick up off the shelf squires and plug into a 10 watt shit amp and absolutely murder and the tone still sounds okay. I think at the end of the day you just need to find something that works for you and focus on getting better with your playing. Tom Morello even said something similar that he never found the tone he was looking for so he just ended up keeping the gear he had and started focusing on writing music. I don't think his gear has changed much in the last 30 years.
I saw Tom say that in his master class!! I’m thinking about applying the same to my vocals mixes too…
I would make sure to really emphasize the "pretty much" bullshit on that. There are differences in sound from the woods that are pretty easy to hear, especially on cleans. But the difference is minimal when cranked up. ALSO any differences are basically just related to the weight/density. A heavy block of maple and a heavy block of mahogany are going to sound about the same but both sound different than a really light basswood. Especially when talking about sustain. That said, spending money on "exotic" tonewoods is bullshit. There are plenty of light and heavy woods that are reasonably priced. A more expensive wood won't make you sound any better. (or worse)
Also, one can get a 'bad' piece of, say, alder while another will get a 'good' one. There are differences even within the same types of wood.
I would say its not pretty much bullshit, its all out bullshit and Ill even explain the difference in tone that you hear. There are a few things that will affect how a guitar sounds outside of how they are played. When it comes to the build of the guitar, the type of pickups will make a difference, example is a single coil will always sound different than a humbucker. The next difference you can hear between guitars is going to be based on the electronics, I am talking about the pots and such, dime size pots do not sound exactly like quarter size pots. Then there is the scale, 25.5 inch scale guitars do not sound like 24.75, and these have all been easily ones we can all agree on. The next one is not something that people think about much, and its actually a trick that Fender uses all the time with there guitars, and Gibson does it as well. The next thing that can actually affect the sound a guitar makes, is the exact position of the pickup on the scale of the guitar. If we were building guitars by hand, it would be insanely hard to ensure two guitar had there pickups in the exact same spot on the scale of the guitar. Some will be up to a couple mm's different from others, and I wish I was kidding. Go grab a cheap squire and the best measuring tape you have, and check the scale and then where the front and back of any pickup are, and do the same to a Fender branded Strat, you will see they don't match.. This is done on purpose, its to create a difference where one does not need to be, Fender does not want people liking the sound of a Squire more than the sound of a Fender strat, so they manufacture a actual difference between them, that honestly doesn't save them a single red cent for.
Now if you try to test tone wood, and you want to be as scientific as possible, you will have to ensure the two guitars are built to the exact same specs, and the more exact they are the better. So the pickups will need to have the same amount of wraps in them, they need to be in the exact same spot on each guitar, not close, but the exact same spot. The electronics have to match exactly, and then we get to how they are played. The notes tested need to be played exactly the same each time, which means the pick angle needs to be the same, the speed of the strum has to be the same, where on the pick the strings hit need to be the same, everything needs to be the same, even the action needs to be the same.. Because you need to take out as many variables as possible, leaving only the wood type as being different.
Anyhow, the difference you are hearing are going to be nothing more than how they are being played and of course the exact position of the pickups on the scale and of course difference in the pickups themselves. So now that I told you one of the dirty secrets held by guitar manufactures, do you honestly think you are hearing something different in the clean tones that is caused by the wood differences, or maybe the other factors than can easily affect the tone?
@@lfaf9509 dude, watch the fucking video lmao. It's the same guitar made of two woods just for this video. All of your points are addressed already.
@@JC-fj7oo
I did watch the video, but my points are in fact not addressed at all, just saying they are the same, does not mean they are the same. Go ahead and try this one to see my point, the next time you are looking at guitars, find two that are said to be the exact same guitar, even with the same finish as well. Test the pickups, you will see the outputs will be close but not the same. Go ahead and measure where the pickups are between a Squire and a Fender, they won't be the same. These guitars sound great, but that does not mean they are the exactly the same. The very small difference you hear, if you hear anything at all, is going to be being caused by the location of the pickup, and the slight difference in the pots, and the slight difference between someone playing the same sequence of notes a couple times. Even the best of players will play the same notes slightly differently when they repeat them a few times, because we are human and thus are not perfect.
I like this video, and it does go a long way in showing the whole tonewood thing is fantasy, but until we start controlling every single possible variable, some folks are not going to accept it. In my case, I was explaining why you might have heard a difference.. the Sheer amount of work that anyone would have to put into building two guitars to the exact same measurements with the only difference being wood type, is staggering. But it would have taken this fella only a few minuets to measure the location of the pickups, which is most likely where the difference you hear is coming from, but he likely just believed the guitars were exactly the same excluding wood choice. I am not saying he was being dishonest or anything, or that you are stupid or smart, only that the difference you hear has a much more simple and easier explanation than some made up stuff about how wood vibrates and subtraction of frequency's due to differences in absorption caused by the bonds in different woods being different.
I come from a world where it is understood and known that no two items are exactly the same, and sometimes they are not even close to being the exact same lol. People are not perfect, and that is likely what happened here. He asked for two guitars that are the exact same with only the wood choice being different, and what he got was two guitars with very small but sometimes noticeable differences between them. There is always room for improvement, and I think the next time he covers this topic, maybe he should take those measurements to ensure they are as close to being exactly the same as possible. You know just as well as I do, that the strings vibrate at different frequency's at different places on the strings along the scale of the guitar. In fact, even if you were to move your neck pickup into the bridge spot, it wouldn't sound the same as it did in the neck.
Sorry, I went off on a bit of a almost rant there, but I wanted to respond in the best way I knew how lol.
I hope all is well, good day and good luck :)
@@lfaf9509 these guitars aren't handmade by some guy in a shed, they are made with CNC machines. The pickups will be within a few thousandths of an inch. These are the type of machines I used to run.
I already explained what the differences are. The video showed you the differences.
Accept reality, or don't. Your choice.
In both of the demonstrations it didn't sound like the audio clips were actually swapped, I didn't even look at my phone, I use this stuff as background noise while I'm working. Both times he played it whichever was second sounded brighter to me.
In the 80's and 90's we were rockin the frick out with whatever we had and nobody was talking about tonewood or any of that junk. It was always about the amp!!!!!!!!
The difference between tone is so minimal I find it far more likely that the differences are due to electronic tolerance differences and tiny differences in construction and intonation. And if you're that hellbent on getting that 'mahogany' sound it will be far far far cheaper to just use a cheap EQ pedal then drop $2000 on a custom build guitar with your favorite wood. Sadly you will never EVER convince the toan aficionados. Once something becomes an article of faith only a different faith can replace it.
I was thinking the same thing, the only way to be sure is to use the same electronics in each guitar because pickups, pots and caps all have tolerances are never going to be the same electrically even in the same batches. I would bet that was the bulk of any slight tamber changes between the guitars which as far as I could tell were more like tone control adjustment variances than anything else and really quite insubstantial in any case.
@@ExpatZ266 Nail on the head right there. The pickups themselves could have slightly different output levels too, so they would respond differently even though they are the same model. Fact is there is more variation from individual units of the same model than there is across woods...
Well you don't need a cheap EQ pedal. Amps generally have bass/treble controls
Exactly. The same pickup will sound different each time unless it’s an active pickup
Those little nuances are what create a signature.
This was such a cool experiment to see you do; I kept my eyes closed while listening and as hard as I tried I couldn’t differentiate them haha. Good to know the wood isn’t as big of a factor in a guitars sound as I thought it was for so long! 👍🏾
Quoting the Spinal Tap movie :- “sometimes what you need in the music industry is a great big lump of Ash in your hands” in my case it’s a swamp Ash Telecaster
I painted my guitar black because I wanted it to have a darker tone. This should work, right?
You know what matter most? FINGERS!
TONEFINGERS
Ah, but you see, the marketing men can't sell you upgraded stainless locking tone fingers for only $99 extra ...
And a little bit of talent and a lot of practice
@@PaulCooksStuff you can buy hand made fingers for only 40$ on guitar fetish, just need a little work but worth it for guys on a budget
Really? Let’s hear you make a Roland JC sound like an Orange Thunderverb.
Dead on conclusion as usual. I could hear a slight difference in the clean and even thought it was odd that the Ash/Maple sounded more like Mahogany/(don't remember if it was rosewood) then you said you swapped the audio and I felt better about life again. Add some dirt and that difference becomes all but impossible to spot. The difference is stupidly small and absolutely would not stand out in a mix even to the most anal retentive tonewood snob. There is no difference to be found that can't be completely ironed out with tone controls/amp settings/etc. It really is a stupid debate with solid body guitars. Does the wood type make a difference? Technically.... yes. Does it matter in the least in any practical way? No... not one bit. Its just a bunch of snobs trying to justify over priced purchases that perhaps left them with some buyers remorse and most of them are not even actual players, any player will tell you it's not a waste if you love the guitar and it makes you happy to play. Sometimes a guitar just speaks to you and if you have the money for it, hell, you better walk out of there with a guitar case and lighter wallet.
bigger low end from the mahogany. I preferred the tighter sound of the ash but the difference would disappear with dirt and be completely negligible with final mix eq
@@derekscanlan4641 Nope, the low end is the same. The difference is in the mids, mainly 2-3k, you could say mahagony is scooped in that region or ash is boosted in the same region. But you can negate the difference with a simple eq.
@@derekscanlan4641 wrong
But seriously, how many metal players are tone wood snobs? That's more for jazz players and that type of music, really. And I can tell you, the difference isn't as big as some claim, but it's definitely there. Of the dozen or so guitars I have, I have one guitar which gives me "that" jazz tone, and it's an all-mahogany Les Paul. Funny thing, I can't tell it from my Gibson L4 if I switch them back and forth without changing the amp, when they both have the same strings. So I strung the L4 with flat wounds because why not? THAT is really "the tone."
I can feel my brain trying to look for a difference as soon as the word changed on screen. Which goes to show how strong the bias can be.
"Don't get bugged down" -> proceeds to make a video about it.
I believe I could hear a difference during the clean section. However it might not be tonewood and could easily be different picking angle/distance from pickup/picking strength, maybe variance between the actual electronic components maybe the capacitors weren't exactly the same or maybe one had slightly more worn strings.
Definitely not enough to justify spending more on tonewoods though
I remember watching videos on multitrack guitars and wondering why they don't just copy/paste the same riffs, after a long time I learned they record it again for the differences you describe which eliminate phasing issues or something like that
The small difference in the clean one doesn't probably have to do with woods either. normal electronics have a +- variable of 3-5% so it might be the pots or the cap on the tone knob. Might even be a different amount of winding on the pickups.
Yep. Also playing. Picking a millimeter more towards the bridge could easily explain the difference people are insisting they’re hearing.
Or the setup of the guitar, or the height of the pickups, or a number of other factors. It's really hard to pin minuscule differences on one variable when there are so many others that are so hard to control.
"Normal" electronics have tolerances around 20%. "Precision" electronics are rarely better than 5% in that form factor. SMT pieces might be 1% or even 0.1%, but not through-hole-style caps and generic pots. Good luck estimating the exact cutoff frequency on that tone knob anywhere except full open, for example.
Normal electronics like resistors are commpn at 5% sometimes 10%. There is 1% and 0.1% classs but its not cheap ( and I ve seeen old ZSRR guitar innards with better electronic design then most modern ones ( they literally had pcb under pcb copper shield plus aluminium screen. Pickups might fry an amp and I was figuring out tone circuit for a long time. Then again single coils in this are bigger then humbucks) so yeah a difference in resistance of pot from nominal can make it sound different. Non log pots or log pots in place of linear will make it sound different. A lot of ppaces it can be effed up but you can replace all electronics to higher quality with little cash. Just the coils are annoying to replace but im trying out thicck wire ones soon from an old book about diy electronics when I get to building a guitar.
Anyone else not fall for the trick? The sound from the mahogany is noticeably warmer
The only place construction material matters in my opinion is drums or acoustic guitar.
All acoustic instruments TBF.
And even with drums the tone of the wood is gone in just about every mix you can throw it into. The low end in Birch toms and kick tends to last longer than say a maple but thats the only difference ive ever heard is basically just the attack and sustain of the drums
Acoustic instruments in general, but good wood won't save a bad instrument
It's all about the bridge, pickups and staying in tune for me. For that reason I love hard tail HSS strat copies!
EXACTLY! I even don't care about pickups if it's cheap. My favorite pickups are 15 dollar Amazon pickups. Found out they were the same ones that were in my base model ibanez s series I got for 200 bucks. I've had guitar techs and professional musicians ask me where I got them and they just think I'm an asshole when I say "15 bucks on amazon"
@@laa0fa502 cap
@@andy_182 ruclips.net/video/jf4xYCMtFVg/видео.html here's the video that convinced me. It's a Darrell Braun video
I could tell a small difference between the mahogany and ash when they were not in a mix even on an iphone, but since it’s all the same hardware and pickups it is just that, a small difference. At the end of the day “tonewood” shouldn’t be a big factor in your choices for a guitar, the comfortabilty and weight balance are much more important. In a mix it was indistinguishable (at least on an iphone speaker) and whatever small difference there might be you could change with a small EQ tweak.
The difference in sound is, at most, insignificant. Great test. Great video.
Any chance of a similar test with body shapes? I know that would be much harder, but same pickups, same wood in, say a strat style, a V style, something more modern like a Meteora shape? Or whatever shapes, so long as they're significantly different. I'm really just genuinely interested in hearing what would happen. Maybe get the wave forms too? I know that's just more visual, when we shouldn't be relying on visual, but I just think it would be interesting.
I know, how magnanimous of me to suggest a topic that would require a great deal of someone else's resources!
Wood absolutely has an effect on the tone of the guitar, however with a very subtle and small effect. But comparing some guitars you can definitely hear it. It is amazing to me that this debate continues, but really it is just an example of how little musicians know about physics.
I say all this as somebody who actually has degrees in physics and electrical engineering. Wood affects the tone but there are many other variables to an electric guitar tone. The order of what affects the tone the most goes like this:
The first thing that has the most effect are the SPEAKERS. The speakers set the overall EQ of the guitar sound. But also the cabinet, the enclosure and the wood and construction matter a lot in how the sound is projected into the room. So speaker cabinet is number one. The second thing is the AMP. The amplifier’s circuit and it’s frequency response matters a lot. Unless the amp is totally clean, completely linear and has a totally flat frequency response, it will affect the tone the most after speaker cab. The next thing is the guitar, and that is a sum of everything from the pickups, bridge, nut, strings and yes, also wood. The type of pickups (single coils vs humbucker, etc) is going to have a big effect. The next thing is the scale length and the location of the pickups. That’s why strats sound different then Les Pauls even with the same humbuckers (because strats have longer scale length).
The last thing is going to be the bridge and the nut. The angle at which the strings make at the nut and bridge matter a lot. Now, you wonder where wood comes in? Well, the strings are held by the bridge and nut, but those things are attached to wood. If the wood or whatever material the guitar were made of were absolutely perfectly rigid and hard, then it would not matter at all because the strings would just vibrate freely and the pickups would be the only thing that mattered to tone. But the wood is not perfectly hard and rigid. The wood itself is porous and it also vibrates. So the wood behaves as sort of a mechanical dampener. The entire guitar with the bridge and nut and wood can be modeled as a mechanical oscillator and there is loss that goes into the wood. Different types of woods have different degrees of hardness based on the grain. Hard woods with tight grain like maple will tend to give brighter sound because the sound waves from the string vibrations will reflect more easily. Woods with looser grain like mahogany will sound darker because they absorb more of the higher frequency. But another thing here is that the NECK wood matters more than the BODY wood, since the strings are vibrating over the neck and frets. But overall, the wood will affect the tone in that it acts as sort of a mechanical dampener, which gives a subtle filter effect. And some guitars that use shitty wood that absorbs too much vibration from the strings will give the guitar an overall dead sound. That’s why also that the wood has to be properly dried to get rid of any moisture which can absorb too much sound from the vibration of the strings.
But overall, yes, wood DEFINITELY affects the tone, however there is a very subtle effect. A brighter maple neck guitar can be made to sound similarly to a darker mahogany neck guitar by simply adjusting the amp. Changing speakers and even pickups will have more effect as well.
But this whole idea of wood doesn’t matter is simply wrong. It matters, but not as much as other things. It’s amazing to me this debate continues, but musicians don’t know physics and just want to argue about why expensive guitars with nice wood don’t matter. It definitely matters but it’s not everything.
I read your essay and you're completely wrong mate. Your argument falls flat for one simple reason - a pickup is an electromagnet, not a microphone. It doesn't matter that the wood is vibrating, or has an effect on the sound acoustically. The signal that goes to the amp is not effected in any way by the wood of the guitar vibrating. It doesn't effect sustain, tone, not a single thing. " some guitars that use shitty wood that absorbs too much vibration from the strings will give the guitar an overall dead sound" tell that to brian may, he made his out of blockboard LOL. Cope harder mate
Glenn! I'd love to see a side-by-side spectrum analysis of both guitars both clean and dirty.
You mean like a scientific test he always asks about/for?
yeah
As an electrical engineer, I'm always baffled by this debate. It's almost like people don't know how an electric guitar works. How is the composition of the guitar body gonna alter how the pickups work interact with the strings? lol
I agree, there was a slight difference in the clean channel, the Mahagony was slightly darker in sound, but on the crunch, no difference whatsoever.
My only guess is that if there is any sort of difference with these two guitars is with the pick ups, no 2 sets of pick ups will be exactly the same, woods types is purely an vanity thing!!