Guitar 'truths" that you believe are myths

TalismanRich said:
I'm guessing that the scale length, string tension and pickup type and placement aren't anywhere close to the positioning of a tele, either. I wouldn't expect it to sound anything like a tele, any more than I would expect a resonator, electric violin or bass guitar to sound like a tele.
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But the point of the click bait video of the bridge on the table was supposedly to prove that the sound is just about the string and the pickup. The Canjo video disproves it.
 
grimtraveller said:
That was almost the case in the early days of the bass guitar. If you look at all the bass players that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, virtually every one of them started out on another instrument, with many starting on double bass or guitar. Dave cites Paul McCartney as a decent guitarist. That's because he was one of the original guitarists in the band. He took up the bass when Stuart Sutcliffe left the band and John as the leader of the band wasn't going to play bass and George refused. Paul himself said that the bass guitar was regarded as the instrument for "the fat boy at the back" and no one wanted to play it but it was a way to get a mate in the band. That's how Sutcliffe originally came to be in John's band. He was John's mate, he won £60, John wanted his mate in the band after his other mate Pete left and John said "buy a bass with your sixty quid." Sutcliffe wasn't even musical and had shown no interest in being in a band.
Jack Bruce started off on double bass as did James Jamerson and Ron Carter. John Entwistle started off on, I think, the French horn. John Paul Jones started on organ. Bill Wyman started on guitar. Greg Lake doubled as a guitarist. Noel Redding was a guitarist. Look at most bassists before 1970 and you'll find they didn't begin on bass guitar.

But then, a strange thing happened. As the lead singer and the lead guitarist vied for the attention of the girls or the punters, the guy playing the bass guitar discovered the way in which the bass could control and steer the music and by 1970, bass guitars were no longer looked down upon and that's when you really started getting young people who picked up the bass without having started out on something else.
There's some truth in the bassist being a frustrated guitarist {Lemmy described himself in similar terms, as did Geezer Butler}......until they discovered the power inherent in the bass and the previous 300 years of the moving bass line in Western music.

Can I have his address ! :LOL:
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You jest I know Grim but he can learn pretty much anything you have the dots for so if anyone has a serious need for a piece done on electric, acoustic (Turner active) or classical guitar I am sure he would be interested in the business. He has Samplitude Pro X 3 and a MOTU M4. He also has a keyboard controller and does MIDI stuff with Sam, Cakewalk and Reaper.

Dave.
 
On the 'air guitar' There HAS to be a structure to hold the tension of the strings. My view is that the bench is SO different from a proper guitar body that it strongly suggests that the latter has very little influence on the guitar's tone.

The next logical step perhaps would be to bolt the bits to a totally non-resonant concrete post? Even if the naysayers still claim "wood matters" then I think it is up to them to come up with a mechanism that explains how the very feeble energy of the string somehow excites the body and THEN transfers that more enfeebled vibration back to the pickup at a detectable "signal to noise ratio"?

And PLEASE stop dragging in feedback! That is a totally different mechanism involving outside forces several orders greater in energy.

The guy has also done a YT questioning what about guitar amplifiers, if anything, is responsible for the tonal differences claimed. That particular investigation IS flawed IMHO but I shall find the link and thees all can have a harken.

Dave.
 
Scott Baxendale said:
But the point of the click bait video of the bridge on the table was supposedly to prove that the sound is just about the string and the pickup. The Canjo video disproves it.
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I wouldn't exactly say that. Jim spends a lot of time trying out different things to try to prove or disprove the very "myths" that we are discussing.

If you pay attention, he has tried to set things up so that things like scale length and pickup positioning are the same as his Anderson. Obviously changing those things will change the sound. Pickup position has a major effect on the tonal quality, just look at the two positions of a Tele or LP, or the 3 positions of a Strat. Scale length changes the sound, just as string tension changes it. The Canjo isn't even close to the parameters of a guitar. It looks to be more like a Diddley Bow.

Now, if you had built the Canjo with a 25.5 scale, the pickup set at exactly the same distance and angle as a Tele, and tuned it to the same pitch as a Tele, it might actually sound more like a Tele.... although you're short a few strings!
 
In a summary of reading, I think bass has a new place int he digital age. Maybe this was stated, but finger/pick placement defines a lot of tone (I know you guys know, but stating the obvious) and for sure, body plays a part.

Now, there is another element I didn't read anyone talk about is front end compression. Is that just a "duh" and the obvious isn't being stated?

I am not a guitar player, but I do have an understand of the importance of the tone. I am also digging the bass more these days, frustrated guitar maybe, but I do like how I can get the bass to drive the groove.
 
Gtoboy said:
I can go on and on of bassists who were not frustrated guitar players
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The term "frustrated guitarists" is actually not a literal term, but an affectionate one and one that describes a particular style of bass playing that went on to become very influential in the evolution of bass guitar playing and the position of the bass guitar, particularly in the various strands of rock music that developed from 1960 onwards. It also shines a light on the lowly position that the bass guitar had after its invention in 1952. It's quite an eye-opener to see what a stir of hatred and condescension it caused, particularly in jazz, when producers started picking up on it and realizing that it could now seriously compete with the volume of drums and electric guitar and made the double bass seem like a rubber band.
Gtoboy said:
John Entwistle. Chris Squire. Players who defined the role in modern rock. Add John Paul Jones for all around musicianship, Sting for putting different genre bass figures into pure melody.
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Chris Squire is an interesting bassist because he's one of the few bass players from the instrument's first 18 years {1952-70} that actually picked up the bass guitar without having started on another instrument. But, significantly, prior to picking up the bass when he was around 15, he'd spent many years as a trained chorister and before he took to the bass {and developed a love of the Beatles}, his sole musical interest was church music {interestingly, he grew up in Kingsbury where I live and he sang for years at St Andrew's Church ~ around the back, they have a nursery which both my kids went to} and he said that it was in those years that he learned most of what he knew about music.
Sting started off as a piano player before becoming obsessed with the guitar before he was even a teenager. He then became obsessed with the Beatles and up until 1967, learned every one of their songs on guitar. His mind was blown by Hendrix {he says seeing him live significantly altered his world-view}, and jazz took him to places yet unknown. When a friend first showed him a bass guitar, an instrument Sting described as "functional without being crude," he says he hadn't "really taken much interest in the instrument, regarding myself exclusively as a lead guitarist."
Gtoboy said:
I won't even mention Wrecklng Crew 'member's
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Ray Pohlman {one of the first session bassists as far back as the '50s} was a double bassist and guitarist, Carol Kaye started off on the guitar before turning to bass, Joe Osborne started on the guitar, Bill Pitman was primarily a guitarist, Max Bennett was a double bassist, Red Callender was a double bassist and tuba player, Chuck Rainey played viola, piano and trumpet before he got to the bass guitar, Lyle Ritz played double bass and ukulele, Chuck Berghofer played double bass as did Jimmy Bond; Bob West also played double bass and contributed to string sections - at one point or another, all of them "played" with the wrecking crew. It doesn't appear that any of them picked up the bass guitar as the first instrument they became proficient on. They were already instrumentalists, for the most part before it was even invented.
Gtoboy said:
I can go on and on of bassists who were not frustrated guitar players
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After 1970, I heartily agree with you. Prior to that most bassists came to the instrument through circumstances that they did not engineer, rather than through choice. For example, Wally Waller who played some neat bass with the Pretty Things in their psychedelic going into progressive phase {through "SF Sorrow" and "Parachute"} was a guitarist but he was a childhood friend of the group's singer Phil May and when the bass player John Stax left, May asked his mate to step in. Many of those initial early bassists would not have become bass guitarists had they been given the preference of the instrument they actually played. Even John Entwistle only turned to the bass because when he and Pete Townshend decided to play rock'n'roll instead of the trad jazz they'd been playing, Entwistle's trumpet and French horn couldn't be heard above the din. Entwistle actually said "I just wanted to be louder. I really got irritated when people could turn up their guitar amps and play louder than me. So I decided that I was going to play guitar....I did want to be a lead guitarist. The role of the lead guitarist was the most glamorous to me. I wanted to make solo spots in a group. And you don't go from being a frontman [which he had been as a trumpeter] to a back man." What got him to switch to bass was the size of his large hands which made it hard to twiddle about on the guitar and the fact that he liked Duane Eddy's low-note guitar playing and the fact that guitarists were ten-a-penny while bassists were almost as rare as hen's teeth in the late '50s.
Gtoboy said:
I am primarily a guitarist but I have always held that really 'great' songs have great bass lines and most of those have been created by great bass players who chose bass over guitar in the end
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After about 1970 I'd go along with that. But before then, bass guitarists largely made up how they played and much of that came from the instrumental mentality that they'd acquired before they turned to bass guitar. There really is scant evidence prior to the '70s of bassists actually deciding not to go with guitar or keyboards in favour of being the bassist. If there ever was an instrumental evolution that is easily and uniquely traceable, it is that of the bass guitarist.
 
TalismanRich said:
I wouldn't exactly say that. Jim spends a lot of time trying out different things to try to prove or disprove the very "myths" that we are discussing.

If you pay attention, he has tried to set things up so that things like scale length and pickup positioning are the same as his Anderson. Obviously changing those things will change the sound. Pickup position has a major effect on the tonal quality, just look at the two positions of a Tele or LP, or the 3 positions of a Strat. Scale length changes the sound, just as string tension changes it. The Canjo isn't even close to the parameters of a guitar. It looks to be more like a Diddley Bow.

Now, if you had built the Canjo with a 25.5 scale, the pickup set at exactly the same distance and angle as a Tele, and tuned it to the same pitch as a Tele, it might actually sound more like a Tele.... although you're short a few strings!
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I’ve made the Canjo’s with different length necks. I’ve made a really short one and I’ve made long ones and they all sound about the same. You are correct in that it’s closer to a diddly bow than it is to a Tele. But it also disproves the notion that the sound just comes from the pickup.

The basic premise of the no-body video is bogus.
 
Odi said:
Not so sure 'bout that...
I've been broom-rockin' since I was 5! :cool:
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When you get that recorded, I would really like to hear it!

I once did a song and used for the drums plastic garbage can, leather seat for like a tom, pans, etc. In Ableton you can create a drum kit and use the samples. But I have never tried to play a washtub bass.
 
ecc83 said:
Macca is decent guitarist. Seen him take a standard sixer, turn it upside down and bash out Yesterday!

Dave.
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I don't believe that is true. Lefty yes, upside down no. Point taken, and you have a good one, but overstating does not serve it well.

Cheers to your son, sounds to be a well rounded accomplishment to himself and an asset to anyone who has to pleasure to his presence in a musical context. You are no doubt proud, and should be.
 
Wow, a lot of reading I have to do to catch up. Not attempting to side rail....

Did a trip out of town doing some work, back of the suburban loaded with tools and the like. Last minute nephew asked that I bring a guitar. Not wanting to bother too much threw one of the cheap Rogue guitars I purchased, but x number of strings get a free guitar in the back, no case. Laid in the back on top of some things to cushion, drop clothes and such. Driving down the road started to hear....something. Tilted my head to listen, had never heard that sound. A tire? This might not be good. Realized the guitar was now touching the rear passenger side door, resonating not only in the box(guitar body) but perhaps elsewhere through interior structure of the vehicle. Fascinating how sounds works.

Back to the thread....
 
"I don't believe that is true. Lefty yes, upside down no. Point taken, and you have a good one, but overstating does not serve it well."

Well OK that was "as told on BBC TV" but I see no reason to disbelieve it? Lefties must pick up "proper" guitars all the time and learn to play them pretty well?

Oh! And "side rail...?

Dave.
 
rip chord said:
Weight-relieved solid-bodies are tone-relieved solid-bodies...
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These are exactly the types of statements that are all over the internet. And they are totally unsubstantiated. First, there is no absolute "tone", so there's no way to even make such a statement. You might like a particular guitar, but that's not an "absolute" ultimate sound. Guitar A may sound different from guitar B, but that's all you can say. Unless you disassemble a guitar, weight relieve it, and put it together perfectly, then how can you tell what effect it had?

Someone might say that the 59 Les Paul is the ultimate sound, but then you have to ask which of the 643 made is the actual ultimate, they can't all be. Billy Gibbons is said to be a tone freak, yet some of his guitars are so hollowed out as to weigh less than 6 lbs but still look like a Les Paul.

So, I guess you could call that one of the ultimate myths.

Where are the myth busters when you need them?
 
TalismanRich said:
These are exactly the types of statements that are all over the internet. And they are totally unsubstantiated. First, there is no absolute "tone", so there's no way to even make such a statement. You might like a particular guitar, but that's not an "absolute" ultimate sound. Guitar A may sound different from guitar B, but that's all you can say. Unless you disassemble a guitar, weight relieve it, and put it together perfectly, then how can you tell what effect it had?

Someone might say that the 59 Les Paul is the ultimate sound, but then you have to ask which of the 643 made is the actual ultimate, they can't all be. Billy Gibbons is said to be a tone freak, yet some of his guitars are so hollowed out as to weigh less than 6 lbs but still look like a Les Paul.

So, I guess you could call that one of the ultimate myths.

Where are the myth busters when you need them?
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When I worked at Gruhn guitars in Nashville I worked next to Matthew Klien, who went on to be the head programmer of the Gibson Custom shop. While at Gruhn’s around 1979-80 Matthew built several guitars for Billy Gibbons where he hollowed out the body and filled the cavity with balsa wood. These things were feather light but sounded fantastic. A couple of years later he designed the Ultralight Les Paul model.

Many years later he redesigned the SG headstock so it wouldn’t break, but the heads of Gibson nixed the design because they figured it would hurt sales if the headstocks didn’t snap off so easily.
 
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