New 2015 Model Year Gibsons In The Flesh.. big changes.. price increases..

muttley600 said:
For sustain on an electric you always have to look at where the energy from the string is being dissipated. In the case of your alder body I would put a lot of it down to that. Typically alder is not as "stiff" (elastic) as a mahogany body with a maple cap for the same mass. Maple is fantastically stiff acoustically speaking and "bright" mahogany is dense and stiff compared to alder. Sound waves travel differently in all materials and differently in all woods. Thats why a softwood like spruce is used for acoustic tops. It has a great mass to stiffness ration and sound waves travel through it well. It's all good and none of this is better or worse it's just the way it is. Each timber has a different character.. Wood makes a difference but the biggest tone factor on an electric is the pickups. Wood is next then fittings..
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Okay that makes sense. So what about the other end of my string? The zero fret and maple neck. If the alder body is diffusing sustain, what's the immediate transfer of string metal-on-metal zero fret and hard bright maple doing?
 
Greg_L said:
Okay that makes sense. So what about the other end of my string? The zero fret and maple neck. If the alder body is diffusing sustain, what's the immediate transfer of string metal-on-metal zero fret and hard bright maple doing?
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To me a maple neck is always brighter than a mahogany neck. Fret board don's make a huge different to the sound. A nut material only makes a difference to open strings so it's not really a factor. Generally a zero fret if it is the same as the fret will sound like a capo fret and not a nut. The fret and nut are a little more complex because the fixed point is not a rigid as the finger allows some change in pressure and tension. I wouldn't worry about it as it's the nature of the beast.
 
Muttley explained it better than I ever could, but I've always felt that chambering/weight relieving interfered with/broke up the sustain of a LP. I can tell the difference. Obviously other people can also. And to my ear maple necks are brighter than mahogany necks. Maybe it's all on a molecular level or something. Maybe the sustain is able to cut through tightly packed electrons or something. I'd think that a porous type of wood wouldn't have much sustain. Think a freshly cut piece of pine would have much sustain? I wouldn't think it did. Of course this is just my opinion. And for all you know I might be bat-shit crazy! LOL!:D
 
XploZiveToyz said:
Muttley explained it better than I ever could, but I've always felt that chambering/weight relieving interfered with/broke up the sustain of a LP. I can tell the difference. Obviously other people can also. And to my ear maple necks are brighter than mahogany necks. Maybe it's all on a molecular level or something. Maybe the sustain is able to cut through tightly packed electrons or something. I'd think that a porous type of wood wouldn't have much sustain. Think a freshly cut piece of pine would have much sustain? I wouldn't think it did. Of course this is just my opinion. And for all you know I might be bat-shit crazy! LOL!:D
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A seasoned and dry piece of pine or spruce potentially has about the best sustain of the lot... Think about the tops of all those decent acoustic guitars and archtops. The golden rule as far as all this is concerned is stiffness to mass ratio. The musical acoustic s and physics of electric guitars is less critical because the donkey work is done by the pickups not the top but the principles are the same. On an electric the aim is to get the string to keep the energy and allow the pickup to transfer it. On an acoustic you want the string to let it's energy transfer to the top via the bridge in a controlled and efficient manner.
 
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