Top tone secret: wood resonance

  • Thread starter Thread starter GarpJarp
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GarpJarp said:
Interesting article, some good points about how to pick out a great electric guitar: http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/tonetipswoodresonancethe/
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Pure poppy cock. The truth is WAY more complex than what they are suggesting, and the way thing interact is impossible to predict or explain. We make guesses (educated guesses to be sure), but you can never be sure how things will turn out. Not completely.

Also, bear in mind that over the years Gibson has defended the same wood choices using completely different rationals. And of course, what is popular changes all the time. In the seventies, everything was supposed to be as heavy as possible - that is what sounded best, gave the best sustain. These days, it's all about things being light - THAT gives the best sound and the best sustain. Who was right? Neither, of course. Though the guys who said brass nuts were a good idea where flat out idiots.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
Though the guys who said brass nuts were a good idea where flat out idiots.


Light
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Hey Light - curious as to why - I'm asking because I have a guitar (which I never actually play - a 1983 Burns Bison) which has a brass nut, held in place with a couple of screws - looks good when you hit it with Brasso and shine it up, but never knew what the point was, apart from perhaps enhancing sustain, and this does have good sustain.

Cheers
 
Armistice said:
Hey Light - curious as to why - I'm asking because I have a guitar (which I never actually play - a 1983 Burns Bison) which has a brass nut, held in place with a couple of screws - looks good when you hit it with Brasso and shine it up, but never knew what the point was, apart from perhaps enhancing sustain, and this does have good sustain.

Cheers
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The biggest problem is that the strings have a very real tendency to bind in the nut, and of course they have no benefit for the tone or sustain of the guitar, which is what everybody said was the point in the first place.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Armistice said:
Hey Light - curious as to why - I'm asking because I have a guitar (which I never actually play - a 1983 Burns Bison) which has a brass nut, held in place with a couple of screws - looks good when you hit it with Brasso and shine it up, but never knew what the point was, apart from perhaps enhancing sustain, and this does have good sustain.

Cheers
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Nut material has very little effect. The effect it does have is only really on open strings.

The article is pretty simplistic as Light said. You can use it as a starting point if you want but there are much better opinions and factual stuff out there. What wood species and seletion does do is allow a builder to shoot for a certain type of sound. Literally everything plays a role in the final tone. If you change one you thing you change something else as well. Its the nature of the beast. One of the great fascinations of building and also one of the great fascinations..

We had this out a few days/weeks back. The subject of tonewood and their effect is far to complex to put into a concise article.
 
The best way to pick an electric guitar is to try as many as you can. Wood does make a minor difference. How the neck is joined, what kind of tail piece, and bridge and nut material are the most important IMO. I have played guitars made out of graphite that sound excellent.
 
Everybody loves pixie dust.

So it's really, really secret?

People have been trying for a couple of hundred years to duplicate Stradivarius' varnish, with the idea that that must be the secret...never mind the primo wood that's no longer available, forget the decades of acoustic building experience he had, not to even mention what 300+ years of aging does to an instrument that has been lovingly played by the best of each generation. And how many have been at least partially refinished following major and minor repairs?

Nah. Must be the varnish.
 
lpdeluxe said:
So it's really, really secret?

People have been trying for a couple of hundred years to duplicate Stradivarius' varnish, with the idea that that must be the secret...never mind the primo wood that's no longer available, forget the decades of acoustic building experience he had, not to even mention what 300+ years of aging does to an instrument that has been lovingly played by the best of each generation. And how many have been at least partially refinished following major and minor repairs?

Nah. Must be the varnish.
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Also factor in that there is only one, thats right one Strad that still maintains it's original baroque setup. Stradavari himself never heard any of his instruments as they sound today. The necks have all been reset with a higher break angle and the soundposts have all been replaced along with the bridges.

The Strad myth has pretty much been debunked. It is only the violin elite that perpetuate it to somehow justify the inflated prices some of them command. They are fine instruments don't get me wrong but they are not better or worse than many others.

The whole thing isn't really a secret, it's just hugely complicated. What I and others like me do is use many years of experience, some knowledge of acoustics and material science and a good deal of intuition to shoot for a ball park sound. Most of the time we get pretty close. Most makers have a distinctive "sound" because they select wood and use styles and building methods that they know will work and stick to them. Thats all really.
 
MadAudio said:
So you never answered the question posed in a different thread: Do you work for Gibson?
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Now I could have sworn when he asked the original question that he had a single green chicklet... you guys haven't been getting stuck into him, have you? :o
 
i used the "acoustic" method described in the article to pick out my asian-made non-gibson "les paul" - sounds great! costs less! :D

i "don't know anything", but it seems weird - if your goal is to play plugged in (amplified) and a great tube amp being a big part of the sound, it would seem that the best thing is to play through an amp like yours! If there are some acoustic subtleties which could affect the amplified tone, wouldn't you hear it even better plugged in? so other than saving time and trouble having to plug in every guitar i don't see any "magic method" here. If the guitar is great, it'll sound great plugged in, you'll wanna keep playing it, if not... you know.

it's kinda like those "subliminal messages" - if your brain can't register it, it can't perceive it. period.

gibson guitars cost thousands of dollars. they better not be saying that their QA allows some of those guitars "that want to be park benches" through to the consumer! they better do their own tests before they let them out of the shop :D

Craigslist ad: "For Sale: 2008 "park-bench wannabe" Les Paul Custom - looks great on the wall" :D
 
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