Re: Tonewood discussion on YT
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:35 am
All the people who say they can hear the difference I would say the same thing of course you can- when you were told this guitar is made of this wood and it sounds this way and then you play it the psychological trick of confirmation bias and the fact that hearing is extremely subjective will of course make you think you can hear a difference in the wood.
However I challenge anybody to present even one double-blind study where a person identified a guitars Tonewood while blindfolded and playing the guitar, or where hearing a guitar played for him and he could distinguish wood based on only the sound that they heard.
There have been countless studies conducted under such conditions though where people were unable to distinguish the wood
I have scoured the Internet and some scientific boards for years and I have yet to find one example where this has happened
We've all heard of the guy who has presented a challenge to those who believe in ESP and has offered a rather sizeable award for anybody to demonstrate ESP in controlled conditions and In the decades since he has offered this challenge it has never happened
If you have spent many years believing in TonewooDs and God knows I did and especially if you have spent considerable psychological energy you have considerable emotional involvement and especially you have considerable financial involvement in having spent far more money for guitars made of certain woods et cetera then of course you have an incredibly vested interest and preconceived biases in believing in Tonewood and of course if you were told that guitar sounds better because of the wood then you may be playing guitar that sounds better due to a host of factors from strange adjustment factors to pick ups to all those other factors that do make a difference in electric guitars and simply attributing them to the wood
We have even seen examples where people have ruined a beautiful guitars because regardless of woods effect on sound guitars are beautifully crafted instruments and the wood is a big part of it. Seeing cases where a beautiful guitar that supposedly sounded good due to the woods had the entire body SAWED off except for the part directly connecting the neck to the bridge and there was absolutely zero difference in discernible sound WHEN THE GUITAR IS PLUGGED IN
Believers in tonewood also remind me of believers in certain martial arts superiority before the arrival of ultimate fighting championship type events when they were absolutely convinced that their art was the superior fighting style and they knew it because of being invested in the style and only fighting people trained in the style et cetera but When their styles were actually compete against, they failed miserably
Colombians have a proverb that one learns best with blood and it literally took blood for martial artist to accept that yes for example any martial art that doesn't include ground fighting is going to lose most of the time in a no holds barred competition with a skilled fighter who takes a person to the ground
Unlike martial arts where all sorts of elements apply and where there is always a punchers chance et cetera when it comes to sound every time a guitar string is vibrated and a pick up changes that vibration pattern into an electrical signal a very discreet and specific signal is made and That can be measured and nobody has ever proved that the signal differs based upon Tonewood
Most will agree that the vast majority of time, differences in electric guitars has to do with the pick ups may be about 90% or so and then the other 10% has to do with a host of factors related to string set up that can include all sorts of factors that affect string vibration such as the set up of the bridge the height of the frets etc. etc. etc. but for example for those who believe that fingerboardmaterial makes a difference how do you account for the fact that it sounds exactly the same whether you're pressing your finger down on a quartz inlay or on the fingerboard material itself? and of course different material fingerboards play differently and feel differently and those are elements it's going to affect how you play the guitar which will affect the tone even very subtle differences in how you strike the string with the pick up for example will affect the string vibration which will affect sound andI personally always hear a difference when I am playing a maple fingerboard which I prefer versus any other fingerboard however I can understand that this doesn't have to do with the tonal qualities imparted by the fingerboard because it cannot Impart quality of the sound when pressing down on the fingerboard make the string vibrate against the fret and not the fingerboard but it certainly does affect the way I attacked my playing which will affect the sound and of course Tone is dependent on a person's playing style and with some guitarists it's partially in their guitar but they can pick up almost any guitar amp and a couple notes you know exactly who they are
Some amazing sounding guitars have been made of the most bizarre materials including plastic concrete and aluminum by the way
I would far prefer that Tonewood did make a difference because I invested a large part of my life believing in it and it certainly would be great for guitar makers and guitar players but I will not believe it until I see evidence and despite the fact that there are literally billions of dollars invested in this concept over time and countless individuals who profit from this idea nobody has ever simply been able to construct one scientific study that proves this concept and it is not a difficult concept to prove if it was true study is in fact relatively simple to construct
This is tangential to the science involved in understanding how pick ups produce a signal and instead of trying to prove the tonewood myth scientifically which is very dependent on a persons understanding of certain scientific concepts surrounding how pick ups and magneticFields work, it's tangential to the fact that if the tonewood people are correct studies would prove their beliefs and not a single rigorously conducted study has ever been conducted that does prove that tone woods make a discernible difference in sound in an electric guitar signal. I will say very explicitly that of coursewhen an acoustic guitar is played acoustically all sorts of factors come into play that do not come into play when the pick ups are involved and if you're playing quietly enough so you can hear the acoustic qualities of your electric guitar in addition to the sound coming out of the amp which is very often the case when you are playing and practicing your home etc. then of course lots of acoustic factors will come into account and of course we are talking about acoustic guitars there are all sorts of construction factors involving wood etc. that make a huge difference in tone and I am specifically stating that Tonewood does not matter for electric guitars only when they're plugged in and when you are dealing with the signal coming out of the amp and not coming from the guitar itself acoustically
Of course Neil Young's prewar Martin that sounds simply awesome sounds that way in very large part because of the wood in the guitar
Yes this is my first post but this is an issue I have been studying literally for years and again that I would love to be wrong about because I find the idea of Tonewoods very appealing and romantic and as somebody who appreciates craft in creating products like surfboards for example where the material does make a huge difference and anybody who is ever written a surfboard made of a stiff wood versus a more flexible material Can understand... Well, I would readily accept I was wrong if scientifically constructed studies could prove it
1 million people saying they can hear the difference theirself which is something that I believe I can do as well but I recognize that this is due to all those psychological principles that affect how we hear which again is an extremely subjective process, are not proof
Neither are romantic appeals proof etc. and if people won't accept that if Tonewoods matter, then they will produce tonal differences one can hear BLINDFOLDED, then I won't bother...
Cheers!
However I challenge anybody to present even one double-blind study where a person identified a guitars Tonewood while blindfolded and playing the guitar, or where hearing a guitar played for him and he could distinguish wood based on only the sound that they heard.
There have been countless studies conducted under such conditions though where people were unable to distinguish the wood
I have scoured the Internet and some scientific boards for years and I have yet to find one example where this has happened
We've all heard of the guy who has presented a challenge to those who believe in ESP and has offered a rather sizeable award for anybody to demonstrate ESP in controlled conditions and In the decades since he has offered this challenge it has never happened
If you have spent many years believing in TonewooDs and God knows I did and especially if you have spent considerable psychological energy you have considerable emotional involvement and especially you have considerable financial involvement in having spent far more money for guitars made of certain woods et cetera then of course you have an incredibly vested interest and preconceived biases in believing in Tonewood and of course if you were told that guitar sounds better because of the wood then you may be playing guitar that sounds better due to a host of factors from strange adjustment factors to pick ups to all those other factors that do make a difference in electric guitars and simply attributing them to the wood
We have even seen examples where people have ruined a beautiful guitars because regardless of woods effect on sound guitars are beautifully crafted instruments and the wood is a big part of it. Seeing cases where a beautiful guitar that supposedly sounded good due to the woods had the entire body SAWED off except for the part directly connecting the neck to the bridge and there was absolutely zero difference in discernible sound WHEN THE GUITAR IS PLUGGED IN
Believers in tonewood also remind me of believers in certain martial arts superiority before the arrival of ultimate fighting championship type events when they were absolutely convinced that their art was the superior fighting style and they knew it because of being invested in the style and only fighting people trained in the style et cetera but When their styles were actually compete against, they failed miserably
Colombians have a proverb that one learns best with blood and it literally took blood for martial artist to accept that yes for example any martial art that doesn't include ground fighting is going to lose most of the time in a no holds barred competition with a skilled fighter who takes a person to the ground
Unlike martial arts where all sorts of elements apply and where there is always a punchers chance et cetera when it comes to sound every time a guitar string is vibrated and a pick up changes that vibration pattern into an electrical signal a very discreet and specific signal is made and That can be measured and nobody has ever proved that the signal differs based upon Tonewood
Most will agree that the vast majority of time, differences in electric guitars has to do with the pick ups may be about 90% or so and then the other 10% has to do with a host of factors related to string set up that can include all sorts of factors that affect string vibration such as the set up of the bridge the height of the frets etc. etc. etc. but for example for those who believe that fingerboardmaterial makes a difference how do you account for the fact that it sounds exactly the same whether you're pressing your finger down on a quartz inlay or on the fingerboard material itself? and of course different material fingerboards play differently and feel differently and those are elements it's going to affect how you play the guitar which will affect the tone even very subtle differences in how you strike the string with the pick up for example will affect the string vibration which will affect sound andI personally always hear a difference when I am playing a maple fingerboard which I prefer versus any other fingerboard however I can understand that this doesn't have to do with the tonal qualities imparted by the fingerboard because it cannot Impart quality of the sound when pressing down on the fingerboard make the string vibrate against the fret and not the fingerboard but it certainly does affect the way I attacked my playing which will affect the sound and of course Tone is dependent on a person's playing style and with some guitarists it's partially in their guitar but they can pick up almost any guitar amp and a couple notes you know exactly who they are
Some amazing sounding guitars have been made of the most bizarre materials including plastic concrete and aluminum by the way
I would far prefer that Tonewood did make a difference because I invested a large part of my life believing in it and it certainly would be great for guitar makers and guitar players but I will not believe it until I see evidence and despite the fact that there are literally billions of dollars invested in this concept over time and countless individuals who profit from this idea nobody has ever simply been able to construct one scientific study that proves this concept and it is not a difficult concept to prove if it was true study is in fact relatively simple to construct
This is tangential to the science involved in understanding how pick ups produce a signal and instead of trying to prove the tonewood myth scientifically which is very dependent on a persons understanding of certain scientific concepts surrounding how pick ups and magneticFields work, it's tangential to the fact that if the tonewood people are correct studies would prove their beliefs and not a single rigorously conducted study has ever been conducted that does prove that tone woods make a discernible difference in sound in an electric guitar signal. I will say very explicitly that of coursewhen an acoustic guitar is played acoustically all sorts of factors come into play that do not come into play when the pick ups are involved and if you're playing quietly enough so you can hear the acoustic qualities of your electric guitar in addition to the sound coming out of the amp which is very often the case when you are playing and practicing your home etc. then of course lots of acoustic factors will come into account and of course we are talking about acoustic guitars there are all sorts of construction factors involving wood etc. that make a huge difference in tone and I am specifically stating that Tonewood does not matter for electric guitars only when they're plugged in and when you are dealing with the signal coming out of the amp and not coming from the guitar itself acoustically
Of course Neil Young's prewar Martin that sounds simply awesome sounds that way in very large part because of the wood in the guitar
Yes this is my first post but this is an issue I have been studying literally for years and again that I would love to be wrong about because I find the idea of Tonewoods very appealing and romantic and as somebody who appreciates craft in creating products like surfboards for example where the material does make a huge difference and anybody who is ever written a surfboard made of a stiff wood versus a more flexible material Can understand... Well, I would readily accept I was wrong if scientifically constructed studies could prove it
1 million people saying they can hear the difference theirself which is something that I believe I can do as well but I recognize that this is due to all those psychological principles that affect how we hear which again is an extremely subjective process, are not proof
Neither are romantic appeals proof etc. and if people won't accept that if Tonewoods matter, then they will produce tonal differences one can hear BLINDFOLDED, then I won't bother...
Cheers!
, thats the BEST ex. of why the actual wood of the guitars body makes a difference. I've swapped out the parts from one guitar (body that is) to another (neck, electronics, bridge) on MANY occasions, and there is always noticable differences in resonance and tone. Obviously a body wood 'Tone Chart' (like Warmoths for ex.) is FOR REAL ! Those 'generalities' are TOTALLY accurate. Its the things that arent known or discussed much (actual grain/ring orientation, body join, weight/density WITHIN a species, etc) that impact things beyond those Tone 'generalities'.
