The importance of the body of a guitar

Some people care more than others about tone and that's up to them but it doesn't mean the effect is less. Gear you play through and the player are a huge part of whether this comes to the fore or not.

100% agreed. There are people absolutely exquisite when it comes to tone and it's a pleasure to listen to them even when they're tuning their guitar. That could happen using extremely rare woods or understanding exactly how to configure a chorus.

A really great player with a great amp is going to push right up to the potential of the rig and you WILL hear it.

I'm sure that's exactly what people say to themselves when investing millions of dollars on a Stradivarius. Yet science has something to say. I'll quote that again:

https://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/21/5395

Nobody in their right mind would say that putting areal PAF on a $99 beginner guitar would sound like a 59. If the acoustic properties made no difference this would be the case.

Wait a minute... you're telling me I cannot literally buy a 130$ factory rejected body and neck kit, stick a PAF in it and change the history of rock?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstrat
 
How can PU be important when they are so easily replaced. Your fundamental tone starts with the instrument and then you get PUs that are sutable for the gain levels that you use. They are important but they are more like the set of tyres you put on your Ferrari .

All things being equal...tires are the single most important piece of equipment relative to performance...your giving pickups too much credit in that analogy😉

I agree with your underlying point...however, I don‘t see how ease of replacement directly correlates to impact (or lack there of) on tone. Everything on a guitar is easily replaced, save for the neck...change the bridge and you will hear the difference.

Great pickups in a lifeless guitar is lipstick on the proverbial pig.
 
That is amplifying an acoustic sound via transference to the body... An electric guitar doesn't generate much sound acoustically but rather magnetically.

I watched a video a while back where the guy recorded a Strat and then methodically removed parts of the body with a saw. Very little difference.

I'm not saying they don't matter, but I think far less than many think.

Did he remove directly behind the bridge?

This seems to be the most noticeable area for me, and why I never found a Flying V I could live with despite my Michael Schenker obsession (pun intended).

Eddie mentioned that he effectively destroyed the destroyer by turning it into the shark, because he removed too much behind the bridge.

Of Course that doesn’t fully explain it as my Strandberg has literally nothing behind the bridge and that thing rings for days.

Ive had well over 200 guitars over the years and the one thing that seems to consistently correlate directly is neck size.
Big necks just seem to ring better...at least it “seems” that way, but I do think its one of, if not, the largest variable In play here.
 
Tonewood on electric guitars is bunk. It's an article of faith to the faithful, but faith does not make things true. Only tests that are as scientific and objectively as possible will. And I have yet to see one in favor of tonewood being a factor of importance. Only 'in my experience it is the case'. Yeah, well there are also people who think that in their experience the Earth is flat and they get visited by aliens from outer space.



 
It's not really bunk in solid body guitars. It just doesn't make nearly as much difference in a heavy solid body guitar as it does in a lighter hollow body or acoustic guitar. The difference is still there, it's just often quite subtle when all other factors are kept the same.




Everything makes some amount of difference. The final voice of an instrument is often a very complex thing with many contributing factors.
 
The best example I've seen was an older YT vid where the guy ACTUALLY did the necessary experiment. He took EVERYTHING apart, and transferred it in between two different guitar bodies. Same neck, pups, circuit (i.e. wiring, knobs, jack, tone cap), strings, bridge. The only variable was the body material. (I've searched and searched and for the life of me can not find it.)

He did a real mic'ed recording, same cable, same amp, same settings and left it to the listener to decide, though his own opinion was that there was no audible difference. I agreed, as did most in the comments. But there were those that "heard something".

This is one of those rabbit holes where science can not dissuade from the many hundreds of millions in marketing dollars invested over decades, and reinforced by paid endorsers to convince people to part with their money.



One interesting side note is that I once heard someone mention the consideration for volume. You may not pick out the sound of a brass nut at bedroom volume. Yet if your 100W is dimed through a half stack 412 in a concert hall, you're gonna hear the difference in that brass.



^Now THAT you can hear.
 
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One thing to keep in mind with the concrete guitar is the HUGE mass difference between it and a normal wood body. I'm of the impression that the heavier the body gets, the less it tends to matter in the tone equation. String vibration energy will more readily bounce back in to string since the super heavy body is that much harder to make vibrate sympathetically. It has much more inertia.

An interesting test would be to weight relieve the concrete body until it is closer in weight to a normal body and then compare the sound. I also wonder what a concrete neck would sound like as well.

Here's a cat that welded up an all steel guitar. Sounds a little weird and clangy at times, but for the most part still sounds like a guitar. Hardware and pickups are clearly contributing quite a bit in this case.
 
That's cool. Sounds more like a piano string, which I guess makes sense since piano strings are strung on a huge hunk of cast iron.
 
Tonewood on electric guitars is bunk. It's an article of faith to the faithful, but faith does not make things true. Only tests that are as scientific and objectively as possible will. And I have yet to see one in favor of tonewood being a factor of importance. Only 'in my experience it is the case'. Yeah, well there are also people who think that in their experience the Earth is flat and they get visited by aliens from outer space.





Crazy that I can't think of any response that wouldn't offend anyone...so ill just give it a like!
 
Wood matters big Only when it DOESN"T work ie a neck and a body that have dissonance between each other. The video of a very shity parts guitar bolted to a few lumps of different wood is only going to give you a narrow range of mediocrity ,a test that doesn't understand the issue . The Heaver materials are all going to work because the chance of dissonance is massively less when there are octaves plus between the neck resonance and the body.
A heavy stiff body just reflects the string energy back in to the string greatly reducing its tonal influence. Big mass = sustain and low acoustic volume. The only test hear worth anything is the Warmoth one. Tonewood as a concept is and always was BS (Leo just used whatever was cheap and practical). It has become a thing in recent years as we have all developed an expectation of tone based on classic recordings and replicating them does require the elements used.
I can blind test ash alder rosewood and maple in fenders from a lifetime of playing and working on them . Tonewood is BS but in a world of mass production and very little matching of parts other than if they fit the lottery of mismatch will rule whether a guitar is tonally happy with itself. The range of effect is from; dead sounding poor sustain with loud and quiet notes to a beautiful harmonically rich sustaining guitar that you can't put down.
One last part;
In order for a musical instrument to sound good and stay sounding good it must be played regularly and throughout its range ,so not just the things you usually play .All the notes and all the keys. Wood matters big but not in the way it is mostly portrayed .
 
Yeah it's definitely a sum of its parts kind of thing. When they all work together it's a beautiful and addictive thing. When they clash with each other, the tone and response reflects it. Wood being natural and inconsistent, it can be a roll of the dice when randomly combining parts.
 
As Darrel Braun said, there are SO MANY more factors and things that can influence/determine your tone then the wood the guitar is made from. Obsessing over that serves only to make those luthiers and guitar manufacturers who peddle that idea to you richer. If you want a tone that is a little trebly, or warmer, don't spend thousands on rare tonewood, adjust the EQ section on your amp instead. And barring that just get an EQ pedal for a fraction of that cost.

The best example I've seen was an older YT vid where the guy ACTUALLY did the necessary experiment. He took EVERYTHING apart, and transferred it in between two different guitar bodies. Same neck, pups, circuit (i.e. wiring, knobs, jack, tone cap), strings, bridge. The only variable was the body material. (I've searched and searched and for the life of me can not find it.)

He did a real mic'ed recording, same cable, same amp, same settings and left it to the listener to decide, though his own opinion was that there was no audible difference. I agreed, as did most in the comments. But there were those that "heard something".

This is one of those rabbit holes where science can not dissuade from the many hundreds of millions in marketing dollars invested over decades, and reinforced by paid endorsers to convince people to part with their money.



One interesting side note is that I once heard someone mention the consideration for volume. You may not pick out the sound of a brass nut at bedroom volume. Yet if your 100W is dimed through a half stack 412 in a concert hall, you're gonna hear the difference in that brass.



^Now THAT you can hear.


Then again, when will you EVER be able to dime a 100w stack in a concert hall when most of us can't even make it past the small bars stage. ;) In my experience on this board people that actually play in concert halls don't post on forums, at best only their techs do.
 
As Darrel Braun said, there are SO MANY more factors and things that can influence/determine your tone then the wood the guitar is made from. Obsessing over that serves only to make those luthiers and guitar manufacturers who peddle that idea to you richer. If you want a tone that is a little trebly, or warmer, don't spend thousands on rare tonewood, adjust the EQ section on your amp instead. And barring that just get an EQ pedal for a fraction of that cost.
This again just misses the point entirely. It's not primarily tone, it's far more important than that even. It is about how well the body and neck react TOGETHER , some great pieces of wood won't work together, ring as one when combined and what ever you put on them isn't going to fix it entirely. Just mitigate in small part leaving a poor instrument at best. The best builders don't put pieces that don't work together out . This whole issue is before you even think about the tonal character of one or other wood types.
 
This is as close to a religious subject as you can have here and not get banned.

Any of them can make great music, and have. It all matters in some sense; more to some, less to others. Best to leave it at that and get back to playing.
 
G&L Tributes have the same hardware and electronics as their much more expensive american models. I work in a music shop, and noone has ever said they didn't hear a noticable difference between the two. Quite a few weren't inspired by the difference to fork out an extra €2000.
 
How can PU be important when they are so easily replaced. Your fundamental tone starts with the instrument and then you get PUs that are sutable for the gain levels that you use. They are important but they are more like the set of tyres you put on your Ferrari .
But a Ferrari with 10 dollar tires will never win a course...
 
Another observation working 16 years in a music shop and having owned lots of gear: the impact of a €10 wooden pick on a chain of highend guitars, effects and amps worth 700 times the pick.
 
The best example I've seen was an older YT vid where the guy ACTUALLY did the necessary experiment. He took EVERYTHING apart, and transferred it in between two different guitar bodies. Same neck, pups, circuit (i.e. wiring, knobs, jack, tone cap), strings, bridge. The only variable was the body material. (I've searched and searched and for the life of me can not find it.)

He did a real mic'ed recording, same cable, same amp, same settings and left it to the listener to decide, though his own opinion was that there was no audible difference. I agreed, as did most in the comments. But there were those that "heard something".

This is one of those rabbit holes where science can not dissuade from the many hundreds of millions in marketing dollars invested over decades, and reinforced by paid endorsers to convince people to part with their money.



One interesting side note is that I once heard someone mention the consideration for volume. You may not pick out the sound of a brass nut at bedroom volume. Yet if your 100W is dimed through a half stack 412 in a concert hall, you're gonna hear the difference in that brass.



^Now THAT you can hear.


Mp3s compressed by youtube through computer or phone speakers can make a €400 Epi sound like a €2000 Gibson. Or vice versa. Easily. It is quite a different thing when you actually play them on a good amp. Customers who have never heard a guitar upclose often claim they'll hear no difference between a cheap or more expensive guitar. I always demonstrate the two then, not telling which is which, and most pick out the more expensive as more pleasant sounding.
 
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