Tonewood doesn’t matter

Like Paul Reed Smith's famous quote, my experience has been that every aspect of the construction of a guitar is a factor in the sound it creates.

One example that stands out clearly for me is when a NYC studio friend asked me to come over and check out a new bass made just north of NY City in Newburgh, NY. There was a lot of innovative stuff going in those days. I lived between the two places so it was easy for me to visit his studio, and I was really curious as to what this bass was that he said 'was really different and sounds amazing'.

It was from a company called Steinberger. They were headless basses with graphite composite body and active EMG pickups.

I was blown away by the super hi-fidelity sound. He thought maybe he should get some EMG pickups for one 'project' bass he had. Before running out and buying anything we pulled the EMGs from the Steinberger and put them in his other bass. Not even close to the same sound. I knew it was the construction and material used for the body.

I first encountered a Parker Fly on a recording session in NY when a producer asked me to try this weird shape guitar because they thought it would sound good for the track we were working on. Wow, it felt different, played different, and sounded different. Carbon fiber skin fused to wood for the thinnest guitar body I had ever seen.

I think it had Seymour Duncan pickups but it didn't sound like any other guitar. Every note was clear and rang out, almost like an acoustic guitar, but coming from a solid body electric. Amazing. The piezo made it even more interesting.

Both the Steinberger bass (and guitars) and the Parker Fly sounded different because of the material used to construct them.
 
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maxc said:
P.P.S. Don't even try to argue with me about Korina. You'll just embarrass yourselves.
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What’s the deal with Korina then? It seems to be a mythical tone wood. But if it was really good I figured there would be more Korina guitars out there.
 
skolacki said:
What’s the deal with Korina then? It seems to be a mythical tone wood. But if it was really good I figured there would be more Korina guitars out there.
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I  think he was being facetious.

IIRC, Korina was used originally because it was available and worked. Same with many other woods used for electric guitar bodies. Could be mistaken.
 
phil92 said:
Don’t ask me why I let myself get sucked into arguments on the internet, I can’t explain it. And this one in particular really rubs me the wrong way.

So many people stating wood selection in guitars makes no sonic difference whatsoever ‘because the pickups are magnetic and not a microphone’.

The flat earthers of guitardom will defend their errors tooth and nail. There’s no getting through.
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I've heard that argument before & I just chuckle.
Both of these guitars have the same pickups. Bartolini ZBS-75. It's Bart's version of a P-90.
The SG style are made from old growth Redwood w/ Honduran Mahogany Neck throughs.
The Les Paul style has a Tulipwood & Bloodwood neckthrough w/ a solid one piece African Bubinga carved top.
Both guitars have Tulipwood fretboards & are the same scale length; however, they don't sound anything alike.
The Redwood body guitars are naturally warmer than the tropical hardwoods. It's a night & day difference.
I also directly couple my pickups to the body so there aren't any plastic pickup rings involved.
Pickup rings are tone suckers in itself. Direct coupling is the way to go!
Try an FU Tone PMS if you haven't. They're excellent!
https://www.fu-tone.com/product/pms-pickup-mounting-system/

Cheers!
Gabe
 

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secondwindow said:
I  think he was being facetious.

IIRC, Korina was used originally because it was available and worked. Same with many other woods used for electric guitar bodies. Could be mistaken.
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Lol I think facetious. Maybe not though. But I am a little fascinated by Korina guitars. Never played one though. I’ve seen some videos of Bonamassa playing a Korina V that sounded awesome. But Joe will make anything sound good. I might not have similar results haha.
 
FractalAudio said:
If the wood didn't matter then solid body guitars would sound the same as hollow body guitars if they used the same pickups.

QED
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I was told that Fender Custom shop has a Stratocaster that's made of cardboard (probably epoxy). They bring it around to the custom shop dealers. Apparently you can't tell it sonically from a regular wooden one.
They claim it's the scale length, bridge, nut and pickup (position /height) and strings that only matter.
It makes you wonder. For example the pickup positions on a SG are not in the exact same place as a Les Paul. Especially the neck one. Hollow body guitars have lots of differences besides just the wood. So you can't just assume it's the wood that's the difference you mainly hear.
Warmoth has lots of YT videos comparing woods with the same set of hardware transferred from one to the next. At best the difference is subtle. In some cases I'm sure there is no difference. The key is to not look because it's very easy to let your eyes influence what you hear.
Also you can only compare them plugged in and not unplugged where they definitely sound different.
 
NY Guitarist said:
Like Paul Reed Smith's famous quote, my experience has been that every aspect of the construction of a guitar is a factor in the sound it creates.

One example that stands out clearly for me is when a NYC studio friend asked me to come over and check out a new bass made just north of NY City in Newburgh, NY. There was a lot of innovative stuff going in those days. I lived between the two places so it was easy for me to visit his studio, and I was really curious as to what this bass was that he said 'was really different and sounds amazing'.

It was from a company called Steinberger. They were headless basses with graphite composite body and active EMG pickups.

I was blown away by the super hi-fidelity sound. He thought maybe he should get some EMG pickups for one 'project' bass he had. Before running out and buying anything we pulled the EMGs from the Steinberger and put them in his other bass. Not even close to the same sound. I knew it was the construction and material used for the body.

I first encountered a Parker Fly on a recording session in NY when a producer asked me to try this weird shape guitar because they thought it would sound good for the track we were working on. Wow, it felt different, played different, and sounded different. Carbon fiber skin fused to wood for the thinnest guitar body I had ever seen.

I think it had Seymour Duncan pickups but it didn't sound like any other guitar. Every note was clear and rang out, almost like an acoustic guitar, but coming from a solid body electric. Amazing. The piezo made it even more interesting.

Both the Steinberger bass (and guitars) and the Parker Fly sounded different because of the material used to construct them.
Click to expand...
There are almost certainly other differences between those instruments. Such as possibly scale length , bridge type, nut material, exact Pickup position, etc.
You can't assume it's the wood vs graphite that you are only hearing.
 
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2204JCM said:
I was told that Fender Custom shop has a Stratocaster that's made of cardboard (probably epoxy). They bring it around to the custom shop dealers. Apparently you can't tell it sonically from a regular wooden one.
They claim it's the scale length, bridge, nut and pickup (position /height) and strings that only matter.
It makes you wonder. For example the pickup positions on a SG are not in the exact same place as a Les Paul. Especially the neck one. Hollow body guitars have lots of differences besides just the wood. So you can't just assume it's the wood that's the difference you mainly hear.
Warmoth has lots of YT videos comparing woods with the same set of hardware transferred from one to the next. At best the difference is subtle. In some cases I'm sure there is no difference. The key is to not look because it's very easy to let your eyes influence what you hear.
Also you can only compare them plugged in and not unplugged where they definitely sound different.
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Well that was easy to track down (at least that it does exist)! Cool story.

https://www.fendercustomshop.com/custom-life/fender-custom-shop-builds-a-cardboard-strat/
 
skolacki said:
Lol I think facetious. Maybe not though. But I am a little fascinated by Korina guitars. Never played one though. I’ve seen some videos of Bonamassa playing a Korina V that sounded awesome. But Joe will make anything sound good. I might not have similar results haha.
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I use Korina aka white limba on most of my Explorer style builds. Excellent tone, nice weight, beautiful natural color, usually available at my local supplier. :)
 

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2204JCM said:
There are almost certainly other differences between those instruments. Such as possibly scale length , bridge type, nut material, exact Pickup position, etc.
You can't assume it's the wood vs graphite that you are only hearing.
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I agree, all of those are factors.
 
skolacki said:
Lol I think facetious. Maybe not though. But I am a little fascinated by Korina guitars. Never played one though. I’ve seen some videos of Bonamassa playing a Korina V that sounded awesome. But Joe will make anything sound good. I might not have similar results haha.
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Of course, this really doesn't matter, but... ;) I was fascinated with Korina, too, enough to finally buy a PRS McCarty Korina. To my ears, it has the warmth of mahogany with some of the spank of ash. Very resonant and pretty lightweight, at least this example. I'd love to get my hands on one of those korina Flying Vs, but I'm quite sure I would not get the same results, either. Still...

I agree with Paul Reed Smith, everything matters. What really matters is that I'm inspired to play by my guitar and, hopefully, I play noticeably better when I'm inspired. If that matters... :laughing:
 
rockstarjazzcat said:
Red herring. The weird assertion is that acoustic "tone woods" are somehow automatically better in solid body electric guitars than materials not traditionally used for acoustic instruments. And dear gods, not again...
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PRS may say “everything matters,” which is a safe way to go, but he also fans the flames of the mythology I speak of above to sell guitars, gleefully, which seems quite unfortunate.
 
All tone wood is wood that has traditionally been used for musical instruments end of. The species is IRRELEVANT BUT it must be up to the Job mechanically and sound good . All of these woods were originally chosen for reasons other than tone. The difficulties occur when people have expectations of tone based of existing music. Lets get one thing out of the way first; only an idiot would say the acoustic properties of an electric guitar make no difference and ONLY the pickup matters .
This would mean that all guitars with the same pickup and strings regardless of anything would sound EXACTLY the same, obviously this is BS.
So acoustic properties matter!
So wood matters, but not in the way many think of in the "tone wood" debate.
Unfortunately for us things like perfect straight and even grain are better for mechanical properties and tone.
Light porous wood with even grain no joins and a thin hard finish sound good and three to five pieces of randomly selected mismatched density wood with a plasticised thick plastic finish sounds bad (lacks resonance.) It is perfectly possible to make a guitar out of anything that is mechanically up to it but that WILL affect the tone good or bad. It is then up to you whether you like it or not and how much money you are prepared to pay for the extra bit that does make THE difference.
 
Andy Eagle said:
All tone wood is wood that has traditionally been used for musical instruments end of. The species is IRRELEVANT BUT it must be up to the Job mechanically and sound good . All of these woods were originally chosen for reasons other than tone. The difficulties occur when people have expectations of tone based of existing music. Lets get one thing out of the way first; only an idiot would say the acoustic properties of an electric guitar make no difference and ONLY the pickup matters .
This would mean that all guitars with the same pickup and strings regardless of anything would sound EXACTLY the same, obviously this is BS.
So acoustic properties matter!
So wood matters, but not in the way many think of in the "tone wood" debate.
Unfortunately for us things like perfect straight and even grain are better for mechanical properties and tone.
Light porous wood with even grain no joins and a thin hard finish sound good and three to five pieces of randomly selected mismatched density wood with a plasticised thick plastic finish sounds bad (lacks resonance.) It is perfectly possible to make a guitar out of anything that is mechanically up to it but that WILL affect the tone good or bad. It is then up to you whether you like it or not and how much money you are prepared to pay for the extra bit that does make THE difference.
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Agree 100%.

As always, generalizations can only get one so far. Every detail, including differences in individual examples of the same species of wood, manufacturing tolerances in all of the hardware and strings, and even the prevailing weather where the guitar lives, makes a difference. The devil is well and truly in the details. :)
8bhrpy.jpg
 
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