What guitar companies don't want you to know...

[fenderplucker]

I don't think there is any mystery about why one would expect the materials used in a guitar to have some impact on the electrified sound.

The electrical signal from the pickups results from the RELATIVE motion between the strings and the pickup coils. The fact that any solid body guitar has some sort of acoustic sound when played (i.e. not plugged in) indicates that the body, neck, scratch plate etc are in fact vibrating when a string is plucked (the direct acoustic output from the string being very small in comparison). Some of this motion will be transferred to the pickups through the body and so will affect the relative displacement of the pickups and strings, and so lead to some modification of the output signal. This is all in addition to the the way these vibrations are transferred back and forth to the strings themselves, leading to a further means of sound modification.

Paul.

[Uncle Fiesta]

... Some of this motion will be transferred to the pickups through the body ...

Paul.

Unfortunately, it won't. The whole point I'm trying to make is that the body, being made of wood, will not be heard by the pickups, which can only hear the strings. If the strings are causing the body to vibrate, this is inefficient, because the vibration should remain in the strings where the pickups can hear it. This is the exact opposite of an acoustic guitar where the vibrations from the strings must pass into the wood in order to be amplified.

[kevinr]

Please then explain why the same guitar with a different neck sounded so different? and before you answer, I have been repairing guitars for 35 years playing semi/pro for longer, so I think by now I can hear differences in sound.

[Uncle Fiesta]

Well if you can prove to me that the two necks were absolutely identical apart fro the wood, I might believe there is something in it.

However, I've been playing for 50 years and although I have to admit I prefer a maple neck for the looks, and rosewood for the feel, I've never noticed any difference in the sound. I wouldn't expect to, as the part of the string that's vibrating never actually touches the fingerboard. It's in midair, between the fret and the bridge saddle.

[fenderplucker]

Uncle Fiesta, I obviously didn't manage to convey the main point that it is the RELATIVE motion of the strings and pickup coils that generates the signal: it doesn't matter if the strings or the pickups move since both induce a voltage in the coils. Unless the guitar body had infinite mass, it MUST move in relation to the strings to some degree, and it is that motion that causes the acoustic sound that you can hear when plucking a string without the guitar being plugged in.

If there were no motion of the body, neck, scratch plate etc then you would hardly get any acoustic sound since the vibrating strings themselves do not radiate much at all.

Paul.

[David Martin]

Science is obviously a useful discipline, but it cannot, at any moment in time, satisfactorily explain everything... How do we know this? Because, every now and then, a scientist discovers something momentous and the laws of physics - or whatever - are rewritten...

So you can go on believing in whatever pleases you, science, sorcery or, indeed, tonewoods.

All I know is that my latest Les Paul R0 sounds and plays better than the one before it... And that an AC4 sounds better with Mullards than stock valves...

And what is "better"? Ask a believer in science... (And be prepared for the long haul...)

(For the sake of clarity - and peace and quiet - this was written tongue-in-cheek... )

[fenderplucker]

As far as I know Newton's third law still holds: for every action (i.e. string motion) there is an equal an opposite reaction (body motion).

Paul.

[stephen]

It may (or may not!) be of interest to note that Leo Fender, 'the father of the modern electric guitar' used pine (!) as his material of choice for the body of his first solid body, the single & twin pickup versions of the Esquire. The reason? It was plentiful, cheap & was available in planks of a guitar-friendly width. Now Leo did care passionately about the sound of his electric instruments, but felt that it was the pickups & electronics that contributed the most, hence what he devoted most of his R&D time and efforts to. The body wood was just a platform upon which to mount these. Make it pleasing to the eye and have marketable aesthetics, but that was as far as it went.
After the first production run and Leo changed the body wood over to ash, was it due to suddenly realising that a proper 'tonewood' was required? Nope, it was decided after experiencing some returns due to the resinous nature of pine, bleeding through the solid lacquer finishes. This wasn't helped by the fact that in order to help cash flow & get more instruments out of the factory doors through the early business, Leo was using pine stock that hadn't properly dried out. Additionally, the knotty nature of pine dictated that only a solid colour (predominately black or white) could be used in order to disguise it. There was a current vogue for wooden furniture with a see-through light (blonde) finish and Leo thought that if he was able to do something similar with the Esquire it would be more 'contemporary' and possibly boost sales. The inherent, attractive grain of ash, absence of knots & relative abundance of this wood, although more expensive & in narrower planks than pine, were the main deciding factors.
Some time later when body material shifted in the main to alder, this was also for practical reasons. Tone didn't come into it. The grain of ash, although often spectacularly attractive, needs grain filling/sanding to ensure that the finish does not 'sink'. This was a fairly labour intensive process and if it could be eliminated, not only would it benefit the bottom line, but more importantly, more instruments could make it out of the door & keep Don Randall of Fender Sales off Leo's back. Ash also tended to vary quite considerably in weight & heavier guitars weren't particularly good sellers. As alder didn't require the grain filling process and therefore more readily accepted the range of solid colours that Fender was promoting, the general switch from ash was made.
Stephen.

[Tigerdaisy]

The type of wood and how 'well' the components are attached to the body will effect the degree and quality of vibration/sustain which obviously effects the sound- aka the Paul Reed Smith demo where he shows difference between cheap plastic nut and high quality nut. It's what the strings vibrate against that will effect the sound/sustain- the main effectors being the bridge, frets and nut, secondary the material those components are mounted against. Whether or not the actual species of wood makes any great difference I wouldn't know- it's probably more to do with how well seasoned it is.
All things being equal, assuming the quality of the materials is of an acceptable quality I'd say the main effectors of sound are the pups and amp, plus the player of course...

[Uncle Fiesta]

Good post Stephen and everything you say is historically verifiable. I had indeed come across the pine story quite recently so it's still fresh in the mind. I think it's significant that the person who designed the thing in the first place didn't care which wood was used to make it. Furthermore the change back to ash was only because solid colours were going out of fashion and sunburst and natural were coming back, and the grain pattern of ash made for a nicer appearance. The subsequent change back to alder was driven by comments from dealers and customers that the bodies were becoming too heavy.

I'm not saying that the vibration of the wood doesn't affect the vibration of the strings, I'm just saying that if it does, there is no scientific evidence that different woods will affect it differently. And even if they do, I doubt it would be detectable compared with other inevitable differences between any two guitars such as construction, hardware, pickups, and, as Martin just said, the player.

In other words you can't just point to two guitars and say, these sound different because of the wood. There will be many other factors at work.