Research Questions

Hello i am currently conducting a year 12 research project and i have a couple of questions relating to the topic of type of wood and does it effect the tone/sound of a guitar? in both electric and acoustic. i have a couple of questions that anyone can answer! if you have any suggestions to add that would appreciated.

What factors contribute to the tone of a guitar (electric) and to what extent?
What kind of wood produces the best kind of sound for an acoustic?
Does wood effect the sound of an electric guitar?

Any suggestions on wood types? as a further query

Can of worms = Opened!!

I'll leave question #1 & #2 to others more experienced, but I'll have a crack at #2
Unfortunately, there is no correct answer to this question.
Saying something is the best sounding guitar is purely subjective, and no two people are going to agree on everything.
You could have two guitars built to the same dimensions with the highest quality spruce top, and maybe some Brazilian Rosewood for the back and sides, but the internal bracing is completely different, and they will each be loved by 49.5% of the people you talk to. The last 1% will believe you should have used Red Cedar for the top, and Hawaiian Koa for the back and sides, and a different bracing structure!!!
Take the same Spruce/BRW combo, and then apply it to a 0/00/000/Dreadnought or Jumbo sized guitar, and each will give you a different sound quality, and no-one will agree 100% on which is the best.
If you start throwing in other variables such as Cutaways(All the traditionalists start to shudder), or nylon vs steel strings etc. it just starts getting to hard.
Bottom line, The best sound comes down to your personal preference.
Some woods have a warm bassier tone, while others are brighter and give more of the treble end.
Skilled Luthiers can take all of that out of the equation by the way they construct the guitar.
A client could ask for particular timbers, but want it to sound like Martin designed in the 1940's, and just by "voicing" the internal bracing a certain way, they can accomplish this pretty closely.
Hopefully I haven't confused the issue too much for you!

Can of worms indeed. High school project or PHD thesis topic? Hahaha.

Most people have their own sets of beliefs when it comes to wood selections. A survey of 100 people could receive 100 different opinions.

In the case of electrics, the tone achieved is a sum of all of it's parts. The wood definitely contributes to resonance and sustain, to what extent I have no idea. But, the mythical "tone" is a contentious subject in and of itself.

There are many project builds on youtube that use non standard materials for the body (and sometimes neck) that sound fantastic. The cardboard strat comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oo2H-W7d6A

Here ya go, discussed to death

http://www.tdpri.com/threads/honest-...en-why.681725/
http://www.tdpri.com/threads/electri...search.479706/

That should keep you going for an hour or two and probably leave you none the wiser :D

Purely my (unprofessional) opinion - 95% of an electric guitar's sound comes from the electro-mechanical bits - strings, pickups, nut, bridge. That said, the structural elements (neck and body) can alter the characteristics a bit, such as the sustain or sympathetic resonance. But there seems to be very little actual science out there. It seems that anyone with the resources to do it probably stands to gain more from using timber choice as a marketing tool.

I find a lot of guitarists confuse things like sustain, feel and attack for "tone". Tone is far more discernable in acoustic instruments where the tone is entirely dependent on the construction and resonant qualities of the materials.

The wood certainly makes a difference to the sound/feel on an electric guitar, but for me it's more to do with how much of the higher frequencies the wood absorbs. Even among the same types of wood, some pieces will dissipate higher frequency resonances a lot quicker than others, which can make for a very dull sounding guitar, especially when using single coils as they have more high-frequency content to start with, so the wood's effect is more noticeable.

And you've got two important pieces of wood - the neck and the body. If they compliment each other, then you get a great guitar. If they oppose one another, then the guitar isn't going to be as good.

You really need to go to a guitar shop where they have sufficient guitars of the same type available to try. One will always sound better than the others, even though the hardware and the woods are all the same (and that's obviously the one to buy if you're there for that purpose).

You've got the same basic properties of wood working in both acoustic and electric guitars. However on acoustics, the sound relies almost entirely on the wood (plus the construction methods used), whereas on an electric, the woods take a secondary role to the pickup design.

I recently saw a post elsewhere by a maker of composite body acoustics that states that with a carbon DLC (diamond-like carbon) saddle, he can re-voice a Martin acoustic to sound like a Collings. That's quite a big change from a small piece of the guitar (though I suppose if you put a soft rubber saddle on you could make any guitar sound awful).

The problem with a lot of this sort of discussion is that there are very few actual measurables that can be compared scientifically. One man's 'tone' is another man's 'meeeh'. You could measure frequency responses, but you also need to look at them in the time domain as well. And even plotting them on a 3-D style graph, you could only really compare how quickly certain frequencies fall off. But it still won't really tell you what sounds 'nicer'.

You've also got other variables such as old vs new guitar strings, air temperature and humidity, thickness and type of finish, plus the age of the wood(s) to take into consideration. I've had an acoustic that sounded brilliant 1 day out of 20, the rest it sounded dull and uninteresting.

I've not got tons of practical experience with a lot of these things myself, but I've done a fair bit of research myself, listening to various clips and such, so I'll just put up what I've noted, and some things I've read.

What factors contribute to the tone of a guitar (electric) and to what extent?

Long story short, I'd say everything contributes. The guitar is a physical instrument that causes sound by way of physical movement, so almost every thing that you alter will in some way have an effect on the way the instrument responds to vibration. Change the neck join? Change the wood? Add chambering? Everything (that isn't the electronics) changes the physical properties, and the way it responds to vibrations. And the when the electronics get changed, well that potentially colours the sound in various ways too. So the way I see it, every change to a guitar will alter the sound.

To what extent is a much more relevant question, though. Because while I said, for example that the electronics "potentially colour the sound", well if you're just replacing stock pots or switches with pricier ones, you probably won't hear a difference. Swapping out the pickups though will potentially make a guitar sound pretty much like a whole different guitar! Pop dual 'Buckers in a Strat and it won't sound anywhere near the same. But swap the neck wood from Maple to Mahogany and you probably won't notice a ton of difference. It will be there, it will be slight, but you'll have to side-by-side compare them to notice it. Heck I noticed more of a difference between a Hendrix Strat and a Standard Strat than I've noticed from plenty of other videos of tonewood comparisons.

Another thing to consider is everything after the guitar. Because ok, you'll be able to pick a difference if you side-by-side a Mahogany Strat with an Ash one, the more effects you add after the fact, the harder it is to be able to spot the differences. You ain't tellin' those Strats apart through the Korg Miku Pedal, that's for sure.

All things said, I think Pickups and Effects/Amplifiers have the biggest impact on tone out of everything, and most other factors can be easily compensated for with a change in Pups, amplifier or effects. Other things should be chosen based on what you like the feel of, or the look of. Rosewood is a little nicer sounding to my ears on Strats, but gosh darn a gloss Maple fretboard just feels SO MUCH BETTER!!


What kind of wood produces the best kind of sound for an acoustic?

Well to be frank, I don't like this question, as the "best sound" is always a subjective thing. I believe though, if we're looking for a general consensus, Mahogany back, sides and neck, Spruce soundboard, and Rosewood fretboard. However personally, I think my own acoustic that I bought is one of the best sounding acoustics I've ever heard, and it's basically just QLD Maple instead of Mahogany, so if I was gonna make a personal call, I'd say that's my idea of the best sound. But do note that I'm not well versed with Acoustics, so I've not got as much to add because of that. But I do know that the woods on an acoustic make a MUCH bigger difference than they do with electrics, as they resonate much much more.


Does wood effect the sound of an electric guitar?

Yes. Though not to as great of a degree as pickups, effects and amplifiers.


Any suggestions on wood types?

I'm not sure what you mean by this at all :D What do you mean here? Like woods we like? Weird woods that are cool?