Amazing looking guitars by TYE

While wondering what I was going to do with all the Green lipped Abalone I bought, I was looking for inspiration, actually photos of Tony Zemaitis 'Pearly' guitars.

I ran across this maker in Texas, USA called TYE guitars - see link for lots more.
http://www.teye.com/master-guitars/

Here are a few photos of three of them...... Click on photo for larger view
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They all seemed to be built on a LP shape, but one that has a flat face, not carved like a traditional LP

lots of work in those, quite like the middle one...

a pearly 4 stringer
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Gotta wonder if they will ever get played or just sit in a case to keep them looking pretty?

I know the Zemantis ones get played. They seem to be the rage with Japanese metal bands atm

Pretty full on.

So riddle me this:

On guitar forums, including here, earnest discussion are had regarding oil vs. tru-oil vs. stain vs. varnish vs. poly-urethane vs (etc) being used on tone woods and the disastrous effects each one (apparently) causes on the tone of the guitar.

So how do they get away with gluing lumps of pearloid and paua to the entire 'soundboard' surface?

because by the time the signal passes through 10 effects pedals, mixed with other instruments, fed to various speakers and a room of unknown acoustics it becomes irrelevant?

Given that most, if not all, of an electric guitars tone comes from the pickups, I'm not at all convinced that the wood, or the finish on that wood makes a blind bit of difference to the tone of the instrument.

YMMV

On an acoustic guitar, well... that's a whole new bowl of petunias...

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Originally Posted by corsair

Given that most, if not all, of an electric guitars tone comes from the pickups, I'm not at all convinced that the wood, or the finish on that wood makes a blind bit of difference to the tone of the instrument.

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Tend to disagree about the effect of finish on the sound. Why? I had 2 identical Ibanez PJ Bass Guitars and the 2nd one was bought at a Pawn Shop and was looking a bit worse for wear. These days it would be called reliced but being a young early 20 something too obsessed with how it looked decided to get it spray painted by a panel beater. Sadly whilst it looked nice, smooth & shiny the refinish made it sound too bright and took away the warmth it had before. From this experience it taught me that aged instruments do sound better and some finishes detract from the natural tones.

However as Dedman said, once the signal goes through lots of processing into a room full of punters who do not give a toss what it should sound like things such as tonewood tend to pale into insignificance. However for those amongst us who sparingly use gadgets to shape our sound the difference can be quite obvious, but only if there are 2 identically configured instruments to compare with. Playing an electric unplugged is also a good way to discover the true effect the timber & finish might contribute to the sound.

I'm with Waz. The wood and the finish do have a contribution to the tone, but I'd say most noticeably to the sustain. Thin finishes do sound better than thick ones (which can really limit body resonance), though the type of material used for the finish is probably less important. A thick nitro finish will probably have more of a negative effect on a guitar than a thin poly one.

I've had a Strat guitar body that made even expensive replacement pickups (a Bare Knuckle Irish Tour set) sound dull and lifeless, yet swapping the basswood body for an ash one, (but using all the old parts) brought the guitar back to life.

You could probably draw a distribution of guitar bodies on a chart and assign them a value from 'bad' to 'average/good' to 'excellent' sounding (all very subjective terms of course), and end up with a bell curve where most of them sit in the 'average/good' area, a few in the 'bad' and a few in the 'excellent'. So the majority of guitar bodies are going to sound OK, and swapping pickups will have a much bigger effect on the sound than swapping from one OK body to another OK body. But sometimes a body is so bad that even a good pickup won't help much. And moving from am OK to an 'excellent' body can sometimes achieve more than a change of pickups can.

It's all very hard to really pin down, as we rarely have multiple versions of the same guitar, and all fitted with the same pickups. The only time you can really try is in a large guitar shop that does have a lot of the same type of guitar out to try. And it's then that you can really tell that some of those guitars do sound better than others. The differences do show up more on the cheaper guitars, where there is less consistency between the woods used. But even on higher-end guitars, there can be noticeable differences.

But there really are far more important things to be concerned about.

If buying new where possible it is advisable to try several of the same type guitar you intend buying as not all will feel or sound the same.

these were posted on local luither Mick Gentry's FB today. Lovely , A Zelinka I think
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I've seen those necks before. Supposed to be ultra slippery, and fast action.
I can see the theory behind it allowing air gaps between your hand and the back of the neck.
It would be interesting to see what they are like in real life.
Has anyone carved the back of they're neck in a similar fashion here on the forum?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by corsair

that's a whole new bowl of petunias...

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Oh no not again!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rabbitz

So riddle me this:

On guitar forums, including here, earnest discussion are had regarding oil vs. tru-oil vs. stain vs. varnish vs. poly-urethane vs (etc) being used on tone woods and the disastrous effects each one (apparently) causes on the tone of the guitar.

So how do they get away with gluing lumps of pearloid and paua to the entire 'soundboard' surface?

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Or the fact that we hold guitars against our bodies, wont that dampen resonance?

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Originally Posted by Fuzzbeard

Oh no not again!

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Ha! Someone who knows where their towel's at.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Ha! Someone who knows where their towel's at.

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I'm reading them again. Half way through book 3.