What makes guitars sound different?

[b0b]

This guy wanted to know, so he did a bunch of experiments.

https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE

Of course, pedal steels are different, right?

[Fred Treece]

Truth.

It might be interesting to do an experiment from the other end of tone shaping, and have 12 different players play the same riff or song on the same guitar with the same amp settings. Or, a tutorial on how to get that Tele sound from an ES-335.

Slide playing the Air Guitar at the end kind of opened up the possibility for a sequel on steel guitars.

[Brooks Montgomery]

That was really interesting. Makes me wonder what my counterfeit ES-335 (Ibanez) would sound like with the real classic vintage pickups. The build itself is quite immaculate.

I am happy with the great tone of both my Sho-Bud, and my Zumsteel Encore. They are different and unique, but it does make me wonder what makes them so. Unfortunately, both, although unique and tasty in tone, sound like Brooks is playing. . . .

[Don Downes]

Les Paul's Log. ca. 1941

Or, a tutorial on how to get that Tele sound from an ES-335.

I just might try that with my 335 clone and American Tele.

[Don Downes]

Makes me wonder what my counterfeit ES-335 (Ibanez) would sound like with the real classic vintage pickups.

I asked myself the same question, Brooks. Having done a full pup swap on my Strat, I thought "how hard can it be?"

Then I saw this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4DK5RZLjRg

[Brooks Montgomery]

Makes me wonder what my counterfeit ES-335 (Ibanez) would sound like with the real classic vintage pickups.

I asked myself the same question, Brooks. Having done a full pup swap on my Strat, I thought "how hard can it be?"

Then I saw this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4DK5RZLjRg

Wonder what the dif would be on leads, string bends, blues…maybe not much.
I guess I wonder if the pick ups are quite similar also, if they were put into $6500 Murphy lab ES-335 body…?

[Dave Mudgett]

What I saw and heard in this video is that if have some Telecasters or Tele-like things with the same scale length, pickups, electronics, and so on, if you don't push the guitar hard and/or push an amp very hard, they sound pretty similar. I don't find anything surprising about that. Strummy strummy - the pickup design specifics, distance from strings, exact position and orientation relative to the scale length, and so on, determine a lot. I still heard differences, but the first-order and linear effects are the stuff he talked about.

I think a lot of this goes out the window when you are playing the guitar hard and/or driving the amp hard. The nuances and especially nonlinearities you don't notice in strummy strummy suddently pop out. At least, that's my experience - everything matters. Think about a player like Roy Buchanan - I saw him many times with different guitars, and you can bet your bippy his guitar mattered.

[Don Downes]

Here's a clip worth watching with James Burton. It's worth your time. Best sound bite in the whole interview is about Chet Atkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azf44klYv2c

[Fred Treece]

It seems to me the premise of this experiment was not quite as broad as a title like “where does electric guitar tone come from?” might indicate. It was more about how body “tonewood” affects the ground level tone of a solid body electric. Under that narrow parameter, it largely succeeded at proving “not that much”. Body and neck wood type, shape, and finish have a lot more to do with tuning stability, overall physical balance, playability, durability, and sustain to some degree, than it does with tone.

My own unscientific opinion has always been that basic tone in a reasonably well crafted solid body electric guitar is 80-90% in the electronics - pickups, amp, speaker. The rest is the player, mostly, and other minor mechanical and physical nuance. Of course, a guitar that sounds like crap unplugged is probably not going to be helped by plugging in and turning up to 11.

A similar experiment on hollow and semi-hollowbody electrics might yield a very different conclusion, but I don’t think a DIY guy could do it very scientifically.

[Edward Dixon]

Nobody has pointed out the thing that was obvious to me, so I'll just do it myself...

That "air" guitar is attached to wood on both ends, a lot of wood, many more lbs. heavier than a regular guitar

[Fred Treece]

Nobody has pointed out the thing that was obvious to me, so I'll just do it myself...

That "air" guitar is attached to wood on both ends, a lot of wood, many more lbs. heavier than a regular guitar

This variation was discussed in the YouTube comments section, with a predictably polarized difference of opinion on what it meant. If it were possible, I’d like to see a set of strings stretched between two pillows, with all the electronics, setup, and environmental conditions exactly the same as for the workbench air guitar and compare those results.

PS I’ve been looking for that Chet Atkins interview where he says “how does it sound now?”. Anybody have a link? My suspicion is that it’s on that urban legend channel...

[Don Downes]

My own unscientific opinion has always been that basic tone in a reasonably well crafted solid body electric guitar is 80-90% in the electronics - pickups, amp, speaker. The rest is the player, mostly, and other minor mechanical and physical nuance.

I think that sums it up nicely.

[Ethan Shaw]

Super interesting!

[Carl McLaughlin]

There is a video on You tube where the guy takes a strat styed guitar and uses a jig saw to cut pieces off the body and checking sound, sustain, tone each time he cuts off another piece. Very interesting.

[Don Downes]

Sorry, but can't resist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5begHSoQ1s

I was on the road back in the 70s, rooming with my asthmatic guitar payer. He had his axe stolen years before, and replaced it with a tri pup gold custom Black Beauty. He NEVER EVER went anywhere without it. One night, in Mechanicsburg, PA, he left it at the club. In the middle of the night I was woken by the sound of a breathless dying man. He was sitting straight up in bed and couldn't breathe. I asked him what I could do, and he said "Nothing! I left my inhaler in my guitar case!". At 3 in the morning there wasn't anything either of could do. Come daylight, I called the manager of the club, explained the situation, and I met her at the club. She opened the door, and took me right to the office where his guitar was. I grabbed it, drove back to the hotel, and, thank the Lord, he survived. In all the years I played with him after, he never left that Black Beauty anywhere ever again.

[Donny Hinson]

Truth.

It might be interesting to do an experiment from the other end of tone shaping, and have 12 different players play the same riff...

In the famous words of comedian Dave Gardener "You can't do anything again. Once you've done it, it's gone! You can do something similar."

Musicians sometimes have a hard time duplicating what they've just done, and they have an even harder time duplicating what other musicians do. For all the talent Buddy Emmons had, he could never sound or play like Ralph Mooney, nor vice-versa. I do go along with Dave as far as using a jangly distorted chord for an example. That doesn't work, because adjacent strings affect each other when played together. With electrified instruments, the real subtleties only come out with single notes. However, I do disagree with using overdrive as a judgement parameter because I feel overdrive (distortion) is not a characteristic of the guitar itself, but of the amplified guitar.

Still, it was an eye-opening test.

[Fred Treece]

Okay, howbout we line up Eric Clapton, Vince Gill, John Bonnamossa, Pat Metheny, and half a dozen other blokes in that caliber, and have them play Row Your Boat on the same guitar (wide open tone & volume), same amp settings, no effects. Once through just playing the single note melody, and once embellishing any way they see fit, as long as the settings stay the same. I’m pretty sure they could all do that, including Buddy and Ralph if they were still with us.

Let’s just see how much tone is in the hands.

[Brooks Montgomery]

Okay, howbout we line up Eric Clapton, Vince Gill, John Bonnamossa, Pat Metheny, and half a dozen other blokes in that caliber, and have them play Row Your Boat on the same guitar (wide open tone & volume), same amp settings, no effects. Once through just playing the single note melody, and once embellishing any way they see fit, as long as the settings stay the same. I’m pretty sure they could all do that, including Buddy and Ralph if they were still with us.

Let’s just see how much tone is in the hands.

Something like that would be so cool at something like the Crossroads Guitar Festival (if they ever do it again)—just as an interesting sort of academic demonstration, and then let them grab their own axes amps etc and jam.
“Tone is in the master’s hands” part of the show.

[Edward Dixon]

For my Money, gimme a guitar that lets me feel the vibrations of the instrument. Some woods are more preferable to me than others.

Playing multi- instruments I can say the hands are very important to tone. I can't use the same technique for mandolin that I do for guitar, bass, or banjo. Even heavy calluses make a difference in tone.

[JB Bobbitt]

My single-string version

[Clyde Mattocks]

They don't call them TONEwoods for nothing.

[Donny Hinson]

I think the term "tonewoods" is applicable for acoustic guitars. But I consider it fairly irrelevant when we're talking about solid body instruments...which includes pedal steels. Acoustic instruments have resonance and a sonic character, or "ring" when you tap them with your knuckle. Pedal steels do not.

[Clyde Mattocks]

Respectfully Donny, I do get your point. I only know what my own observations tell me. Because a steel guitar is a three sided chamber (five counting the endplates) I must believe there is a resonance factor that will affect what the pickup sees. Buddy, in evaluating a steel, was known to strike the strings and grab a leg to see how the vibrations transferred thru the body.
Right now I have a friend who has tried six different pickups on an old Emmons PP to try to tame the highs.

[Donny Hinson]

I agree, Clyde. A pedal steel is a lot like an upside-down drawer or box. But if you take a box or drawer and start adding things to it, like a keyhead, neck, changer, endplates, and bunch of metal parts (legs, levers, and linkage), you find that much of that resonance goes away. There is always some resonance, but other factors, like how everything goes together tend to be more important.

Spruce and cedar are used as the soundboard of some of the finest stringed instruments, but nobody uses them on pedal steels.

Go figure.

[Brooks Montgomery]

I’m sure this has been covered, but has anyone built an all-metal pedal steel?
And what was the result?