Another tone wood test vid

I 100% agree as with anything wood/tone related , it is down to THAT piece of wood , and how it reacts with EVERYTHING else.
I have a wide variety of neck and fretboard materials, sonically it is the most significant element in tone as it is the one in direct physical contact . I have PRS and Gibson's with same model but different necks .. I've built many in that category as well . Always the same result.

Change the neck , change the tone.

My favorite is Rosewood , followed by Cocobolo which is a rosewood . Braz FB's just a bit over Ebony
 
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Oh, that is fun. And the difference between the necks is significant, to me.

I cannot contribute it to the FB, since it is a different neck. I prefer the maple FB neck.
I thought the inclusion of the roasted maple went outside an apples-to-apples comparison. Too many construction differences imo; truss rods, fretwire, shape, finish, etc. It's contrary to his desire to 'isolate variables'.

The stock American Vintage II(rosewood) and 50s Road Worn neck(maple) 'should' have similar construction.

To be honest, they all sounded like I expected them to, relative to one another.
 
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Thickness makes a HUGE difference as will, I have 2 baseball size flame maple necks on some vintage guitars and they DON"T have that typical twang due to the mass. As with Bodies , the thicker the body , the thicker the sound.. play a McSoapy next to a Triple Soapy sometime.. the thinner body of the P22 shows up in the tone.. one of the reasons Grissom had Paul make it thicker on his .
 
Thickness makes a HUGE difference as will, I have 2 baseball size flame maple necks on some vintage guitars and they DON"T have that typical twang due to the mass. As with Bodies , the thicker the body , the thicker the sound.. play a McSoapy next to a Triple Soapy sometime.. the thinner body of the P22 shows up in the tone.. one of the reasons Grissom had Paul make it thicker on his .
I agree. I have a McC and CU22 with same construction, bridge and wood types, but the thinner body and neck of the CU22 (wide thin). Really different guitars. The CU sounds more modern, brighter. More different than I expected.
 
Having built many partscasters using Warmoth necks I find the vintage vs modern truss rod and thickness make more difference than fingerboard wood on a maple neck. Frets also matter, but I sometimes speculate that it's how we play differently with different fret sizes and neck thickness' that matter most. The ability to achieve a better setup with a modern truss rod also affects how the guitar feels which affects how we play and therefore tone.
 
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Having built many partscasters using Warmoth necks I find the vintage vs modern truss rod and thickness make more difference than fingerboard wood on a maple neck. Frets also matter but sometimes speculate that it's how we play differently with fret sizes and neck thickness' that matter most. The ability to achieve a better setup with a modern truss rod also affects how the guitar feels which affects how we play and therefore tone.
I too have built many partscasters from Warmoth parts...
That's why I listed truss rod, #1 in my construction differences; I have noticed the same differences.

I prefer the Warmoth's modern construction...but if the goal is vintage tone, I'd choose the vintage construction.
 
And this further legitimizes the need for several guitars in order to get as many sounds as possible……….

I'll play devil's advocate, and in so doing will toss this out there for discussion:

Is it desirable for a player to go after as many sounds as possible, instead of developing a consistent signature tone?

Players like Larry Carlton and many others follow the "one guitar tone" path. They're pretty legit players who've done lots of things.

I'm not going to pretend I have an answer to the question, even for myself. I've gone back and forth from only one guitar to several. At times I want to concentrate on one guitar to the exclusion of all others. Other times, I've had a few on hand, but never more than 6 electrics and one acoustic.

Even 6 electrics gave me paralysis by analysis. 5 is my limit.
 
Obviously the guitars sound different with different necks and fretboards, and no one needs 'golden ears' to hear it.

Simple experience over the years playing different guitars is quite enough to inform us as to the differences.

Yet we (I include myself) feel compelled to "prove" that what we say we're hearing is real, as though our brains can't possibly figure this out unaided by an A/B/C test like this.

Hey, I get it, because I did that very thing myself with a few different brands of guitars in my studio 24 years ago to prove to myself what my ears told me after many years of playing: that I sound my best (just my opinion) on a PRS as opposed to other brands.

I had to prove to myself that I'm not a bolt-on neck player? I guess I did. That I like the traditional set-neck, mahogany, rosewood fretboard, maple cap, guitar? I sure did.

It would have been less time and dollar consuming to have simply gone with my gut long before that! 😂
 
Is it desirable for a player to go after as many sounds as possible, instead of developing a consistent signature tone?
For me, even when I am playing different guitars or amps, I always seem to eventually dial them in to sound like........wait for it..........ME!

Cheap guitar, expensive guitar, semi hollow, bolt on, set neck, even [not 100% but pretty close] single coil vs humbucker. For some reason, my ears want to hear me sound a certain way. So, I end up tweaking the parameters to get as close to that sound as I can get with the given equipment. Obviously SOME equipment make it a h*ll of a lot easier to get that sound that I am 'used to'. But, I can get pretty close with most guitars/amps. So, I think I may be in that "one guitar tone" place. I have a clean sound. An edge of breakup sound. And one that is pushed a little harder than that. And those are the ones that I switch between when I am playing. Maybe a little more delay, or reverb, or chorus, or whatever, here and there, within those tones....but the base tone is still the same. And I have a modeler that makes it easier to get whatever kind of sound I want. BUT, I still keep coming back to the same thing. 🤷‍♂️ Go figure.
 
No matter what instrument Larry Carlton plays, he always sounds like Larry.
He sure does. He clearly doesn't need more than one guitar.
Our phrasing, sense of pitch, and rhythmic ideas remain the same. NONTHELESS! I do believe Les with one guitar would be less.
I agree re: the ideas we incorporate into our work, as for tone, my TV ad and video reel demonstrates that I sound quite different depending on the guitars and amps I play - at least I think so, see if you agree. Anyway, yeah, I'd be less Les. However, the world needs far less of Les. I'm trying to figure out how to shut up, but so far I can't manage it! :eek:

If you scroll down the splash page to 'Artifact Detroit Reel', I believe you'll find a variety of tones.


Despite all this, there have been quite a few years when I got down to one guitar.
 
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