String Theory

[bodia]

I’ll bet you say that to all the guitars.

As a matter of fact.......

 

[rugerpc]

If you want to see if, or how much, you pickups are microphonic, remove the strings completely , then tap on the guitar, try speaking into the pups, etc.

With strings on, even muted, the pups could still only be picking up sympathetic vibrations in the strings as they move within the field.

Only with the strings completely off will you be able to hear just microphonic output.

 

[Ironwolf]

here is a guy playing guitar neck blanks more material diffferent lengths, different sounds. different resonant frequency.

 

[shinksma]

Curious timing: I just read this interview with Ted McCarty by Tony Bacon (done years ago for The Les Paul Book, but not everything made the book), where Ted describes Gibson's early experiments with materials for electric guitars:

We started trying to learn something about a solidbody guitar. For instance, the stiffer the material—the harder the wood—the more shrill is the sound, and the longer is the sustain. Hit the string and it would ring for a long sustain period. It could be too long.

One of the things we did was to take a piece of iron rail from the railroad track, put a bridge and a pickup and a tailpiece on it, and test it. You could hit that string, take a walk, come back, and it would still be ringing. Because the thing that causes it to slow down is the fact that it gives a little bit—wood gives, you know? So we started. We made them out of maple—they were too shrill. Leo was using ash wood, always made of ash, and we didn’t think much of that as a wood. We didn’t use it.

and

We made a guitar out of solid rock maple. Wasn’t good. Too shrill, too much sustain. And we made one out of mahogany. Too soft. Didn’t quite have that thing. So we finally came up with a maple top and a mahogany back, made a sandwich out of it, glued ‘em together.

Go read the whole interview, very interesting!

https://reverb.com/news/former-gibs...oods-and-the-problems-of-top-heavy-management

 

[davegixer]

Curious timing: I just read this interview with Ted McCarty by Tony Bacon (done years ago for The Les Paul Book, but not everything made the book), where Ted describes Gibson's early experiments with materials for electric guitars:



and



Go read the whole interview, very interesting!

https://reverb.com/news/former-gibs...oods-and-the-problems-of-top-heavy-management

Absolutely fascinating post, thanks for sharing that.
And thanks for the OP for the way has approached this long standing quandary.

 

[Tonart]

Curious timing: I just read this interview with Ted McCarty by Tony Bacon (done years ago for The Les Paul Book, but not everything made the book), where Ted describes Gibson's early experiments with materials for electric guitars:



and



Go read the whole interview, very interesting!

https://reverb.com/news/former-gibs...oods-and-the-problems-of-top-heavy-management

Thats great info!

 

[eclecticsynergy]

I have another dimension to add.

Let me say to begin with that I agree with nearly all of the discussion upthread, except perhaps the matter of microphonics.

Aside from that, I concur about the nature of string/wood interactions in terms of both vibration transfer and tone character, And my experience bears out the conclusions about neck joints.
Also about the sustain of very dense and/or rigid body ,materials.

So, strings transfer energy through the hardware, bridge & nut to the guitar's body and neck. This colors the tone of the string and makes each guitar a little different, or a lot different, from every other one. Designs factors affect this but the individual pieces of wood can vary quite a lot also. You can play two dozen guitars of the same year/same model and some will be brighter, some will be darker, and nearly all will feel a little different. (I used to try out Les Pauls and Strats by the dozens when I was regularly buying them new; out of twenty or thirty I'd find a few that really spoke to me and make my final choices from that select handful.)

But here's my point (finally). This transfer of energy goes both ways: an electric guitar played through an amp and speakers in a soundspace is a dynamic interactive system. Just as string vibration moves the body and eventually the surrounding air, ambient energy vibrates the guitar and that energy is transferred through the hardware, bridge & nut to the strings. IMO this is why guitars that play louder unplugged usually tend to be the ones that come alive at volume, because of freer interaction between the strings and the guitar as a whole.

I've always thought of sustain as falling into two separate categories- inherent sustain and live sustain. Dense, rigid, or heavy structure and materials can give a guitar better inherent sustain. That's why the rage back in the 70s was heavy brass hardware and super dense bodies made of really dense woods or plexiglass or metal or even stone. Great sustain, right? Unfortunately sheer weight was not the only drawback with these. People eventually discovered that the very dense materials didn't absorb enough ambient vibrations for the guitar to feel good. Even if it's all wood, a super heavy guitar requires ridiculous SPLs before it really begins to sing.

With a lively guitar, there's more dynamic interaction between the various elements and not only does the guitar require less ambient volume come alive, but the sustain is sweeter when it does. My theory is that the same tempering effect of the wood which gives a mellower sound off the strings also limits certain frequencies coming back from the outside (especially the harsh high ones that carry less kinetic energy than low frequencies, and so are more easily damped). This gives better sustain on the fundamental note, and when it comes to feedback it encourages the more musical lower harmonic notes rather than going straight to high squealy ones.

Another thing, I feel the neck is far more important in this equation than most players seem to recognize. You'll see endless forum discussions about the nature and virtues of different body woods, but necks are less often discussed. I find mahogany necks (and to a lesser extent, korina) have a certain elasticity that makes them feel more lively in my hands both unplugged and at volume. I usually find exactly the opposite with neck-through guitars, many of which are not only rigid to begin with, but are made with laminated strips (often including stiff maple) to render them even more rigid. Even the Firebird, which has a laminated mahogany & walnut neck-through design, is pretty stiff, though not as rigid as some others. Again, better inherent sustain but not as lively in the hands, or as quick to take off and fly when amplified.

And I do recognize that one can't make blanket statements about a certain type of wood. I have one supernaturally lively old Strat that sings like no other maple neck that I've ever played. And though it's a bolt-on, it sustains better than many set-neck guitars. So I'm not going to say that every piece of maple is less lively than any given piece of mahogany. I've played some pretty stiff feeling mahog axes in my time. But in general, I've found that mahogany necks tend to sing better than maple ones at a given volume. And that maple ones in general tend to be brighter sounding than mahogany.

So that's my take on live sustain vs inherent sustain, and the transfer of ambient vibration back to the strings in a lively guitar.

 

[Tonart]

But here's my point (finally). This transfer of energy goes both ways: an electric guitar played through an amp and speakers in a soundspace is a dynamic interactive system. Just as string vibration moves the body and eventually the surrounding air, ambient energy vibrates the guitar and that energy is transferred through the hardware, bridge & nut to the strings. IMO this is why guitars that play louder unplugged usually tend to be the ones that come alive at volume, because of freer interaction between the strings and the guitar as a whole.

That’s a new dimension indeed! Never thought of that before.

 

[Tonart]

Love your electric guitar, guys and gals! Don’t let anyone convince you it’s a dumb clean slate platform for pickups.

Steve Perry is much more important than the microphones he uses. You can easily buy many microphones but there’s only one Steve Perry.

Don’t stop believin!

 

[Shizzrock]

But here's my point (finally). This transfer of energy goes both ways: an electric guitar played through an amp and speakers in a soundspace is a dynamic interactive system. Just as string vibration moves the body and eventually the surrounding air, ambient energy vibrates the guitar and that energy is transferred through the hardware, bridge & nut to the strings. IMO this is why guitars that play louder unplugged usually tend to be the ones that come alive at volume, because of freer interaction between the strings and the guitar as a whole....

So that's my take on live sustain vs inherent sustain, and the transfer of ambient vibration back to the strings in a lively guitar.

That's an interesting observation. As I was playing enthusiastically last night I also realized that your own energy can be transferred into the guitar and alter its sound. How many of you have been jamming for a while and have felt everything get "looser"? As you are playing more energetically you are literally heating the guitar up. The pick gets hotter, the strings get hotter, the neck wood etc. As these elements get hotter their physical properties change. The pick will get softer, the neck will get softer, the strings will get more elastic and most likely lose some of their conductivity, although probably imperceptible. So even the energy level at which you play can affect the tone of the guitar.

 

[shimmilou]

This is totally getting like really far out and stuff, lol. I agree Shizz, it all gets/sounds better when everything is up to temperature, body, mind, guitar and tube amp. Just short of smokin' is where it's at!

 

[László]

And people think merely theorizing about the origin of the universe is a complicated subject!

 

[rugerpc]

https://reverb.com/news/former-gibs...oods-and-the-problems-of-top-heavy-management

best post in this thread so far....

 

[Tonart]

And people think merely theorizing about the origin of the universe is a complicated subject!

Hahaha!

 

[merciful-evans]

ok. for what its worth, here's what I think and why

Pickups. A Fender Strat fitted with humbuckers still sounds Fender-like. I tried an experiment that was the inverse of this. I fitted some custom single coil pickups (Creamery Domino) with Fender specs to a LP style guitar. It made it sound different, but it still didn’t sound anything like a Fender. I still use this guitar.

Conclusion: It’s more than just the pickups. The build (design style) makes more difference to sound/tone than pickups do.

Having used many bolt-on-necked models, I’m convinced that bolt-on-necks are component of the ‘Fender sound’

You can still get a woody sound from a guitar that has little or no wood in its construction. Acrylic & carbon fibre builds can still sound woody. Yes I have read the fascinating Ted McCarthy interview an I realise that he made many tests with body ‘tone’ woods. He described the all maple construction as sounding too shrill. I wouldn’t dare argue with TM, but I own an all maple construction guitar; its this actual one
http://www.musical-instruments-for-...-stratocaster-strat-bare-knuckle-pickups.html
and it doesn’t sound even slightly shrill at any setting.

Conclusion: I think body materials contribute to sound/tone, but it doesn’t make a massive difference.

Necks: Undecided!

 

[eclecticsynergy]

That's an interesting observation. As I was playing enthusiastically last night I also realized that your own energy can be transferred into the guitar and alter its sound. How many of you have been jamming for a while and have felt everything get "looser"? As you are playing more energetically you are literally heating the guitar up. The pick gets hotter, the strings get hotter, the neck wood etc. As these elements get hotter their physical properties change. The pick will get softer, the neck will get softer, the strings will get more elastic and most likely lose some of their conductivity, although probably imperceptible. So even the energy level at which you play can affect the tone of the guitar.

Yah, I've noticed that. Always felt it was mostly psychological, but I don't doubt there's a physical aspect to it too.

I think we've all had the experience of just being so in-the-pocket that everything we play seems easier to execute. Some of that is enthusiasm and sheer adrenaline, of course, and I think a part of it is perceptual rather than actual. There's a mindset that makes things seem easier when you're caught up in the moment. The extraordinary sense of being almost outside yourself, along with a feeling of being so closely connected to the other players that it's almost like ESP. That transcendent feeling is one of my very favorite experiences from a life spent in music. Beethoven said, "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." When I'm deep in, there's no doubt in my mind about that.

And I won't completely discount the purely mechanical aspects as they apply to an instrument. Warmth changes things. Back in the early 80s I had an aluminum-necked Kramer Duke that I could only play for the first couple of tunes in a set because as it heated up under the stage lights, the neck expended so much that the guitar actually went sharp. I think it's entirely possible that after warming up a bit, a hard maple neck could become a bit more elastic and receptive to vibration. I'm not saying this would affect the basic resonant frequency of a piece of wood, but it might affect the liveliness. And I am a firm believer that subtle differences in the character of the wood - especially the neck - do affect the feel of a guitar. Strings? Maybe. I think they would likely radiate the heat back out and cool off almost instantly rather than retaining warmth for any appreciable amount of time. There's also thermal conductivity to consider: even if the fingers remain in a certain position, the heat will spread out along the string from the point of contact. Something like a heavy bass string might stay warm, I suppose, especially if the parts are very repetitive. Not sure how much that would affect the feel; most bass strings are pretty stiff. I've never noticed it when doing gigs on bass, at least. But to be fair, bass guitars have enough natural sustain that for me liveliness is a much less critical factor than it is with guitars.much of

Vibration changes things too, I think, though perhaps to a lesser extent. Many say an instrument that isn't played much develops a stiffer feel and perhaps even a less complex tone. I think acoustic guitars may be especially prone to this (they even sell a vibrator for livening up acoustic guitars, though I'm somewhat skeptical of its usefulness) and my experience has been that if an axe isn't played for a long time, it doesn't feel or sound as good to me until I've spent some time with it again. How much of that is simply familiarity with its feel & tone versus actual physical change in the guitar itself is open to speculation, of course. Still, that's been my impression when coming back to guitars that were long unplayed. As the saying goes, I'd argue it over a beer.