Wood and sound ... electric guitars as well as plexiglass and packing cardboard
The reason for this post was the abundance of publications in the network and the gloss of music about the influence of the type of wood from which the deck is made, on the sound of electric guitars. Numerous discussions on forums, tables distributed by some custom workshops, and also (which is especially troubling) the statements of RAS scientists (I enclose a link ) try to convince readers that:
What ultimately leads to significant changes that are important for the performer and the listener (frequency, timbre, etc.). Information about the significant effect of wood on the guitar sound of electric guitars was called “wooden theory,” and currently has many supporters and opponents. Meanwhile, I want to note that the texture of the wood looks very cool, and the aesthetic qualities of electric guitars largely depend on the material from which the decks are made.
The basis of the post is a personal interest. It is significant that since the year 2000 I have not changed the instrument myself, and then I attended to buying something, as an alternative to my old yamaha. As a person who is not a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, but for an unlimited number of years of couch-playing, having mastered the instrument , he doubted the authoritative conclusions of theguitarist from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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After listening to a few guitars, I thought involuntarily, perhaps my poor knowledge of physics is the cause of my misunderstanding of the effect of wood on sound. I believe that a detailedanalysis of the flights of the Bumblebee to review opinions on the guitar sound will be useful to readers of our blog. The post presents an analysis of the judgments of the supporters of the wooden theory, the counter-arguments of its opponents, as well as my personal conclusions.
Once upon a time ... when the sun was shining brighter, the water was clearer, the grass was greener, and people's thoughts were cleaner, two great guitar mastersGiuseppe Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri Leo Fender and Ted McCarthy lived. In the year of 1950, the illumination came to Leo and Teda, and they realized that they would achieve heights of skill if they started making guitars with magnetic pickups, without acoustic cavities. Guitar decks were to be made of wood, for this material was simple to process, durable, and lay in abundance in warehouses.
And Fender took pine and ash from his warehouse, and McCarthy took red mahogany wood from Orville Gibson's warehouse. And they began to cut six-string guitars with magnetic pickups and rheostat timbre blocks. These instruments, having heard, the musicians of that time, accustomed to acoustic instruments, not trained in physics, became puzzled. They began to say: “From what did Gibson Ted McCarthy mumble low, and do Fender guitars mean the middle? It is necessary to think, in a tree a different matter! It can be seen in different types of wood that the frequencies absorb, and this is reflected in the sound! ”
Thus was born the wooden theory, which almost unchanged has reached our days. Today a table of an unknown author is widely distributed, in which are presented, used in the manufacture of guitars, wood species, and their influence on the frequency spectrum reproduced by the instrument is reflected:
Despite the abundance of data like this table, they are not supported by research and remain unproved. Involuntarily the question arises, for what reason, so important for sound and performers factor has not been investigated.
I will not dwell on the views of guitar members of the forum who put their fantasies into pseudoscientific messages. At the same time, several quite authoritative people in the guitar world ventured to prove that the wooden theory is correct. Among the latter, Chappers (Rob Chapman - characteristically - the founder of Chapman Guitars) and Captain (unknown guitarist), who are trying to prove the difference in the sound of similar guitars from different wood species in their videos, distinguished themselves.
One of the significant "scientific" contributions to the wooden theory is the post of a certain Dmitry Razorenov, the link to which is given above. The author claims that he is a senior researcher at INEOS RAS, a chemist, radio amateur and musician. For those who are lazy to read everything, here are some quotes:
The author also notes that the old wood for electric guitars is much better, because in the process of aging, moisture comes out of the wood, and accordingly: “the differences between the dips and resonances become smaller”.
If one can read about the Fourier series and the “big theme”, then the “image of the sounding object” and the “acoustic pattern” of the tree with its resonances, which becomes a part of the image, is, I think, brute force. In the bottom line, apart from appealing to the Fourier series and discourse on the dryness of a tree, the senior researcher did not provide an evidence base.
There is no doubt that the guitar body absorbs / reflects sound waves from oscillating strings to some extent. It remains to think about the extent to which this is captured by the pickups and subsequently with our ears.
As the experiment of guitarist Paul Graham, who in the recent past was one of the adherents of the wooden theory, showed, it is impossible to tell the difference in the sound of a wooden stratocaster and the same guitar, but with a plexiglass deck (we recommend masters of blind tests to master it):
It is characteristic that part of the video, where the guitar is disassembled and assembled with a new deck, was filmed without editing to keep the experiment clean. After the demonstration, Graham suggests that everyone evaluate their own abilities in recognizing the pure sound from the stratocaster from wood and plexiglass. It is not possible to distinguish the "acrylic" sound from the "wooden" sound.
Even more interesting and revealing is the experience of Dave Lee and Mark Verengi, who visited one of the Fender facilities, where, not without the help of the company's specialists, they implemented an ambitious project - the stratocaster from ... drum roll ...
packaging cardboard.
The video is, of course, advertising, but it is valuable because it clearly demonstrates the position of the manufacturer. Who is not ashamed to say that the material of the deck is something related to the design, but not to the sound of the guitar .
The miracle did not happen again and the magic texture of the mahogany will not be able to significantly absorb the averages and enhance the low ones. The basis of the electric guitar sound was, is and, most likely, will be:
Wood, on the other hand, has a very significant value as part of the supporting structure of the instrument, and can also seriously affect aesthetics (in cases where it is not painted in an “automobile style”).
I sincerely hope that the faithful "woodworkers" will forgive me for my ignorance and skepticism. I hope that attempts to explain and prove the influence of the tree on the sound of electric guitars will take place in a decent form, with a sufficient amount of weighty evidence, and an acceptable amount of mat. Theoretical arguments about the properties of a material are of little interest to me, as many on this resource. I am always ready to change my opinion under the pressure of irrefutable facts.
“The wooden case acts as a rather complicated filter that absorbs and reflects different frequencies from the oscillating string in different ways”
What ultimately leads to significant changes that are important for the performer and the listener (frequency, timbre, etc.). Information about the significant effect of wood on the guitar sound of electric guitars was called “wooden theory,” and currently has many supporters and opponents. Meanwhile, I want to note that the texture of the wood looks very cool, and the aesthetic qualities of electric guitars largely depend on the material from which the decks are made.
The basis of the post is a personal interest. It is significant that since the year 2000 I have not changed the instrument myself, and then I attended to buying something, as an alternative to my old yamaha. As a person who is not a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, but for an unlimited number of years of couch-playing, having mastered the instrument , he doubted the authoritative conclusions of the
')
After listening to a few guitars, I thought involuntarily, perhaps my poor knowledge of physics is the cause of my misunderstanding of the effect of wood on sound. I believe that a detailed
The legend of the deck or chronicle of wooden obscurantism
Once upon a time ... when the sun was shining brighter, the water was clearer, the grass was greener, and people's thoughts were cleaner, two great guitar masters
And Fender took pine and ash from his warehouse, and McCarthy took red mahogany wood from Orville Gibson's warehouse. And they began to cut six-string guitars with magnetic pickups and rheostat timbre blocks. These instruments, having heard, the musicians of that time, accustomed to acoustic instruments, not trained in physics, became puzzled. They began to say: “From what did Gibson Ted McCarthy mumble low, and do Fender guitars mean the middle? It is necessary to think, in a tree a different matter! It can be seen in different types of wood that the frequencies absorb, and this is reflected in the sound! ”
Thus was born the wooden theory, which almost unchanged has reached our days. Today a table of an unknown author is widely distributed, in which are presented, used in the manufacture of guitars, wood species, and their influence on the frequency spectrum reproduced by the instrument is reflected:
Despite the abundance of data like this table, they are not supported by research and remain unproved. Involuntarily the question arises, for what reason, so important for sound and performers factor has not been investigated.
I will not dwell on the views of guitar members of the forum who put their fantasies into pseudoscientific messages. At the same time, several quite authoritative people in the guitar world ventured to prove that the wooden theory is correct. Among the latter, Chappers (Rob Chapman - characteristically - the founder of Chapman Guitars) and Captain (unknown guitarist), who are trying to prove the difference in the sound of similar guitars from different wood species in their videos, distinguished themselves.
One of the significant "scientific" contributions to the wooden theory is the post of a certain Dmitry Razorenov, the link to which is given above. The author claims that he is a senior researcher at INEOS RAS, a chemist, radio amateur and musician. For those who are lazy to read everything, here are some quotes:
“The effect of this filter is most noticeable at the time of the attack, when an impulse comes from the string, containing at the same time a fairly wide range of frequencies, and not just the fundamental tone and harmonics (here you can read about Fourier series and convolution, but in general, this is a very big topic) "
“An electric guitar is not an acoustic instrument, but still our consciousness is trying to recreate a sound from a sound by some kind of object ... But this“ acoustic pattern ”of a tree with its resonances - it also becomes part of this image.”
The author also notes that the old wood for electric guitars is much better, because in the process of aging, moisture comes out of the wood, and accordingly: “the differences between the dips and resonances become smaller”.
If one can read about the Fourier series and the “big theme”, then the “image of the sounding object” and the “acoustic pattern” of the tree with its resonances, which becomes a part of the image, is, I think, brute force. In the bottom line, apart from appealing to the Fourier series and discourse on the dryness of a tree, the senior researcher did not provide an evidence base.
Reaction of the doubted
There is no doubt that the guitar body absorbs / reflects sound waves from oscillating strings to some extent. It remains to think about the extent to which this is captured by the pickups and subsequently with our ears.
As the experiment of guitarist Paul Graham, who in the recent past was one of the adherents of the wooden theory, showed, it is impossible to tell the difference in the sound of a wooden stratocaster and the same guitar, but with a plexiglass deck (we recommend masters of blind tests to master it):
It is characteristic that part of the video, where the guitar is disassembled and assembled with a new deck, was filmed without editing to keep the experiment clean. After the demonstration, Graham suggests that everyone evaluate their own abilities in recognizing the pure sound from the stratocaster from wood and plexiglass. It is not possible to distinguish the "acrylic" sound from the "wooden" sound.
Even more interesting and revealing is the experience of Dave Lee and Mark Verengi, who visited one of the Fender facilities, where, not without the help of the company's specialists, they implemented an ambitious project - the stratocaster from ... drum roll ...
packaging cardboard.
The video is, of course, advertising, but it is valuable because it clearly demonstrates the position of the manufacturer. Who is not ashamed to say that the material of the deck is something related to the design, but not to the sound of the guitar .
Disappointing conclusion
The miracle did not happen again and the magic texture of the mahogany will not be able to significantly absorb the averages and enhance the low ones. The basis of the electric guitar sound was, is and, most likely, will be:
- guitarist hands
- pickups
- string properties
- timbre block circuit design features.
- amplification and cabinet (radiators, design)
Wood, on the other hand, has a very significant value as part of the supporting structure of the instrument, and can also seriously affect aesthetics (in cases where it is not painted in an “automobile style”).
I sincerely hope that the faithful "woodworkers" will forgive me for my ignorance and skepticism. I hope that attempts to explain and prove the influence of the tree on the sound of electric guitars will take place in a decent form, with a sufficient amount of weighty evidence, and an acceptable amount of mat. Theoretical arguments about the properties of a material are of little interest to me, as many on this resource. I am always ready to change my opinion under the pressure of irrefutable facts.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/401183/
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