Santa, Father Christmas is real; its the spirit, the feeling of Christmas. Lets play nice boys, life doesnt ways have to be a confrontation as there are different levels of understanding humor. Darrell was right, be did start a fight lol.
Best video ever! Everybody now knows tone wood doesn't matter. It's the color of the guitar that makes all the difference. Red guitars have a warmer sound than blue guitars. :)
Don't forget the thickness of the paint and also the polish you use. I heard Gibson were trying to push a polish that they said improved tone! These people are literally snake oil salesmen.
I will say that hair length can effect confidence, so it can have a roundabout way of effecting tone. I'm definitely more confident when I have long hair for some reason.
Pro tip: Don't worry about "budget" woods ruining your tone, or hoping that "hand selected premium wood" will give you magical tone :) Rather, here are 10 or so of my favourite practical ways to shape your guitar tone into what you want! Enjoy!
But... "Budget" woods are almost always extremely soft. Basswood, Pine, Agathis, etc. Accidents happen, and usually a drop or two is enough to do some notable damage to them. Woods like Mahogany typically will stand normal wear and tear that is to be expected. It's just a more efficient investment to go for the woods that are typically a bit more expensive, even if you believe there is a minimal tonal difference. Unless you're into the whole relicing look, of course. And this also explains why cabinets aren't typically made of tonewoods. They're more concerned about the longevity of the cabs, since cabs see much more bumps and bangs than a guitar will under normal use. So they just use pretty tough, but common, woods to make them.
Ramsey Hildebrand ; Spot on . A genuine guy with his feet firmly on the ground. Unlike those 'celebrity' Angels sent from heaven to float above us as we weep at their celestial magnificence.
Pick choices. Size, Shape, Material, Thickness. The pick you use has a greater influence over your 'tone' or 'sound' than many people consider. A variety of Picks is a cheap way to change things up. Also cheaper to collect picks than guitars, amps, pedals, etc...
i like my thick and large nylon picks, and few of my friends like them. we sound different. coincidence? i think not. i tend to overload the trebles on my amp, and i use nylon picks with a very slanted attack, both combined give me grit but not harshness. when i do pinch harmonics, they really squeal. when i tap, it rings out. when i strum, it sounds perfectly balanced. screw the jazz 3's. i like my picks like i like my sound: big and roomy. one thing i really can't stand are metal picks. they sound harsh, they're slippery and they eat through strings like a fat kid in a candy shop.
If anyone could do this subject justice, it is Darrell with his methodical approach. The comments in this video reminded me to try some thicker picks (because the pick I use was flexing too much when fast picking). I was surprised that a pick of the same material but nearly twice as thick produced a noticeably warmer/rounder tone. The thin pick produced much more highs (or less lows). Although I liked the thin pick, the thicker pick produced an overall nicer balanced sound. Is there a good technical rationale why a thin pick produced more highs (or less lows)? Maybe something for Darrell to evaluate and demonstrate the differences. Update: Thinking about it, the thin pick maybe produces less volume on the lower pitched strings (flex of pick gives way to string force), so the result sounds like more highs (when it fact it may be less lows). Anyway, the thicker pick produces a better balance for me.
For number 3, I would have also made this a 2 part. Not only does the way you pick change the tone, but the pick material, shape, and thickness! I'm always surprised at the difference whenever I try a new pick.
Going from a nylon .73 Dunlop pick to a carbon fiber 1.36 Dunlop Jazz III and then back is basically like switching from Fender to Gibson and back. Then again, I have a Fender that sounds darn close to a Les Paul regardless (tele deluxe, raised humbuckers, eq'd into oblivion)
Every high end amps I know have an active small refrigerator inside them to keep a can of beer. If your amps doesn't have that device, I'm pretty sure your amps must be low budget Amps.
Im here waiting for info as a lead bass player. Thats where the real test is. Low tones are the true tone. Regular guitars can blend together more as highs can be hard to decipher
Just want to say. I love your new intro. The pick slide makes me smile way more than it should :) Love your videos keep it up Darrell! Thanks for keeping it real!
Weight is a huge factor for me, if the guitar plays great, resonant well and sound balanced acoustically then it is a blank slate to modify how I want with pickups.
I do. I just bought a guitar because it has a lovely flamed neck.I also bought a mahogany Ibanez because the figurations on the body fit nicely with those on the rosewood fingerboard. I have passed on good sunburst Squiers because the obvious joints in the body made them look ugly.
I totally agree. There are so many other factors that influence tone more significantly than wood. Not to say wood has no influence on tone, but it's certainly not as much as some claim that it does. Good job on illustrating that point so well. And good advice on choosing an instrument that plays well and sounds good, regardless of the brand or price!
Gilles Genete lol Mine says the same. “Don’t you have enough guitars?” “Honey, I recognize all those words but when you put them together like that it’s just gibberish.” Guitars aren’t like keyboards. Guitars are art, and they have souls. Besides, I only have twelve. Nobody could mistake that for enough, right?
Yeah, “tone wood” only applies to acoustic instruments. I one thousand percent agree with this video. It’s crazy that people are so ardently devoted to the idea that fretboard material, etc. makes a discernible difference on an electric guitar. I think luthiers and brands like the idea of tone woods because it provides a unique, significant category around which to define quality and price. Well finished frets aren’t nearly as sexy and marketable as AAA flame maple. It’s hard to really sell basswood, but Brazilian rosewood is traded like a precious metal, so it must sound amazing.
Oh I would love to see the faces of people when they realize they didn't catch the difference between a high-class hollow-body electric and a solid pressboard guitar. That would make for a good "reaction" video!
Those glasses make you look super smart. I am highly suspicious that the whole "tonewood" idea was started by guitar makers to charge more for their instruments. Thanks Darrell for another excellent video.
I don't think so, it was probably due to the fact that wood is actually pretty important on acoustic instruments, the logical thing to think was that it had to affect the electric guitar's tone as well.
I think a lot of us believe certain myths about guitar because they are perpetuated by our peers and our heroes. I use to be a fervent believer in the whole "tonewood" debate, until I started to swap out pickups, electronics, tubes and speakers from my gear. I quickly realized that it is the sum of all the variables that contribute to your tone. Number one on the list should be the player. If you have bad technique or you are sloppy, no amount of gear will save your tone. Great video as always sir, keep putting these topic videos out, I really enjoy them.
Another brilliant "mythbusters" segment! Great stuff. So much good information and for those that are stuck on the "tonewood" argument, and a lot of food for thought. I will say, that I am a "tonewood" believer. Not in the classic sense where I think it completely shapes tone, like some people, but I do believe it is at least part of the equation. Maybe not the majority, but does at least play some part. Especially in the higher end instruments that use real quality cuts of wood. I can say this because I watch a lot of Wildwood Vids where Greg Koch plays seriously high end instruments on the same amp with the same settings month after month. Ultimately, I think Frank Zappa said it best. "Shut up and play yer guitar!" Peace, and to a healthy and happy New Year, Darrell!
I red in forums about the Richlite replacement for ebony about guys saying that their bends are smoother with Richlite, others say the contrary. Go figure...
Darrell "Mr. Guitar" Braun, once again another excellent definitive video setting the perimeters as to what affects the tone of an electric guitar. Tonewood is quite significant for an acoustic, but virtually insignificant for an electric, and you went directly to the amp right off the bat. Bravo!
To add to my earlier post, to my knowledge only one robust scientific study of electric guitar tone wood has ever been done. (Although there are few dodgy student papers circulating.) This showed that tone wood has no effect on the timbre of an electric guitar. This has flown under the radar for some years, probably because it was originally published in Portuguese. This was 'Sobre o acoplamento corda-corpo em guitarras elétricas e sua relação com o timbre do instrumento'. (String-body coupling on electric guitars and its relation with the timbre of the instrument.) By Rodrigo Mateus Pereira(1), Albary Laibida Junior and Thiago Corrêa de Freitas, and published in Physicæ 9, 2010, pp. 24 - 29 Abstract. (Translation.) Nine electric guitar bodies were built in the form of the Telecaster model by the author RMP. These were assembled using the same neck and pickup assembly. Once each body was assembled two strings of the electric guitar were mechanically excited and the sound, obtained directly from the instrument, was recorded for later analysis. Also recorded was a musical piece played with each electric guitar. These sounds were analysed via a Fourier transform in order to obtain the component harmonics of the sound, these harmonics are responsible for the timbre of the instrument. The harmonic spectra of each electric guitar were compared to each other and there were no significant differences between them. Thus the variations of timbre of electric guitars, according to the results obtained here, depend on other factors than the wood of the body itself, a fact that arises from the absence of a significant coupling between the string and the body of the instrument. Also proposed is a modelling of the string-body coupling, which shows that only a negligible amount of energy from the vibrating string reaches the body of the instrument and that a smaller amount still returns up the string.
Holy Cow!...I have been picking for many, many years, did realize that the pick angles, etc made SOME differences, etc, but that simple little pick demo was amazing.!
Love it! Thanks, Darrell. I especially liked that last comparison. I have an '86 Squier Strat, made in Japan, and an '18 Danelectro 59. Both have single coils (different styles, but still, single coils). Do they sound a little different? Yes, if you listen very carefully and have a pretty sophisticated ear. Is the difference enough to matter? Not to me. Tone woods might make a difference with an acoustic (I have a couple Ovations, too, with spruce tops and plastic bodies), but for an electric, I think you're spot-on. It's amp and pickups, strings and picks, technique, etc. As you demonstrated with the cut-up Squier Strat a few videos back. The wood does almost nothing for sustain OR tone. Nice work!
@@daddio307 so is respect ! Seems like it never came to your mind that youtube is an international space with people from all different languages. And most of us make the effort to use English (your mother language i presume ?) to be able to communicate more broadly with each other. So yes we don't always use English as well a you but we make the effort to use it. Next time you think you are a smart ass because you can point at languages mistakes from someone else please think about in how much other language you could have done better !
Absolutely agree. Tone is what you make it to be. Acoustic or electric all can be altered to fit. Love your site, and enjoy your content. Keep up the great work.
This was absolutely legendary sir. If you dont have a mic, and dont use recording software or modeling solutions (they do still exist) Then the same applies to where you sit in the room in relation to where your amp is. Sit with the speaker pointing right at you, its going to sound a lot brighter then if you're sitting off to the side of the amp somewhere.
I agree totally with you that tonewood don't have a drastic effect on tone. But i have the feeling that it has a big influence on the feedback you are getting from your strings while playing. I always can tell you, if i like a guitar or not when it is not plugged in. And that is an important factor which drives my playing style and my creativity. I may be wrong of course. But pure tone, i totally agree, that there are more important factors and that it is impossible to "hear" different wood types as every piece of wood of one woodtype is different so... Btw very nice and informative video. I'd like to see more of those in the future. And ofc merry christmas and a good new year :)
Ian Barnes Doesn’t that make sense though? Every combination of wood species, density, and weight has its own unique resonance characteristics which reflect back into the strings, adding some harmonic richness. But that energy is robbed from the strings’ energy, so higher body harmonics (as a function of energy - a 5kg solid body will seem much less energetic than a 2kg hollow body at the same energy) will reduce sustain and string harmonics as a function of weight, material and length. So it seems to me that the higher a guitar’s cost, the less energy should be reflected into the body and back into the strings. In any case, I think Darrell has clearly shown that both wood species and weight have so little effect compared to all other factors as to be negligible. Maybe that’s not the case for the very highest talents, who can coax out that last little bit of tone, but I suspect that those virtuosos who swear by certain woods also play subtly differently when going after that particular nuance. (Or they’re trying to sell a particular guitar.)
@Tobias Harloff interesting comments. I guess because when I practice at home on an electric I do so without playing through an anpr so I'm very aware of the difference in feel of all my guitars, but any difference pretty much disappears as soon as I plug in!!
Um, no. Two systems are either mechanically connected or they aren’t. If they aren’t, then neither can affect the other. If one can make the other vibrate, then it is in turn vibrated. There is no such concepts as threshold or terminal energy as you are using them. Threshold energy refers only to limits of detection or limits of disturbing the at-rest quantum state, which is incredibly tiny. Terminal energy refers only to the remaining energy at the event of interest. Thus we speak of a bullet’s terminal energy while still recognizing that the target necessarily transfer energy back into the bullet, heating it or even deforming it (if that energy exceeds the bullet’s plastic deformation limit) because no target is perfectly elastic. There is attenuation of course; the internal friction saps the vibrational energy so that what goes back into the strings is always less energy than the original excitation. But that is true of strings alone as well; strings on a massive base will not vibrate forever even in a vacuum. Many guitarists take advantage of this reflection by developing a percussive style.
@@mikewhitfield2994 Um, of course! Bridge, saddle and frets act as a kind of treshold because they reflect by far the biggest part of the string vibration and in the same way they reflect vibrations from the neck and body. Mabe I use the word treshold in a wrong sence - I am nativ german speaker not english. Bridge, saddle and frets act like a verry hard, dense and massy steel target would act in your example: It would reflect your bullet and not, or only transfer a verry little amount of the energy to something which is beond the steel layer. The idea that the resonance of a guitar, which You feel with your hand and body, the energy, which comes from the strings, travels through the guitar in your body, travels back through the guitar into the strings and effects there something what has not been there bevore is nonsense. Wherefrom comes this energy? Right! It comes from the strings and is absorbed by your body. Below the line you loose energy and the only possible and observable effect is a loss in sustain. This is, by the way, also the only effect which was messurable under sientific terms (Prof. Manfred Zollner, Prof Hellmut Schleicher) Or as Prof. Zollner expressed it: " Again it is verified, that resonance may delight the tactile sense of the guitarist, but beside this only effects a loss in sustain:"
Hi Darrell, Brilliant Video, If that does not settle the Tone Wood debate I don't know what wood! I remember in one of your Videos you saying that PUP's are 90% of your Tone👍👍👍 That aside the Comfort of the Neck is so important and a very Presonal thing for each Player. Excellent advice as always 👍👍👍 . I hope you and your Loved ones have a Great Christmas/Holidays and an Awesome New Year, stay safe. Melbourne, Australia ♥️♥️♥️.
That was excellent!!! THANK YOU! As an intermediate player, going out and buying something expensive exotic wood guitar will not help my playing, as I just need to practice!!! Tonewood is just like associating guitar body shapes to specific genres of music!
The whole tonewood debate has always baffled me, I can understand it related to acoustic or classical guitars but for electric guitars it's really down to weight and looks more than tone
Perpetuating the tonewood myth to a gullible guitar buying public makes guitar manufacturers and hi end luthiers a lot of money - they won't easily give that income stream up by saying the wood doesn't matter. And the big guitar manufacturers have large promotional and advertising budgets to convince you that it does.
Solid body guitars appeared in the 1950s. The "tonewood" debate did not appear until ignorant fools were given the Internet to expose and share their "thoughts". That's the only fact you need to know about it.
@@Leo_ofRedKeep Nope - I go back way way back before the internet and there were opinions and arguments about the benefits or negatives regarding types of wood used for guitars up and down the music shops and practice rooms in the UK - maybe where you are located was different.
Of course, the same ignorants and gullible were talking elsewhere before the Internet but guitar manufacturers, those who really had the means to find out and an interest in real advantages didn't care. They put their money in humbucking pick-ups, in comfortable shapes or in more resistant materials. Leo Fender moved to rosewood fingerboards because he didn't like the look of worn out maple.
One of your very best tutorials / discussions Darrell. I got lucky and guessed the guitar type 1 and the pickups. No 2 tricked me. I recently changed from a small Blackstar to a larger Blackstar amp and my enjoyment in tone and playing increased immeasurably. Both had the same valve circuitry so speaker change and cabinet volume probably made all the difference. Thanks for taking the voodoo out of guitar mythology. Tom
Now honestly, you have the vibrato of your ST set up floating, the pick ups on the ST are attached to the scratchplate, now doesn't this eliminate a lot of the impact of the "tonewood"? And a second thing, I think swamp ash has such a beautiful woodgrain, it's a sin to have a solid finish on a swamp ash body.
The Age old question "Guitar or Amp" ha just been answered. Can't tell you how much I hated my Amp, I turned all the knobs, but wasn't getting what I wanted. I still need to work with it, but your right. The day I found a Overdrive, felt a little stupid, cause I swore it didn't have one. Thanks for the confirmation! Oh, Merry Christmas Darrell. Hope you have a great holiday. Not sure it's Christmas in Canada, but the feelings are the same.
Biggest way to change your tone on fretless bass, move your fingering hand. It's hugely obvious on that instrument. I honestly did not know about that pick angle trick which was really cool! Too bad I can't pick...
I recently got a Squier contemporary strat HH. Its poplar! CVs pine or alder. I also have an old Hamer in some sort of mahogany. They are all bolt onstage and all sound awesome thru my Vox
This is a good summary of the comparisons and tests you've been doing. Good tips in here. I've learned a lot this year. I would say that I've really not heard people get worked up about tonewood when it comes to electrics. It's a big deal with acoustics because you're literally listening to the vibration of the wood, but yeah, I never really considered it as big of a deal with electric guitars.
I have two questions when buying a guitar: What are the pickups? Is the guitar Daphne Blue or Surf Green? You are right about mastering the EQ on your amp...your advice is always on point, thanks Darrell.
@@RyanGamesYT he said he wants to what the pickups are before he buys a guitar/Ie alnico or ceramic PAF modern...what have you. He did not ask. What are pickups
I own six guitars and by choice have swapped out the pickups on two of them...so my question is, what pickups does the guitar come with and is it worth swapping them out. I wasn't clear with my comment.
Jack Allen You own two very beautiful guitars! I own 2 Daphne Blue Strats, a Daphne Blue Jackson Soloist, 2 Surf Green Strats, and a Specific Ocean Charvel San Dimas(Sparkly Surf Green). All have Maple Necks, except the Jackson has rosewood.
g8 podcast, very true. mick ronson once said.. " the sound is in your fingers, its how you pluck it" in a thick northern english accent. three things i want from a g8 guitar 1.: playability( no fret buzz, nice neck etc) 2: g8 looks,balance, ergonomics etc 3: reliability, solid construction etc pickups and electics can always be changed at a later date!
I always enjoy your very practical perspective on all things guitar. You totally clear away the voodoo and advertising hype that for many of us is difficult to get around.
I absolutely agree! I bought an used Ltd M-50 (basswood made in china), to try out some Changes, so i put Seymour Duncan Black winter set, locking tuners, engl pedal & connected to different tubes heads, what a beast in distortion and clear sound! Confortable as underwears!
Thank you for saying this and based on your vast collection of different woods, you have first hand knowledge on the subject I've been saying this for years but nobody believes me My motto is, if you find a guitar you feel comfortable with, don't worry about the hardware, you can upgrade it, the most important thing thing is to make sure you feel comfortable with the guitar, the upgrades will get you a great tone Then I say, figure out what do you like your amp to have.......fx loop, 2 channels, solo boost, separate eq....things like that Then once you find the amps that have those options, or get to as close you can, then try those amps out with your upgraded guitar, you'll find that sometimes, the most expensive one does not mean it's the best for you, sometimes you plug in and as soon as hit a chord..........its like the skies opened and the sun shines it's ray's right on you, sometimes you have to really really mess around with the eq knobs to find that sky opening sound Then once you got the amp, then experiment with pedals, just cause your buddy has a nice chorus sound, that doesn't assure you that you will get the same sound with that same pedal with your rig It sounds like a long dumb process but any person with years of experience with different guitars, amps and fx will tell you this Don't listen to those peeps who say, "if it ain't expensive, it sucks".....don't be those John Mayer types But if you have gone thru this process and find you feel comfortable with your expensive gear, then that's you but don't say your rig is for everyone or the best for this or that, no it's the best for you In the end, if you can't wow a person with whatever guitar in your hands..........you probably should practice more
I didn't wait the sound of the guitar solo so close in sound on two different guitar, you really amazed me. Because the mix its so nice. I'm guitar builder and I'm totally agree with your video.
Tonewoods? How about tone glues?: I once read on a forum that a guy had bought a goldtop Les Paul ´59 reissue which cost him (I think) around 3000 dlls. When he got it, he was dissatisfied with the toanz, so he had it shipped to a "specialized" luthier shop. They trashed the finish...sorry, "reliced" the finish, drilled a hole in the neck, steamed the neck off the body, sanded off what I bet was less than a millimeter of glue joint and rejoined the neck to the body using hide glue, - you know, just like Granddaddy's Les Pauls were made- which cost over 2000 dlls to get done. When he got it back, he reported that he now was closer to his dream tone than ever before. He claimed that the negligible amount of hide glue made it sound "truly vintage".
Joe, Hide glue is used in making wooden instruments so they can be steamed apart if they develop a bad crack, and then repaired. Also, violins are made using hide glue so if you every drop it, it shall shatter-come apart, rather than break the hand carved individually made pieces for the top, back, sides, neck. I know as I have built 2 violins and own 3 more and studied violin with a Julliard School of Music Graduate and I can read classical violin music. Anyway that's what I think. -Peter
@@PeterDad60 I know hide glue has its uses in instrument making - I wasn't disputing that. Are you saying hide glue holds any tonal properties rather than mechanical? What I said is that subjecting a brand new guitar to (what to me at least seems to be) an unnecessary surgery to separate the mortise and tenon holding the neck and body together in order to replace microns of one type of glue for another and claim this makes the tone more "vintage" is hardly anything more than self delusion. By the way, many of my preconceived notions were changed by reading online guitar luthier forums, written by people who have built guitars (which are the instruments I mentioned originally), common sense, and experience. An acoustic violin is very different from an electric guitar...I hope that's a moot point. I also learned music at university and now I'm dabbling in music production. What was the point of your post, I wonder.
hide glue is more repairable that's all. it does deteriorate faster and it's harder to work with. maybe minute tonal differences to titebond type glues.
@@butteredbiskit3497 Ah, you think the hide glue was applied at a cost of over $2000 on a brand new guitar to make it easier to repair? Ok. This video is about debunking the importance of tonewoods on ELECTRIC GUITARS. My example was of an ELECTRIC GUITAR. The amount of glue to make the bond durable between the two points of contact must be minimal, otherwise it would be prone to shifting, twisting, etc. I am not going to discuss whether less than a millimeter of a type of glue makes a guitar more or less vintage sounding. That is just ridiculous.
@@joetowers4804 no its sold as tone thing I know better. personally I would want a set neck guitar hide glued together just so it's easier to get apart that's all.
WRT to all the knobs and settings making a difference, I nerded out a few months back and came up with the below: - Just with the basic Tele with ungraduated Tone & Vol. reduced to say, 10 different levels, plus the 3-way pickup switch, we have 10 x 10 x 3 = 300 different settings. I just bought a basic Fender amp which has 6 x 12-graduated controls plus a 2-way Fat switch. This gives us another 12^6 x 2 settings, = 5,971,968, which x 300 from the guitar gives 1,791,590,400 possible combinations. Just let that sink in!
You forgot the most important factor, making a good guitar face. Jokes aside I think tonewood makes a different it’s just more subtle than people would like to believe. I usually choose my wood based on weight feel and look more than anything tho. Also strings make a huge difference in tone. Flatwounds vs roundwounds is a crazy difference.
You forgot to mention tone paint...a black strat sounds more like david gilmour and a red strat sounds more like mark knopfler....proven scientific fact...tons of data
Well done. I agree with your approach. Put the right pickups in an electric guitar made out of iron, plug it into a nice tube amp, and I think most folks would be hard pressed to tell you it wasn't "tone wood." Pickups are detecting the vibration of the string, not the body in which they sit. The case of acoustics is a completely different story.
It's worth mentioning The volume knob on the guitar and how hard you are driving the preamp in a tube amplifier also makes a difference. Great video. I would like nothing more than to think the outrageous amount of money I spent on my guitar was justified by the woods the guitar is made from. The only thing that matters is how well you can play.
Darren, I totally agree. A great guitar is one you can’t put down and that is inspiring to play. Too many players sweat the details. Perhaps another one for the list... good technique. Great players always sound better. Always enjoy your videos.
In the A/B test I couldn't even tell it was two different guitars. I was sitting there waiting like, when's the other guitar gonna come in? Oh. It already did..... Thank you for the awesome video!
There is no tone in electric guitar wood. It's all in the pickups, amp & its settings, & pedals. I've made a guitar out of a 2x4 and with good pickups & a good amp it sounds as good as any other $3500 guitar.
Totally agree - I think if we are talking tonewood, the speaker cabinet probably matters more than the wood on the guitar, especially because it is right at the end of the signal chain and whatever it produces doesn't run through the whole signal chain ... unless we're talking about recording ...
but the point in this video is that the difference is so small it doesnt matter. There is a difference, its undeniable BUT its so small it doesnt matter when compared to the other things on this list
Everything makes a difference - yes the tonewood does make a difference but you can compensate by these other things. Amps. Amp eq. Pedals. Pickups. I like to have a good tonewood so that there’s less to fix later on
Quick recap (but watch the whole video): 1. Amp EQ section 2. Amp speaker upgrade 3. Pick angle and location of picking 4. Tone knob on guitar 5. Pickup selector 6. Mic location on amp when recording 7. Guitar effects 8. Pickups type and height, and electronics such as pots 9. Fresh strings 10. The biggest question of them all, watch vid.
OMG! I love that dark-stained Tele and the 'black' Strat with the abalone pup covers. They are so beautiful, they make me want to weep. Both built by Darrell, too. The man has taste.
You made some very good points, that while body and neck material and type of construction does have an effect on tone, it's way way way smaller then these many other things that you mentioned, which other things could be added to this video as well. So bottom line, don't be obsessed about what your guitar is made of, but pay attention to your playing and some of these other things that were mentioned.
Very smart man!! Great job letting the truth be told about tones. Everyone has always went on about the type of wood. With the right eq you can make any guitar have the tone you want!
I'm not ready for this......
Santa, Father Christmas is real; its the spirit, the feeling of Christmas. Lets play nice boys, life doesnt ways have to be a confrontation as there are different levels of understanding humor. Darrell was right, be did start a fight lol.
Dragan M careful man... you’re stepping into logical territory here and that’s always dangerous lol
Hahahah...this fight was started about 5 years ago by Will (".)
It has been two years... ready now?
Best video ever! Everybody now knows tone wood doesn't matter. It's the color of the guitar that makes all the difference. Red guitars have a warmer sound than blue guitars. :)
Don't forget the thickness of the paint and also the polish you use. I heard Gibson were trying to push a polish that they said improved tone! These people are literally snake oil salesmen.
Totally agree and I think you may agree that red guitars with nitrocelluose lacquer have even more warmth than red guitars with polyurethane lacquer!
Daniel Villasana funny. It’s far more important to have decent pickups than wood
Mateo Del Castillo I dunno, at my age having wood is a lot more important than any pickup. Guitar pickup anyway. ;)
I thought blue was a cold colour till I discovered Mystique
Number 11: Hair Length
#12: Beer
#13 your sexuality!
I will say that hair length can effect confidence, so it can have a roundabout way of effecting tone. I'm definitely more confident when I have long hair for some reason.
#14: Tattoo's
#15: pant titeness
Pro tip: Don't worry about "budget" woods ruining your tone, or hoping that "hand selected premium wood" will give you magical tone :)
Rather, here are 10 or so of my favourite practical ways to shape your guitar tone into what you want!
Enjoy!
Why don't they make speaker cabinets out of tone wood? Thats where the sound commes from. Right?
I agree basically 1000% you are so right I wish everyone had your insight!!
But... "Budget" woods are almost always extremely soft. Basswood, Pine, Agathis, etc. Accidents happen, and usually a drop or two is enough to do some notable damage to them. Woods like Mahogany typically will stand normal wear and tear that is to be expected. It's just a more efficient investment to go for the woods that are typically a bit more expensive, even if you believe there is a minimal tonal difference. Unless you're into the whole relicing look, of course. And this also explains why cabinets aren't typically made of tonewoods. They're more concerned about the longevity of the cabs, since cabs see much more bumps and bangs than a guitar will under normal use. So they just use pretty tough, but common, woods to make them.
@@royalcat10 I should Gove the caviout that I build my own speaker cabinets and analogue amps just for fun.
Sorry for the Spell check dullsnitt!
Glasses Braun should have his own show... Sounds like he knows what he's talking about
Leave it to Darryl Braun to take the most controversial guitar topic ever and make it a smooth, relaxing yet informative video about it.
Ramsey Hildebrand ; Spot on . A genuine guy with his feet firmly on the ground.
Unlike those 'celebrity' Angels sent from heaven to float above us as we weep at their celestial magnificence.
It wouldn't be controversial if the gullibility level and discernibility of most guitar players weren't sitting in the nose bleed seats.
Koolaid I thought you had a glass of wine for a classy discussion on tone wood.
😄 Maybe next time!
i though the same
That’s exactly what I was thinking, lol
Yeah, thought it was going to be about cork sniffing and all.
Flavor-Aid! The Jonestown cult used grape Flavor-Aid, not Kool Aid!
Pick choices. Size, Shape, Material, Thickness. The pick you use has a greater influence over your 'tone' or 'sound' than many people consider.
A variety of Picks is a cheap way to change things up. Also cheaper to collect picks than guitars, amps, pedals, etc...
Great point! 👍
i like my thick and large nylon picks, and few of my friends like them. we sound different. coincidence? i think not. i tend to overload the trebles on my amp, and i use nylon picks with a very slanted attack, both combined give me grit but not harshness. when i do pinch harmonics, they really squeal. when i tap, it rings out. when i strum, it sounds perfectly balanced. screw the jazz 3's. i like my picks like i like my sound: big and roomy.
one thing i really can't stand are metal picks. they sound harsh, they're slippery and they eat through strings like a fat kid in a candy shop.
"Cheaper to collect picks than guitars. . . " Brilliant!
If anyone could do this subject justice, it is Darrell with his methodical approach. The comments in this video reminded me to try some thicker picks (because the pick I use was flexing too much when fast picking). I was surprised that a pick of the same material but nearly twice as thick produced a noticeably warmer/rounder tone. The thin pick produced much more highs (or less lows). Although I liked the thin pick, the thicker pick produced an overall nicer balanced sound. Is there a good technical rationale why a thin pick produced more highs (or less lows)? Maybe something for Darrell to evaluate and demonstrate the differences.
Update: Thinking about it, the thin pick maybe produces less volume on the lower pitched strings (flex of pick gives way to string force), so the result sounds like more highs (when it fact it may be less lows). Anyway, the thicker pick produces a better balance for me.
The only reason I care about wood is how nice an exquisitely finished neck or body looks.
For number 3, I would have also made this a 2 part. Not only does the way you pick change the tone, but the pick material, shape, and thickness! I'm always surprised at the difference whenever I try a new pick.
I'm surprised he didn't include pics. I am amazed by the tonal variety with different types of picks.!
Two words; tonewood picks.
It exists
Going from a nylon .73 Dunlop pick to a carbon fiber 1.36 Dunlop Jazz III and then back is basically like switching from Fender to Gibson and back. Then again, I have a Fender that sounds darn close to a Les Paul regardless (tele deluxe, raised humbuckers, eq'd into oblivion)
I agree
@@RealGengarTV it does and doesn't always follow rules as to what we expect will be brighter, etc.
That press board has to be made from ground up Honduran mahogany, grown on the south facing side of a lush mountain forest, to sound that good!😂👍😎🎸🎶
"A thin strip of rosewood or maple on your neck" Hahahahaha… Brilliant!
How dare you sir
Tone is also affected by how full the beer sitting on the amp is.
I think it's more about how empty the beer is.
Every high end amps I know have an active small refrigerator inside them to keep a can of beer. If your amps doesn't have that device, I'm pretty sure your amps must be low budget Amps.
Im here waiting for info as a lead bass player. Thats where the real test is. Low tones are the true tone. Regular guitars can blend together more as highs can be hard to decipher
Im going to fight you for that lip smacking sound, not so much on the tonewood debate
Just want to say. I love your new intro. The pick slide makes me smile way more than it should :) Love your videos keep it up Darrell! Thanks for keeping it real!
Thanks Greg!
I love the fact the pick is a Dragon's Heart pick.
People should pick their woods based on stability, weight, and looks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
London Mule I fully agree
I like darkwood fingerboards because of how they feel
Weight is a huge factor for me, if the guitar plays great, resonant well and sound balanced acoustically then it is a blank slate to modify how I want with pickups.
Yep- good enough reasons to buy certain woods imo
I do. I just bought a guitar because it has a lovely flamed neck.I also bought a mahogany Ibanez because the figurations on the body fit nicely with those on the rosewood fingerboard. I have passed on good sunburst Squiers because the obvious joints in the body made them look ugly.
Lovely video. I personally believe Amps and Pickups are the real factors of tone.
Picks as well.
..try fingers...
AMEN.
My absolute favorite guitar is my '93 Korean Squier.
PLYWOOD!
I totally agree. There are so many other factors that influence tone more significantly than wood. Not to say wood has no influence on tone, but it's certainly not as much as some claim that it does. Good job on illustrating that point so well. And good advice on choosing an instrument that plays well and sounds good, regardless of the brand or price!
But, don't let any of that interfere with your desire to own all of the guitars.
Alan Yerington lol Yup. The most important thing about a guitar is whatever one can point out as being different from all one’s other guitars.
@@mikewhitfield2994 my wife says she didn t see any difference between my guitars : " they all have 6 strings!"
@@gillesgenete9598 get a 7 ;)
Gilles Genete lol Mine says the same. “Don’t you have enough guitars?” “Honey, I recognize all those words but when you put them together like that it’s just gibberish.” Guitars aren’t like keyboards. Guitars are art, and they have souls. Besides, I only have twelve. Nobody could mistake that for enough, right?
Yeah, “tone wood” only applies to acoustic instruments. I one thousand percent agree with this video. It’s crazy that people are so ardently devoted to the idea that fretboard material, etc. makes a discernible difference on an electric guitar. I think luthiers and brands like the idea of tone woods because it provides a unique, significant category around which to define quality and price. Well finished frets aren’t nearly as sexy and marketable as AAA flame maple. It’s hard to really sell basswood, but Brazilian rosewood is traded like a precious metal, so it must sound amazing.
Oh I would love to see the faces of people when they realize they didn't catch the difference between a high-class hollow-body electric and a solid pressboard guitar. That would make for a good "reaction" video!
Robert Hohan a hollowbody guitar has more feedback - thats it
First of all, I didn‘t even noticed that it was more than one Guitar 🤣
Paul Reed Smith would be one of them
eliminate all the effects and play them through a Twin Reverb. Then compare.
You forgot the type of pick. Thicker picks or picks made from different materials sound very different.
Yes, the finest are made by cutting up your credit cards
Those glasses make you look super smart. I am highly suspicious that the whole "tonewood" idea was started by guitar makers to charge more for their instruments. Thanks Darrell for another excellent video.
I don't think so, it was probably due to the fact that wood is actually pretty important on acoustic instruments, the logical thing to think was that it had to affect the electric guitar's tone as well.
I think a lot of us believe certain myths about guitar because they are perpetuated by our peers and our heroes. I use to be a fervent believer in the whole "tonewood" debate, until I started to swap out pickups, electronics, tubes and speakers from my gear. I quickly realized that it is the sum of all the variables that contribute to your tone. Number one on the list should be the player. If you have bad technique or you are sloppy, no amount of gear will save your tone. Great video as always sir, keep putting these topic videos out, I really enjoy them.
Another brilliant "mythbusters" segment! Great stuff. So much good information and for those that are stuck on the "tonewood" argument, and a lot of food for thought.
I will say, that I am a "tonewood" believer. Not in the classic sense where I think it completely shapes tone, like some people, but I do believe it is at least part of the equation. Maybe not the majority, but does at least play some part. Especially in the higher end instruments that use real quality cuts of wood. I can say this because I watch a lot of Wildwood Vids where Greg Koch plays seriously high end instruments on the same amp with the same settings month after month.
Ultimately, I think Frank Zappa said it best. "Shut up and play yer guitar!" Peace, and to a healthy and happy New Year, Darrell!
To be fair - Greg Koch could make a rubber band wrapped around a potato sound pretty good.
@@bwgti And he'll be the first to tell you so !
I red in forums about the Richlite replacement for ebony about guys saying that their bends are smoother with Richlite, others say the contrary. Go figure...
@@HBSuccess - so true...
@@bwgti LOL indeed!
Very cool channel, straightforward content and no stupid humor, you just got a new subscriber.
Thanks!
Welcome to the channel!
Reaaaaally useful video for breaking myths ,thank you a lot ,bro
Darrell "Mr. Guitar" Braun, once again another excellent definitive video setting the perimeters as to what affects the tone of an electric guitar. Tonewood is quite significant for an acoustic, but virtually insignificant for an electric, and you went directly to the amp right off the bat. Bravo!
To add to my earlier post, to my knowledge only one robust scientific study of electric guitar tone wood has ever been done. (Although there are few dodgy student papers circulating.) This showed that tone wood has no effect on the timbre of an electric guitar. This has flown under the radar for some years, probably because it was originally published in Portuguese. This was 'Sobre o acoplamento corda-corpo em guitarras elétricas e sua relação com o timbre do instrumento'. (String-body coupling on electric guitars and its relation with the timbre of the instrument.) By Rodrigo Mateus Pereira(1), Albary Laibida Junior and Thiago Corrêa de Freitas, and published in Physicæ 9, 2010, pp. 24 - 29
Abstract. (Translation.)
Nine electric guitar bodies were built in the form of the Telecaster model by the author RMP. These were assembled using the same neck and pickup assembly. Once each body was assembled two strings of the electric guitar were mechanically excited and the sound, obtained directly from the instrument, was recorded for later analysis. Also recorded was a musical piece played with each electric guitar. These sounds were analysed via a Fourier transform in order to obtain the component harmonics of the sound, these harmonics are responsible for the timbre of the instrument. The harmonic spectra of each electric guitar were compared to each other and there were no significant differences between them. Thus the variations of timbre of electric guitars, according to the results obtained here, depend on other factors than the wood of the body itself, a fact that arises from the absence of a significant coupling between the string and the body of the instrument. Also proposed is a modelling of the string-body coupling, which shows that only a negligible amount of energy from the vibrating string reaches the body of the instrument and that a smaller amount still returns up the string.
Holy Cow!...I have been picking for many, many years, did realize that the pick angles, etc made SOME differences, etc, but that simple little pick demo was amazing.!
Red Gretsch with gold hardware, I don't care about the tone, it looks like it'll sound great!
It's a real beauty and sounds great :)
So happy that you’re close to hitting 300k subscribers, great to see you doing well ❤️🎸
I love your honest apraisment of guitars, realy informative. much appreciated. thank you
this channel is BRILLIANT! I looooove to watch all the marketing blabla smashed to pieces en to see what's really affecting tone, playability, etc.
Love it! Thanks, Darrell. I especially liked that last comparison. I have an '86 Squier Strat, made in Japan, and an '18 Danelectro 59. Both have single coils (different styles, but still, single coils). Do they sound a little different? Yes, if you listen very carefully and have a pretty sophisticated ear. Is the difference enough to matter? Not to me. Tone woods might make a difference with an acoustic (I have a couple Ovations, too, with spruce tops and plastic bodies), but for an electric, I think you're spot-on. It's amp and pickups, strings and picks, technique, etc. As you demonstrated with the cut-up Squier Strat a few videos back. The wood does almost nothing for sustain OR tone. Nice work!
YAY! A video about this subject from someone that actually tells us the way it really is. Good on ya, mate! Keep up the fantastic job u b doing.
My favourite choice of guitar body is concrete. I call it ‘tonecrete’.
Thank you Darrell for this list. I have been sobbing a bit on your channel about all the things that do not affect tone. Good stuff!
Tone wood Darrel is my spirit animal
Simply fantastic. Thanks for being straightforward and authentic
Scale length is also very important imho
So is spelling!
absolutely
daddio307 imho = in my humble opinion
@@daddio307 so is respect !
Seems like it never came to your mind that youtube is an international space with people from all different languages. And most of us make the effort to use English (your mother language i presume ?) to be able to communicate more broadly with each other. So yes we don't always use English as well a you but we make the effort to use it. Next time you think you are a smart ass because you can point at languages mistakes from someone else please think about in how much other language you could have done better !
@@lolaa2200 My apologies. I meant to be silly but was thoughtless.
Absolutely agree. Tone is what you make it to be. Acoustic or electric all can be altered to fit. Love your site, and enjoy your content. Keep up the great work.
Outstanding video Darrel. How Dare You Sir. 👍
This was absolutely legendary sir.
If you dont have a mic, and dont use recording software or modeling solutions (they do still exist) Then the same applies to where you sit in the room in relation to where your amp is. Sit with the speaker pointing right at you, its going to sound a lot brighter then if you're sitting off to the side of the amp somewhere.
I agree totally with you that tonewood don't have a drastic effect on tone. But i have the feeling that it has a big influence on the feedback you are getting from your strings while playing. I always can tell you, if i like a guitar or not when it is not plugged in. And that is an important factor which drives my playing style and my creativity. I may be wrong of course. But pure tone, i totally agree, that there are more important factors and that it is impossible to "hear" different wood types as every piece of wood of one woodtype is different so...
Btw very nice and informative video. I'd like to see more of those in the future. And ofc merry christmas and a good new year :)
Totally agree. Have played £1000+ guitars that have zero resonance when played acoustically
Ian Barnes Doesn’t that make sense though? Every combination of wood species, density, and weight has its own unique resonance characteristics which reflect back into the strings, adding some harmonic richness. But that energy is robbed from the strings’ energy, so higher body harmonics (as a function of energy - a 5kg solid body will seem much less energetic than a 2kg hollow body at the same energy) will reduce sustain and string harmonics as a function of weight, material and length. So it seems to me that the higher a guitar’s cost, the less energy should be reflected into the body and back into the strings. In any case, I think Darrell has clearly shown that both wood species and weight have so little effect compared to all other factors as to be negligible. Maybe that’s not the case for the very highest talents, who can coax out that last little bit of tone, but I suspect that those virtuosos who swear by certain woods also play subtly differently when going after that particular nuance. (Or they’re trying to sell a particular guitar.)
@Tobias Harloff interesting comments. I guess because when I practice at home on an electric I do so without playing through an anpr so I'm very aware of the difference in feel of all my guitars, but any difference pretty much disappears as soon as I plug in!!
Um, no. Two systems are either mechanically connected or they aren’t. If they aren’t, then neither can affect the other. If one can make the other vibrate, then it is in turn vibrated. There is no such concepts as threshold or terminal energy as you are using them. Threshold energy refers only to limits of detection or limits of disturbing the at-rest quantum state, which is incredibly tiny. Terminal energy refers only to the remaining energy at the event of interest. Thus we speak of a bullet’s terminal energy while still recognizing that the target necessarily transfer energy back into the bullet, heating it or even deforming it (if that energy exceeds the bullet’s plastic deformation limit) because no target is perfectly elastic. There is attenuation of course; the internal friction saps the vibrational energy so that what goes back into the strings is always less energy than the original excitation. But that is true of strings alone as well; strings on a massive base will not vibrate forever even in a vacuum. Many guitarists take advantage of this reflection by developing a percussive style.
@@mikewhitfield2994 Um, of course! Bridge, saddle and frets act as a kind of treshold because they reflect by far the biggest part of the string vibration and in the same way they reflect vibrations from the neck and body. Mabe I use the word treshold in a wrong sence - I am nativ german speaker not english. Bridge, saddle and frets act like a verry hard, dense and massy steel target would act in your example: It would reflect your bullet and not, or only transfer a verry little amount of the energy to something which is beond the steel layer. The idea that the resonance of a guitar, which You feel with your hand and body, the energy, which comes from the strings, travels through the guitar in your body, travels back through the guitar into the strings and effects there something what has not been there bevore is nonsense.
Wherefrom comes this energy? Right! It comes from the strings and is absorbed by your body. Below the line you loose energy and the only possible and observable effect is a loss in sustain. This is, by the way, also the only effect which was messurable under sientific terms (Prof. Manfred Zollner, Prof Hellmut Schleicher) Or as Prof. Zollner expressed it: " Again it is verified, that resonance may delight the tactile sense of the guitarist, but beside this only effects a loss in sustain:"
Hi Darrell, Brilliant Video, If that does not settle the Tone Wood debate I don't know what wood!
I remember in one of your Videos you saying that PUP's are 90% of your Tone👍👍👍
That aside the Comfort of the Neck is so important and a very Presonal thing for each Player.
Excellent advice as always 👍👍👍 .
I hope you and your Loved ones have a Great Christmas/Holidays and an Awesome New Year, stay safe.
Melbourne, Australia ♥️♥️♥️.
31 guitar manufacturers dislike this video.
Well, PRS at least. Most others, not so much.
It's crazy how many manufacturers push tonewood on their customers.
@@KeepTheGates While s of luthiers, carpenters, builders, or random people with power tools are making guitars out of anything
152 now
@@KeepTheGates when you're selling something people don't need, you need every reason possible to tell them that they do.
That was excellent!!! THANK YOU! As an intermediate player, going out and buying something expensive exotic wood guitar will not help my playing, as I just need to practice!!! Tonewood is just like associating guitar body shapes to specific genres of music!
The whole tonewood debate has always baffled me, I can understand it related to acoustic or classical guitars but for electric guitars it's really down to weight and looks more than tone
I fully agree
Perpetuating the tonewood myth to a gullible guitar buying public makes guitar manufacturers and hi end luthiers a lot of money - they won't easily give that income stream up by saying the wood doesn't matter. And the big guitar manufacturers have large promotional and advertising budgets to convince you that it does.
Solid body guitars appeared in the 1950s. The "tonewood" debate did not appear until ignorant fools were given the Internet to expose and share their "thoughts". That's the only fact you need to know about it.
@@Leo_ofRedKeep Nope - I go back way way back before the internet and there were opinions and arguments about the benefits or negatives regarding types of wood used for guitars up and down the music shops and practice rooms in the UK - maybe where you are located was different.
Of course, the same ignorants and gullible were talking elsewhere before the Internet but guitar manufacturers, those who really had the means to find out and an interest in real advantages didn't care. They put their money in humbucking pick-ups, in comfortable shapes or in more resistant materials. Leo Fender moved to rosewood fingerboards because he didn't like the look of worn out maple.
One of your very best tutorials / discussions Darrell. I got lucky and guessed the guitar type 1 and the pickups. No 2 tricked me. I recently changed from a small Blackstar to a larger Blackstar amp and my enjoyment in tone and playing increased immeasurably. Both had the same valve circuitry so speaker change and cabinet volume probably made all the difference. Thanks for taking the voodoo out of guitar mythology. Tom
my guitar has a maple fingerboard and has a sweet, sirup-like tone :)
That was brilliant Darrell, thank you. I learnt so much about tone 😎🎸
Now honestly, you have the vibrato of your ST set up floating, the pick ups on the ST are attached to the scratchplate, now doesn't this eliminate a lot of the impact of the "tonewood"?
And a second thing, I think swamp ash has such a beautiful woodgrain, it's a sin to have a solid finish on a swamp ash body.
I miss this content. I love your builds but I come back for this!
Good stuff! I still always mic my amp demos. 🇨🇦👍🎸😁
😁👍 Hope you have a very Merry Christmas my friend!
The Age old question "Guitar or Amp" ha just been answered. Can't tell you how much I hated my Amp, I turned all the knobs, but wasn't getting what I wanted. I still need to work with it, but your right. The day I found a Overdrive, felt a little stupid, cause I swore it didn't have one. Thanks for the confirmation!
Oh, Merry Christmas Darrell. Hope you have a great holiday. Not sure it's Christmas in Canada, but the feelings are the same.
Tonewood Darrell needs to calm down a bit.
Can I have that guitar used for number 5, by the way?
That black korina is stunning indeed!
Biggest way to change your tone on fretless bass, move your fingering hand. It's hugely obvious on that instrument. I honestly did not know about that pick angle trick which was really cool! Too bad I can't pick...
I recently got a Squier contemporary strat HH. Its poplar! CVs pine or alder. I also have an old Hamer in some sort of mahogany. They are all bolt onstage and all sound awesome thru my Vox
I have a Hamer it’s the best playing guitar I’ve ever.....
This is a good summary of the comparisons and tests you've been doing. Good tips in here. I've learned a lot this year. I would say that I've really not heard people get worked up about tonewood when it comes to electrics. It's a big deal with acoustics because you're literally listening to the vibration of the wood, but yeah, I never really considered it as big of a deal with electric guitars.
I have two questions when buying a guitar: What are the pickups? Is the guitar Daphne Blue or Surf Green? You are right about mastering the EQ on your amp...your advice is always on point, thanks Darrell.
@@RyanGamesYT i think this person was joking... they could google guitar pickup and get an answer way quicker if that wasn't the case
@@RyanGamesYT he said he wants to what the pickups are before he buys a guitar/Ie alnico or ceramic PAF modern...what have you. He did not ask. What are pickups
Daphne Blue or Surf Green? No just get both!!, lol. I have Daphne Blue Tele and a Surf Green Jazzmaster, lol
I own six guitars and by choice have swapped out the pickups on two of them...so my question is, what pickups does the guitar come with and is it worth swapping them out. I wasn't clear with my comment.
Jack Allen You own two very beautiful guitars! I own 2 Daphne Blue Strats, a Daphne Blue Jackson Soloist, 2 Surf Green Strats, and a Specific Ocean Charvel San Dimas(Sparkly Surf Green). All have Maple Necks, except the Jackson has rosewood.
g8 podcast, very true. mick ronson once said.. " the sound is in your fingers, its how you pluck it" in a thick northern english accent. three things i want from a g8 guitar
1.: playability( no fret buzz, nice neck etc)
2: g8 looks,balance, ergonomics etc
3: reliability, solid construction etc
pickups and electics can always be changed at a later date!
Sorry... You failed to mention the most important part of tone. Colour. I'm all about tone colour
Fluro Flash I thought you were gonna ask him to play some rory Gallagher
Source: Billy Corgan
Fluro Flash
Yeah, have the same opinion. Nobody talks about the tone color, the voicing. That comes from the wooden construction.
I always enjoy your very practical perspective on all things guitar. You totally clear away the voodoo and advertising hype that for many of us is difficult to get around.
But... But... That purple heart stripe clearly makes my tone sound more "purple" right?! Right?! 😂😂😂
You poor deluded fool. All us smart guitarists know that the purple acts as a filter and removes the purple tone leaving a mellow orange tone :)
I absolutely agree! I bought an used Ltd M-50 (basswood made in china), to try out some Changes, so i put Seymour Duncan Black winter set, locking tuners, engl pedal & connected to different tubes heads, what a beast in distortion and clear sound! Confortable as underwears!
Ive found the guitar of my dreams
And then it got discontinued
There might be a guitar kit you can buy somewhere online that you can build one out of
Darrell, Thanks for another GREAT demo.
... And as usual, your gigs look sweet.
Merry Christmas to all!
And to all...
GOOD NIGHT!
I have a MiK ply body Squier strat that sounds almost identical to my US strat.
Thank you for saying this and based on your vast collection of different woods, you have first hand knowledge on the subject
I've been saying this for years but nobody believes me
My motto is, if you find a guitar you feel comfortable with, don't worry about the hardware, you can upgrade it, the most important thing thing is to make sure you feel comfortable with the guitar, the upgrades will get you a great tone
Then I say, figure out what do you like your amp to have.......fx loop, 2 channels, solo boost, separate eq....things like that
Then once you find the amps that have those options, or get to as close you can, then try those amps out with your upgraded guitar, you'll find that sometimes, the most expensive one does not mean it's the best for you, sometimes you plug in and as soon as hit a chord..........its like the skies opened and the sun shines it's ray's right on you, sometimes you have to really really mess around with the eq knobs to find that sky opening sound
Then once you got the amp, then experiment with pedals, just cause your buddy has a nice chorus sound, that doesn't assure you that you will get the same sound with that same pedal with your rig
It sounds like a long dumb process but any person with years of experience with different guitars, amps and fx will tell you this
Don't listen to those peeps who say, "if it ain't expensive, it sucks".....don't be those John Mayer types
But if you have gone thru this process and find you feel comfortable with your expensive gear, then that's you but don't say your rig is for everyone or the best for this or that, no it's the best for you
In the end, if you can't wow a person with whatever guitar in your hands..........you probably should practice more
ENOUGH WITH BS TONEWOOD.
I didn't wait the sound of the guitar solo so close in sound on two different guitar, you really amazed me. Because the mix its so nice. I'm guitar builder and I'm totally agree with your video.
Tonewoods? How about tone glues?: I once read on a forum that a guy had bought a goldtop Les Paul ´59 reissue which cost him (I think) around 3000 dlls. When he got it, he was dissatisfied with the toanz, so he had it shipped to a "specialized" luthier shop. They trashed the finish...sorry, "reliced" the finish, drilled a hole in the neck, steamed the neck off the body, sanded off what I bet was less than a millimeter of glue joint and rejoined the neck to the body using hide glue, - you know, just like Granddaddy's Les Pauls were made- which cost over 2000 dlls to get done. When he got it back, he reported that he now was closer to his dream tone than ever before. He claimed that the negligible amount of hide glue made it sound "truly vintage".
Joe, Hide glue is used in making wooden instruments so they can be steamed apart if they develop a bad crack, and then repaired. Also, violins are made using hide glue so if you every drop it, it shall shatter-come apart, rather than break the hand carved individually made pieces for the top, back, sides, neck. I know as I have built 2 violins and own 3 more and studied violin with a Julliard School of Music Graduate and I can read classical violin music. Anyway that's what I think. -Peter
@@PeterDad60 I know hide glue has its uses in instrument making - I wasn't disputing that. Are you saying hide glue holds any tonal properties rather than mechanical? What I said is that subjecting a brand new guitar to (what to me at least seems to be) an unnecessary surgery to separate the mortise and tenon holding the neck and body together in order to replace microns of one type of glue for another and claim this makes the tone more "vintage" is hardly anything more than self delusion. By the way, many of my preconceived notions were changed by reading online guitar luthier forums, written by people who have built guitars (which are the instruments I mentioned originally), common sense, and experience. An acoustic violin is very different from an electric guitar...I hope that's a moot point. I also learned music at university and now I'm dabbling in music production.
What was the point of your post, I wonder.
hide glue is more repairable that's all. it does deteriorate faster and it's harder to work with. maybe minute tonal differences to titebond type glues.
@@butteredbiskit3497 Ah, you think the hide glue was applied at a cost of over $2000 on a brand new guitar to make it easier to repair? Ok. This video is about debunking the importance of tonewoods on ELECTRIC GUITARS. My example was of an ELECTRIC GUITAR. The amount of glue to make the bond durable between the two points of contact must be minimal, otherwise it would be prone to shifting, twisting, etc. I am not going to discuss whether less than a millimeter of a type of glue makes a guitar more or less vintage sounding. That is just ridiculous.
@@joetowers4804 no its sold as tone thing I know better. personally I would want a set neck guitar hide glued together just so it's easier to get apart that's all.
Thanks! For a guitar noob like me this video is SO useful and complete!!
Lol "putting down the Kool aid".
WRT to all the knobs and settings making a difference, I nerded out a few months back and came up with the below: -
Just with the basic Tele with ungraduated Tone & Vol. reduced to say, 10 different levels, plus the 3-way pickup switch, we have 10 x 10 x 3 = 300 different settings.
I just bought a basic Fender amp which has 6 x 12-graduated controls plus a 2-way Fat switch. This gives us another 12^6 x 2 settings, = 5,971,968, which x 300 from the guitar gives 1,791,590,400 possible combinations. Just let that sink in!
You forgot the most important factor, making a good guitar face. Jokes aside I think tonewood makes a different it’s just more subtle than people would like to believe. I usually choose my wood based on weight feel and look more than anything tho. Also strings make a huge difference in tone. Flatwounds vs roundwounds is a crazy difference.
Robin Trower and David Gilmour. Great tone and great guitar faces.
Absolutely. On an electric guitar the most subtle, if any, tone modifier is the plank of wood is made off…
How dare you sir?
A very good video, DB.
Thank you for taking the time to make it. ✌️
You forgot to mention tone paint...a black strat sounds more like david gilmour and a red strat sounds more like mark knopfler....proven scientific fact...tons of data
Tim Watson and a white strat sounds more like Albert Hammond JR... or Ed O'Brien?
Well done. I agree with your approach. Put the right pickups in an electric guitar made out of iron, plug it into a nice tube amp, and I think most folks would be hard pressed to tell you it wasn't "tone wood." Pickups are detecting the vibration of the string, not the body in which they sit. The case of acoustics is a completely different story.
Me: How dare you, Sir!
Darell: “Me: How dare you, Sir!”
Me: Exactly!
It's worth mentioning The volume knob on the guitar and how hard you are driving the preamp in a tube amplifier also makes a difference. Great video. I would like nothing more than to think the outrageous amount of money I spent on my guitar was justified by the woods the guitar is made from. The only thing that matters is how well you can play.
tonewood snobs and wine sommoliers are cut from the same mold
Darren, I totally agree. A great guitar is one you can’t put down and that is inspiring to play. Too many players sweat the details. Perhaps another one for the list... good technique. Great players always sound better. Always enjoy your videos.
*_H O W D A R E Y O U S I R ?_*
In the A/B test I couldn't even tell it was two different guitars. I was sitting there waiting like, when's the other guitar gonna come in? Oh. It already did..... Thank you for the awesome video!
Can you hear the different between wood types, yes. Is it a big differencs, no.
That playing was just beautiful!
There is no tone in electric guitar wood. It's all in the pickups, amp & its settings, & pedals. I've made a guitar out of a 2x4 and with good pickups & a good amp it sounds as good as any other $3500 guitar.
Same here only mine was made from a wooden wine box stuffed full of fiberglass insulation to keep it from feeding back.
Totally agree - I think if we are talking tonewood, the speaker cabinet probably matters more than the wood on the guitar, especially because it is right at the end of the signal chain and whatever it produces doesn't run through the whole signal chain ... unless we're talking about recording ...
Johan Segeborn has some videos showing the differences in woods in electric guitars. There is a difference.
but the point in this video is that the difference is so small it doesnt matter. There is a difference, its undeniable BUT its so small it doesnt matter when compared to the other things on this list
Got Kool-aid?
Everything makes a difference - yes the tonewood does make a difference but you can compensate by these other things. Amps. Amp eq. Pedals. Pickups. I like to have a good tonewood so that there’s less to fix later on
Quick recap (but watch the whole video):
1. Amp EQ section
2. Amp speaker upgrade
3. Pick angle and location of picking
4. Tone knob on guitar
5. Pickup selector
6. Mic location on amp when recording
7. Guitar effects
8. Pickups type and height, and electronics such as pots
9. Fresh strings
10. The biggest question of them all, watch vid.
OMG! I love that dark-stained Tele and the 'black' Strat with the abalone pup covers.
They are so beautiful, they make me want to weep. Both built by Darrell, too. The man has taste.
youre parte of the few who uses mic on the amp and thats why your guitars always sound so fantastic
You made some very good points, that while body and neck material and type of construction does have an effect on tone, it's way way way smaller then these many other things that you mentioned, which other things could be added to this video as well.
So bottom line, don't be obsessed about what your guitar is made of, but pay attention to your playing and some of these other things that were mentioned.
Very smart man!! Great job letting the truth be told about tones. Everyone has always went on about the type of wood. With the right eq you can make any guitar have the tone you want!
I play on Gibson Sgs. I can switch from them to my Ibanez or Jackson and with some simple tweaks I can get them all darn close
As always, outstanding playing Darrell, and great info. to know! Merry Christmas!
Thanks!
A very Merry Christmas to you too!
I enjoyed that Darrell! Thanks!