Unless I’m mistaken I believe a good example of this effect is “dead” spots on the neck where the sustain and tone of the note is noticeably different on some instruments at the “dead” spots. This effect certainly makes it easier to believe claims that the neck material has an effect on the tone.
I liked a lot this information you shared. I would love you to comment on acoustic guitars and “tonewoods”. You might even create a new thread.
Nerd mode on:
If I remember correctly, transverse and longitudianl waves don’t interact only when the system is infinite in size. Since every guitar is finite, a little bit of energy transfer between the two types of excitation should be possible (note I’m talking about interaction not interference).
But then again, as a physicist I would be totally happy to model a guitar as infinite or ball-shaped 
EDIT: I should probably read all the posts to make sure this hasn’t been said before, but my desire to write it was too strong!!
EDIT2: @Tom_Gilroy, reading your latest post more carefully (great post!), am I correct in concluding that the tone is (almost) fully determined by bridge, frets and pickups? E.g. I could approximate very closely a Tele sound by installing Tele pickups, frets and bridge on a Les Paul?
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Sure, a dead spot is an example of a string endpoint and the neck or body both having a resonant frequency near a note in the guitars range. This is not a desirable outcome, electric guitars are designed to minimize the likelihood of this. It’s rare enough to find a good quality electric guitar that has any dead spots, never mind multiple deadspots.
The primary reason the neck can have a bigger effect than the body is because the frets are less effective at isolating the string from the neck than the bridge is at isolating the string from the body.
I might write something on the differences between acoustic and electric guitars when I have time.
Yes, in principle. There have been some pretty clever experiments performed by “tonewood” debunkers that address that. No interference in possible, and the interaction that is possible is essentially negligible.
The strings, bridge, frets and pickups, are the primary determining factors in tone, but scale length matters also. Lower overtones are expressed more on a longer scale, and the higher overtones are expressed more on a shorter scale.
Construction matters. If you built a Les Paul with a 25.5" scale length, a Telecaster bridge and Telecaster pickups, I really doubt anybody could reliably distinguish it from a collection of Telecasters in blind tests. At that stage, however, it’s not really a “Les Paul” anymore. To accommodate a Telecaster bridge on a Les Paul you’d need to alter the neck geometry significantly, for example.
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Can we get some sources on this? I’m not challenging your conclusions vis-a-vis wood not mattering much – they ring true to me, pun intended – but if we’re going down this road I’d like to see who built it. 
This was quite a hot topic on YouTube a few years ago. A lot of videos were made in support of each side.
The central idea of the “tonewood debate” is that the particular species of wood used in guitar construction is a significant, if not the most significant factor in determining the tone of an electric guitar. It’s suggested that a specific species results in specific, identifiable character.
This type of claim can be tested directly, and it can also be studied using blind tests. It’s absolutely crucial that the test be controlled properly. For example, it’s not sufficient to build one guitar from maple and another from mahogany, with different hardware and pickups and test. Even if the hardware and pickups are of the same type in each case, there will still be variance in those components, and usually significantly so in the case of pickups. The instruments would need to be built and then tested using the same pickups and hardware with all adjustments like string height, etc, controlled for.
Moreover, several guitars for each wood species would have to be built. You can’t just compare maple to mahogany to each other, you have to have to compare each to itself also. If it were found that all maple guitars behaved similarly, all mahogany guitars behaved similarly and both behaved differently from eachother, then that would be evidence for the central tonewood claim. Again, if true, this would be easily verifiable both directly with equipment and in blind tests.
It’s also absolutely crucial that the “guitars” tested actually approximate a real solid-body electric guitar. A thin plank of wood with two saddles nailed down at either end and a string poorly attached to it is not a solid-body electric guitar. A solid-body electric guitar is rigid enough to to support the string tension of six heavy gauge strings tuned to pitch. It has a heavy steel bridge. It typically would have a mass of between 5 and 10 pounds and scale length of between 22" and 27".
This might seem like an extraordinary experiment to demand, but it isn’t. The idea of tonewood for an electric guitar is a positive claim, and the burden of proof is on the tonewood believers to supply that proof. The standard for proof required is the same as it has always been. No guitar manufacturer, or other supporter of the tonewood claim has ever performed any experiments with this degree of rigor and published their findings.
Wood varies significantly within species and often two pieces of woods from the same species are more different than two pieces are different species from a materials perspective.
There is then another claim, which is that specific wood species is not a significant factor, but that the resonant and acoustic properties of a solid-body electric guitar is significant in determining it’s timbre when amplified. This can also be tested.
Debunking tonewood claims is relatively easy compared to attempting to prove them. People have cut chunks of the necks and bodies from electric guitars with table saws, massively altering the mass and resonant properties of the guitar. People have replaced the wooden neck or body of an electric guitar with replacements made of concrete, cut stone, acrylic, graphite or carbon fiber, epoxy soaked cardboard and a host of other materials. The guitars do not sound significantly different after being cut to pieces or after having the wooden components swapped out. There is only a slight change in tone when the guitar is no longer rigid enough to support the string tension, either due to excessive damage or overly flexible material.
I can’t remember the names of everybody involved. Some of the better known debunkers were two channels called WillsEasyGuitar and DKGCustom, both of whom performed careful experiments to address specific claims made by tonewood supporters. I think most of their videos on the topic are still available.
Most of the videos made by the tonewood supporters amounted to little more than appeals to authority or ad hominem attacks on the debunkers. The few tests performed which were supposed to validate the tonewood claim were either performed improperly or were willfully dishonest.
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Thanks for this detailed reply. I’ve been out of town for a few days, or I would have acknowledged it earlier. Cool stuff, I’m going to look into it.
So the discussion about neck-joints affecting sustain/tone is bunk too?
@Tom_Gilroy, so if I understand correctly, you’re saying that the vibrations of the body/neck and the strings themselves do not interfere with each other because they are of different types, right? That makes sense to me.
Am I also right to interpret the situation as follows: while the waves do not interfere in the classical sense, a wave on the string will transfer some, albeit very small, energy to a wave in the body or more likely the neck and that this could in theory affect the tone if that transfer became significant? The reality, though, is that for a well-designed and well-built guitar that energy transfer is minimal and thus has little, if any, perceptible impact on tone.
Sorry to dig up and older post. I’m finally getting around to getting caught up and had a couple questions.
I haven’t seen evidence to convince me that wood properties have any significant impact on amplified tone of a solidbody electric guitar, but as @Tom_Gilroy observes, the appropriate method for answering the question would be a rigorous study involving blind listening tests.
But folks sometimes make arguments disputing the availability of a plausible mechanism for the wood to make a difference, and I don’t think those arguments are particularly persuasive. I think there’s a plausible mechanism, but solid wood bodies are similar enough that there’s not enough difference for a noticeable effect on the amplified sound.
Regardless of whether we’re talking about transfer of energy from a vibrating string to the body and neck through the bridge, nut, and frets, or transfer of energy to the surrounding air, we absolutely do know that the vibration of the string decays. Pick a note and see how long it takes for it to die. You’ve just witness the string losing all of the energy you put in when you picked it.
The key questions are: do the various overtone frequencies of the string’s vibration decay at significantly different rates? Further, if the overtones decay at significantly different rates, do those differences in rate of decay among overtones differ significantly for solid wood bodies with different properties? I suspect the answer to the first question is yes. While I suspect the answer to the second question is no, that’s where I think the “hope” springs from for tonewood advocates, even if they aren’t able to articulate it. Even if the answer to that latter question is yes, I agree with @Tom_Gilroy 's point that variations of properties even among samples of the same species would render generalizations about tonal effect of wood species moot. I also suspect that if a rigorous clinical investigation did reveal patterns in blind listening tests, the audible differences would be small enough to be matched by minor adjustments to the EQ settings of a typical amplifier.
And a final note: I think a major flaw in many anecdotal listening tests is that they don’t isolate the amplified signal from the acoustic vibration of the guitar body. That is, people are hearing the acoustic vibration of the guitar body (through the air) at close range at the same time they are listening to the amplified signal. Headphones or extremely loud amp volume might overcome this, but the most foolproof solution would be to put the amp and listener in a different room from the guitar.
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Yes, the vibration of the neck and body are longitudinal waves, and the vibrations on the strings are transverse waves. In the sense of wave interference, they do not interfere with one another.
However, the waves can certainly interact. As @Frylock mentions, any plucked string will eventually stop vibrating. That energy has been lost from the strings to drive the longitudinal vibration of the frets, bridge, neck, body, etc, as well as the surrounding air.
Eventually, all the energy of the string is dissipated into the guitar and the surrounding environment as heat.
The important thing to note is that if an electric guitar is well designed and well built, the loss of energy from the string to the rest of the guitar doesn’t drastically change as we move from one note to another.
@Frylock’s post was an excellent addition, and there really isn’t much more to be said.
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@Tom_Gilroy and @Frylock, thanks for the responses, a lot of great info in there!
By the way, I don’t disagree with any of the ideas you guys are posting here regarding the effect (or lack thereof) of the wood on tone in an electric guitar. I just wanted a little better understanding of the whole issue.
Thanks again!
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I’ve played a spirit for past two years, The best thing about the guitar is when I’m sat down the guitar is in a position very close to standing.
This is a big deal as I rarely stand to practice.
The worst thing is the cost of the strings, a total ripoff.
Cost of strings…go to headlessusa.com and get the headpiece that will allow you to use regular strings. For $45.00 your problem is solved.
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I wonder how much I’ll be paying to get it to england though, I have been thinking of getting that type of clamp. I’ve seen cheap ones on ebay… But that’s a gamble.
$45 for the headpiece, $10 for shipping to the UK. It’s on on eBay now. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Steinberger-String-Adapter-Headless-Hohner-Cort-Bass-or-Guitar-Made-in-USA/323366320755?epid=1232069450&hash=item4b4a227a73:g:GvYAAOSwAYtWQzVF#shpCntId#shId
Thanks! Yes is a Hohner GT3! can’t wait to see the live stream with Mika Tyyskä!!!
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Did you feel you had to adjust to the body shape, or was it instantly comfortable? Do you normally plant your forearm, and did this feel different with the Steinberger?
I used to anchor with my palm, so can’t say if it would affect someone who relies on the forearm anchor. But I know going back to a normal guitar was akward. The Steinberger is very comfy though. The one thing to keep in mind is if you grip chords to hard it can be hard to slide around as it moves the guitar more than a normal guitar moves.
I don’t think it’s anything serious tho, they are great guitars.
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If you are willing to sit near the edge of your chair and put the V part on your right leg, and cross your ankles, you’ll get your most ergonomic guitar. I discovered this by myself and was shocked that I didn’t see it before, but it turns out that other people have figured it out as well, and it’s even documented on YouTube; so, don’t delay, get a V, they’re the best!