As far as pickup mounting goes (tight or loose), it is the relative motion between the strings and the pickup that gives rise to the emf in the coil. Clearly, if the pickup moves, the sound is changed as compared to the pickup not moving, assuming that the second order effect of the pickup motion perturbing the nominal string vibration is very small (I think it is). Probably not a huge effect, and I don't necessarily argue that one approach is "better" than another - it probably depends on the guitar.

Then I guess we should get into how much filler around the fretmarker inlays and the size of the fret tangs (do nickel frets sound different than SS?) and truss rod tension and material.Yikes!!

[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 20 December 2005 at 07:32 AM.]

Okay, get a mic out and play into it to get audible volume. Hear any difference in tone between the two instruments? Notice that, with an acoustic guitar, the mic picks up the most volume over the bridge or soundhole. But it gets plenty of volume from anywhere away from the edges of the top, not just over the strings. That is because the volume and tone are coming from the air moved by the whole top, not the air moved by the strings. But, for the solidbody, the mic has to be directly over the strings. You can move the mic anywhere you want over the body, but you'll get nothing except directly from the strings. The strings are vibrating and moving air (and not much), the body is not. There is no appreciable body vibration or resonance creating any sound. That block of wood simply holds the strings tight, so they can vibrate a long time over the magnetic pickup and generate an electric signal, there is no acoustic (moving air) sound coming from the solidbody.

Here's another experiment. Take an acoustic pickup and stick it on a solidbody guitar. If you turn the volume way up, you might get some sound from it. But it will be many times fainter than the sound that pickup produces from the vibrating top or bridge of an acoustic guitar. And notice the big difference between acoustic pickups and magnetic pickups. The acoustic pickup faces the bridge or top, not the strings. It gets the sound from the top, not directly from the strings. But the magnetic pickup faces the strings. It gets essentially all its signal from the strings, not the body.

That 5 lb. block of wood your hardware is attached to simply has no useful vibrational volume, resonance, or tone. 99.9% of the volume and tone come from the strings, pickup and amp. It's a magnetic electric instrument, not an acousitc one. A completely different set of rules applies.

Okay, I'm overstating the case to play devil's advocate and make a point. But I don't think I'm overstating as much as all the mythology about solidbody resonance and tone.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 20 December 2005 at 07:38 AM.]

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quote:

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Here's another easy experiment demonstrating solidbody "tone." Unplug your solidbody steel or 6-string. Play it. There is the tone of your solidbody. That is what the pickup and amp have to work with.

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Touch the live mic to the body of the guitar.The sound doubles, at least. That's what the pickup hears.

I think the upshot is, the more microphonic a pickup is the more "acoustic" a solid body guitar becomes and the more it's ingredients are likely be heard.

[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 20 December 2005 at 11:23 AM.]

It doesn't really matter that the pickup is bolted to the body. There is very, very little sound propagating through the solidbody, and the pickup is not an acoustic pickup designed to pickup up such non-metallic vibrations. Even if it has microphonic characteristics (generally considered a flaw), the signal it generates magnetically from the vibrating metal strings (which it is designed for) is many times stronger than anything it is picking up microphonically.

If a new, specification wound, and installed pickup does not transmit a significant amount of body noise, I can safely say that a majority of Sho~Bud and Fender Tele and Sratocaster owners and players will not want it. I sure wouldn't

Again, there ARE steel guitars that have isolated pickups, such as the Sierras I have been familiar with over the years, but the sound is much different. Some people like it. I never did when it was me playing them. Likewise with guitars.

I liked your "tuning observations" better.

Your Friend and Obedient Servant,

EJL

Same thing with the neck. I can feel the vibrations on the neck when I'm playing. How all these vibrations feel to me when checking out a new solid-body guitar is one of my first tests before buying.

Energy is dissipated in a solid-body as sound waves propagate through that medium, reflecting back and forth at the boundaries. The precise way this happens affects the string vibrations, since the energy is transferred back and forth between the neck, body, bridge, and strings. Of course, the dissipation rate is a lot smaller for a solid-body than a hollow-body, and the resonances are much higher, so the effect is quantitatively different. Harder, more dense solid-body woods typically have a smaller dissipation rate. Whatever causes it, two identical spec solid-body guitars can sound completely different, acoustically and amplified, at least to my ears.

Edited --I had a Strat single coil in the shop so I hooked it up to the amp and held it against the lap steel in different places(back,side,back of the neck,tip of the headstock). A substantial amount of sound is generated by the pickup in all positions.
I estimate it to be at least 10 percent of the sound produced when it is held 3/16" above the strings.
This was an interesting experiment.
The volume seemed the same no matter where the on the body the pickup was held.As expected, the amount of pressure made a significant difference in volume.
I pressed the pickup on my Tele,a 1 1/8" thick Maple lap steel and a 1 1/8" thick laminated Maple and Bloodwood lap steel,played the same note on all and the tone thru the amp was different for each.Not a lot different but noticably different.
It would be interesting to measure the voltage from a pickup screwed to the body away from the strings and compare it to one under the strings to see what the relationship is.

[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 20 December 2005 at 07:37 PM.]

I noticed the sound behind the Squire was loudest over the tremolo spring cutout. Some of that came from the springs. I never thought about it before, but that cutout makes a Strat a sort of semi-solid body. I would expect that cutout and the springs would have a noticeable effect on string overtones and sustain, and could account for some of the difference in tone between a strat and a tele. A strat is not nearly as solid. So that kind of gross difference in solid-body configuration can have a differential affect on the sustain and overtones of the strings.

So I took an extreme view (always fun on the Forum), and I'm coming back from it a little. But still, I don't hear much difference between most solid bodies - nothing like the difference I hear between different hollow bodies and different acoustics. So I'm still skeptical about a lot of the solid-body tone mythology, but I guess there is something to some of it.

EJL

I have to say that I've close friends with the owner of the company, but the fact remains that these are really nice, and I like them a lot.

B: Back in the caveman days befor headphone jacks on amps, or any sort of decent sounding headphone amp, I used to practice an unplugged Fender bass with a stethoscope taped to the top. It worked great! Frank Zappa among others has experimented with mounting contact mikes on solidbodies, but it sure hasn't seemed to catch on. In a way, those electrics with piezo pickups in the bridge are an attempt to get after that tonal spectrum, but why? They sound awful. Whenever I hear somebody like Dave Matthews, or those plasticky, tin-canny sounding rhythm guitarists at the Opry using piezo-armed Takamines, I can't figure out why they are willing to put up with such a hideous sound. Why don't they just get a Strat and a Twin Reverb?

[This message was edited by David Mason on 21 December 2005 at 09:15 AM.]

That said, were I younger and more adventurous, I'd put a peizo under the body and have a mixing knob that allowed it as part of my pickup setup, adding more body noise.

Myself, with my Strat, after seeing an Eric J shop model, I put all 5 springs on my tremolo as I don't use it anyhow and took off the cover. I think the "reverb" aspect of those springs is severely overblown, but I noticed that after whanging a chord, and damping it, that the springs were still vibrating. Also the EJ model being sans string clips on the headstock is interesting, but not so much that I'm gonna do it. I like my Tele more anyhow.

There's definitely no doubt in my mind that the lighter, "snappier" woods are the best for luthe.. luith.. well you know.

EJL

One question.

Would the tone of a $6K-$8K pedal steel guitar sound the same as the tone of a $2K-$4K guitar if they were both using the exact same pickup playing thru the same amp in the same room by the same musician?

Terry

Sometimes people aren't happy until they have a crappy tone.

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"Never underestimate the value of eccentrics and Lunatics" -Lional Luthor (Smallville)

[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 21 December 2005 at 11:46 PM.]

http://us.st11.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/ravguitar_1873_3902637

There is a lot of talk on here about ash. A residual stand of ash, after a thinning of the stand, will produce trees that may have annual growth rings of as much as an inch and a half wide. Naturally, that wood will not have the tight-grained qualities rendered by slower growth patterns. The positive aspect of such rapid growth is that those trees typically escape the brown centers found in most ash, making it very favorable for veneering.

What I am getting at is that, given the similar growing situations of the older growth woods, 2nd growth will be the same. Therefore, if a manufacturer is going to have an edge in tone, it is going to have to ensure that the wood it selects is harvested from trees that have grown in an environment conducive to good tonal qualities. To simply purchase a slab of say, mahogany, online is not going to guarantee that it is going to make a quality instrument.

Martin, for example, used to have their own sawmill and the logs they purchased had to meet stringent requirements which included slow growth rates, minimum diameter requirements, mineral content, stain, coloration, etc.

They no longer have the mill, and I'm not certain what their process is, but I am sure that their wood procurement procedures are strict and under close scrutiny.

Bottom line is that there is plenty of good wood growing today, but you have to know where it is. Actually, some of the best instrument wood grows in places where it can be bought on the stump quite reasonably because location makes it cost-prohibitive for most high-production lumber companies to deal with. But, for instrument manufacturers, that wood could be a bargain. There is a lot of fine-quality wood growing in steep North-side hollows and even an acre or two can produce enough wood to make quite a passel of guitars.

[This message was edited by Webb Kline on 22 December 2005 at 07:42 AM.]

[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 22 December 2005 at 08:43 AM.]

I wasn't looking at this from the perspective of Fender, Gibson or Martin, but from the viewpoint of the cottage industrial craftsman who puts out say somwhere between a dozen and a hundred instruments a year. For someone like that, there is plenty of great wood available. I mean, how much premium wood was ever available? They didn't exactly manufacture Stradavariuses to be sold at a volume big enough to interest Guitar Center.

I was in the logging and sawmill business for many years and dabbled in the import and export of high grade veneer logs and lumber, so I know know my way around the woodpile fairly well. Like most production industries, there is so much deception, disinformation and outright lying that goes on in order to dupe buyers, as well as the general public regarding wood quality. I think alot of forest products firms have brought on a lot of this synthetic experimentation out of their own dishonesty and greed.