Weight and its effect on tone?

[SWeAT hOg]

Hey Gerr, you have accused people of nitpicking. You are the nitpicker. You wanted answers and are getting them so settle down...

This. Overthinking can really fvck up your tone.

 

[Gerr]

Hey Gerr, you have accused people of nitpicking. You are the nitpicker. You wanted answers and are getting them so settle down...

Yes people were nitpicking as instead of answering my original question, they instead focused on the fact that no two guitars can be exactly identical. Everyone knows that, but I figured people would be smart enough to catch my meaning in that the two guitars I mentioned would be as close in specs as one could get. So excuse F'ing me for not adding the word..."nearly" as a descriptor to "identical".

So ya, I felt they were nitpicking over my wording of the question rather than answering the question itself and it annoyed me as I took it as petty.

 

[Burst Boy]

Wow. Some people need to lighten up

 

[JMB1984]

Yes people were nitpicking as instead of answering my original question, they instead focused on the fact that no two guitars can be exactly identical. Everyone knows that, but I figured people would be smart enough to catch my meaning in that the two guitars I mentioned would be as close in specs as one could get. So excuse F'ing me for not adding the word..."nearly" as a descriptor to "identical".

So ya, I felt they were nitpicking over my wording of the question rather than answering the question itself and it annoyed me as I took it as petty.

You are just as guilty of focusing on the nitpicking as the nitpickers. There are also real responses to facilitate discussion on the actual question that have gone ignored.

 

[Gerr]

Wow. Some people need to lighten up

Sorry, rough night, 3 year old is sick...

It's probably more in how they said it. If they spoke about tone and weight and then casually mentioned that no two guitars can be identical, that would be cool. But for several people to bring up that point and only that point, felt like they were doing it more to punch holes into my question and I took offense as it felt like a thread jack.

 

[dspelman]

heavier Les Paul's usually equates to more sustain

One of the reasons that guitar players gravitated to the LP after it was discontinued was that the small, dense body produced more sustain than larger or less dense bodies. More energy stayed in the string. That started The Quest For Sustain. The culmination of this quest led to guitars like the Ibanez Artist AR-300 and the Yamaha SG2000, which are near-identical double-cutaway guitars. The Yamaha, for example, is a neck-through LP-style guitar with a maple and mahogany neck, ebony board, thick/dense and relatively small mahogany body wings and heavy, dense hardware. There's even a solid brass 10.5 ounce sustain block screwed into the body with the bridge screwed into that. These guitars routinely weigh in at around 11 lbs and are sustain monsters.

 

[Gerr]

OK, to sum up...

It seems like most people say weight and density of wood have no impact on tone, but the heavier more dense woods are likely to sustain longer.

That sound about accurate?

 

[Machine Man]

FFS, go a guitar shop and play a few different guitars back to back and decide for your self.

I have a chambered LP standard and an R8. My experience tells me that a great deal of the opinions pertaining to weight, tone and sustain are BS.

 

[Burst Boy]

OK, to sum up...

It seems like most people say weight and density of wood have no impact on tone, but the heavier more dense woods are likely to sustain longer.

That sound about accurate?

Nope, because it's unpredictable. A guitar is the sum of it's parts and no one can really predict how those parts interact. Weight and density do have an impact on tone, but how much? Who knows. Sustain is unpredictable too. I have many guitars. My LP Studio and Fender HWY1 Strat sustain (bolt on necks kill sustain...sure) very well in comparison to my LP Trad, a heavy son 'o bitch. The Studio and HWY1 Strat are both very light resonant monsters too. The general rule is there are no general rules in my experience. Other people’s experiences may vary. Each guitar needs to be judged on it's own merits.

 

[DADGAD]

My danelectro has good tone and sustain and it's 6lbs and made of masonite.

 

[Gerr]

bolt on necks kill sustain...

While I know this is off-topic, has anyone actually determined this? Bolt on is like set neck, around the same amount of wood making contact, the difference is how its held together. Why would 3-4 screws allowing wood to wood contact hurt sustain while wood glue holding them together allowing little to no wood to wood contact allow more sustain? To me, that doesn't make sense and seems more like a marketing falsehood.

 

[slapshot]

nutshell answer: glued joints are tighter more area contact and the glue makes it vibrate as 1 piece while a bolt on still retains 2 independent pieces as they're really just sitting on top of each other and the joining material is the small threaded section into the neck.
more variables exist but that's the just of it.

 

[JMB1984]

While I know this is off-topic, has anyone actually determined this? Bolt on is like set neck, around the same amount of wood making contact, the difference is how its held together. Why would 3-4 screws allowing wood to wood contact hurt sustain while wood glue holding them together allowing little to no wood to wood contact allow more sustain? To me, that doesn't make sense and seems more like a marketing falsehood.

Irrespective of the type of glue, do you really it makes an adverse difference to the"wood to wood" contact? What do you think holds an entire acoustic together?

 

[kasu]

While I know this is off-topic, has anyone actually determined this? Bolt on is like set neck, around the same amount of wood making contact, the difference is how its held together. Why would 3-4 screws allowing wood to wood contact hurt sustain while wood glue holding them together allowing little to no wood to wood contact allow more sustain? To me, that doesn't make sense and seems more like a marketing falsehood.

My bolt on Gibby Sonex sustains like crazy. The other bolt ons I have doesnt have any worse sustain than the set necks either, so I agree that its just the usual myth. In my book at least, the neck joint has little to do with sustain.

 

[60Cycle]

After playing Standards with the modern weight relief thing next to 2013 Traditionals with no sort of weight relief. I couldn't tell a difference and neither can the guys that sell them. No difference in tone, sustain etc. Only weights which aren't a huge difference either. The newer mahogany woods I thought were the problem they would create a 20lb Les Paul in some cases unlike the woods used in the 50's and early 60's which were much lighter.

So am I missing something here? Would the weight junkies take a 1980 Custom over a 1959?

 

[icantbuyafender]

Irrespective of the type of glue, do you really it makes an adverse difference to the"wood to wood" contact? What do you think holds an entire acoustic together?

I agree with you, but...


Wood to wood contact...


Heh.

 

[fiveightandten]

nutshell answer: glued joints are tighter more area contact and the glue makes it vibrate as 1 piece while a bolt on still retains 2 independent pieces as they're really just sitting on top of each other and the joining material is the small threaded section into the neck.
more variables exist but that's the just of it.

Bolt on necks have the surface area of the neck pressed up against the flat area of the neck pocket (and the sides too, in a tight one). But the screws keep a high amount of tension on that contact, whereas glue just holds the 2 surfaces together. Press your forehead lightly against your guitar while strumming a chord (glue it there if you really want to be accurate)...then press it really hard against the guitar. Tell me whether or not the increased pressure transfers more of the vibration to your head.

Additionally, with a bolt on neck, the mechanical tension is extended through to the *back* of the body as well, through the screws. Therefore vibrations are transferred deeper into the body than with a set neck.

...See how easy it to to come up with plausible explanations that account for either neck joint being "superior"? Do Les Pauls have inferior sustain because the bridges aren't string through body?

Anyone with a good Tele can tell you that bolt on necks sustain just as much as set necks. My Tele resonates and sustains just as much as my Les Pauls. My Ric (which is neck through) has the least amount of sustain of any of my guitars.

 

[circles]

Too many variables. Weight is just one of the thousand things that will make a great guitar......or not.

Agreed. I also think it's hugely psychological.

 

[MooCheng]

in some genres of music weight has its advantages

 

[SWeAT hOg]

Bolt on necks have the surface area of the neck pressed up against the flat area of the neck pocket (and the sides too, in a tight one). But the screws keep a high amount of tension on that contact, whereas glue just holds the 2 surfaces together. Press your forehead lightly against your guitar while strumming a chord (glue it there if you really want to be accurate)...then press it really hard against the guitar. Tell me whether or not the increased pressure transfers more of the vibration to your head.

Additionally, with a bolt on neck, the mechanical tension is extended through to the *back* of the body as well, through the screws. Therefore vibrations are transferred deeper into the body than with a set neck.

...See how easy it to to come up with plausible explanations that account for either neck joint being "superior"? Do Les Pauls have inferior sustain because the bridges aren't string through body?

Anyone with a good Tele can tell you that bolt on necks sustain just as much as set necks. My Tele resonates and sustains just as much as my Les Pauls. My Ric (which is neck through) has the least amount of sustain of any of my guitars.

My rebuilt Pacifica should not have the tone it does. I stripped it down to wood, found a seven piece guitar and then just stained and poly'd it. The thing feels like a tennis racquet. I added a newer full-block trem bridge, a bone nut and a string tree for the D,G strings. Acoustically, it might be my loudest guitar.