The shape of solid-body electric guitars - a question for the luthiers/audio physicists.

 
I notice that most electric guitars follow roughly the same design as acoustic and classical guitars.
 
Now I understand that the orthodox shape and the capacity of an acoustic's body has traditionally been chosen to maximise the volume of the strings and to create the 'tone' of the instrument. I also understand that the choice of wood and other materials in an acoustic guitar (as well as the type of strings used), as well as how the strings are played are also crucial to the tone.
 
I also realise that the type of wood and method of construction (e.g. bolt-on or neck-through), as well as variables like pick-up and string choice affect the tone of an electric guitar.
 
But my question is, naïve as it may be, does the shape of an electric guitar body make and real difference to sound of an instrument?
 
 

drewfx1
I would say no.
 
But, as with anything audio related, some would suggest that it might make some tiny infinitesimal difference and then inflate that to an epic level of importance.

If you ever played an unbalanced instrument you may agree that design of body is much more important...after all there as been many years of instruments with different woods and hardware to let one know that there are "safe" choices but what are they worth if you have hold the thing all the time to keep the head from hitting you in the balls or knocking your front teeth out?

spacey
If you ever played an unbalanced instrument you may agree that design of body is much more important...after all there as been many years of instruments with different woods and hardware to let one know that there are "safe" choices but what are they worth if you have hold the thing all the time to keep the head from hitting you in the balls or knocking your front teeth out?

In my crippliness I can appreciate the ergonomics of guitar design much more. An SG/Strat style body is far easier to wield for long periods in a sitting position than a Flying V.
 
I've always disliked how Les Pauls are weighted. Never mind all the other things I dislike about them like the fat, rigid necks. The Studio and Juniors are alright but they kind of defeat the purpose of using an LP. Might as well just go for an SG at that point.
 
Also... hi, Spacey. ;-)

batsbrew
the strat looks like you are holding a woman's body.
 
what else is there to know?
 

That is what I always thought. LP=Fat Bottom Girl. ; )

spacey
Okay....look at it this way...next time you hear a recording of somebody playing a guitar, which you've never heard so you don't have a clue about what they are using, tell what guitar/shape they are playing, woods used, name the pickups they are using, name the strings, tell all the hardware such as brand of bridge, type of nut material and anything else about it that so many claim to be able to tell...amps/sims, brand of effects....etc., AFTER they know all that info....and then it all sounds so different when somebody else plays the exact same "stuff". LOL...measure what? Measure how nutty people are? Advertising folks measure them...by profits.

I can only tell from my side of the guitar and what I have to do with the results afterwards be it through the amp, board, sims or whatever. Obviously pretty much anything can be manipulated in any way these days and there are far more influential parts of the chain but for me personally I have indeed developed a preference in regards to what style axe to wield for specific purposes. A lot of it is likely psychological but I've had to deal with a lot of knock off clones over the years (because things got destroyed on stage quite frequently) so having access to the originals in studio settings or paid touring where they insisted I used branded originals then comparing that to the far inferior counterparts I did notice how certain body styles SEEMED to have similar characteristics to their more esteemed predecessors.
 
I only speak from what I felt and heard and most certainly defer to the knowledge of luthiers and audio experts (which I realize now Steve was actually asking... not distracted droogs such as myself) but I think there is something there. Everything is vibrating (right down to the strings that make up the universe if we are to believe string theory) so it only makes sense that the way something is shaped will cause it to vibrate differently sending vibrations back into the guitar strings thus making the signal picked up by the magnets be different.
 
I can also knock on the body of my guitar with the strings muted and get a signal or pluck the string group above the nut and get a signal (well away from the pickup) so that seems to indicate that the pickups can snag much more than what is happening directly above them.
 
Don't mind me though. I'm just taking a break from all the other crap I've been dealing with so I'm enjoying letting my mind wander on this topic. I truly know not the answer to the original query.
 
Cheers.

spacey

Beepster

spacey
If you ever played an unbalanced instrument you may agree that design of body is much more important...after all there as been many years of instruments with different woods and hardware to let one know that there are "safe" choices but what are they worth if you have hold the thing all the time to keep the head from hitting you in the balls or knocking your front teeth out?

In my crippliness I can appreciate the ergonomics of guitar design much more. An SG/Strat style body is far easier to wield for long periods in a sitting position than a Flying V.
 
I've always disliked how Les Pauls are weighted. Never mind all the other things I dislike about them like the fat, rigid necks. The Studio and Juniors are alright but they kind of defeat the purpose of using an LP. Might as well just go for an SG at that point.
 
Also... hi, Spacey. ;-)

Hi Beepster!
 
You hit it on the head IMO...one finding all the goods that help them enjoy making music for whatever their needs may be is the only thing that matters. It's good to me when they eliminate all the BS and go with their feelings and our feelings change all the time through the years.

I loved Flying V's for many years (but unfortunately never owned a real one) but that is one guitar that I think I've lost the taste for. Not just because they are extremely uncomfortable for me to play anymore but I find they have a bit of a hollow tone. Like there are certain frequencies that have been sucked right out the middle of them. It's weird. I wonder about the reverse V's and whether maybe that oddball design somehow brings some of that back in but really... I like SG's these days despite the lack of bottom end (which really should be taken up by the bass guitar anyway). If I could get my hands on an SG that was a little thicker/denser than the average offering I think it would be a nice fit.
 
But you never know with these things. For now I'm going to continue pining for that Epi Lucille model. I think that would serve my little home set up well.
 
I hope you've been well.

spacey
....but what are they worth if you have hold the thing all the time to keep the head from hitting you in the balls or knocking your front teeth out?

Are you speaking from experience?

batsbrew
the strat looks like you are holding a woman's body.
 
what else is there to know?
 

 
Which makes this one just a bit more disturbing!

drewfx1
WARNING! Physics content:
 
The speed of sound in wood is ~10 greater than air.
 
Since Hz = cycles/sec and speed is ft/sec, we can get the wavelength of a frequency by dividing speed by Hz to get ft/cycle.
 
What you will find is that the wavelengths are 10 times longer, and at 2,000 Hz you get a wavelength in wood of ~6.5ft or 2m (and longer at lower frequencies).
 
So if we are talking about reflections against the edge of the body bouncing back and causing phase reinforcement or cancellation with the strings, how much difference in phase is a body with slightly different dimensions going to make? And keep in mind that the longer the wave travels, its amplitude is going to be reduced, especially at higher frequencies (with shorter wavelengths).
 
 
Again, the idea that something might make a difference does not mean that it automatically makes a meaningful difference

Well I do unfortunately struggle with hard science concepts and truisms because unfortunately I am a woefully undereducated individual (sorry... dropout. Working on it I swear) BUT are these equations actually factoring in everything? I mean are we basing this on the sound vibrating through a piece of 1"x 2" piece of wood by some cold metallic sciency vibrating whatchamacallit inserted to both ends or the vibrations of a string attached to two screws plunged directly to the plank? Or is the experiment based on all the complex materials and dispersion of vibrations (at all the varying frequencies of all strings fretted in all combinations) through said materials and how they interact with the electronics? Are all those complex reactions negated as soon as they touch the wood or do they factor in?
 
We have bone or plastic at the nut dispersing energy through the neck which may or may not be attached to the body with a bolt on plate or glued right in etc.. We have multiple contact points on the bridge vibrating through various means to the body depending on style sending the vibrations out into the wood in various ways/directions. We have the bridge close to the pickups, which if the pickup is indeed sensitive to signal other than metallic strings vibrating, could pick up differences based on how the wood is reacting due to dispersion (and obviously the more sensitive the pickup the more apparent this becomes). The vibrations could be bouncing back and forth within the would based on how they are dispersed and reacting to each other or cancelling each other out. Etc, etc...
 
Well you get the point. It seems that there are all sorts of contact points for the string vibrations to travel through the wood that could be sent into all sorts of directions. If they don't get terminated before they reach those destinations, even if they get deadened, they could get sent back to the bridge to alter the vibration of the strings or even interfere with the pickups.
 
So the vibrations (or some of them) going down the forks of a V may travel to the end of those forks stop dead at the end stopping that resonance from reaching the strings or pickup again whereas another style body would keep those vibrations closer to home and effect the strings/pickup more.
 
IDK. A much more obvious example of vibrations through a guitar body is what I just did to my acoustic. I had covered the thing with all sorts of crazy stickers. It really deadened the sound and that was kind of the intent. It was an ultra bright guitar that didn't sound good through the PA so I did not like it for my live stuff. I wanted it to be meatier so I just kept adding stickers to it and it did indeed dull the tone. Well now that I don't play live anymore and need to use it in the studio where I can do whatever I want to it in post I wanted to get as bright a signal as I could to work with my rather crappy/dark mics. I spent almost two days removing a couple dozen stickers of it and polishing the thing and now it is CRAZY bright. I forget how bright it was.
 
Obviously an acoustic relies on the soundboard vibrating but I think the tone of an electric does depend on how it is allowed to vibrate.
 
To me though... I feel it. I hear it.
 
I put my faith in science and I believe in the scientific method for measuring our world but there are times when it simply conflicts with what I myself have experienced first hand. In those situations I generally assume that science has simply not received the appropriate data to solve those conflicts or that my own neurology has skewed the input making me come to faulty conclusions (bias/mental disorder/chemical shenanigans). Considering that the vibrations within a guitar are an extraordinarily complex mish mash of wacky it might be the type of thing even a high powered computer couldn't model. I mean we are just getting amp sims down and they still can't really match the real thing in many ways.
 
Either way I think what would be required to confirm this would be a controlled scientific study done using different body shapes (which may have been done already and I would be curious to see the results of such a study). Until then I'm stuck with my own human bias and quirks... which is okay I guess. I just wish I were smarter.
 
Makes for interesting CH banter though.
 
 

We're getting startling close to this turning into an amputee porn thread.
 
NTTIAWWT

BeepsterI put my faith in science and I believe in the scientific method for measuring our world but there are times when it simply conflicts with what I myself have experienced first hand. In those situations I generally assume that science has simply not received the appropriate data to solve those conflicts or that my own neurology has skewed the input making me come to faulty conclusions (bias/mental disorder/chemical shenanigans). Considering that the vibrations within a guitar are an extraordinarily complex mish mash of wacky it might be the type of thing even a high powered computer couldn't model. I mean we are just getting amp sims down and they still can't really match the real thing in many ways.
 
Either way I think what would be required to confirm this would be a controlled scientific study done using different body shapes (which may have been done already and I would be curious to see the results of such a study). Until then I'm stuck with my own human bias and quirks... which is okay I guess. I just wish I were smarter.
 

Or if you have 2 solid body electrics, you could just:
 
1. Plug one in and turn up the volume.
2. Take the second one and touch it to the plugged in one and strum the open strings of the unplugged one.
3. See just how loud what's coming out of the amp is from the transmitted vibrations (compared to strumming the strings on the plugged in one).
 
I can tell you what will happen - it won't be very loud compared to strumming the plugged in one itself, and it won't have crazy frequency response.

http://music.stackexchang...he-tone-playability-et
(It is the sustain that is inherent in a electric guitar)

"He told me that what makes all of the difference is not the type of wood used but rather the relationship between the "notes" produced when you turn the guitar over and tap the neck and the body of the guitar (with the tip of a finger - On a guitar that's made of more than one piece of wood then the section that has the bridge is the crucial part)

If the difference makes what you tap sound like a set of bongos then the chances are that you've got a "live" one? He went on to explain that it was about "sympathetic" wave forms and strong intervals like octaves and fifths versus an unsympathetic combination of notes that would fight each other and cause the picked notes and chords to die sooner."

http://music.stackexchang...-of-an-electric-guitar

"In clean guitar, the pickups and guitar build are a big deal. A hollow-body jazz guitar played in the neck position is a different animal from a Telecaster played bridge. The different tones are loved for what they are, and not just as inputs to a distortion circuit. However, clean tones still greatly depend on the amplifier."
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That is why  people hear a difference in guitars. At least I know I do.