Moshkito

eph221
... There are those who are ruled by money...very selfish people (as any adult will tell you).  
...

My biggest gripe has always been watching a musician, think that he sounds better because he is playing a 5K Martin, than a $200 dollar bobodud. As if the quality of the song itself and the singer, improves because of the instrument, and that is an illusion ... and though some of us that do studio stuff may disagree, in the end, you and I both can not tell if that is a Stradivarius, or just Jean-Luc Ponty. 
 
It's not the instrument ... it's the person behind it ... and anyone thinking that only his/her instrument does it for them ... I don't know ... I don't see Peter Hammill with 10K guitars, and he does just fine.
 
It can't be the instrument alone!

This is exactly why the best violinists use cheap fiddles instead of Stradivarius' too!
 
Oh, wait...

44 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. And what have I learned? I've learned that this guy is not aware that every person over the age of 8 already knows that marketing people tell you **** that isn't exactly true in an effort to make you want to buy their products.
 
Does he really think none of us ever bought a Slinky? Walks down stairs alone or in pairs my ass.

JohanSebatianGremlin
44 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. And what have I learned? I've learned that this guy is not aware that every person over the age of 8 already knows that marketing people tell you **** that isn't exactly true in an effort to make you want to buy their products.
 
Does he really think none of us ever bought a Slinky? Walks down stairs alone or in pairs my ass.

 
That's what the *educators* never told you.  In the simulacrum everything's FAKE!  IT'S ALL FAKE!  FAKE, FAKE, FAKE!

I know some people who are link slinkys.  Completely useless, but when you push them down some stairs it brings a smile to your face. 

craigb
I know some people who are link slinkys.  Completely useless, but when you push them down some stairs it brings a smile to your face. 

 
I blame spiders.

craigb

Moshkito
My biggest gripe has always been watching a musician, think that he sounds better because he is playing a 5K Martin, than a $200 dollar bobodud. As if the quality of the song itself and the singer, improves because of the instrument, and that is an illusion ... and though some of us that do studio stuff may disagree, in the end, you and I both can not tell if that is a Stradivarius, or just Jean-Luc Ponty. 
 
It's not the instrument ... it's the person behind it ... and anyone thinking that only his/her instrument does it for them ... I don't know ... I don't see Peter Hammill with 10K guitars, and he does just fine.
 
It can't be the instrument alone!

This is exactly why the best violinists use cheap fiddles instead of Stradivarius' too!
 
Oh, wait...

Mosh- I don't completely agree with you. I do agree with "it can't be the instrument alone" but that is all.
 
For a beginning guitar student I think comfort is recognized most. The easier it is for them to finger the better. If it's very hard to play they may give up trying. (That is not to say a cheaply made guitar cannot be made to play easier.)
 
After the beginning stage it varies. Players ability to recognize tonal differences and "those little things" that create the different qualities of instruments progresses differently.
 
I do think a really good guitarist can make most any guitar sound reasonable and a very good guitar will make a difference to ones playing.
 
If my opinion is sound then it stands to reason;
If a player is trying out different guitars, looking to purchase, and he/she cannot recognize the difference between two that are in different price ranges then why not purchase the cheaper one?
If a player can notice the differences, can afford it and wants it, then why not?
 
It's not a question (most of the time) of "is there a difference" - the question is "can the player recognize the differences" so the choice of purchase can be evaluated.
 
Mosh, it's also not good to underestimate peoples ability to recognize differences compounded with misleading statements such as "you and I both can not tell if that is a Stradivarius, or just Jean-Luc Ponty." because it's not about what we can recognize in your statement- it is about what Jean-Luc Ponty recognizes.
 
Mosh- Hope you take this with the positive intentions behind it. 
 
 
 
 

I've actually heard why violinists prefer Stradivarius violins.  Apparently, the forest where he just happened to get his wood from had experienced a long drought causing the trees to grow very slowly thus making the wood denser and more uniform.  This (*Gasp!*) made them sound better!

Other Strad theories say it was something to do with the varnish used (personally I doubt that), or because the logs the wood came from had been lying in the Venice lagoon for ages and soaked up all kinds of salts. And a hefty amount of raw sewage as well I would have thought, but that never gets the credit for some reason.
 
As for electric guitars, sure the wood makes a difference, but what matters most to me is the unplugged sound and that can be the result of wood or other materials. I also suspect that one or two piece bodies vs. bodies made from more pieces isn't always a good indicator of anything. My only Strat is a very resonant Mexican Standard that probably has somewhere between 5 and 9 pieces of alder in the spread it was cut from. I bought it because though its plugged-in sound was not at all what I wanted at all, unplugged it was loud, sustained well and felt really comfortable. And I went shopping originally expecting to end up with a US instrument, but that MIM just felt "right".
 
A new nut, set of Lace Sensors, tremsetter and some Callaham hardware later and it works well for me at least.
 
And other materials than wood can work well, such as carbon fibre and even plexiglass. Though plexiglass guitars are seriously heavy.
 
The pickups might generate the electricity and of course changing pickups can make a huge and instant difference, but the harmonics and sustain the strings hand to them in the first place is largely down to how the body responds to and sustains the string vibration. 

I forgot to mention, almost every Strad is no longer how it left the workshop. In his time violins had a slightly shorter neck that was set at a different angle to the scale length that was eventually settled on. There are very few instruments credited to Stradivarius that still have the original baroque neck and setup, the rest having been modified over the years to make them compatible with changing musical taste and technique.

Here's the deal with those who have mastered,or attempted to master an instrument.  We want to play the best instruments so that we make the best tones.  We can make a cheap instrument sound *as good as possible*, and that means make it sound really good (even though it's cheap.)  That's true of acoustic instruments
 
With electric guitars, not sure what the extra padding in the price is for.  If you put stevie ray vaughn's pickups into a squire and were able to play as well, it would sound the same I think. No?