Get your woody before wood is all outlawed to use.

http://www.gaskellguitars...ownloads/77-woods.html

Wood tones are not the most important factor in deciding tone, but they do play a large role. The same two high quality pickups in the same guitar shape would sound entirely different if one guitar were made out of plywood and the other out of maple. So, in the end, don't limit yourself to thinking that a plywood guitar will sound the same as a mahogany guitar, but don't think you need a 10-top mahogany guitar to sound great. Don't make compromises on quality, but don't spend all your money to get the right wood.

http://www.ultimate-guita...woods.html?no_takeover


Also, body shapes can affect tone - an arched top guitar will sound different than a flat top guitar. Variety is the key to finding out, first hand, the subtle nuances between wood tones.
 

Beepster,
My Ibanez was built on October of '77 according to the serial #.. The lawsuit, at least with Ibanez, was settled in June of that year. Note the headstock does not look like a Gibson headstock. I bought her in the Spring of '78 at a great little music store in downtown Denver that I stumbled onto between classes when I was going to college. Sadly, they are long out of business.
The tuners seem to be pretty good, and have always been stable. Actually, back in Denver, all of my guitars stayed in tune. Here in Fort Worth, the wild swings in humidity have a more dramatic effect, and it is much more critical to check tuning before each recording session. The wood goes crazy down here.
As to the Epi, yes, she's a lovely thing. She has a decidedly different sound and personality from the Ibanez.
 
i initially though that because if it's semi-hollow body construction, it didn't really come into play for this discussion.
But after some thought, I have to wonder.
I have been playing both of these guitars directly into my interface, and through various amp sims. I am listening through headphones. So, to the best of my knowledge, external acoustics are not a factor. What I am hearing is what the pickups..pick up.
Steve, you mentioned isolating sympathetic vibrations, but now I have to wonder just how much  of  given guitars' tone has to do with sympathetic vibrations being fed back to the strings from the guitar body.
My Riviera and Ibanez have clearly different resonant qualities. Granted, the pups are very different, but the body does seem to be a factor.
Vibrations do tend to follow fairly mathematical paths, and I can see how a radical shape such as the flying V just might have an effect on tonal qualities, as Beep has suggested.
I'm just thinking out loud here, but in theory, shape should not matter. However, collective experience seems to suggest otherwise.
Are we back where we started?

RobertB
However, collective experience seems to suggest otherwise.
Are we back where we started?

Collective experience has long ago been proven (via collective experience!) to be unreliable. 

as far as the collective experience goes , heres how I tend to deal with it 
 
if you happen to find yourself trapped in a roomful of a thousand people chanting 2 + 2 = 3
 
I would say that you only have a few possible choices 
 
1, You could walk up to the podium and state plainly into the mic  2 + 2 = 4 and suffer the wrath of the collective ...
 
2, You could sit there and tough it out for as long as you can and keep the truth of your knowledge to your self .
 
3 , You can find a different room and associate with like minded people that place a high value on truth ...
 
let me tell you a little story  , so , grab them boots and put them on…..
(high level of B S content  )
 
as a young man , Albert Einstein was under the mistaken impression just like everybody else that  E  = E, G # B ….
during our first interplanetary guitar lesson ... I was able to show him how to play E = MC 2 on the guitar 
and that folks is how I was able to become a citizen of The Planet Earth  
 
 
 
 
Kenny

RobertB
Are we back where we started?

 
 
Well.....when it started there were a few statements and a question.
 
 
 

SteveStrummerUK 
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? 

 
I don't see electric guitars following the same design as acoustic and classical guitars but "roughly" makes it all so questionable.
 
Simple answer to the question: Well, again there are to many undefined terms that make it all so questionable:
"electric guitar", "real difference"
 
The only question, as I choose to understand it: Does the shape of a solid body electric guitar make a difference to the sound of the instrument?
 
My answer is no. The shape of a solid body electric guitar doesn't make a noticeable difference to the sound for people to recognize by only hearing it...sight unseen.
If the answer was "yes" then people would be able to tell the shape of three of the most popular solid body guitar shapes by listening- sight unseen....and they can't.
 
In fact there are factors about a solid body electric guitar that have a much larger impact on tonal characteristics and I'm not sure most people can hear the difference "sight unseen" by only listening.
For example;
Scale length is a major factor- can you tell what the scale length is on solid body electric guitars by listening?
Pickups are a major factor- can you tell what brand and type that may be on a solid body electric guitar by listening? ( I included "brand" only because I have read people to make claim that they can hear the difference between brands.)
 
IMO the only factors that matter about the shape of a solid body guitar to the player are "feel" and "looks".
"Ugly" and "doesn't feel right" will send a buyer walking and not every body feels and sees things the same. Good thing too. That keeps it fun.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Interesting question Sir Strummy.
 

spacealf
 
In other words, if you had a Stradivarius Violin even if electrified into an amp, I think it would still sound different than another violin not made as well, as well as variances in any of that making a violin also.
 

I watched a fascinating program about Stradivarius Violin's apparently there is quite a bit of significance in the wood.  The wood used apparently has a very consistent grain which is quite dense.  If you examine an early Strad compared with his later violins you can see this quite easily.
 
I also watch a program about Les Paul regarding his experiments with electric guitars, his initial experiments concluded that the best material for the neck and the body was a piece of iron train track.  Though he did find this to be a tad impractical.  This may be why my LP is so heavy.

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?
 
I don't think so. I think it is more the type of wood and other factors. For instance the Les Paul Classic vs the Les Paul Studio. I've had both and have used different pickups in the Studio. The Classic has the maple cap like the Standard, the Studio is all mahogany. The Studio is darker and some pickups that sound good in an LP with a maple cap are muddy sounding in the all mahogany body, at least in this small study only using two guitars.
Then I guess you have to consider the Stratocaster and the Telecaster, they sound different but they have different pickups. I wonder if a Tele with Strat pickups would sound like a Strat? I don't know.
I have an all mahogany with a burl maple cap and two P-90s, it has a 25.5" scale neck and it sounds nothing like a Tele.
Personally, I think the body shape of a guitars is what it is because it is similar to what we are used to a guitar looking like and is what people want to see, more marketing than anything. Plus, it needs to sit on your leg so you don't have to play standing up all the time. People have prejudices and may balk at something that does not look like "a guitar".
 
It is a good question. I don't think that the shape matters very much. For some players even the wood or pickups don't seem to matter much. Billy Gibbons sounds like himself no matter what he plays, he uses 8s for strings but has a thick tone. Buzz Feiten will not use or design a guitar with body contours like a Stratocaster because he says they cause some skeletal problems, I don't remember what right now but he says guitars should be like the LP or Tele. Personally, I can only play a LP for a short while because the edge begins to hurt my inner arm and my abdomen (I mostly play sitting down).
My favorite acoustic guitar to just pick up and play is a Taylor "Big Baby". It is an OK guitar but nothing approaching a great guitar BUT it is a 15/16th scale guitar and cheap enough that I don't worry much about bumping it or leaning it against the wall on the porch... and IT IS COMFORTABLE for me to play. I have a dreadnaught that sounds better and I can actually play it a little better, as far as picking, pull offs, etc and if I record guitar I prefer it but not for just enjoyment. I tend to go to a Stratocaster for casual play but may use an LP or other guitar if I'm doing something beyond playing for my own enjoyment, they DO sound different but (with and electric) I really don't think it is the body shape that makes a difference. I'm not really sure how much the body shape matters with an acoustic guitar. The bracing, the top and sides, the nut, the age of the wood, I think, make more difference than the shape of an acoustic too. I want a 000 guitar and I want an Epiphone ES-339 PRO. I want both because of their smaller body size, I expect either to sound as good as a comparable bigger guitar, but they will fit me better and at the end of the day I will sound like me no matter what I play.
 
J

Yes sir ,  this sure is a healthy discussion / thread ….
when it comes right down to it …sure , I love traditional guitars made out of good wood ….
the thing is , most of the time none of that really means a whole lot to me …
a good deal of my time playing guitar is working out new songs or musical ideas …for a good deal of that activity I might just use a nylon string or a Squier Tele ...
I found out a long time ago when I was much younger  …that a well played song on a cheap P O S guitar will always trump a crappy player zooming up and down the neck of an expensive top of the line "fill in the brand guitar "...
for the record ..I've been on both ends of that example 
 
 
Kenny
 
 
 
 

spacey
? What was the question?
 
 
 
not that I don't think the answer was known when it was asked
 

BECAN, can I have yours?
 
 
I mean.... guitars, can I have yours?

I love the expression on the cows face after Jack hits the first note 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZNk76_4lds 
 
Kenny