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Tag: tone

  • Answering the Question, “Do Tonewoods Affect Electric Guitars?”

    Answering the Question, “Do Tonewoods Affect Electric Guitars?”

    To (mis)quote Ron Burgundy, “It’s kind of a big deal.” If you haven’t come across this yet, don’t worry — you will. And if you have, you probably have the scars to prove it.

    It’s perhaps the biggest, most heated debate of them all when it comes to electric guitars. If dueling were still a thing, many guitarists would be wielding revolvers and dodging lead on a regular basis.

    I’m speaking, of course, about the tonewood debate.

    If you’re ever in need of an argument, tonewood is a great choice. There are two camps, and if the internet has any bearing on reality, they are willing to fight to the death — maybe even “to the pain” a la The Princess Bride.

    But what are the facts? Why is there such hoopla in the electric guitar community around the role wood plays in an instrument’s tone?

    Today I want to wade into the deep end and give you my thoughts on tonewood. Although I have no pretenses that a single blog post will end this debate once and for all, hopefully it will help at least a few of us understand the actual role tonewood plays in an electric guitar’s sound.

    Use this information at your own discretion, by the way, and if you happen to find yourself on a discussion board, proceed with extreme care.

    Tonewood and Acoustic Guitars

    First off, let’s get one thing clear. When it comes to acoustic guitars, tonewood absolutely matters. There is total, complete agreement about this in the guitar world. This is due to how an acoustic guitar produces sound. It’s essentially a natural system that takes the vibration of the strings and, via the materials and shape of the body, amplifies the sound so we can hear it. Given that it’s a completely physical process, the materials involved dramatically affect the end result. A spruce-top guitar tends to have a brighter sound, while a cedar-top has a warmer sound, for example. The material used for the top, the bridge, the back and sides, and the neck all work together to create a unique vibration pattern that results in a particular sound.

    This doesn’t mean that any wood is better than any other wood when constructing or choosing an acoustic guitar — just that you have different sonic options to choose from. There are high-quality guitars made from all kinds of materials, including non-wood materials like carbon fiber. But the materials used definitely produce different types of sound, even if they all fall under the recognizable umbrella of “acoustic guitar.”

    Tonewood and Electric Guitars

    Now we get to the rub.

    People will make all sorts of claims when it comes to tonewoods and electric guitars. And by “people,” I don’t just mean keyboard warriors on the internet. Guitar brands use these claims in their marketing materials all the time. Maple fretboards are often marketed as being snappier and producing a brighter sound than rosewood. Likewise, maple caps (a piece of wood glued to the top of the main body, which is usually a wood like mahogany) are said to brighten up the sound or provide more sustain.

    But it’s important to remember that electric guitars are not acoustic guitars in one key respect: they do not produce sound the same way. Acoustic guitars are basically analog echo chambers; electric guitars rely on magnetic fields. When you strum an electric guitar, the steel string vibrations interrupt the pickup’s magnetic field, and the resulting signal is transmitted to your amp, which amplifies the sound. This is a significantly different process from an acoustic, even if the input (i.e., a vibrating string) is the same.

    Does It Matter?

    In my opinion, it’s the confusion surrounding this distinction that gets guitarists all riled up. Some claim that the characteristics of the wood and the vibration of the body still affect the sound of an electric, while others argue that physics proves it just isn’t so. But who is right? Does tonewood matter for an electric guitar or not?

    It seems to me that the best answer is “yes,” with a caveat.

    If the vibration of a steel string over a magnetic field is how an electric guitar makes a sound, it makes sense to believe that anything that affects a string’s vibration will, in the end, affect the sound too. And since the guitar string is attached to both the neck (at the nut) and the body (at the bridge), it makes sense to think that the materials the guitar is made from do interact with the string and alter how it vibrates.

    This line of thought leads me to believe that yes, tonewoods do matter on an electric guitar. But compared to many other factors, they matter very little.

    The Signal Chain Is Where It’s At

    There are many inputs along an electric guitar’s signal path. From the point where you play (vibrate) the string to the point you hear the sound, that signal has had to flow through:

    • One or more guitar cables
    • One or more pickups
    • The internal components and wiring of the guitar
    • Any number of pedals specifically designed to alter the signal
    • The amp’s preamp, components, and wiring
    • The speaker and speaker cone

    Ideally, some of these inputs (wires and cables) shouldn’t change the sound at all, but others (pickups, pedals, amps) are specifically designed to impact the sound. And these things mold and shape the sound of the guitar orders of magnitude more than what wood(s) the guitar is made from.

    My Experience

    As an example, I have a Danelectro 59M NOS+. It has a bright, sparkly tone with great mids — it’s a guitar that really cuts through the mix. Based on the tonewood theory, you would think it must have a maple fretboard and cap, right? Sorry to disappoint, but the fretboard is rosewood and the body is masonite — that’s engineered wood made from wood chips!

    The same is true for all of my other guitars. Each one has a unique sound, but honestly, the biggest differentiator is the pickups. My single-coil Strat sounds like, well, a Strat. My Epiphone with P90s has that signature growl common to all guitars with this type of pickup. My PRS can seemingly do anything. As far as I can tell, the guitars’ materials have little to do with how they sound.

    And, of course, as soon as I step on my overdrive pedal, the sound changes completely. And the same can be said for my amp — the EQ can significantly alter the way any of my guitars sound with the simple twist of a knob.

    In the end, if I were to put a percentage on how much tonewood affects the sound of an electric guitar, I’d put it at 1 percent — on a good day. Yes, it probably has some impact on the sound, but any pickup, pedal, or amplifier is going to affect things much, much more because that is what they are designed to do.

  • Five Tips to Get a Better Tone out of Your Electric Guitar

    Five Tips to Get a Better Tone out of Your Electric Guitar

    Guitarists are tone chasers.

    I suppose we can’t help it. After all, it’s very likely that for most of us, the sound of the instrument was a significant part of what drew us to the instrument in the first place. Whether it was the raunchy tones of Stevie Ray Vaughan or the infamous Eddie Van Halen “brown sound,” something we heard clicked with us and is at the heart of driving us forward.

    And so for many of us, that means dialing in a sound we are happy with. But it’s not an easy task.

    Finding the perfect tone is a never-ending journey

    It is exceptionally difficult to find the perfect tone, and I dare say it’s impossible. That’s especially true for those of us who are primarily bedroom players. It’s undoubtedly much easier to dial in a kick-ass tone when you’ve got a producer or a professional sound guy to help and the best in gear at your fingertips. That’s not to say a guy like The Edge doesn’t still work hard on his guitar sound (he probably does), but he has more tools at his disposal than a no-name hobbyist like me.

    Not that the impossibility of the quest stops us — far from it! And I personally am still a long way from finding my own ideal tone. But in the spirit of improvement, I want to give you a few tone tips I’ve learned along the way that can at least help you take a few steps down the path toward the perfect tone.

    1. Use the volume and tone knobs on your guitar

    Those knobs on your guitar aren’t just for show — you can actually use them! It took me way too long to start adjusting the guitar’s controls instead of just leaving them all set to 10.

    Those knobs on your guitar aren’t just for show — you can actually use them!

    The volume knob, besides just adjusting loudness, can help with tone. You can actually reduce or enhance the amount of distortion in your signal, for instance, just by rolling off or turning up the guitar’s volume. I like to keep my volume set to around 8 for most playing, which then gives me a little extra room to go up or down when I need to.

    The tone knob can also be your friend. Again, I use somewhere around 6 or 7 as “home base” and then start to experiment from there. As you roll the knob toward 10, you will bring in more highs, while turning it toward 0 will darken the sound. Different tone knobs produce different results, but the change can be dramatic — and you just might find a sound you like.

    2. Don’t scoop the mids

    This is guitar newbie 101: turning down the mids on your little practice amp while maxing out the bass and treble. Why do we all do this? Because it sounds good in your bedroom.

    But when you graduate to playing in front of people, scooping the mids doesn’t make the transition well. This is because the electric guitar is actually a mid-range instrument. Its sound profile generally sits between the bass and the keyboard.

    Set the middle tone knob on your amp a little higher than your bass and treble controls, and see what happens.

    So if you want to enhance your tone, a great way to do it is to accentuate the mids instead. Set the middle tone knob on your amp a little higher than your bass and treble controls, and see what happens. Especially as you turn the amp up louder, this one trick could help you develop a more pleasing sound.

    3. Try switching from 9s to 10s

    Here’s a good trick I discovered that works well when you’re just starting out and still (probably) using cheap gear. I had a very cheap setup at one point — a low-end Epiphone and a small Behringer amp — and this actually worked like a charm.

    I simply switched from using nine-gauge strings to using 10-gauge strings.

    I’ve noticed this doesn’t provide as drastic results on better gear, but I believe it works because a higher-gauge string means there is physically more metal interacting with the pickup’s magnetic field. For cheap pickups, it seems to make a big difference.

    For cheap pickups, using a higher-gauge set of strings seems to make a big difference.

    In any case, my tone noticeably improved just by moving up to 10s.

    4. Switch to a tube amp

    I played on a solid-state amp for over 20 years and always wondered why people said a tube amp was better.

    And then I bought a tube amp.

    Wow, what a difference! The range of tones available in my tube amp was much greater than my solid state. And for my style of playing (rock and blues), it worked much better for my needs.

    The range of tones available in my tube amp was much greater than my solid state. And for my style of playing (rock and blues), it worked much better for my needs.

    In particular, the advantage of tube amps, besides having a more well-rounded sound in general IMHO, is that you can set your “clean” sound to just before the amp begins to break up (i.e., sound distorted) — something a solid-state amp can’t do. (They generally have separate clean and dirty channels.) This gives the guitar a nice, rich tone, with just a little bit of dirt if you start strumming a little harder. And if you dial back a little using your guitar’s volume knob, you’ve instantly got a great clean tone.

    That’s not to say that there aren’t great solid-state amps out there, and depending on the genre of music you play, a solid-state amp may be the better choice, but personal experience has shown me how much a tube amp can impact your guitar’s tone.

    5. Practice, practice, practice

    At the end of the day, your unique tone comes from your fingers. Yes, amps and strings definitely contribute, and you can see great improvements with some simple setting adjustments, but the foundation of your sound is you.

    Simply put, the more you practice and play, the more you will develop your own, unique tone.

    The foundation of your sound is you.

    I could pick up your exact rig set to your exact specifications, and I would not sound like you. And likewise, you could pick up my guitar and play into my amp and not sound like me. There is just too much variation in the way we each approach the instrument: how hard we pick, how much vibrato we add, how we mute strings, and the list goes on.

    But that’s the wonderful thing about playing guitar — we each have something unique to bring. We all have the freedom to develop our own sound, a sound unlike anyone else in the world.

    Hopefully, these tips will help you dial in your unique sound. What other tone tips can you share with us? I’d love to hear them — so let us know in the comments!

  • How to Use a Compression Pedal — and Why You Might Want To

    How to Use a Compression Pedal — and Why You Might Want To

    The first rule of Guitar Club is there are no rules.

    Okay, that might be a bit melodramatic, but there is an element of truth to it. When you play an instrument like the electric guitar, there is a bit of rebellion and innovation baked in.

    Rebellion and innovation don’t preclude a good foundation — they require one

    Yes, there are “rules” to follow, but often they are more like guidelines. And that’s the beauty of the guitar, and rock music in general: you can try anything.

    That being said, it takes a special person to start with nothing and make something magical. Most of us have to have a baseline understanding of things like music theory, how the neck is laid out, and how pedals and amps work before we try to get our inner Eddie Van Halen on.

    So today that I want to help you understand — without being dogmatic about it — how a compressor pedal works, why you may want one, and how to use it.

    The mystery of compression demystified

    I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that compressor pedals were a bit mysterious. They “compress” the sound — okay, what does that really mean? And why do so many people use them?

    But rather than go into a technical, “sciencey” explanation, it’s much easier to think of it as if there were a very tiny person living inside of your compression pedal. This little guy — let’s call him Carl — is pretty finicky about music. He doesn’t like things too loud (it gives him a headache) or too soft (he’s had some hearing loss over the years). Thankfully, Carl is sitting next to a big volume knob.

    Whenever you play your guitar, Carl listens. If you play a little too loud, Carl reaches up and turns the volume down. And if you play a little too soft, he turns the volume up.

    This is essentially what a compressor pedal does. It evens out the dynamics, or volume, of your playing.

    What can I do with a compression pedal?

    A compression pedal can help you out in a couple of different ways. For one, it can add a little bit of a “professional” feel to your playing if, like me, you occasionally mess up and play a string or chord a bit too loudly (or softly). Or it can boost your clean tone to help you stand out in the mix without having to crank your amp. (But let’s be honest, who among us has ever been concerned we were playing too loud?)

    It can also help to add sustain to lead guitar parts. Since compression pedals adjust volume, it makes sense that they can increase sustain by dialing up the volume of a note as it begins to die, thus prolonging the sound to our ears.

    This kind of pedal can also help ramp up your high end, which means you can use one to give you a more funky or country-western tone.

    How do I dial in a compression pedal?

    Most compression pedals have the same or similar controls.

    The Attack dial focuses on the start of the notes you play. The more you turn this knob up, the more you will hear the pluck of the strings.

    The Sustain or Release dial is going to control the end of the notes you play. This is the dial to crank if you want that epic bend to ring out long enough for you to go have a bite to eat.

    The Level knob, as is the case with most pedals, just controls the overall volume of the pedal. Usually, you would want to find the setting that matches the same volume as when the pedal is off.

    It’s hard to say how you ought to set the dials on your pedal because there are too many variables to consider. You have a different guitar than I do, with different pickups, playing into a different signal chain and amp. You also no doubt have different sonic preferences than I do.

    Your best bet is to just set all the dials at noon and adjust them one by one, using the guidance above, until you get something you are happy with. And if you’re looking for a specific sound or effect, it’s very likely there’s a YouTube video dedicated to your exact scenario.

    Where should I put the pedal in my signal chain?

    Signal chains (i.e., what order you put your pedals in on your pedal board) are great fodder for internet arguments, and experimentation is usually encouraged. Generally speaking, however, the compressor is going to be among the first pedal in your chain — before overdrives, delays, or reverbs. On my pedal board, it’s first in line.

    You don’t usually want to compress effects, because it can change the sound in ways you may not like. But then again, you might find a combination that gives you a unique sound you love!

    Do I need a compression pedal to sound good?

    In the end, I’ve played plenty with a compression pedal and plenty without one. I think it made the biggest difference in sound when I was playing a cheap guitar into a cheap solid-state amp. It really did make the whole setup sound more professional.

    As I upgraded guitars and amps, I started to use my compression pedal less and less. I just no longer needed it for the reason I initially did (to compensate for crappy gear). But I did just put it back on my board after several years, and I’m excited to see how it responds to my latest rig.

    So, no — I don’t believe anyone needs a compression pedal to sound good, but it is a tool that may help you achieve a certain sound more easily, and it’s been my experience that it can help low-end gear sound better.

    So how about you — do you have experience with compressor pedals? What advice would you give your fellow guitarists on them? Let us know in the comments!