Jol Says Tonewoods Don't Matter

[alantig]

Except he says they do make a difference.  The TLDR important part:

What I’m really driving at here is that I’ve come to the conclusion that tonewoods don’t matter. Not that they don’t change the sound of your guitar, but that they simply don’t matter, and that’s okay with me. There are so many elements to guitar tone (with no consensus on what is good, bad, better, or best) that wood simply doesn’t factor into it anymore.

So what he's basically saying (as I read it) is that the tonewoods affect the sound of the guitar, but if it's pretty enough, people won't care and will buy the guitar anyway.

https://www.premierguitar.com/pro-advice/esoterica-electrica/tonewoods-are-just-for-style

[Biz Prof]

Woods certainly have some impact, but if we're talking about solid body electrics, I suspect one would find that pickups and speakers have the most significant impact on what we actually hear. 

[princeofdarkness56]

Yeah I’m thinking for electric guitar, pickups, amp selection and foot pedals probably account more for tone than wood. Acoustic a different story. 

[Cboss]

29 minutes ago, alantig said:

Except he says they do make a difference.  The TLDR important part:

What I’m really driving at here is that I’ve come to the conclusion that tonewoods don’t matter. Not that they don’t change the sound of your guitar, but that they simply don’t matter, and that’s okay with me. There are so many elements to guitar tone (with no consensus on what is good, bad, better, or best) that wood simply doesn’t factor into it anymore.

So what he's basically saying (as I read it) is that the tonewoods affect the sound of the guitar, but if it's pretty enough, people won't care and will buy the guitar anyway.

https://www.premierguitar.com/pro-advice/esoterica-electrica/tonewoods-are-just-for-style

Exactly, just look at prs

[kizanski]

So, they change the sound, but they don't matter.
Thanks, Jol.  Clear as mud.

He never disappoints.

[Hbom]

Jol "I enjoy being wrong, and believe me when I tell you that, despite my decades of experience, it happens on a regular basis"

[Biz Prof]

22 minutes ago, kizanski said:

So, they change the sound, but they don't matter.
Thanks, Jol.  Clear as mud.

He never disappoints.

Oh, I think he could be clear and decisive.  I found this archival photo from the late '80s of Jol denying a dealer CO request to put a 4-digit Standard headstock on a Special body whilst Paul Hamer anxiously looks on.  😄

[princeofdarkness56]

If a Dan Armstrong just happened to drop in my lap, I’d wouldn’t be terribly upset about the lack of mahogany or maple top. 

[Steve Haynie]

Reading the entire article helps to make more sense of the quoted statement above. 

There are many here who love swapping pickups to fine tune the tonal characteristics of their guitars.  There are those people who put the same pickups in everything. 

Instead of competing with Dean and B.C. Rich in the 1970's maybe Jol should have gone into competition with Larry DiMarzio and Bill Lawrence. 

[alantig]

28 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

Reading the entire article helps to make more sense of the quoted statement above. 

There are many here who love swapping pickups to fine tune the tonal characteristics of their guitars.  There are those people who put the same pickups in everything. 

Instead of competing with Dean and B.C. Rich in the 1970's maybe Jol should have gone into competition with Larry DiMarzio and Bill Lawrence. 

 

I didn't want to quote the whole article, and yeah, he gets into more detail, but I tried to summarize the aesthetic part of it after (just w/no emphasis).

Paul Reed Smith has said that the aesthetics are very important, and that if you like how a guitar looks, you're more likely to pick it up, and while the sound is obviously the most important thing, a lot of people listen with their eyes, not their ears.  He demonstrated at one Experience by tapping on some woods and pointing out how some rang much more clearly and longer than others.  He said, "The problem is they're not mahogany, they're not rosewood, they're not maple, so you won't buy them."  I think that was the year they did a couple Neal Schon guitars and they pointed out that the production models would not be the same as the ones Neal had (which is not their usual practice).  Someone asked why, and Paul ran down the woods Neal requested and said, "Nobody will buy these guitars if we put them out w/those woods.  But I think Neal Schon knows a little bit about tone, and his guitars sound great.  But no one will buy them."

[django49]

I guess I will go on believing that tonewoods matter. God knows I cannot go back and UNSPEND all that money!

[santellavision]

I would have to disagree with 'ol Jol a bit. From my experience, I've found wood totally matters. More so in the quality of the piece of wood. I've had dogs that just didn't ring and others that were amazing in how long they sustained. That is totally the wood. How can that NOT make a difference?  I totally agree that changing speakers and amps are the biggest element of tone. Swapping out a speaker can completely change it dramatically. Then, the other things (like pickups, pots, tuners etc) make less significant changes.

[Dave Scepter]

To say there is no difference between wood types is somewhat misleading... if not downright wrong!

I don't think the term "Tonewood" matters as much as the actual piece of wood itself... I've had very tonefull mahogany, maple, alder, poplar etc.... however, I've also had duds within the same species...  but there IS a difference as in scale length 

[polara]

Different electric guitars certainly sound different when strummed unplugged. And a pickup is basically a magnet set in motion by that strum, and sending a waveform of the sound.

I'm pretty sure that, unplugged, a brass guitar strummed sounds different than a rubber one strummed or a maple one strummed. So it follows that the pickup's gonna send a different waveform for each of these guitars. MATERIAL makes a difference. But.

I guess when it gets down to mahogany versus korina versus walnut versus alder it's less dramatic than rubber versus brass. At that point, perhaps the quality of the wood and the construction method are going to matter more than the wood...

...and the pickup, pedals and amps still more.

I gotta say my "well built" guitars (usually but not always more expensive, built by some kinda high-end brand) as a rule sound more lively and more pleasing than than ones that were factory-built in large quantities. I chalk it up to more time and care on selecting and drying the wood, tight neck joints, basic design to resonate, etc.

[scottcald]

I kind always take all that talk on both ends with a grain of salt.  Leo bought what was easy to get and cheap.  

[Biz Prof]

The mention of Leo using the cheapest, minimally-satisfactory materials resonated with me (see what I did there?).  My most resonant guitar--by a mile--is the pine bodied "BOSS 429" Tele I just built. It has a nice, lightly figured and rather beefy maple neck, brass saddles , and is configured with the traditional string-through arrangement.  But a pine body that just rings and rings and rings?  Yep.  It does. 

[JGale]

Yah. It rings .. but do you ever answer?😿😭😥

[Dutchman]

I'm just gonna have to totally disagree with Jol. I've owned guitars made of every kind of wood and non wood they build them out of. There's a difference and if Jol can't hear it I guess his career as a audio Mastering engineer is going to be an uphill climb! Umm... tone tapping raw woods is voodoo Witchery? Nahhh....

[Steve Haynie]

Breedlove is pushing myrtlewood guitars because the trees are native to Oregon.  Who wants a guitar made of myrtlewood when everyone knows acoustic guitars are only supposed to be mahogany, rosewood, and spruce?  Apparently people are opening up to the idea of a different tonewood.  Taylor is making streaked ebony acceptable. 

50+ years ago Charlie Kaman was trying to get people to play his plastic guitars.  A few people gave them a try and thought they sounded alright. 

[specialk]

1 hour ago, Steve Haynie said:

Breedlove is pushing myrtlewood guitars because the trees are native to Oregon.

I was born in Oregon and have been following their Myrtlewood collection for years:

https://breedlovemusic.com/instruments/acoustic-guitars/series/oregon-myrtlewood

[JGale]

I had me of these. Sold it to Cliff of Jim y Cliff©️ fame. It remains the single most beautiful acoustic guitar sound I have ever heard. Cliff agreed. I still get to play it. Bazinga!

https://breedlovemusic.com/product/30th-anniversary-phoenix-limited-edition-acoustic-guitar

Mine'nt 

 

[ARM OF HAMER]

8 hours ago, kizanski said:

So, they change the sound, but they don't matter.
Thanks, Jol.  Clear as mud.

He never disappoints.

                           For a guy that has built some amazing guitars at Hamer that has to be a pretty incredibly stupid thing to say.

[kizanski]

9 hours ago, Hbom said:

Jol "I enjoy being wrong, and believe me when I tell you that, despite my decades of experience, it happens on a regular basis"

And he's full of shit.  

No one "enjoys being wrong."   You can say that you learn from your mistakes, treat them as learning opportunities, etc.  But don't tell me you enjoy being wrong. 

"Oh, I hope I'm wrong! That'll be so enjoyable!"

GTFO

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

Oh, look! A discussion about whether tone woods make a difference in tone!  I've never seen THAT before here!  This is certainly innovative and refreshing, and I bet there all sorts of new opinions no one has ever shared before, and I'm absolutely certain we will all take opposing opinions into account.

[beezerboy]

sorry... can't help it...