Rick Turner
Well-known member
Rusty, if you'd like to buy me a chunk of ebony big enough to build a Strat, I'll do it! I'll supply the basswood... Or would a Tele be OK? Much easier to build...
Rusty, if you'd like to buy me a chunk of ebony big enough to build a Strat, I'll do it! I'll supply the basswood... Or would a Tele be OK? Much easier to build...
I'd be very interested to find out what a solid chunk of figured Tassie Blackwood would cost, purely for the purposes of having a 6 string solid body electric built. One good thing about solid electrics, you can use anything, the type of wood makes exactly 0% difference to the sound.
I am sadly amused by Big Kahuna's utterly incorrect assessment of what goes into a good electric guitar. That is ignorance at it's height.
To the tone deaf there is no difference among woods or anything else that guitars, basses, or ukes are made from.
I rest my case.
For what it's worth (probably nothing), while I know from experience that the choice of woods makes a huge difference to acoustic instruments, I believe it makes minimal difference with electric guitars. Not zero difference, but much less difference than pickups, electrics and amplifier.
At the end of the day, plug the same axe into two different amps and you soon realise that that acoustic ring you heard when you played it before you plugged it in means almost nothing.
Similar arguments have raged for years about set neck vs bolt-on. Well, my bolt on electrics perform as well as the glued neck axes I've had, and my bolt-on Taylor acoustic sustains beautifully.
It's very hard to make declarations of fact as perceptions vary and some people will believe what they want to regardless of what scientific instruments may measure.
It's funny you should say this, considering Brian May's Red Special was mentioned earlier.
The wood it's made from was an old fireplace mantle. But the electronics is like something I've never heard of, and was something he and his dad concocted as they went along in the build. I don't know if any of this means anything, but I thought I'd throw it in for good measure.
Mr May's whole rig is unusual. A bunch of AC30s, treble boost, light strings and a coin for a pick. Combine that with his ability and style... It's not surprising that he has a very recognisable sound.
Indeed. I'm pretty sure that's the real source of his sound.And not to mention his doctorate in astrophysics.
Blessed are the peacemakers. I unfortunately have succumbed to the UAS disease. I am looking at one of two curly koa ukes. They sound right to my ears. They are both beautiful in their grain and construction. One is laminated koa top the other may be solid top, IDK -yet. I live in a cold climate with winter coming on. Any comments that may ease my dilemma? - I will only buy one of them wiseguy.
Indeed. I'm pretty sure that's the real source of his sound.
So let me get this straight. Some of your folks believe that all Strats with the same electronics sound the same, right? Ditto Les Pauls, right? No difference between, say, a mahogany bodied Strat and an alder one, or an all mahogany Les Paul custom and one of the Norlin era ones with a maple cap on a mahogany body, right? For the sake of argument, let's say you had all these guitars with sequentially made Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups...single coils in the different Strats, humbuckers in the Les Pauls. Is this a firmly held belief?
How about the difference between a guitar or electric bass with a mahogany or maple neck vs. a carbon fiber neck?
Do you think that adding carbon fiber to a neck changes the sound of the instrument?
And upon what experience or evidence do you base your beliefs?
Blessed are the peacemakers. I unfortunately have succumbed to the UAS disease. I am looking at one of two curly koa ukes. They sound right to my ears. They are both beautiful in their grain and construction. One is laminated koa top the other may be solid top, IDK -yet. I live in a cold climate with winter coming on. Any comments that may ease my dilemma? - I will only buy one of them wiseguy.