Why do identical guitars sound different?

[L-reaction]

I have read in the forums about people saying this. I am confused, how do identical electric guitars sound different? I mean, for acoustic guitars I understand, but electric guitars are more "high-tech".. :confuse:

[Sebber]

Coz two guitars from the same range and manufacturer, are never identical! Body and neck wood mass can never been exactly identical (how do they do it with drum sticks?), even if the two "identical" guitars are made from the same wood from the same tree, plus, like with US strats, some are 5 piece bodies (five joined pieces of wood making up the body) and some are 3 piece.

There's other factors aside from wood, like pickups and so on, but with modern production techniques it's a lot easier to get consistent components... like number of windings for pickups and so on.

[L-reaction]

But how can wood mass play a part when the magnets are the things that make the sound? @_@

[fretflyer]

Coz two guitars from the same range and manufacturer, are never identical! Body and neck wood mass can never been exactly identical (how do they do it with drum sticks?), even if the two "identical" guitars are made from the same wood from the same tree, plus, like with US strats, some are 5 piece bodies (five joined pieces of wood making up the body) and some are 3 piece.

There's other factors aside from wood, like pickups and so on, but with modern production techniques it's a lot easier to get consistent components... like number of windings for pickups and so on.

yea that sounds good, for them to sound the same the wood would have to come from the exact same part of the tree, and no two trees are the same etc, and pickups are always different in some way

[bugman]

But how can wood mass play a part when the magnets are the things that make the sound? @_@

wood effects tone and sustain. there may also be subtle differences in pickups.

[Sebber]

But how can wood mass play a part when the magnets are the things that make the sound? @_@

In a word: resonance, and the way the strings respond to it. Play an open E chord string on an unamplified electric, then rest the guitar's headstock against a wooden wall or a piece of furniture and play the chord again... spot the difference!

The magnets aren't what "make" the sound, the string-and-fret-and-neck-and-neck joint-and-bridge-and-body all "make" the sound, the magnet is just part of what picks up the sound... hence the name pickup. The point is that the tone and harmonics made by playing the string(s) resonate through the guitar hardware, neck and body, and feeds back to the string, often resulting in things like natural sustain, which a length of string on it's own wouldn't be able to do, this alters what tone and harmonics the pickup picks up...

[Ruefus]

Look no further than the ultimate tone-chasing fiend - Eric Johnson. His signature strat is a demonstration in the little things that make a huge difference.

Besides special pickups, the wood, finish, headstock angle and even tremolo attachment (he insists that no paint exist between the trem and body) are all stipulations intended to get his idea of perfect tone.

Mainstream electric guitar design isn't all that high-tech. Generally speaking - it's a couple pieces of wood, some magnets, a bunch of wire and a few odds and ends.

That's why my late-model American Strat's pickups are sometimes microphonic and noisy as Grand Central Station at times.

It's much more subtle with an electric - but all of it has a distinct effect on tone. No two are identical. SRV, EJ - even Neil Young and Old Black. They tried to duplicate Old Black - but never got there.

[dmt]

I have read in the forums about people saying this. I am confused, how do identical electric guitars sound different? I mean, for acoustic guitars I understand, but electric guitars are more "high-tech".. :confuse:

Because they're not truly identical. No product is made perfectly, to zero tolerances in deviation. Throw in the differences inherent in each piece of wood (and a guitar is a collection of different pieces of wood), let alone craftsmanship, and you get guitars of the same make and model that sound different. The more hand craftsmanship, the greater the differences. Machine work not done to precise tolerances will also yield differences.

Another factor is setup -- if you had two truly identical guitars (impossible with wood, but let's imagine) in a shop, but in one the pickups were higher and the polepieces low, while in the other the pickups were low with the polepieces high, you would get different tones. Action and trussrod adjustment, as well as saddle adjustment (intonation, possibly radiusing) are factors too.

Another factor is psychological -- if we see and feel differences, our mind can hear differences that might not exist. The red one (if you like red) could sound better than the purple one (if you hate purple). The expensive one better than the cheap one. Of course, sometimes we are surprised, so this is no hard and fast rule. I just guess that this might be a factor sometimes.

Another factor could be physical. If one guitar fits your hand perfectly (and every neck is shaped just a tiny bit different than every other -- and we feel those tiny differences, just like we feel the tiny differences between two pairs of new shoes at the shoe store) and you thus play better on it, you'll probably hear better tone out of it (after all, you're digging in more, massaging the notes more, your fingers are flying better on the fast stuff, etc. -- all if the neck and playability really suit you -- even though a simple struck note might have the same tone between the two guitars).

Ooops -- I just read the other responses and see that this has already been answered really well, but I just got off of work and I'm having fun putting in my 2 cents too!

[DeviantSnow]

yeap what all of them said and DMT has some intresting factors,also cause it sounds different cause passive pickups feed of the tone of the wood directly ..so if it's different mass and etc etc ..ye get the picture..yeah imagine ye have wood difference on each same type of tree,and how ye going to get 2 same parts on a tree at the exact same location?

[stratman56]

I have also notice that age and manufacture year can make a difference. pickups, wood, electronics age and the building process can change. It is like two of the same cars are not the same.

[StockLX]

also they can sound very different if two different people are playing them!

[Ruefus]

who uses wood guitars, buy a jackson and go shred something. or an ibanez, come on fools.

Only a few guitars ever made aren't all wood. Both Jackson and Ibanez use wood exclusively.

The only production-spec non-wood guitars that I can think of off the top of my head are the old Steinberger small-bodies.

[Sebber]

Only a few guitars ever made aren't all wood. Both Jackson and Ibanez use wood exclusively.

The only production-spec non-wood guitars that I can think of off the top of my head are the old Steinberger small-bodies.

And Parker... some of the Fly models are made of some kind of composite... I think...

[Priesty]

Japanese and Korean guitars seem to be a lot more consistent than other say US made guitars...However I don't see inconsistency to be a bad thing, because there is nothing better than finding a unique guitar.

[DLR Guitars]

Its kinda like how identical twins are different from each other....that doesn't make much sense, but I think you get the point

[aussie_skater]

BC Rich makes things out of Acrylic

[Grim]

Materials - The wood does make a difference in the tone, as the wood carries alot of the resonance. As someone who is taking up electric guitar building as a hobby, I've been spending alot of time on boards that address electric guitar luthiery. There have been guys that have built identical guitars, dimensions, pickups, bridges, tuners & nuts simply to study the impact the wood makes on the tone. Other considerations are going to be things like nut material, bridge mounting, pickup mounting, shape of the wood, solid-body vs. chambered, as well as the tightness of the neck cavity and the manner in which set necks are glued in, the precision of the scarf joint when gluing in the headstock. Is it a bolt-on neck or a set-neck? Is it a neck-thru body style?

This is a fun topic - the kind of topic that got me interested in building axes in the first place.

[JimmyBlood]

This is the easiest question ever...

Why do identical guitars sound different?

Because they're made of wood.

[Eslavs]

Only a few guitars ever made aren't all wood. Both Jackson and Ibanez use wood exclusively.

The only production-spec non-wood guitars that I can think of off the top of my head are the old Steinberger small-bodies.

I remember seeing a few ovation celeb. deluxe elites where at least the bodies were made entirely of carbon fiber - I think Melissa Ethridge used one once. Haven't seen em lately, so they may not have taken off....

[Audiocide]

The long reponse (be comfortable if you want to weather this whole thing through...):

The Body:
As others have said, body has a good chunk of dealing with tone. Two identical guitars will most likely have the same amount of pieces. We are talking same name, make, model, factory dating, and paintjob here, too. So let's go in deeper.
- 1) Depending on where wood is grown, what nutrients it gets, what moisture levels it gets, it will have certain dense areas formed.[/B] Wood grows much lighter (less dense) when watered a whole lot, but grows faster. Less water forces the wood to grow more dense in its existing mass. An irregular watering cycle, such as unpredictable rains, can easily make some areas of the body a bit denser than others. This is unpredictable.
- 2) There are different ways lumber mills cut wood. One of the most prominent being quartersawn, however other methods are used. This will affect how many spots of varying density you will find in any given piece.
- 3) Cutting the lumber different ways. A duller blade will form a denser "crust" by biting less wood out and forcing more to be compressed to the sides. A faster blade and slower blade will compress the wood more or less.
I think you've got that down. These minute details eventually add up to one very big variation in sound. Now moving on...

The Neck:
The neck is a monstrous part of tone. It is the only variable piece of tone on the entire guitar, because as you move higher up the neck you begin to use more sound travel that is in direct contact with the wood. Some necks are three piece, some one-piece, some are necks with fretboards (some maple necks that claim to be slat (single-piece) will actually be two-piece, nothing that it is just a maple neck with maple fretboard.), and some necks have a "skunk stripe," or a narrow strip of wood which was used to cover the slot the truss rod fits into. Some necks will have a very snugly fit truss rod, others will have lots of open air space (more about this later), some truss rods will be special-made composite reinforced or double-ended rods that will greatly affect tone. Some necks are bolt-ons, some are glued and fit snugly but still flat, some are dovetailed, some have angled headstocks, some havenut seats rather than slots, etc. Needless to say, the list always goes on.


The Hardware (excluding strings):
Any metal pieces in direct contact with the string... A bridge, maybe a stop-tail piece, maybe the ferrules that protect the string from eating into the body as it passes through it, maybe a brass nut, every tuner, and in some cases a tremolo block (which touches springs, which touches the claw, etc.) will directly affect tone based on three things:
1) Coupling. How well the hardware makes contact with the wooden parts of the guitar. Poor coupling can be a benefit for people who appreciate dead-air tone, and bad news for people who appreciate bodily tone (see below). Every fraction of a distance counts in your sound, and this alone can make two exactly identical, down to the wood and cuts and strings and everything, sound completely different.
2) The metal used. Is it pot metal (scrap metal melted together quickly, to make it cheap)? Pot metal has lots of dead air space inside of it, and it can deaden a bright tone. Not by much mind you, but you would notice a difference in high-quality metals and pot metal.
3) How much the string is actually touching the metal. Any little bit will affect it, but in a Strat-style bridge it can touch (but shouldn't) up to three different pieces at once, not including any of those pieces touching more.

About the movement of sound.
Sound moves two ways on a guitar. Through air and through solid matter. Dead air space is more susceptible to be changed by an amp because, to put it simply, it has no tone. Sound passes freely through it and is interpreted approximately the same regardless of how high pressure, low pressure, or humid the air itself is. Of course, scientifically this is wrong, but to our ears there is insignificant difference, even to tone. "Pool" pickup cavities (large, open areas where pickups and wires can move about) and the cavities for control knobs create dead air space. This space absorbs the vibrating guitar's tone and deadens it somewhat. The less dead air you have, the more defined tone you have. However, some people find this defined tone unappreciable (people who like light distortion usually get picky) and opt for the more dead air space. Too much is too much in these cases though, and there is little to satisfy the hungry man's appetite. (Am I right?)

Solid transference of sound commands tone. The more solid matter you have in your guitar and the less airspace, the more unique and seperate tone you get. Each guitar design has its specific resonant properties and these shine out most when the pickups have a lot less dead air space to feed off of.

I have personally surrounded my strat's tremolo block with wood (filled all gaps left with a composite filler for gun stocks), filled teh tremolo cavity with wood everywhere one of teh five springs was not present, and completely anchored the tremolo claw about a centimeter from the wall. I use no backplate.

Under my pickups I have also bedded them in this composite filler, adjusting them to as low as I would ever want them, putting wax paper on their bottoms, and pushing them into the still soft filler to conform perfectly to shape. I drilled the holes where the screws poked through so their threads are not caught, and detached and re-attached all wires for this procedure. There is little airspace in my strat as I have done this settlign in all dead airspace.

I am, like Johnson, a tone freak and believe I have accomplished a very nice tone for a Squier strat. Seeing as I spent 50 bucks on the whole operation (lots of scrap maple, bought the filler mix), I believe it was money well spent. The tone on my strat is better than most American-made Fender strats I have compared it against.

More Stuff:
Think about it. How tight your pickups are wound, how low the strings are, how tight the strings are in the nut slot, if you have a locking nut... how tight you have it clamped, how the paint is spread on your body, how many coats of liquid have been painted o nyour guitar and how thick they are as a whole, any small imperfections in teh contours and curves of the body, how dense your frets are, how tall your frets are, the different potentiometers (the control knobs) and any shielding, the number of springs (if any) in a tremolo cavity you may have, etc. Many things affect tone, many many many little things, and each adds up to a world of difference in the end.

Sorry that was so long. Hope it helps some people out though.

--mic

[Sir Fire Hydran]

So, if I wanted to make my guitar have a more defined tone, I should fill in the airspace as much as I can?

[Audiocide]

Not necessarily. The guitar's tone is mostly based on how it is shaped. I did mine because I had nothing better to do, have the ability to experiement and have used the filler countless times before. It hurts very little if you do it properly and does indeed improve the natural tone of your guitar, but in most guitars the space is there for a reason. It is only practical to do this filling on junkers and guitars with excessive dead air space. I filled only because the strat's controls are not mounted directly to the body, and that space is unnecessary. Good luck if you go out on a limb for it, but learn how this filler will move and such before you do anything.

Good luck on your quest for good tone, too.

--mic

[sharkydude501]

Quick answer - no two pieces of wood, even the same wood, are EXACTLY alike in either tone or mass.

Many times a guitar maker will also use different capacitors on the tone control for the same model axe. FYI- the % of error in the measurement of capacitors (especially cheap ones used by most guitar makers) is around 20%. That means a cap rated @ 22 ufd can actually be anywhere from 17.6 ufd to 26.4 ufd. That's alot of variance!!!

Do a search on capacitors to see for yourself.

[SKEETER]

I find that most overseas guitars tend to sound identical, and play identical. That is not something some guys like, some prefer guitars that have their own "personality". I think perhaps it is because they are likely using the best of the best of the best computer driven robots to make them, and they can make 1000 clones the first and last identical. Domestic guitars seem to differ a great deal on the rack. I think that has less to do with the wood so much as the assembly lines for them are probably designed years ago. One of the "assets" of domestic guitars is their "uniqueness" from each other. Which confounds me, because of all the aftermaket stuff sold to get "that" sound.
Also, how the wood was aged before manufacture effects the sound of the instruments. Wood changes as it looses moisture... which it does over time.

[HardCode]

In a word: resonance, and the way the strings respond to it. Play an open E chord string on an unamplified electric, then rest the guitar's headstock against a wooden wall or a piece of furniture and play the chord again... spot the difference!

Hmmm. To expand on that, would a person's mass affect the tone, since the guitar is in contact with the body? Any idea?

[Audiocide]

Some good points, skeeter, but we're talking subtle nuances of tone found in the same person playing two different guitars with the same leads, amp, and effects.

Though I'd have to agree, maybe not 90% but at least half of tone is made by the player, and not what is played.

Interesting thread, many good contributions.

--mic

[Sir Fire Hydran]

Again, there are many things within the player that also affect the tone. I do not believe that the mass of the player affects the tone at all. But the thickness of the players fingers and the type of pick the player is using both affect the tone.

[SKEETER]

Definitley... I still sound like "me" no matter what gear I'm playing...

Just that whenever I've ever picked a Gretsch up I've been in heaven tone-wise... I do prefer the feel of a LP though, which is why I'm modding mine (TV Jones TV'Trons in the bridge and neck, Phat Cat P90 in the middle)

I like a really raw, trebly sound, pretty clean but just a bit edgy... kind of a mix of Brian Setzer and early Neil Young sounds.

I lean toward that kind of sound too. I have been told I sound like Garry Ritchrath of REO.
I just put a set of active EMG SAs in my Squier strat. I heard a dude using them at a jam, he has the David Gilmour setup, and it sounds HUGE. I need to get the active tone control yet for them.
They are quite expensive, but MAN they just ooze tone.

[Audiocide]

When shaping tone, I hate to do such procedures for other people. That's because when I do it I mold the tone to my personal tone. That way the two work hand in hand to make a perfect tone.

Love the thread.

--mic

[SKEETER]

I feel the same about it. The reason I learned to do my own luthier work is because I couldn't seem to express what I really wanted, and most luthiers do pretty much generic work. I tend to accept my guitars for what they are, and buy guitars that best suit what I want them to do. For example, I like the fretwork and balance and overall work on Squier strats. I have a Squier strat that I yanked the magnetic pickups out of and replaced them with EMG SA actives. That is the guitar I use when I need strat sounds. I use a Carlo Robelli USB500H that has fantastic tone for more bluesey, jazzy, and LP like tones. It is a hollowbody and sounds like a cross between a 335 and an LP. I like the pickups a little better than stock LP pickups.
Other than adding a cap and resistor to make the volume pot more linear and keep the tone with the guitar turned down, I normally get guitars that I like the way they are. Putting the SAs in the strat was simply because I seen a guy using them, and was blown away with the tone. They are the only Strat pickups I have heard that sounded truly beefy.

[SKEETER]

So basically, play the blues rather fast and dirty on an SG through a Marshall?

If you have to boil it down to it's simplest description, yeah. There is a little more to it than that, but essenctianlly that is the basis. I would be willing to bet the Angus Young can play some great blues.

[Sir Fire Hydran]

If you have to boil it down to it's simplest description, yeah. There is a little more to it than that, but essenctianlly that is the basis. I would be willing to bet the Angus Young can play some great blues.

Well, AC/DC were very pure rock and roll (guitar straight to amp).

With their earlier stuff especially, it's extremely blues based. Both lead and rhythm are very bluesy, as rock and roll is basically blues played louder and faster.

This is funny, all I did was make a joke about modifying my fingers to sound more like Angus, and now this!

[SKEETER]

Well, AC/DC were very pure rock and roll (guitar straight to amp).

With their earlier stuff especially, it's extremely blues based. Both lead and rhythm are very bluesy, as rock and roll is basically blues played louder and faster.

This is funny, all I did was make a joke about modifying my fingers to sound more like Angus, and now this!

I thought you was asking a sincere question..............

[Sir Fire Hydran]

I thought you was asking a sincere question..............

Well the response you gave helped quite a bit, oddly enough. Thanks.

[DrunkenMonkey12]

no two guitars are the same it's almost impossible to get the same sound of any two guitars. Also if the person is stupid they might not know how to tune.