But can it be shredded? :dubious: And even if it can, “I play the stick” just sounds pathetic to chics. I mean, shit, you might as well be playing the friggin’ keytar for all the nookie you ain’t gonna get.
I’ve said this before, and I know I’ll say it again, but guitar forums are the places where you will find every single cognitive bias known to mankind endlessly circulated and reinforced by repetition. Electric guitarists are, on the whole, the most credulous and impressionable people on Earth. They make crystal-worshipping new-agers look like rocket scientists by comparison. And I say that as someone with 30 years of guitar-playing experience.
Another thing I’ve mentioned before is that in actual scientific blind tests, professional violinists can’t reliably hear the difference between a multi-million dollar Stradavari violin and a modern repro. So a guitarist that claims to be able to hear different finishes on a solid body electric guitar is delusional.
I suppose the good side of it is that I can use cheap-ish gear and completely mystify other guitarists by sounding good on it. Sounding good is 99% player and 1% instrument. A good guitar player will sound good on any playable guitar. And a bad player will never sound good no matter how much he (and it’s always “he”) spends on his instrument.
Actually, the keytar is considered very cool by hipsters. I bet you could score plenty of hipster chicks by rocking out the keytar at the moment. As long as you were also wearing some godawful 80s-inspired fashions as well.
I’m a bit too old for that sort of thing, unfortunately. I lived through the 80s the first time around. But to chicks who were born then, keytar = sexy.
What got me thinking about this was reading opinions of Lapstick owners (a sort of travel guitar which is essentially just a neck and some pickups), reporting that they got excellent sustain. I like thisvideo where a guy does blind tests switching between a Lapstick and a Gibson semi-acoustic jazz guitar. I know it’s only a YouTube demonstration, but it’s quite hard to tell the difference! Unfortunately, he plays a lot of fast runs so it doesn’t say much about sustain. On that front, here’sa guy demonstrating sustain on a similar type of guitar. Of course, he’s using effects. It would be nice to be able to judge the sustain with a clean sound.
I have a bit more time this morning. I daresay I know a bit about classical and steel-string construction, but I bow to other people’s knowledge on the luthery of electric guitars and basses.
Here’s the thing - electro-magnetic pickups only respond to what the strings are doing. The strings respond to what the player is doing and to what the rest of the guitar is doing, which the pickups then respond to. A wood that resonates with the note of a string is contributing to its sustain and to its tone quality.
All you really need for an electric guitar is something 25 - 26 inches long that can take 90 - 140 lbs of pressure along its length. If you could fold a sheet of aluminum siding, if you could use cardboard, if you could use styrofoam, if you could make soda straws into triangular patterns that would take that strees, it could be an electric guitar. Heck, make it out of laminated acoustic tiles if you like.
So here’s the nub - is the guitar only going to record in the studio going DI to the board? Fine, then every aspect of its sound will be processed electronically. If, however, the guitar is going to be plugged into an amplifier which is in the same sound space as the musician, then the response of the instrument to the sound coming out of the amplifier is a factor. In questions of sustain and feedback, it is a massive factor.
The conventional wisdom is that a Les Paul, which is a more solid guitar, has a long sustain. The Stratocaster, which has a lighter body and a different neck joint, has a shorter sustain. Certainly, this is the way they tend to get used - David Byrne wants a Strat for that typewriter style of guitar he plays, Robert Fripp wants sustained notes that last for 20 seconds or more, and uses a Les Paul custom. (Actually, I don’t know what he’s playing these days - I’d be very surprised if that black LP custom is gone, though.)
The thing is, the wood responds to what it ‘hears’. (Pardon the anthropomorphism - it’s far easier than saying 'responds to the acoustic environment in which it finds itself by vibrating sympathetically and transferring a portion of that acoustic energy to the vibrating string(s) which cause an electromagnetic response in the pickup(s). Even the expression ‘sympathetic vibration’ is an anthropomorphism…) So when you play that ‘B’ power chord loud enough for it to feed back, part of that feedback is the body of the guitar responding to the sound from the amp, reinforcing the vibration of the strings which send the sound to the amp and around we go. No resonance in the guitar’s body? Less chance for feedback.
Here’s an experiment I want to try next time I’m alone in the house with an hour to spare. (HA!) Run the guitar DI into the computer or other recording device with no monitor. Record the same note, for argument’s sake, an open ‘B’, in four different configurations. (An open note eliminates the possibility of a slowhand vibrato increasing the sustain by rubbing the string against subtle roughnesses on the fret, or rubbing the fingering fingertip against the fretboard.) First, 1) the note itself with its natural decay. Then, 2) the note with the guitar held in front of your face while you sing that note as loud as you can directly into the body of the guitar. Then, 3) sing into the body of the guitar with the strings muted, and finally, 4) sing a note a tone above or below the note the guitar is playing, such that the strings will not resonate in sympathy except at the highest overtones of the harmonic series.
I hypothesize that the experiment will establish that the sustain of the note will be at its longest with 2) the player singing into the body of the guitar, and that 3) will establish that there is no significant microphonic component to the relationship of the body and the pickups. I also hypothesize that the sustain on 4) will be not significantly greater than the natural sustain on 1) and will be significantly smaller than 2). Anyone game to try this experiment is welcome to give it a go - I’ll see if I can set something up later in the week.
And here’s a guitar made out of stone, not a material renowned for its acoustic properties. Sounds OK to me. He claims no effects except a little distrortion.
[edit] sorry, didn’t see the reply from Le Ministre de l’au-delà.
Steinberger owner here. I love it and play it regularly. It has great tone and a great feel.
I also own a Les Paul Custom and it feels and sounds completely different, as Le Ministre discussed.
While electric guitars don’t need a body, the presence of and type of body do contribute significantly to the overall sound, feel and playability of the instrument.
I’m not a guitarist (at all), but thinking of other stringed instruments there are electric violin designs that are basically just a stick with a chin rest. The Wikipedia article on the subject has a nice image showing a minimalist electric violin.
Lamia - you raise an interesting point. The big difference for a violin is sustain is not as relevant; the friction of bow on string continually transfers energy, re-articulating thousands of times per second. Back in the days of viols, the bows were not as efficient, and frets were required to ‘pinch’ the string. Then, two paths diverged - the ancestors of the guitar kept the frets but did not use the bow, flattening out the bridge in the process. The ancestors of the modern violin developed more and more efficient bows which transferred greater energy across more of their length until the modern Tourte bow was developed. With that amount of energy going into the string, frets were a liability, not an asset. Wiki article on Bow (music).
I also need to mention something to BDoors - dense solids have fantastic acoustic properties; they just have very poor acoustic transference between media, eg. solid to liquid, solid to air. I invite you to place your ear against the nearest table or desk top and tap it gently. It will probably be much louder than the sound in the air. After ensuring it is safe to do so, place your ear on a railway track and listen. Time how long between you hearing the first rumblings of a train and its actual arrival, and then calculate the distance. It is truly remarkable; sound travels up to 17 times faster through solids and, depending on the solid, with less damping. Link to The Soundry: The Physics of Sound.
I agree with gaffa and Shakester. It seems to me that many guitarists obsess over equipment when they could be actually improving their play by practicing. Yes, of course a jazz guitarist should use a different guitar from a metal guitarist, but that’s not the sort of difference these people obsess over. They’ll obsess over the minute differences between various guitars of virtually the same type, or they’ll obsess over the minute differences between effects pedals of the same type.
I have an Aria Sinsonido. The aluminum tubes that form the body shape are removable; they are only there for support and have no effect on the sound. Aria also makes a steel string model and a bass.
Also see the Yamaha Silent guitar.
I dunno - if there’s any justice in the world, Tony Levin ought to be getting at least as much bunk bumping as Joe Satriani…
One more crack about the keytar and I’m coming back there right now and bust some chops. (Kidding – I’ve played one, once, borrowed from some person of questionable taste for a one-off show.) They’re only hip if you rotate your hips on the first downbeat of every bar, and give a big sneer to the audience, with sunglasses on. And hair big and weird. The clothes? Polka and flourescent could be good.
Interesting thread, seriously.
Okay - so sure, 99% of playing is in your hands, a stick of the right length with strings and a pickup will do and most online posters are fetishizing wannabes. Further, EVH has a Steinberger with never-changed, rusty strings lying literally on the ground of his studio that, when he picks up and plays, sounds…just like EVH.
But what if I told you that David Gilmour has a Frankenstein’d black Strat - a modified mongrel if there ever was - that he claims is special to his playing? Or Billy Gibbons’ Pearly Gates, the opposite of a mongrel, as purebred as they come as a '59 Les Paul; or Jack White claiming that a poorly made Airline Res-o-cast plastic guitar is part of his unique sound with that band - who are we to say “dude you could play an amplified yardstick just as good”?
Some of it is basic mechanics; some of it is the special design/materials/age/condition; and some of it is in the head of the artists.
Whatever works, you know?
My friend Rev. Peyton gets his sound out of anything he picks up, even if he’s never seen it before and it’s made out of a discarded wine box.
When Kate Bush was going to record her friend and mentor Dave for her song Love and Anger. his guitar tech came by the day before, delivering and setting up a truck full of different guitars, amps and effects. When Dave himself showed up to record, Kate said that what she wanted was his classic Pink Floyd sound. The giant Wall’O’Gear was ignored, and Dave plugged a battered guitar into a little amp and got exactly what she wanted.
But Peyton chooses to stick with a Nick Lucas-replica variant as his main player; and Gilmour chooses from amongst his favorites normally.
A top chef prefers their favorite knife; are they still 3-star chefs with a plastic picnic knife? Sure! But if asked, would they prefer their old fave?
Nice. Sounds like my main guy – he loves his special guitars, and his original tunes, but it doesn’t matter what he’s playing or how he’s miced or driven or through what or playing what tune – he’s going to sound like he always does. I can call some Ray Charles tune he has never played or even heard for 30 years, and it’ll sound just like he always sounds.
Huh? The three guitars he carries, unless this has changed recently, are his rusty 1930 National, his 1934 wood National Trojan and a 1994 replica of a 1929 Gibson that he bought off the wall of a restaurant. Is that the one you are referring to?
Yeah, I understand that everyone has favorite tools - I’ve literally kicked a hole in a wall to retrieve a wire stripper that I’ve had for more than 25 years - but I can work with borrowed tools because I’m skilled. Same thing with Rev - hanging out, he’s picked up a friend’s POS Sears guitar that has been in the living room of the house for since they moved in, and get his sound out of it. The people I was talking about are the type who are convinced that the magic is in the instrument.
I think people tend to mistake the instrument for the player. If Dave Gilmour says “This Strat is magic” he’s making a metaphor, he’s saying that this particular instrument suits him really well.
Stoopid guitarists read that and think “That guitar is magical. If I had one like that, I’d be able to play just like Dave!”
Sure, Duane Allman sounded beautiful on his '59 Les Paul. Because he was freaking Duane freaking Allman, not because late 50s Les Pauls are magical. He’d have sounded beautiful on any decent instrument. He sounded amazing on borrowed gear, on whatever he happened to pick up. But late 50s sunburst LPs are now “worth” up to a quarter of a million dollars because people truly believe they’re magical.
They are, I’m sure, often excellent instruments, and I’m equally sure that their value is almost entirely due to who played them and not any inherently unique qualities that make them amazingly magically better than any other similar instrument. If Clapton, Page, et al had chosen some other brand, that’d be the one with the stratospheric price tags and old Gibsons would sell for the same prices as any other respected (but non-“magical”) brand of that era.
Do original PAF pickups sound great? Yes, often they do. Is it impossible to recreate that sound, since they’re made from normal magnets and copper wire? No. There are any number of pickup makers who can make you a pickup that no-one on earth could pick between it and a real PAF in a blind test. Yet a real unmodified PAF will cost you 10 grand and a repro will cost a hundred bucks. A couple of hundred if you pay for the extra mojo.
The guitar world is the home base of magical thinking.
You almost touched on it, but let me be more explicit: Someone playing can sound different on different guitars, because even slight differences in how the instrument feels can affect how you play.
I know that I sound different on different midi pianos, even though the sound is identical. The way the keys respond is different, and I respond to it.
I’m not saying that there is no difference in the sound of different guitars, necessarily. But the same person sounding different on different guitars doesn’t prove that.