No argument, but it’s not unique to guitar. Stradivarius. Steinway. Others types and instruments, I’m sure, I don’t follow the magical instrument futures market.
Hell, Harleys are magical to some people, and there’s bikes just as good with some other name.
I don’t say it’s unique to guitars. There’s a whole industry built on engendering magical thinking about inanimate objects: Marketing.
In my opinion, based on observation and experience and on questioning the accepted “truths” of guitar tone, body wood and body shape have practically no effect on the sound of an electric guitar.
The only wood that really matters is the neck wood, which is almost always ignored in discussions of guitar wood. Maple necks sound different to mahogany necks. To a lesser extent, the fretboard wood makes a difference. Body wood is basically a counterweight. The neck of an electric guitar, unlike the body, has a real effect on string vibration. You can bolt a good neck onto a body made of plywood, fibreglass, plastic, or anything strong enough to hold the tension of the strings, and it will sound good.
A good neck and a good set of pickups will result in a good-sounding guitar even if the body is made from driftwood, coconut shells, or compacted newspaper stiffened with superglue.
My “Strat” is a very nice custom-made neck on a cheap Chinese body. It sounds like a Strat. Good pickups, a good vibrato bridge, and a good neck. I’m planning on swapping out the body when I find a nice cheap one that I like the look of: the body is heavy, and I’d like a lighter one. I am confident that changing the body will have no appreciable effect on the sound of the guitar, because I’ve swapped around necks and bodies before, both for myself and for other people. The “sound” of an electric guitar is in the neck, the pickups, and the bridge. The combination of those three items will sound the same whatever the body happens to be made of.
Yes; from the videos, his '94 appears to be a replica of a Gibson Nick Lucas model. Do you know the body wood? Maple? Scale length? 25.5"? (long for a Gibson).
Both you and **Shakester **really want shake the Stick of Guitar Righteousness™ at folks who, for want of a better term, aren’t in it for the right reasons.
To be clear: I basically agree with your positions; again, I play a homebrew Partsocaster Tele far, far, more than the older, collectible stuff I own. I made my choices a long time ago and sound like me on anything playable within reach; the homebrew is the easiest to reach for but not magical or required. Set me back ~$800, all in.
Shakester, you cite neck wood as critical; I couldn’t agree more. I have long noodling on this in the threads where I built my Fender-Gib Tele Special hybrid. I would add that in addition to wood material, size/mass of the wood, and the size/stability of the neck joint all seem to matter in what I listen and look for a guitar in terms of playability.
So, I agree with most of your positions regarding what matters in tone and focusing on the music. But I also grew up in a household with an antique business and I get the geekery/collectibility side of objects like guitars. I am not sure what to say - I feel like I can see both sides and while it can be tiring having to filter the Guitar Aficionado Douchbag™ hum out of the system on line, it’s no big deal to do so if I invest the time to focus on my own playing and listening skills and develop my own perspective. It’s all good.
Nah, I don’t care why people are interested in guitars, I’m perfectly happy for people to buy top-of-the-line Gibsons and PRSes and the like if that’s what they’re into. Even the people who obsess about “originality” and freak out if there’s been one pickguard screw changed on a guitar don’t particularly bother me. I like vintage instruments, I can totally see the point of them as objet d’art, and quite possibly as musical instruments.
What annoys me is people repeating misinformation and opinion as if it was scientific fact. Here on the Dope, you can say “cite please” and if the person making claims can’t back 'em up with anything better than “everyone knows” then nobody takes them seriously. On a guitar forum, nobody knows what a cite is, and “everybody knows” that nitro-finished bodies “resonate” better than poly-finished bodies.
And so on. I could list the top dozen or so popular electric guitar factoids that are only supported by anecdote at best and usually by nothing but ignorant repetition, but I’m sure you’ve heard them too. I got sick of arguing with people who INSISTED at great length that a guitar body finish adds a significant amount to the weight of a guitar.
The thing is, if the body doesn’t matter, then hollowbodies shouldn’t matter at all, but I’m pretty sure they do.
And if bodies don’t matter, then a through-body stringing shouldn’t be any different from a top-strung guitar.
Of course, the big difference here is set-neck versus bolt-on, but there’s things like the thinline teles which are semi-hollow and bolt-on.
I totally get where you are coming from Shakester, and agree that there is too much snake-oil on guitar forums.
But I do think there is value in avoiding throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There is stuff that affects tone - you yourself cite the neck wood, and ** E-Sabs’ **observations are valid, too. But as long as people approach the topic with their own bullshit-filter meter on high, and are open to people trying to peel the layers on the gear hype that is out there, and try to put the music first, there are interesting discussions to be had.
That is certainly the objective of this thread. 
I came in here to mention this. I saw Claude Chalhoub playing on one of those; certainly didn’t do any damage to the sound.
Solid bodies don’t matter. A basswood Strat sounds like an ash Strat or an alder Strat. I know everybody says they sound different, but people - even the experts - can’t tell them apart them in blind tests.
Hollow bodies do make a difference, and semi-hollow is my personal favourite type of guitar body.
On an acoustic instrument, body wood does matter. It’s very important. On a solid body, it’s - in my opinion - not important. With a semi, you get a little bit of “acoustic” sound, enough to make a difference to the overall sound.
I didn’t say the neck was the only important factor, I said it was much more important than the body. As WordMan correctly says, the neck joint matters. The scale length matters. The bridge matters. The choice of string matters. Pickups are a huge part of it.
I’d put body material second last on the list of things that matter, if we’re listing by importance. Last, of course, would be body finish.
Sure. I can be a bit contrary if I think people are being a bit too credulous. 
But I try not to get too carried away by it, otherwise I’d spend my whole time arguing with conspiracy theorists and my brain would assplode.
I was not arguing so much that solid bodies don’t matter, but rather than they cannot contribute to the sound, only take away from it. A body that doesn’t absorb much sound energy would likely sound better, or less bad, than a more absorbent one. Probably the important area is the structure directly between the two ends of the strings, which is mostly the neck. I’m saying that rigid is better. One way to get rigidity is simply to use more material, and some guitarists do indeed say that thick neck = better tone. The rest of the body? The energy that does escape to the body is probably highly concentrated around the bridge mounting area anyway and no doubt drops off at an inverse square rate through the rest of the body. I think you could safely saw off the horns of your Strat without affecting tone, as long as you had somewhere else to mount the strap button.
No worries here. When I broke out my new Steinberger (the cheaper wood kind, not the very nice graphite kind), my friend initially thought I was showing him a shotgun or rifle because the case was so similar. Maybe not an ax, but there’s something there.
I’m not a huge sustain junkie (and I don’t have the graphite Steinberger), but Steinberger’s have great sustain. Alan Holdsworth plays a very legato, clean style that requires great sustain, and he uses Steinbergers specifically for that purpose.
As to the OP, the body is not essential to the electric guitar. It will impact tone and sustain, but the body can impact those equally and sometimes adversely as well. Construction matters, just like in bodied guitars. A Les Paul with a single piece of wood for a neck that runs through the body will have different properties than a Fender Strat with a bolted neck. Similarly, my bolted Steinberger is different from the neck-through Steinbergers.
In my experience, if you’re playing with any distortion or effects, you can get a much bigger change in your sound by changing the amp or effects setting on a guitar than by changing the guitar itself. If you’re playing a very clean sound, it starts to matter equally.
I’m not a guitarist at all, but those things look cool. I would totally respect someone who played one (assuming they sound good).
Argh - really swamped. Can’t geek out here. Will try to get back.
I agree rigidity in the neck+body system is key. I also believe that body materials matter in which frequencies they “absorb” and which they “pass through” - you want the “main” vibrations and some good harmonics to pass through, but you want harsher, higher-order harmonics “absorbed” somewhat or fully (I may not be using the propoer terms, but hope my intent is clear).
Now - the difference between different types of woods is probably a lot less vs. “wood” in general vs. other materials. Also, I totally accept that other materials - metals, plastics, the acrylic of a Dan Armstrong clear-body, etc. - can also do a fine job of both supporting a rigid neck+body system AND absorbing the yucky overtones…
**Shakester **- any POV on whether playing an unplugged electric is any indication of how it can sound plugged in? Regardless of what it is made of, I do believe that a solidbody unplugged can give a clear sense of how it will sound plugged in…I don’t use that to reach deep conclusions about one finish vs. another or other mojo, but I definitely use it to separate the few guitars worth plugging in and pursuing further vs. one that should just be passed over…
Years ago (late '80s - early '90s) I used to participate in the weekly open-mic jam nights at a local bar. There was a guitarist that showed up now and then, who happened to be one of the best rock guitarists in town, and who played expensive, custom Jackson guitars like all those LA guitarists played at the time. One night I brought along a sub-$300 Dean electric guitar that I’d ordered from the Sears catalog. It was actually a fairly decent guitar for the price, but it was nowhere near the “build quality” of a Jackson.
Anyway, this guitarist was on stage with his band, and I was standing at the back of the room with another good guitarist, listening, when one of the guy’s strings snapped a few bars before he had a solo coming up. He put down his Jackson, ran to the side of the stage and picked up my Dean, held it up and gave me a questioning look. I gave him a thumbs-up, and he plugged it in and launched into his solo. I said to the guitarist standing next to me, “Kind of nice to hear what my new guitar sounds like from out here!” And he said, “Yeah, and it actually sounds better than his guitar.”
I have to concur, especially if the keytarist looks like this.
I had that happen when I was boarding a city bus with my Steinberger bass in a gig bag slung over my shoulder. The driver stopped me and asked, “Excuse me, Sir, is that a weapon?”
But does an alder Telemaster sound like an alder Telecaster? I think they do, except my Telemaster has a bit more sustain. Not sure, though. How much does adding more body to the guitar change the sound?
(Note: I love my Telemaster because it is so freaking comfortable, not because the sound changes significantly.)
I’m going to disagree here, with the note that I’m verging on ‘not knowing what I’m talking about’. I think, and I don’t have the evidence here, but I’m going to guess that there are nodes, not just up and down the neck, but along the body of the guitar. And removing the wood from where they should be, would affect the sound of the guitar, as screwing with a point on a node would affect the entire wave, which starts at the strings. I’d guess they affect the bridge the strongest.
Still, I’d need Wordman on this.
I think the idea of the Telemaster (and it’s a design I like) is that it looks sort of like a Jazzmaster and sounds like a Telecaster. The bridge design, with the pickup attached, is a big part of the Telecaster sound.
It’s possible that the body design adds a little sustain, but I’ve found that supposedly identical guitars can sound quite different and have different amounts of sustain. Guitars are individuals, sometimes you get one that just works. There are a lot of variables, and many tiny differences can add up to a notable difference in sound or feel.
I haven’t really noticed it, but I wouldn’t say it was impossible. String vibration is what you’re amplifying, and if the strings are vibrating in a nice way, its likely to be picked up and amplified.
I don’t think it’s really a good basis for a yes/no decision, though. My Strat-style sounds pretty bad acoustically, it’s definitely nicer when amplified.
You were saying earlier that the way it feels in your hands is very important, I agree. Feel, which doesn’t affect the sound at all, does affect your playing. So that’s something that the guitar body can affect. As I said, the body of my Strat-style guitar is heavy (it’s cheap Ash). Not so heavy that I hate playing it standing up, but enough to be mildly irritating. And I’m not that keen on the way it looks. So I think with a different body the guitar would sound the same but I’d enjoy playing it a bit more, and that would probably come through to some extent in the sounds I make with it.
And I think that’s what people are really experiencing when they compare instruments. If you like the feel and balance of an ash body better than alder, or whatever, then it’s possible that you’ll perceive it as a difference in sound. It won’t sound any different, but you will. Add to that the effect of confirmation bias and you’ll end up with people claiming night/day differences that aren’t apparent to an unbiased listener.
All good - and points back to Guitar Rule #1: Whatever keeps you playing.
That’s another reason I like big, chunky necks: with hands my size and thumb-over style, they fit the natural shape of my hand when I do bends. I defintely sound better on a bigger-necked guitar, even if the guitar itself isn’t as good as a fast-necked guitar.
**E-Sabs **- I think what you’re saying is that body shape can affect resonance? The story that comes to mind is EVH’s heavily-modded Ibanez Explorer replica, called a Destroyer - it’s the one on the cover of Women and Children First. When he hacked that divot into the body below the bridge, he said he killed the guitar - it never sounded the same again…