# Elite violinists cannot distinguis Stradivari from new violins



## ramses (Apr 7, 2014)

... and tend to prefer new violins to Stradivari, when tested in double-blind conditions (to remove bias).


Link to paper

This is interesting, and underlines why double blind testing is important to really determine tonal qualities and playability&#8212;everything else is just biased opinion.

&#8212; edit: added the abstract below &#8212;

*Abstract*



> Many researchers have sought explanations for the purported tonal superiority of Old Italian violins by investigating varnish and wood properties, plate tuning systems, and the spectral balance of the radiated sound. Nevertheless, the fundamental premise of tonal superiority has been investigated scientifically only once very recently, and results showed a general preference for new violins and that players were unable to reliably distinguish new violins from old. The study was, however, relatively small in terms of the number of violins tested (six), the time allotted to each player (an hour), and the size of the test space (a hotel room). In this study, 10 renowned soloists each blind-tested six Old Italian violins (including five by Stradivari) and six new during two 75-min sessions&#8212;the first in a rehearsal room, the second in a 300-seat concert hall. When asked to choose a violin to replace their own for a hypothetical concert tour, 6 of the 10 soloists chose a new instrument. A single new violin was easily the most-preferred of the 12. On average, soloists rated their favorite new violins more highly than their favorite old for playability, articulation, and pro- jection, and at least equal to old in terms of timbre. Soloists failed to distinguish new from old at better than chance levels. These results confirm and extend those of the earlier study and present a striking challenge to near-canonical beliefs about Old Italian violins.


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## TheHandOfStone (Apr 7, 2014)

I can't access the article (I don't have a NSAS subscription), but that's not surprising.

However, I'm beginning to think many audiophile claims are the result of the placebo effect. Basically, you're told that X effects tone in some unrealistically linear way, and you believe it. Then, you perceive sound with the knowledge that X is part of the signal chain. That knowledge (or perhaps even false knowledge) causes you to perceive the sound you're hearing as more pleasant. The funny thing is, you probably _do_ have a more positive listening experience, but it's based entirely on the expectation. You take that away in a double-blind procedure, and the audiophile placebo effect vanishes.

TL;DR: Convince yourself your gear is super magical and special, and you'll love how it sounds even if it actually sounds like shit.


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## ramses (Apr 7, 2014)

TheHandOfStone said:


> I can't access the article (I don't have a NSAS subscription), but that's not surprising.



Weird. I don't have a subscription, but that link gives me the full pdf.



TheHandOfStone said:


> However, I'm beginning to think many audiophile claims are the result of the placebo effect. Basically, you're told that X effects tone in some unrealistically linear way, and you believe it. Then, you perceive sound with the knowledge that X is part of the signal chain. That knowledge (or perhaps even false knowledge) causes you to perceive the sound you're hearing as more pleasant. The funny thing is, you probably _do_ have a more positive listening experience, but it's based entirely on the expectation. You take that away in a double-blind procedure, and the audiophile placebo effect vanishes.



That's basically it, and why double-blind studies are a must.



TheHandOfStone said:


> TL;DR: Convince yourself your gear is super magical and special, and you'll love how it sounds even if it actually sounds like shit.



 ... I think that you would need someone else to tell you that your gear is super magical for that to work!


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## Dayn (Apr 7, 2014)

Phew, good thing too, I was about to get a Stradivarius this afternoon. Then strap a pickup to it and run it through distortion. _TONE

_But yeah, that doesn't surprise me. It's wood, put together with strings. Three hundred years later, we have much better technology to help make better wood, put together with strings.

Not saying they're bad, but beyond the prestige and incredible heritage value, though...


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## ElRay (Apr 7, 2014)

ramses said:


> ... double blind testing ...



As I've said, let me see a double blind study where somebody listens to two guitars of the same design, with the same hardware and pick-ups and say: The first was maple and the second was mahogany, and then I'll take more stock in the "absolutes" of tone wood.

Ray


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 7, 2014)

This whole ordeal is the same as tone woods, IMO. I stopped buying into that forever ago.


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## abandonist (Apr 7, 2014)

This is why "tonewood" talk is nonsense.


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## tmo (Apr 7, 2014)

ramses said:


> ... I think that you would need someone else to tell you that your gear is super magical for that to work!



Almost true, I mean, IF you can tel yourself that, which is possible, though rare, 
you'll be able to reach the skies AND most probably sound good. However, this does not comes from uneducated experience...


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## Kwert (Apr 7, 2014)

As a cellist who's had the opportunity to try a number of modern instruments as well as some fine old instruments (including a Strad, Montagnana and Goffriller), those old instruments are amazing but I do believe their "magic" is a heavily romanticized concept.

It's every young string player's dream to own/play on one of these but at this point I'd gladly take a sturdy, stable, lovely contemporary cello over a finicky old instrument. There's no way in hell I'd be able to afford 5 million dollars for a Strad, but it certainly makes the $40000+ for a contemporary instrument look much more reasonable.


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## Hollowway (Apr 7, 2014)

Yep, I agree with what most have said here. I'm surprised we don't have the "tone wood does make a difference" camp in here yet. 

One thing that doesn't deceive me is my eyes. That's why I buy fancy woods. They just look cool.


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## xzyryabx (Apr 7, 2014)

abandonist said:


> This is why "tonewood" talk is nonsense.



That's quite a leap.
Not being able to distinguish two well made instruments does not mean tonewoods is mumbojumbo.
Are you seriously saying that if you had two guitars one made from alder and the other made from mahogany, all else being equal, that you can't tell the difference?! Or are you saying that the tonal difference is diminished in electric guitars due to the pickups/effects?!
Tonewoods are not magical, they are just woods that are better suited for creating musical sounds, and each has its own properties, nothing mysterious or debateable about it, except on sso.


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## abandonist (Apr 7, 2014)

I saying in controlled circumstances you'd have no idea which wood was which.


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## Explorer (Apr 7, 2014)

Pretty astonishing story:

In blind test, soloists like new violins over old (Update)

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has witnessed someone who seemed to "hear" some quality because of what they were seeing. 



> Ten world-class soloists put prized Stradivarius violins and new, cheaper instruments to a blind scientific test to determine which has the better sound. The results may seem off-key to musicians and collectors: The new violins won handily.
> 
> 
> The top choice out of a dozen old and new violins was by far a new one. So was the second choice, according to a study released Monday.




I've had friends who swore that CDs could never capture the same sounds as vinyl, but who were taken in when we played a CD ripped from an LP on their sound system, when they thought someone had put a new LP on the turntable. "Listen to that warmth! You'll never hear a CD sound like that!" 


I think it's interesting that the test was done, and with apparently decent protocols. 



I know it's related to music, but the story is current, and relates to the study of perception, so I posted this in P&CE.


Your thoughts?


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## Given To Fly (Apr 7, 2014)

Kwert said:


> As a cellist who's had the opportunity to try a number of modern instruments as well as some fine old instruments (including a Strad, Montagnana and Goffriller), those old instruments are amazing but I do believe their "magic" is a heavily romanticized concept.
> 
> It's every young string player's dream to own/play on one of these but at this point I'd gladly take a sturdy, stable, lovely contemporary cello over a finicky old instrument. There's no way in hell I'd be able to afford 5 million dollars for a Strad, but it certainly makes the $40000+ for a contemporary instrument look much more reasonable.



I'm a classical guitarist and we have the same "romanticized concepts" as string players but at a much lower price point.  By the way, the cello is my favorite instrument. 

I don't like these types of tests because they try to objectively test subjective preferences. Not all Stradivari are equal in quality, playability, or most importantly condition. A Strad that was run over by a truck, and later rebuilt, won't compete with a modern violin from a good builder. I'm with xzyryabx in regards to tone woods; I didn't think this would ever be an issue when discussing acoustic instruments.


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## abandonist (Apr 7, 2014)

Show me the study where people can pick out the differences in guitar woods.

I'll show you 15 more of these.


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## rectifryer (Apr 7, 2014)

abandonist said:


> This is why "tonewood" talk is nonsense.



Newton's third law disagrees.


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## rectifryer (Apr 7, 2014)

Hollowway said:


> Yep, I agree with what most have said here. I'm surprised we don't have the "tone wood does make a difference" camp in here yet.
> 
> One thing that doesn't deceive me is my eyes. That's why I buy fancy woods. They just look cool.



Tonewood guy checking in.


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## rectifryer (Apr 7, 2014)

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/ge...nguis-stradivari-new-violins.html#post3993456


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## rapterr15 (Apr 8, 2014)

Kwert said:


> There's no way in hell I'd be able to afford 5 million dollars for a Strad, but it certainly makes the $40000+ for a contemporary instrument look much more reasonable.



 A quality cello can run 40 grand? Daaaaannnngg. Had no idea.


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## abandonist (Apr 8, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> Newton's third law disagrees.



Just because you can measure something does not mean you can perceive it. 

I'm not going to keep debating this when I've never once seen a study that proved anyone can tell the differences in tone woods.

I *have* seen dozens where people could not tell the difference.


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

abandonist said:


> Just because you can measure something does not mean you can perceive it.
> 
> I'm not going to keep debating this when I've never once seen a study that proved anyone can tell the differences in tone woods.
> 
> I *have* seen dozens where people could not tell the difference.



What would be an acceptable test to you? Two of the same model guitar with only the wood type differing?


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## jonajon91 (Apr 8, 2014)

rapterr15 said:


> A quality cello can run 40 grand? Daaaaannnngg. Had no idea.



That is what you would expect to pay for a mid/high range 'cello, the high range ones are £100,000+ with some not being able to be priced. I know some strad violins are sold for over £1mill. Also bows can cost about (general rule of thumb) a third of the cost of the 'cello. To be honest, classical string instruments and gemstones are the most overpriced markets out there.

Either way, on the article linked. The only difference in a production violins and a classic Strad is in volume, but not tone.

---edit---

I have never wandered into a tonewood discussion/argument, and I generally know nothing about it, but surely a guitar built purely out of maple will be much brighter than a guitar built from mahogany whereas the mahogany guitar would have more sustain? Or is that a different discussion?


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

jonajon91 said:


> I have never wandered into a tonewood discussion/argument, and I generally know nothing about it, but surely a guitar built purely out of maple will be much brighter than a guitar built from mahogany whereas the mahogany guitar would have more sustain? Or is that a different discussion?



It depends on which type of maple. Manufacturers use whatever is cheapest, so we get people on the internet who discover that their guitars dont really stand apart from each other. There are tons of a/b comparisons on the internet of tone change from a body wood change. 

It is a heated debate on pretty much any guitar forum. I think it brings out some good discussion though.


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## Shimme (Apr 8, 2014)

It's hard to understand why people are saying that this test - which compares an old, famous violin to a new one - is proof that wood choice doesn't matter in an amplified instrument. 

Guys. They're acoustic instruments. The debate doesn't apply here.


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## abandonist (Apr 8, 2014)

If we're talking amplified instruments then I find the tonewood debate even sillier.


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

abandonist said:


> If we're talking amplified instruments then I find the tonewood debate even sillier.



You're silly but in a Canadian flag sort of way.



Kawaiiii


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## abandonist (Apr 8, 2014)

You want kawaii?

May I direct you to my bandcamp:

abandonist


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

HAHAHAH what an interesting turn of events. I can happily fall asleep watching the lates cosmos now.


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## littledoc (Apr 8, 2014)

Rob Chappers has a vid in which he tests two otherwise identical guitars through an identical amp on identical settings, the only difference being the wood of the guitars  if I recall correctly he even plays them with the same pick. It's obviously not a scientific test, but there is a pretty clear difference.


So yes, it's trivially true that woods very slightly affect the tone of the guitar. BUT. If you think...


You could consistently identify any particular type of wood as preferable in a series of blind tests
You could consistently favor one wood in blind tests with varying amp EQs
You can't use your amp's EQ to compensate for the subtle differences imparted by the wood
The effect isn't drastically diminished in high-gain setups
.... then I'd say you're almost certainly wrong. 


For that matter, I'd bet that in a series of controlled, double-blind tests nobody could tell the difference between "hand wound" pickups, name-brand pickups, and in-house pickups.


I think this goes for all manner of high-end audio. I remember reading about an informal study in which blind listeners preferred an inexpensive plastic speaker over one costing something like $15,000.


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## Hollowway (Apr 8, 2014)

Ah, here we go, the straw men are out. Scientific argument is debunked by people claiming it doesn't apply. Yes a Strad violin that was run over by a truck and reassembled won't sound as good. Not sure how many of those are around, though, so maybe we can make that the exception? Fact is, as abandonist has said, there are multiple studies, both controlled scientific and "Pepsi challenge" style that show an individual cannot tell the difference between two guitars of different woods. But there are very very few that purport to show ANY difference perceivable by the ears. And those that do a not agree on which to am properties are attibutable to which woods. It's not really worth debating, because if one cannot be swayed by scientific proof one will not be swayed by an internet post.


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## vilk (Apr 8, 2014)

Sorry I don't have much to say about violins but I feel like the old vs new violins comparison is totally not the same as the CD vs LP comparison.


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## UnderTheSign (Apr 8, 2014)

vilk said:


> Sorry I don't have much to say about violins but I feel like the old vs new violins comparison is totally not the same as the CD vs LP comparison.


I think it's related in the sense that we have a bias based on what we see and expect. Wonder if it's the same with tonewoods?


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 8, 2014)

Every guitar is different. That is to say, 10 guitars made out of mahogany will all sound different. The brightest guitar I own (acoustically as well as plugged in) is mahogany, and the warmest is an acrylic guitar. (Which sounds like shit, but I bought it as a novelty so whatever.) I'm talking almost piercing bright too. In my experience, and I'm betting in nearly 100% of any blind test you could give, people would not be able to tell reliably what woods a guitar is made of. Hell, I don't think people can reliably tell what a guitar will sound like when they buy it just by the woods it's made of simply because every guitar is just different.

It relates to this whole strad thing on more than just the tone wood level. It essentially points out that hype means dick. Strads are expensive, and were built very well using great materials. They're highly coveted and great instruments. Because of this, people assume that they'll sound so much better and/or different than modern counterparts. Guitars are the same. Even a cheap squier with decent pickups, straight neck, and proper fret job won't be outwardly distinguishable (aside from maybe body shape/weight/whatever cues aren't audible) from any other guitar. Acoustics are a bit different, but the point still remains the same. Don't buy something just because there's hype around it. Play it, and if you like it buy it. Don't let wood types, low price points, or brand names determin what you do and don't play.


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## JoeyBTL (Apr 8, 2014)

I am a believer that different woods make a difference in tone. I don't find it necessary to just argue about it with someone but since I first saw this video I was curious about what nom tone wood believers thought. 

It's a comparison of two Suhr GG models ran through the same gear. Suhr produces very consistent guitars and pickups and these two models are identical, except the only difference is one has bent steel saddles and one is the usual. It's basswood maple vs mahogany and I can hear a clear difference. If you, just play the video and open another tab so you can't watch and see which is which and see what you think. Suhr Guthrie Govan Signature Vs Suhr Guthrie Govan Antique Modern, CAA PT 50 - YouTube


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## Nats (Apr 8, 2014)

That's because tone is in your fingers...


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## Mike (Apr 8, 2014)

Next time my wife gets mad about a new guitar I'll remind her at least I don't have 6 million dollar Violin Acquisition Syndrome lol.

I thought it was funny how the one player liked the new violin so much that they (jokingly) offered to buy it. I wonder, if there was a way to do a blind guitar test, would it effect our choices in a similar fashion?


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## ElRay (Apr 8, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> What would be an acceptable test to you? Two of the same model guitar with only the wood type differing?



Yes. Played by person "A" behind a screen or something so that Person "B" can't see the instrument begin played. If a collection of "Person 'B'"s can correctly and repeatably identify the wood in the guitars played, then the anti-tonewood people would believe.


Ray


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## ElRay (Apr 8, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> Newton's third law disagrees.



A little bit of information is a dangerous thing._"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"_​ has no bearing on "_Individual species of wood consistently modify the vibrations of the strings so that unique variations in the frequency spectrum can be detected through the frequency modifications by the: pick-ups, pre-pre-amp effects, pre-amp, post-pre-amp effects, power amp stages, speakers and cabinet in such a manner that trained individual can consistently and repeatable identify the wood species by blindly listening to the sounds coming out of the speaker."_​
Ray


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## ElRay (Apr 8, 2014)

JoeyBTL said:


> I am a *believer* that different woods ... blah ... blah ... a comparison of two Suhr GG models ran through the same gear ... blah ... blah ...



Yes. *Believer* is the key word because you have no evidence. Two guitars, even supposedly identically made, will sound differently. Show me a [single|double] blind study where the listeners can accurately and repeatably identify the woods used in construction based on the woulds coming out of the speakers, and then we'll talk.

Ray


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## ElRay (Apr 8, 2014)

ramses said:


> ... and tend to prefer new violins to Stradivari, when tested in double-blind conditions (to remove bias) ...



I'm not sure if it was this study, or another one where the results were that the "experts" consistently identified the Stad's 50% of the time; however, no two "experts" agreed which three were Strads and which three were modern.

Ray


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## Andromalia (Apr 8, 2014)

jonajon91 said:


> To be honest, classical string instruments and gemstones are the most overpriced markets out there.



You never see a swaddling luthier building a violin, wonder why ? 
Same goes for classical guitars and archtops etc. Yes a Benedetti is more expensive that anything solidbdody you can find. There's a reason for that, you have way less people with the ability to build one. Same goes for gemstones, cutting one isn't just learned in two days.


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## thraxil (Apr 8, 2014)

I read a followup to this the other day from one of the violinists involved in the study (can't find the link now though... argh).

She pointed out that the writeup is accurate but a bit misleading. In particular, the violinists were not asked if they could tell which violins were the Strads and which were the new ones, they were only asked which they preferred in A/B tests between an old and a new. She said that it was easy to tell them apart, so any headlines along the lines of "professional violinists can't tell the difference between a Strad and a modern violin in a doulbe blind test" are just utterly wrong.

She also pointed out that they only had a couple minutes with each violin and that the modern ones used were very high quality instruments. So it wasn't like they were comparing a 57' Les Paul to a $100 chinese knock off. The modern instruments tend to be a bit louder and more present, which tends to give them an advantage on this kind of quick first-impression test (it's a well known phenomenon when mixing tracks that our ears prefer louder tracks).


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## Andromalia (Apr 8, 2014)

> The modern instruments tend to be a bit louder and more present, which tends to give them an advantage on this kind of quick first-impression test (it's a well known phenomenon when mixing tracks that our ears prefer louder tracks).


Which is also why old instruments are usually not used in world class contests, even though the participants can usually get loaned one.

And by the way, I'd feel no remorse playing a modern guitar over a whatever-golden-era-guitars-you-are-a-devout-follower-of if I like it better.


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## Rev2010 (Apr 8, 2014)

Wow, you guys kill me. A thread about VIOLINS devolves into a talk about how tonewoods are nonsense - I'm pretty certain in reference to electric guitars. Are you tonewood arguers honestly saying you don't believe the type and/quality of wood makes any difference whatsoever in acoustic instruments??? Which a f'ing VIOLIN _is_???


Rev.


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> Wow, you guys kill me. A thread about VIOLINS devolves into a talk about how tonewoods are nonsense - I'm pretty certain in reference to electric guitars. Are you tonewood arguers honestly saying you don't believe the type and/quality of wood makes any difference whatsoever in acoustic instruments??? Which a f'ing VIOLIN _is_???
> 
> 
> Rev.



Exactly... the experiment had nothing to do with wood, anyways, it was comparing an instrument of extremely high reputation with another high quality one, not two identical ones, one made of maple and one made of mahogany. Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I'm really not surprised the Stradivarius was indistinguishable. I mean, I'm sure that compared to its contemporaries, it was miles ahead - but modern building techniques would allow for someone much less skilled to make a similar quality instrument. He didn't have some kind of magic rasp that imbued his violins with better sound, he was just a significantly more skilled craftsman than his contemporaries.


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## Rev2010 (Apr 8, 2014)

Nats said:


> That's because tone is in your fingers...



I cringe everytime I see this stupid comment regurgitated. Feel and technique are not "tone".


Rev.


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## thraxil (Apr 8, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> And by the way, I'd feel no remorse playing a modern guitar over a whatever-golden-era-guitars-you-are-a-devout-follower-of if I like it better.



Exactly. My dad has a 50's Gibson 12-string acoustic which is amazing and "better" than any guitar I own from the perspective of vintage aficionados. But for playing what I want to play, I'll take a mid-level or high end modern instrument over it pretty much any day. Hell, my dad even plays the Parker NiteFly I keep at his house more often than the Gibson now even though he's a folk/bluegrass guy and gets strange looks from his friends when he pulls the Parker out (he's getting some arthritis and the Parker just plays easier).


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## will_shred (Apr 8, 2014)

Hollowway said:


> Ah, here we go, the straw men are out. Scientific argument is debunked by people claiming it doesn't apply. Yes a Strad violin that was run over by a truck and reassembled won't sound as good. Not sure how many of those are around, though, so maybe we can make that the exception? Fact is, as abandonist has said, there are multiple studies, both controlled scientific and "Pepsi challenge" style that show an individual cannot tell the difference between two guitars of different woods. But there are very very few that purport to show ANY difference perceivable by the ears. And those that do a not agree on which to am properties are attibutable to which woods. It's not really worth debating, because if one cannot be swayed by scientific proof one will not be swayed by an internet post.





That's what I find really funny  people seem to love to debate it, when it literally does not matter. It seems like the belief "tone is subjective" which is pretty widely accepted around here ends as soon as someone utters the phrase _Tone Wood_. People on reddit can talk about the merits of an alder vs swamp ash strat all day, and i'm just here like "Yeah, that piece of wood is pretty, lets put it on a guitar"  

The only conclusion I've been able to come to after working at a boutique guitar shop and having played literally many of the best guitars in the world, acoustic and electric, was that it depends on the individual cut of wood and the individual instrument. In my experience, wood species is not a reliable predictor of... anything. At least for Electric guitars. 

The house Luthier even told me that he talked tone woods with customers to make sales. Because talking about tone wood is a great way to get people to buy expensive guitars.


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

will_shred said:


> In my experience, wood species is not a reliable predictor of... anything. At least for Electric guitars.



I can't count the number of times I've heard "this solid mahogany guitar is way brighter sounding than my alder strat!" or something similar. I definitely believe the piece of wood used will have some sort of effect on your tone. I do not believe that that effect is reliably predictable by wood species. Age, density, resin content, all possible contributors... but "mahogany = dark" has been shown to be untrue so often.

I'd love to see someone actually do a legit semi-scientific comparison... make a "neck" that holds all the electronics, hardware, etc. and a number of sets of wings of different species of woods that can be bolted on and measure the frequencies. Obviously you'd have to rig something up to provide an identical strum each time, but you should be able to get an idea as to what the differences between the woods are and how similar different bodies made from the same wood are. I'm sick of seeing these horrible ones like Rob Chapman's video, which lost me a lot of respect for him - all that showed was that two different guitars with different wood played by two different guys sound different even if they have similar hardware.


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## will_shred (Apr 8, 2014)

stevexc said:


> I can't count the number of times I've heard "this solid mahogany guitar is way brighter sounding than my alder strat!" or something similar. I definitely believe the piece of wood used will have some sort of effect on your tone. I do not believe that that effect is reliably predictable by wood species. Age, density, resin content, all possible contributors... but "mahogany = dark" has been shown to be untrue so often.
> 
> I'd love to see someone actually do a legit semi-scientific comparison... make a "neck" that holds all the electronics, hardware, etc. and a number of sets of wings of different species of woods that can be bolted on and measure the frequencies. Obviously you'd have to rig something up to provide an identical strum each time, but you should be able to get an idea as to what the differences between the woods are and how similar different bodies made from the same wood are. I'm sick of seeing these horrible ones like Rob Chapman's video, which lost me a lot of respect for him - all that showed was that two different guitars with different wood played by two different guys sound different even if they have similar hardware.




You mean like this? 

.....birdfish.................................


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

I'd think something that looked a little more traditional would hold more weight in an argument, but possibly. I was thinking basically a string-thru style neck, except wider in the body area to allow for the pickups to be mounted only to it, with "bolt-on" wings on the sides. Would probably just look like an incomplete guitar, but be structurally similar enough to prevent people from saying "well it's all in how the wood is attached, that thing's got too much metal which is going to make it sound way too high-gain grumble grumble"


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

ElRay said:


> A little bit of information is a dangerous thing.
> _"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"_​has no bearing on "
> _Individual species of wood consistently modify the vibrations of the strings so that unique variations in the frequency spectrum can be detected through the frequency modifications by the: pick-ups, pre-pre-amp effects, pre-amp, post-pre-amp effects, power amp stages, speakers and cabinet in such a manner that trained individual can consistently and repeatable identify the wood species by blindly listening to the sounds coming out of the speaker."_​Ray


Your following statement is a run on sentence that does not really state anything. Not trying to be internet bully about it, just stating that for the sake of communication one cannot rebute that without accepting a fallacy as the premise. 


It would be enough to state "_Individual species of wood consistently modify the vibrations of the strings". _

Then we could discuss whether or not that impact is made insignificant by the rest of the signal chain. 

That clearly seperates the argument into two areas where as stated it infers that tonewood does not impart any character as there is more in the signal chain that affects the tone which is a cart before the horse approach. 

I could go on about how newton's third law actually has a direct effect with regards to amplitudes of certain frequencies given the modulus of a wood as measured by a fourier transform, but you would simply retort with the statement that no double blind clinical trial has proved that humans can identify it as guitars sound different from guitar to guitar. That is also a fallacy of logic, as implying that there is no substantial effect because you cannot sort out the variables is simply wrong.

http://people.uncw.edu/hermanr/phy311/MathPhysBook/Strings.pdf


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Apr 8, 2014)

I've been here long enough to see us go full circle.
Holy sh_it. _


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## Opion (Apr 8, 2014)

My Ibanez RG321 (made of mahogany) had a massively different bass response when compared to my Basswood Ibby's. Then again, it was loaded with Bare Knuckle Painkillers, while my others are loaded with Coldsweat/Aftermath bridges. Should I maybe compare them all with the same pickups to get a more accurate representation? Yeah, maybe - but even unplugged, I notice a difference. 

I don't get what all the fuss is about. Maybe bulb conditioned all of us SS.org'ers to have really strong opinions about what tone woods sound the best (which I find hilarious, because after all those guitars he has gone through, he still comes back to basswood - the stock tone wood of ibanez guitars! ). 

This study is interesting, and I can definitely believe it - but IMO it's a different ball of wax when it comes to electric guitars. The thickness of finish, the type of finish used, the cut of wood, the amount of wood taken out by the trem cavity - after a while it all becomes just a bunch of jargon and things start to sound the same, but if you're a super nit-picky perfectionist like me, you can notice tiny nuances. Is it enough to make me feel like 4,000 year old mahogany resonates sooooo much better than alder? Eh, not really. There's no point. It's all about the notes you express, not in how fancy it's dressed up, at least for me


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## Rev2010 (Apr 8, 2014)

You know, I'd suggest we throw up a poll in the Luthier section and ask ONLY luthiers to respond whether they believe woods have an affect on tone in an electric guitar. Let the guys that build guitars and have far more experience on the matter weigh in and let's see what the poll results are. I'd love to do this, I just have a feeling a mod would shut it down.


Rev.


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## Quitty (Apr 8, 2014)

Wood definitely makes a difference - physics, fellas. 
Want to test it out and get conclusive results? Take the test to its extreme and make a guitar out of metal. Dense material doesn't dampen strings as much as softer material.

I wouldn't, however, rely on anyone's ability to discern one wood from the other. Physically speaking, they aren't that far apart.
Weight, joints, glue type, physical size all attribute much more than any wood ever could.


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

Quitty said:


> I wouldn't, however, rely on anyone's ability to discern one wood from the other. Physically speaking, they aren't that far apart.
> Weight, joints, glue type, physical size all attribute much more than any wood ever could.



Definitely. I heard they did some kind of study on violins, people comparing high-end modern ones to Stradivariuses, and they couldn't tell a difference!


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## Necris (Apr 8, 2014)

This actually ties directly in to the tonewood debate because some scientists believed that the "distinctive" sound of Stradivarius violins were due to the wood they were constructed from, and more specifically traits of the wood used (how, when and where it had grown).

Requiescat in pace "Legendary Stradivaruis Tone", and also RIP "Tonewood" debate, we knew ye all too well.

People who argue that the species of wood has a concrete and easily discernible effect on the tonality of an instrument while simultaneously arguing that variances between two pieces of wood (density, moisture content, age, etc) from the same species, even the same tree or same cut of wood, can cause two instruments made of identical wood to sound drastically different are definition of charlatans.


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

Why you mad though


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## redstone (Apr 8, 2014)

just going to leave this here

Tapping wood technique


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## ramses (Apr 8, 2014)

ElRay said:


> I'm not sure if it was this study, or another one where the results were that the "experts" consistently identified the Stad's 50% of the time; however, no two "experts" agreed which three were Strads and which three were modern.
> 
> Ray



This one, and a previous study, where the elite soloists "failed to distinguish new from old at better than chance levels".

Just in case, this is the abstract of the current study. You should all ready it, it is very relevant to many things that we guitarists care about.

*The abstract*:



> Many researchers have sought explanations for the purported tonal superiority of Old Italian violins by investigating varnish and wood properties, plate tuning systems, and the spectral balance of the radiated sound. Nevertheless, the fundamental premise of tonal superiority has been investigated scientifically only once very recently, and results showed a general preference for new violins and that players were unable to reliably distinguish new violins from old. The study was, however, relatively small in terms of the number of violins tested (six), the time allotted to each player (an hour), and the size of the test space (a hotel room). In this study, 10 renowned soloists each blind-tested six Old Italian violins (including five by Stradivari) and six new during two 75-min sessionsthe first in a rehearsal room, the second in a 300-seat concert hall. When asked to choose a violin to replace their own for a hypothetical concert tour, 6 of the 10 soloists chose a new instrument. A single new violin was easily the most-preferred of the 12. On average, soloists rated their favorite new violins more highly than their favorite old for playability, articulation, and pro- jection, and at least equal to old in terms of timbre. Soloists failed to distinguish new from old at better than chance levels. These results confirm and extend those of the earlier study and present a striking challenge to near-canonical beliefs about Old Italian violins.


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## Cabinet (Apr 8, 2014)

From what I have heard when it comes to guitars, the only time the wood really affects the sound is when the guitar is acoustic or has an acoustic pickup. And when looking for wood to build, I don't look at the species as much because the species of wood doesn't necessarily mean much. What will really affect the "sound" of the wood is how it was cut, its age, and where the tree came from.


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## Xaios (Apr 8, 2014)

Clearly the Stradis were being run through EMGs while the new ones had BKPs.


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## Kwert (Apr 8, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> You never see a swaddling luthier building a violin, wonder why ?
> Same goes for classical guitars and archtops etc. Yes a Benedetti is more expensive that anything solidbdody you can find. There's a reason for that, you have way less people with the ability to build one. Same goes for gemstones, cutting one isn't just learned in two days.





The markup on old, fine bows and instruments is still insane. For instance the famous cellist Lynn Harrell bought his Montagnana cello for $25000 in 1962. Now cellos by this maker are to be found in the 2-5 million dollar range. Even with inflation this is ridiculous. It's due to collectors/dealers artificially driving up the prices in auctions and private sales. Contemporary instruments are priced much more reasonably.

That being said, I don't dispute the absolutely amazing craftsmanship and sound of these old instruments. Like I said in an earlier post in this thread, I've had the privilege to be able to try many fine old instruments and they are indeed incredible. When compared to my main cello for some time, a 1998 David Wiebe valued at $45000, can their sound justify the extra few million dollars in price? I certainly don't think so.


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## Necris (Apr 8, 2014)

Was the maker of the most preferred new violin named? I imagine that would be some great marketing for them; "Scientifically proven to to sound as good as, or better than, a Stradivarius" (maybe a bit of a stretch but... that's advertising).

They could become the Blackmachine of Violin making.


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## ramses (Apr 8, 2014)

Necris said:


> Was the maker of the most preferred new violin named? I imagine that would be some great marketing for them; "Scientifically proven to to sound as good as, or better than, a Stradivarius" (maybe a bit of a stretch but... that's advertising).



Sadly, we may never know. From the paper:



> *The makers agreed not to publicize their involvement in the experiment and were aware they would never know whether their instrument had been included in the set of 12 test violins.*


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

The study shows that the players consistantly picked one over the other, which is consistant with the assertion that materials used in construction make a significant difference.

Cliffs: damn this thread got sidetracked hard.


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 8, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> You know, I'd suggest we throw up a poll in the Luthier section and ask ONLY luthiers to respond whether they believe woods have an affect on tone in an electric guitar. Let the guys that build guitars and have far more experience on the matter weigh in and let's see what the poll results are. I'd love to do this, I just have a feeling a mod would shut it down.
> 
> 
> Rev.




Or, better yet, a loser with too much free time (read: me) throw up a funderful little quiz!

So, not sure how many people will even bother here, but I decided to record 5 of my guitars. I recorded them plugged in, which was done through a pod HD in tuner mode (ie: no amps or effects), and directly into my Presonus Audiobox/DAW. At the same time, I recorded the same guitars with an SM57, at pretty much the same distance for each guitar.

Basically, I had two channels in my daw, both muted so the mic wouldn't pic any speaker noise up, recording at the same time. Takes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the plugged in guitars are the same exact takes as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the SM57. (my shitty playing should evidence that.) The strings are all brand new (like I said, too much free time on my hands.)

Listening to one or both sets of takes, I'm curious as to how correct people will be. I'd imagine that the acoustic recordings mean more since the guitars do all have different pickups. (again, they're all the same brand/gauge of strings, and they're all new.)

I want people to basically tell me what they think guitars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are made out of, or even consist of.

Amped version, which I just realized I goofed, since I recorded the first guitar with the neck pup and everything else with the bridge pups. Still, this is the least meaningful part since the pups are all different.

https://soundcloud.com/foxtrot89/guitars-amped

Acoustic recordings:
https://soundcloud.com/foxtrot89/guitars-acoustic

I'm curious to see what people guess.


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## fps (Apr 8, 2014)

But what did people sat listening in the concert hall say?


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

Señor Voorhees;3994062 said:


> I want people to basically tell me what they think guitars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are made out of, or even consist of.



Mahogany, Alder, Basswood, Mahogany, Acrylic.


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## Necris (Apr 8, 2014)

Bodies: Mahogany, Alder, Alder, Maple, Poplar

Neck: Mahogany, Maple, Maple, Maple, Maple
Fingerboard: Rosewood, Ebony, Maple, Rosewood, Rosewood


I haven't the faintest clue, just guessing based on what they're "supposed" to sound like; and even then, I am bullshitting every guess.


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 8, 2014)

I don't know why I didn't include this one, but here's another. (consider it number 6)

https://soundcloud.com/foxtrot89/guitars-acoustic-2

Only recorded acoustically because the pickups aren't wired right at the moment.

I'll wait 'til later tonight when hopefully some other folks make guesses before I mention what they're made of.


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## guitareben (Apr 8, 2014)

ElRay said:


> As I've said, let me see a double blind study where somebody listens to two guitars of the same design, with the same hardware and pick-ups and say: The first was maple and the second was mahogany, and then I'll take more stock in the "absolutes" of tone wood.
> 
> Ray



Here you go!! (or are you talking about "Maple sounds like X, Mahogany sounds like Y etc?" )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLxE8iDWD_w

Edit: Why isn't the video doing the thing... D:

Edit 2 : Looks like I'm a bit late... I should have read the thread first.


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## tedtan (Apr 8, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> Nats said:
> 
> 
> > That's because tone is in your fingers...
> ...



I used to be in that camp, Rev, but the more I've played clean and with low output pickups (and acoustic guitars), the more I've come to realize that where you pick the string, what angle you hold the pick, what you pick with (material, thickness, fingertip, nail, fingertip + nail, etc.) really does have an affect on the tone that is produced, not just feel. This is less noticeable through a ton of gain and effects, but the cleaner your rig, the more it holds true.


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## Rev2010 (Apr 8, 2014)

tedtan said:


> I've come to realize that where you pick the string, what angle you hold the pick, what you pick with (material, thickness, fingertip, nail, fingertip + nail, etc.) really does have an affect



Yes it does have an effect on the *sound* but not the instrument's inherent *tone*. In other words, if someone else picked with the same pick, at the same hardness, same angle, whatever on that same guitar the same tone would be reproduced. If that same person using the same pick, angle, etc and played that same note on a guitar with different pickups, scale length, body/neck woods, bridge, and strings a different *tone* would be produced from the other instrument. 

Again, there is a difference between the tone of an instrument and the different sounds and accents that can be achieved by people's difference in playing.


Rev.


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## rectifryer (Apr 8, 2014)

This thread is the new "why are you angry right now" thread lol


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## tedtan (Apr 8, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> Yes it does have an effect on the *sound* but not the instrument's inherent *tone*. In other words, if someone else picked with the same pick, at the same hardness, same angle, whatever on that same guitar the same tone would be reproduced. If that same person using the same pick, angle, etc and played that same note on a guitar with different pickups, scale length, body/neck woods, bridge, and strings a different *tone* would be produced from the other instrument.
> 
> Again, there is a difference between the tone of an instrument and the different sounds and accents that can be achieved by people's difference in playing.
> 
> ...



I'm not sure how you're defining sound vs. tone, but the post you quoted said that *tone* is in the fingers, not the instrument's inherent timbral quality (is this what you mean by sound) with a given set of pickups at a given height, and a given bridge, etc., etc., so that's just a strawman argument, no? 

After all, what difference does the "inherent tone" of an instrument make if we can't play it in order to hear it (we'd have to remove that pesky picking variable after all because we don't all pick the same way even if we theoretically could).


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## fwd0120 (Apr 8, 2014)

Simple answer....

They don't make violinists like they used too!!!


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 8, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> Yes it does have an effect on the *sound* but not the instrument's inherent *tone*. In other words, if someone picked with the same pick, at the same hardness, same angle, whatever on that same guitar the same tone would be reproduced. If that same person using the same pick, angle, etc and played that same note on a guitar with different pickups, scale length, body/neck woods, amp, and strings a different *tone* would be produced from the other instrument.
> 
> Again, there is a difference between the tone of an instrument and the different sounds and accents people can achieve by playing differently.
> 
> ...



Sort of, but when people say they can't get a good tone, it's usually not hardware related, and more to do with the person playing it. Basically, a good player can make a mediocre tone sound good, while a shitty player will make the best tone sound like trash. Mixing/other instruments actually play a huge role in how good a tone is too.

For example, a really beefy thick great sounding tone will sound muddy and terrible once you stick it in the context of a song. My music tends to be bass heavy, so the kick and bass take up everything below 200hz. If you isolate my guitar tracks, they sound pretty damn thin and unimpressive, but they can sound massive depending on what the other instruments are doing.

I still stand by the fact that every guitar will sound some degree of different. In that video a few posts back, they compare two guitars (mahogany and ash was it?) and they were indeed different. But what about lining up 10 of the same guitars made out of ash. Pickups can be wound slightly different, pickup heights could be different, better or worse soldering, etc. Things differ from one guitar to the next, even with guitars of the same wood.

Case and point, if you go back and listen to my acoustic recordings of electric guitars, guitars 3, 4, and 5 are all mahogany bodied maple necked guitars. Better still is that 3 and 5 have ebony boards, which is supposedly bright, while 4 has rosewood which is supposedly warm. (4 being the brightest guitar out of all 6) Going by tonewood logic, guitar 4 should have been warm sounding, but it was closer to shrill than anything else, including the acrylic guitar I used.

I figure not many more people will bother guessing about my 6 guitars, so I'll just give the answers away.

1 was swamp ash with a mahogany neck and ebony fretboard. 2 Was a KM7, so swamp ash, maple neck, ebony board. 3, 4, and 5 were mentioned above and 6 was acrylic with maple neck and rosewood board. I was most amused by guitar 4, which was the brightest sounding out of all six while being made of mahogany and rosewood... Both of which warmoth labels as very warm sounding. (guitar 5 sounded like a banjo to me, but it's not. It's a JRV7 with a brass trem stopper.)


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## Necris (Apr 8, 2014)

^ Apparently I can hear neck wood but not body wood or fingerboard wood.  I got all of the neck materials correct; although I did completely bullshit my guesses.


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

Señor Voorhees;3994261 said:


> Sort of, but when people say they can't get a good tone, it's usually not hardware related, and more to do with the person playing it. Basically, a good player can make a mediocre tone sound good, while a shitty player will make the best tone sound like trash. Mixing/other instruments actually play a huge role in how good a tone is too.
> 
> For example, a really beefy thick great sounding tone will sound muddy and terrible once you stick it in the context of a song. My music tends to be bass heavy, so the kick and bass take up everything below 200hz. If you isolate my guitar tracks, they sound pretty damn thin and unimpressive, but they can sound massive depending on what the other instruments are doing.
> 
> ...



Hah, got one right!

I totally agree with you on every point, glad to see I'm not a lone crazy person, haha.

But I think Rev is more getting at a more pedantic point, ie what is actually called "tone". Your playing style will change how you sound, but he's debating whether or not you'd refer to that as "tone".


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## Rev2010 (Apr 8, 2014)

tedtan said:


> I'm not sure how you're defining sound vs. tone, but the post you quoted said that *tone* is in the fingers, not the instrument's inherent timbral quality (is this what you mean by sound) with a given set of pickups at a given height, and a given bridge, etc., etc., so that's just a strawman argument, no?



No, there's a clear defined difference. An idiotic statement like, "That's because tone is in your fingers" implies any tonal difference can simply be created by the player. How on Earth is someone's fingers or playing going to reproduce the low end of a very tonally bassy instrument on a very bright instrument?

Your recent post doesn't really make any sense IMO. The point is two different instruments with fundamentally different tones are so because of the various products of their makeup - ie. wood, pickups, strings, bridges, metals, etc. If tone is all "in your fingers" than a player would be able to reproduce the sound of one guitar on any guitar he picked up and that is physically impossible. 

People like to use clever witty little phrases like that and it's just annoying because it's not factually accurate. Tone isn't "all in the fingers".


Rev.


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## Jzbass25 (Apr 8, 2014)

rapterr15 said:


> A quality cello can run 40 grand? Daaaaannnngg. Had no idea.



Try being an upright bass player, I wish 40 grand would get me the bass I want. Edit for perspective the cheap ones go down to like 2k and 40k is a much better instrument, I've played basses and gone wow this bass is sweet, how much? 250k... great...

Another edit: I did enjoy one of these when I played it but its more setup for jazz. 

But I much prefer something like this


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## Promit (Apr 8, 2014)

I want to clarify one thing about the original study: *The violins tested were not indistinguishable from each other.* The players picked out clear winners and losers of the bunch, by a substantial margin. The point is that the winners and losers were not readily identifiable as Strads, and that being a Strad was not an indicator of quality in either direction. Keep in mind that practically _all_ nice modern violins are Strad clones. They're trying to copy the original instruments dead on, and apparently they're doing a good job.

So just to be clear: the study has _no relevance whatsoever_ to the guitar tone wood issue. Not even for acoustics! The construction and style of all of these violins was likely identical, as were the types of wood used. This test is more along the lines of if you got a couple vintage 57 Stratocasters, compared them to modern Masterbuilt clones using the same woods and construction styles, and people couldn't reliably identify by the sound. (Which they probably can't.)


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## Rev2010 (Apr 8, 2014)

Señor Voorhees;3994261 said:


> Basically, a good player can make a mediocre tone sound good, while a shitty player will make the best tone sound like trash.



Completely agreed but that's because the player is bad and making it sound awful, the player isn't changing the fundamental tone of say, that awesome patch for the AxeFX that he downloaded. He's making it sound bad because what he's putting into it is bad.



Señor Voorhees;3994261 said:


> Mixing/other instruments actually play a huge role in how good a tone is too.



Absolutely, but that's called altering tone.



Señor Voorhees;3994261 said:


> I still stand by the fact that every guitar will sound some degree of different. In that video a few posts back, they compare two guitars (mahogany and ash was it?) and they were indeed different. But what about lining up 10 of the same guitars made out of ash.



Once again I completely agree. Seems we agree a lot. But I wasn't saying all woods are going to have the same tone, not at all. Just saying the idea of tone only being in one's fingers is hogwash.


Rev.


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## Necris (Apr 8, 2014)

I'd say if people could distinguish between violins of identical construction style and materials (woods) enough to pick out clear winners and losers, it would point to there being a wide range of variances between the wood the individual instruments are made out of.

In that case then, yes, it does have relevance to the guitar tone wood issue for both electric and acoustic guitars, it makes "tonewood" utterly irrelevant since there are no easily predictable tonal characteristics of a certain wood species; not even enough to give the general guidelines people currently swear by.

If you were to argue that maybe the finish on the woods, age of the woods, moisture content, etc were causing the differences then I guess we can enter the brave new world of "Tone finish", "Age Tone","Moisture Tone", "tone glue" or whatever. At some point it's going to start looking silly, the only reason "tonewood" itself doesn't already is because it's so deeply ingrained in the minds of guitar players.


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## littledoc (Apr 8, 2014)

thraxil said:


> She pointed out that the writeup is accurate but a bit misleading. In particular, the violinists were not asked if they could tell which violins were the Strads and which were the new ones, they were only asked which they preferred in A/B tests between an old and a new. She said that it was easy to tell them apart, so any headlines along the lines of "professional violinists can't tell the difference between a Strad and a modern violin in a doulbe blind test" are just utterly wrong.
> 
> She also pointed out that they only had a couple minutes with each violin and that the modern ones used were very high quality instruments.




This isn't consistent with the article in the LA Times about the study. They reported that the violinists could take plenty of time with each instrument, with some taking as long as 2½ hours. And the instruments were somewhat disguised (the edges softened on the new instruments) and played in a darkened room so as to minimize their ability to tell the difference.

I suspect the violinist herself has bought into the bias, and is defending her preconception. Biases are very hard to let go of, even in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary.


Oh, and another thing on the whole "tonewood" thing: one thing people often overlook is that woods of the same species are highly variable in density. "Mahogany" in particular is not even a single tree, but a catch-all term for a group of trees with similar characteristics. Any _one_ of those species could produce highly varied wood. I've played mahogany guitars that were like tanks, and others that were as light as swamp ash. 

That, combined with differences in drying and construction, mean that the actual type of wood used is of relatively low importance. Of course it imparts some difference. But I think most of the anti-tonewood crowd is simply pointing out that the lust after "premium" tonewoods is pretty much a farce.


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## no_dice (Apr 8, 2014)

Necris said:


> If you were to argue that maybe the finish on the woods, age of the woods, moisture content, etc were causing the differences then I guess we can enter the brave new world of "Tone finish", "Age Tone","Moisture Tone","Glue tone" or whatever.



Dear god don't give people any ideas!


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## AxeHappy (Apr 8, 2014)

Comparison to CD vs. vinyl is completely valid.

People let preconceived notions shape their thoughts. Thoughts are proven false in single blind studies.

It makes a lot of sense. Violin makers have had a long time to improve on the craft and tools.

Almost certainly true of the whole tonewood thing too.


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## shanejohnson02 (Apr 8, 2014)

My $.02:

1) Wood makes a difference. Listen to a spruce classical guitar followed by a cedar. Clear (and measurable) difference.

2) Other things make far more of a difference. Amps, speakers, pickups, strings, picks, technique, etc. FAR more of a difference than the wood makes. In fact, I would go so far as to say that pickups and amps make the most dramatic difference when swapped. (Obviously not an issue on acoustic instruments).

3) Tone is not in the fingers. Technique, nuance, style, etc are all in the fingers. Tone is strictly defined as "The character of a sound, especially the timbre of an instrument or voice." First year music majors know this. If you believe otherwise, then I challenge you to pick up a telecaster and plug into a fender deluxe reverb, and sound like Meshuggah. Not gonna happen. You *can* change the timbre slightly by using your fingers instead of a pick, tapping, playing up higher on the neck, using a different pickup (neck instead of bridge, etc). But the basic character of the sound will still be present.

4) What does it really matter? 99% of your audience won't know the difference or care. Most of them will just say "Wow, that's a cool-looking guitar" (if they even care that much) instead of "Wow, that guitar player sucks because he's using swamp ash! It would sound MUCH better with mahogany!" I have the same argument with digital vs tubes, pedals vs amps, etc. 

At some point, the argument devolves into bedroom-shredder cork-sniffery.

Bottom line: Wood matters, tone ain't in the fingers, but nobody in the audience really cares as long as the music is good.

Also, that study was really cool.


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## Promit (Apr 8, 2014)

Necris said:


> If you were to argue that maybe the finish on the woods, age of the woods, moisture content, etc were causing the differences then I guess we can enter the brave new world of "Tone finish", "Age Tone","Moisture Tone", "tone glue" or whatever. At some point it's going to start looking silly, the only reason "tonewood" itself doesn't already is because it's so deeply ingrained in the minds of guitar players.


I have already seen those discussions on other forums, although relatively few subscribe to that extreme of a viewpoint.


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 8, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> Completely agreed but that's because the player is bad and making it sound awful, the player isn't changing the fundamental tone of say, that awesome patch for the AxeFX that he downloaded. He's making it sound bad because what he's putting into it is bad.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I should have clarified that I do indeed agree with your point of view. Obviously a nice sounding guitar/violin/whatever will always have that ability to make good sounds. More times than not when somebody asks how to get a "great" tone, it's usually a shortcoming on the players part and their actual tone wasn't to blame. This is more or less how it comes to my mind when someone says that tone is in the fingers. Sort of a snarky way of saying "you sure it's the hardware? You sure you just don't suck?"

It's a bit of a silly statement, sure, but more times than not I'd bet the person complaining about tone just sucks. lol


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

Promit said:


> I have already seen those discussions on other forums, although relatively few subscribe to that extreme of a viewpoint.



Oh man, you wouldn't believe the arguments I've seen over whether poly or nitro provides the clearest tone.

Obviously it's poly, jeeze. 

I think the "tone is in the fingers" statement is misunderstood and misused (not to mention phrased poorly). Personally when I say it I mean something to the effect of "buying John Petrucci's amp, John Petrucci's guitar, John Petrucci's pick, and John Petrucci's hair straightener won't make you sound like John Petrucci" but it gets mutated somewhere along the line into "John Petrucci can pick up your guitar and play whatever and it'll have the exact same tone as on the album!" I'll use the word "tone" because it's usually in rebuttal to "I want to get Guitarist X's exact tone!".. well, you won't, because you're not Guitarist X and his playing is a major contributor to his tone.

/end ramble


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## Xaios (Apr 8, 2014)

stevexc said:


> John Petrucci's hair straightener won't make you sound like John Petrucci


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## Promit (Apr 8, 2014)

stevexc said:


> Oh man, you wouldn't believe the arguments I've seen over whether poly or nitro provides the clearest tone.
> 
> Obviously it's poly, jeeze.


Let's not forget the guys who have to have two or even one piece guitar bodies. I'm in the wood makes a difference camp but come on


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## shanejohnson02 (Apr 8, 2014)

stevexc said:


> Oh man, you wouldn't believe the arguments I've seen over whether poly or nitro provides the clearest tone.
> 
> Obviously it's poly, jeeze.
> 
> ...



Actually, you *can* have JP's tone with all of that equipment. You just won't play like he does, with the exact same nuances.

Taken to the extreme, if you and him played the same whole note, no vibrato, though his rig, the tone would be identical. The basic arrangement of bass, mid, treble, etc within the spectrum wouldn't change.


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## stevexc (Apr 8, 2014)

shanejohnson02 said:


> Actually, you *can* have JP's tone with all of that equipment. You just won't play like he does, with the exact same nuances.
> 
> Taken to the extreme, if you and him played the same whole note, no vibrato, though his rig, the tone would be identical. The basic arrangement of bass, mid, treble, etc within the spectrum wouldn't change.



You know what exactly what I meant  You'd have the exact same tonal characteristics but you wouldn't sound like John Petrucci.

Just like if in the study they had amateurs playing the new violins and pros playing the strads - the Stradivariuseres would have won out every time (HAH weak attempt to get back on topic!)


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## Señor Voorhees (Apr 8, 2014)

stevexc said:


> You know what exactly what I meant  You'd have the exact same tonal characteristics but you wouldn't sound like John Petrucci.



This. When somebody hops on a forum and makes their first/only post "how do I get *insert name here*'s crushing tone," likely the answer is "to play better." lol

Dialing in usable tones is never too difficult. Making them sound right with your playing is the hard part.

All of this aside, and my half assed attempt at going back on topic as well, I'd love to fondle a strad. Shit's crazy. According to wikipedia, the first solid body electric guitar is ~77 years old. Acording to wikipedia again, Antonio Stradivari died in 1737. If he made an instrument on the day of his death, it'd still be ~277 years old. That's absolutely bonkers to think about. An actual functioning instrument that's that old. A stupid plank of wood with strings on it transcending a handful of generations of humans. It's really quite cool. And the fact that people still strive to build things to compete with it says a lot about the quality.


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## ramses (Apr 8, 2014)

Señor Voorhees;3994709 said:


> All of this aside [...] I'd love to fondle a strad. Shit's crazy. According to wikipedia, the first solid body electric guitar is ~77 years old. Acording to wikipedia again, Antonio Stradivari died in 1737. If he made an instrument on the day of his death, it'd still be ~277 years old. That's absolutely bonkers to think about. An actual functioning instrument that's that old. A stupid plank of wood with strings on it transcending a handful of generations of humans. It's really quite cool. And the fact that people still strive to build things to compete with it says a lot about the quality.



Yup.

Although I always suspected that a contemporary, high-quality violin sounds better than a Stradivariuswhich this study confirms, I have always wanted to have a Strad in my hands. I'm sure that it would be an amazing experience, and extremely inspiring, even though I'm perfectly aware that a violin finished a couple of days ago, by some top luthier in my city, would kick its ass.


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## Kwert (Apr 8, 2014)

ramses said:


> Yup.
> 
> Although I always suspected that a contemporary, high-quality violin sounds better than a Stradivariuswhich this study confirms, I have always wanted to have a Strad in my hands. I'm sure that it would be an amazing experience, and extremely inspiring, even though I'm perfectly aware that a violin finished a couple of days ago, by some top luthier in my city, would kick its ass.




It could be, though if you don't know what you're doing it's likely to be an incredibly frustrating experience. A lot of people seem to think that these old Italians are instruments that play themselves, but in many cases it's exactly the opposite. Unless you have significant time with the instrument to learn how it reacts to different bow pressures/speeds/contact points, and different left hand pressure/vibrato etc it can be really difficult to get a satisfactory sound out of one. When the player does figure all of this out though the result is usually an incredible one.

Obviously it varies, but I have yet to encounter a nice contemporary instrument that I feel like I'm fighting with, unlike older ones.


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## abandonist (Apr 8, 2014)

I've had the chance to play a Lloyd Loar mandolin and I couldn't tell the difference from a nice Collins.


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## Given To Fly (Apr 8, 2014)

shanejohnson02 said:


> My $.02:
> 
> 1) Wood makes a difference. Listen to a spruce classical guitar followed by a cedar. Clear (and measurable) difference.
> 
> ...



Thank you for mentioning spruce and cedar in classical guitar construction, the differences are not subtle. Also, these are pretty much your only top wood options and its the first specification listed on a "spec sheet." This gets tricky when modern building techniques are taken into account though. I have a double-top classical guitar made with one layer of cedar and one layer of spruce. 

I also am not a fan of the "tone is in your fingers" argument because its always classic rock guys saying it. But in truth, good tone on classical guitars comes from having properly filed/shaped nails. So to some degree, yes, tone is in your fingers but I never hear classical guitarists talking about this; its considered common knowledge. 

As for concert level acoustic instruments being overpriced, I would disagree, I think they are expensive because they are hard to build and few people can do it. I would be lying if I said no instruments are overpriced, but that is a complicated topic that is more political than musical.


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## Necris (Apr 8, 2014)

I'd even go as far as to say playability is in the fingers for classical, I remember trying to play a tremolo exercise I'd played easily the day before after accidentally breaking the nail on my middle finger and I couldn't do it with any reasonable amount of consistency anymore.


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## Given To Fly (Apr 9, 2014)

AxeHappy said:


> Violin makers have had a long time to improve on the craft and tools.



I had a conversation with a violinist about this very thing. According to her, the violin has existed in many forms but the design Stradivari used is pretty much the same design being used today; no major structural changes have been adopted. The guitar, as concert instrument, is in its youth. The violin, in its current form, has been sorted out for awhile.


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## Rylynn (Apr 9, 2014)




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## Grand Moff Tim (Apr 9, 2014)




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## Given To Fly (Apr 9, 2014)

Necris said:


> I'd even go as far as to say playability is in the fingers for classical, I remember trying to play a tremolo exercise I'd played easily the day before after accidentally breaking the nail on my middle finger and I couldn't do it with any reasonable amount of consistency anymore.



Breaking a nail is not a joke.  That finger is borderline useless until the nail grows back.


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## Andromalia (Apr 9, 2014)

Quitty said:


> Wood definitely makes a difference - physics, fellas.



Great. Please measure it, quantify it, and reproduce it. Then we talk.

Maybe you'll figure out that if no one has been able to replicate a stradivarius tone there is a reason. Which might/might not have to do with whetever factor you want: we don't know. Claiming "its because of _this_" is just spreading ignorance.


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## wilch (Apr 9, 2014)

Nats said:


> That's because tone is in your fingers...



TBH, I prefer the tone in the fingers I was born with over other fingers that I've tried.

That said, I won't pretend to have tried many other fingers, or even multiple types of fingers from the same nationality. But I do know when I like the tone of certain fingers over others.


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## Nats (Apr 9, 2014)

I've always interpreted "Tone is in your fingers/hands" as kind of a tongue in cheek thing people say, which is exactly how I meant it when I posted it. It's hilarious how angry it makes that Rev guy though


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## UnderTheSign (Apr 9, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> You know, I'd suggest we throw up a poll in the Luthier section and ask ONLY luthiers to respond whether they believe woods have an affect on tone in an electric guitar. Let the guys that build guitars and have far more experience on the matter weigh in and let's see what the poll results are. I'd love to do this, I just have a feeling a mod would shut it down.
> 
> 
> Rev.


With all due respect, a lot of luthiers and especially the older ones are stuck in the whole tonewood thing as much as players are. I remember one of our wood dealers stories of a guy who'd been building guitars for multiple decades and bought his stuff based on 'tap tone'. They made him do a blind test but instead of giving him two different pieces, they gave him 2 pieces of maple from the same board. He swore he had been handed two completely different pieces of wood...


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## lucasreis (Apr 9, 2014)

But will it dj...?


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## Given To Fly (Apr 9, 2014)

Nats said:


> I've always interpreted "Tone is in your fingers/hands" as kind of a tongue in cheek thing people say, which is exactly how I meant it when I posted it. It's hilarious how angry it makes that Rev guy though



I think the tone of your comment came through clearly. Even in sarcasm, some phrases should not be used lightly though. In regards to violin though, the intonation actually is in your left hand accuracy.



UnderTheSign said:


> With all due respect, a lot of luthiers and especially the older ones are stuck in the whole tonewood thing as much as players are. I remember one of our wood dealers stories of a guy who'd been building guitars for multiple decades and bought his stuff based on 'tap tone'. They made him do a blind test but instead of giving him two different pieces, they gave him 2 pieces of maple from the same board. He swore he had been handed two completely different pieces of wood...



If he had been building guitars for multiple decades than he must have been a pretty good luthier.


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## Rev2010 (Apr 9, 2014)

Nats said:


> I've always interpreted "Tone is in your fingers/hands" as kind of a tongue in cheek thing people say, which is exactly how I meant it when I posted it. It's hilarious how angry it makes that Rev guy though



 Just because I disagree with you doesn't instantly make me angry. I said I cringe everytime I see that comment. I didn't say everytime I see it I go HULK SMASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 


Rev.


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## shanejohnson02 (Apr 9, 2014)

Given To Fly said:


> In regards to violin though, the intonation actually is in your left hand accuracy.



intonation =/= tone.

Intonation is the accuracy of a pitch compared to a standard (A440, in most cases).

Tone is the way something physically sounds, the arrangement of bass/mid/treble within a spectrum.


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## will_shred (Apr 9, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> You know, I'd suggest we throw up a poll in the Luthier section and ask ONLY luthiers to respond whether they believe woods have an affect on tone in an electric guitar. Let the guys that build guitars and have far more experience on the matter weigh in and let's see what the poll results are. I'd love to do this, I just have a feeling a mod would shut it down.
> 
> 
> Rev.



I understand the point you're trying to make, however that experiment in itself is a logical fallacy. Appeal to authority. IMO asking a builder would probably be no different than asking anyone else who has a lot of guitar playing experience. You would probably get just as many builders saying it does as it doesn't, much like you do on here. 


I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing though


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## Rev2010 (Apr 9, 2014)

will_shred said:


> You would probably get just as many builders saying it does as it doesn't, much like you do on here.



Well we don't know that really. What if such a poll went up and 8 or 9 out of 10 luthiers voted one way? I'd say that's a pretty overwhelming majority.



will_shred said:


> I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing though



I do that too, it's fun no?  


Rev.


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## Quitty (Apr 9, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> Great. Please measure it, quantify it, and reproduce it. Then we talk.
> 
> Maybe you'll figure out that if no one has been able to replicate a stradivarius tone there is a reason. Which might/might not have to do with whetever factor you want: we don't know. Claiming "its because of _this_" is just spreading ignorance.



The point with physics is that it's consistent - that's what it's for. You don't need to quantify anything to know how the model behaves.
We can argue about what constitutes 'Stradivarius tone', but whatever it is, i assure you physics are to blame 
As said, I don't think woods are discernible, but that doesn't mean they don't make a difference - only that the difference is inconsistent and full of other variables.

Ditto for violins. I'm sure there's something special about everything from the lacquer through wood choice to construction, but there are so many variables that discerning a Strad from a 'plain' good instrument should be impossible -
so while it's ok to assume it's better because it's a Stradivarius, it's silly to assume it's a Stradivarius because it's better.

EDIT: nah, i didn't just go there.


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## redstone (Apr 9, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> Maybe you'll figure out that if no one has been able to replicate a stradivarius tone there is a reason.



Who knows that no other violins sound like a typical stradivarius ? Who knows how a typical stradivarius sounds ? Who can borrow a dozen stradivariuses in good condition ?


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## AxeHappy (Apr 9, 2014)

Given To Fly said:


> I had a conversation with a violinist about this very thing. According to her, the violin has existed in many forms but the design Stradivari used is pretty much the same design being used today; no major structural changes have been adopted. The guitar, as concert instrument, is in its youth. The violin, in its current form, has been sorted out for awhile.




Quite. I started playing the violin at 3. And all the violins I have owned were Strad copies.

That doesn't mean they haven't come up with better ways to make them, or better tools. Or access to better woods. Or etc...


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## will_shred (Apr 9, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> Well we don't know that really. What if such a poll went up and 8 or 9 out of 10 luthiers voted one way? I'd say that's a pretty overwhelming majority.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Well, i'm just saying what's the difference between a builder and anyone else who loves guitars? Plenty of us spend countless hours playing guitars, all kinds of guitars and obsessing over tone, and you get a mixed bag of answers when you ask the question. Why would it be any different for someone who has our same level of obsession, who just happened to choose to make a living out of it?

I just don't see why someone who builds guitars automatically has some special insight into the question that us plebs don't. I mean, not every professional food critic is a Michelin star chef right?


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## Necris (Apr 9, 2014)

UnderTheSign said:


> With all due respect, a lot of luthiers and especially the older ones are stuck in the whole tonewood thing as much as players are. I remember one of our wood dealers stories of a guy who'd been building guitars for multiple decades and bought his stuff based on 'tap tone'. They made him do a blind test but instead of giving him two different pieces, they gave him 2 pieces of maple from the same board. He swore he had been handed two completely different pieces of wood...



Going by "tap tone" is silly. Adding pressure to the wood changes the tap tone,any structural alteration to the wood blank (I.e. routing out a channel for a truss rod) changes the tap tone, installing hardware can alter tap tone etc etc.

Guys choosing their wood based on tap tone might as well walk in with crystal ball or a divining rod and try to find the best wood possible with those. 


Also; on the "Lets ask actual luthiers!" bit, that's sort of like trusting a car salesman. I imagine the vast majority would say "yes, wood species absolutely affects tone in a predictable way" but would shy away from any sort of blind test because failure would have an affect on their business.

For some reason there is a mystique surrounding luthiers that leads people to believe they are more able to hear the differences between woods and, honestly, aside from actual woodworking skill that's probably a big part of their draw, maybe even the biggest part. 

The belief that "This guy has been building for years, he has an amazing knowledge of how different species woods sound, I'm sure he's going to be able to point me in the right direction as far as wood selections to give me a great sounding instrument". would disappear if said builder couldn't do significantly better than chance at identifying which instrument was made out of which wood in a blind test based on sound; and customers would likely disappear because of that.

Superstition runs deep.


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## Rev2010 (Apr 9, 2014)

Will, the difference is the builder has likely created the same exact guitar with different wood combos whereas players rarely have the exact same model with all the same hardware and specs but just different body woods. 


Rev.


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## mongey (Apr 9, 2014)

Dayn said:


> Phew, good thing too, I was about to get a Stradivarius this afternoon. Then strap a pickup to it and run it through distortion. _TONE_
> 
> But yeah, that doesn't surprise me. It's wood, put together with strings. Three hundred years later, we have much better technology to help make better wood, put together with strings.
> 
> Not saying they're bad, but beyond the prestige and incredible heritage value, though...


 

Last time I saw the dirty 3 he was running his violin through a cranked marshall stack. good tone but damn it was bright


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## tedtan (Apr 9, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> No, there's a clear defined difference. An idiotic statement like, "That's because tone is in your fingers" implies any tonal difference can simply be created by the player. How on Earth is someone's fingers or playing going to reproduce the low end of a very tonally bassy instrument on a very bright instrument?



Hmmm... I don't take the "tone is in the fingers" comment to mean that a player can create ANY tonal difference with his fingers any more than stating that he can magically transform one instrument into another, like transforming his banjo into a cello simply through his technique. That's just foolishness. Rather, it simply means that two players will _sound_ different because they _play_ differently. And not just their note choice, timing, phrasing, etc., but the actual _tone_ each produces, too.




Rev2010 said:


> Your recent post doesn't really make any sense IMO. The point is two different instruments with fundamentally different tones are so because of the various products of their makeup - ie. wood, pickups, strings, bridges, metals, etc. If tone is all "in your fingers" than a player would be able to reproduce the sound of one guitar on any guitar he picked up and that is physically impossible.



Be careful here - no one said tone is ALL in the fingers; you've added the "all" to bolster your position. As I said above, no one claims the magical ability to be able to make one guitar sound exactly like another, but rather that two players playing the exact same rig will sound different from one another _tonally_ as well as _stylistically_ due to the differences in the way they play. The less gain and effects in place, the more obvious this fact becomes. 

Besides, how do we know what the inherent tone of a given instrument is? How can we hear it? After all, the only way we can hear it is play it (or have someone else play it), at which point the player's inherent tone combines with the instrument's inherent tone, and what we hear is a combination of the two. There is simply no way to hear the instrument without hearing the player, too, because without the player, the instrument is simply a useless, inert pile of wood, metal and plastic.


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## tedtan (Apr 9, 2014)

shanejohnson02 said:


> Actually, you *can* have JP's tone with all of that equipment. You just won't play like he does, with the exact same nuances.
> 
> Taken to the extreme, if you and him played the same whole note, no vibrato, though his rig, the tone would be identical. The basic arrangement of bass, mid, treble, etc within the spectrum wouldn't change.



No, even with the same signal chain and settings, the treble, mids, and bass will vary, as will the pick attack transients, sustain, etc. based on who actually picks that whole note. With a lot of gain or effects, this may not be noticeable, but it absolutely happens - give two players the same acoustic/classical guitar (or violin) to hear this most effectively without amps, effects, etc. getting in the way.


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## Thorerges (Apr 10, 2014)

ramses said:


> ... and tend to prefer new violins to Stradivari, when tested in double-blind conditions (to remove bias).
> 
> 
> Link to paper
> ...



The paywall is so high you might as well just post the entire paper.


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## Given To Fly (Apr 10, 2014)

redstone said:


> Who knows that no other violins sound like a typical stradivarius ? Who knows how a typical stradivarius sounds ? Who can borrow a dozen stradivariuses in good condition ?



This is SSO! We are a cultured people! Are you implying you do not know the typical tonal qualities of a Stradivarius!?  Peasant!


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## Andless (Apr 10, 2014)

stevexc said:


> "buying John Petrucci's amp, John Petrucci's guitar, John Petrucci's pick, and John Petrucci's hair straightener won't make you sound like John Petrucci"



I'm one of those guys that cringe a bit inside at buying signature gear, and apologies in before hand for derailing the subject, but I just bought variety of different picks because the ones I used to use just didn't cut it any more. One of the picks were John's and I have to say WOW! Really really nice.

For the record, my hair is so straight I'll pass on the straightener, but if all John's signature stuff is this good, I'm buying a majesty 7 next!


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## Rev2010 (Apr 10, 2014)

@Tedtan - you either haven't read everything I've said or haven't properly interpreted it. You're still comparing the nuances of people's playing and the variances it creates in sound to the tone of an instrument. Shane also made a very clear point that you can't plug in a fender strat and instantly sound like Meshuggah simply because of the player. The scale length of the fender, the pickups, woods, hardware, strings, etc will also make the sound wildly different. The difference in sound between two players on the same instrument is noticeable sure, but it's still slight, it's not world's of difference unless you're simply comparing crappy playing against good. The difference in sound is cause by those sets of variables you mentioned, it has nothing to do with an instruments tone. I can't invest any more time trying to drive this simple point home. 


Rev.


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## redstone (Apr 10, 2014)

Given To Fly said:


> This is SSO! We are a cultured people! Are you implying you do not know the typical tonal qualities of a Stradivarius!?  Peasant!



my bad


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## Andromalia (Apr 10, 2014)

redstone said:


> Who knows that no other violins sound like a typical stradivarius ? Who knows how a typical stradivarius sounds ? Who can borrow a dozen stradivariuses in good condition ?


Any well know world class violinist can do this. I personally know three Stradivarius owners though my father. I'm pretty well versed in the classical music world. I own an 18th century italian viola myself (was my father's, estimated 250-400K depending on market).

It is true you have very good modern instruments, and besides even Stradivarius (and such) owners use copies in day to day playing and concerts (insuring these for travel is too expensive).



> The point with physics is that it's consistent - that's what it's for. You don't need to quantify anything to know how the model behaves.


You also can't use a model to predict anything. You can just assess after the fact that it complied with model X. Else Halley's comet would still be there for its next rendez-vous. I can talk "physics" if you want, but make sure to knwo what "physics" is. It certainly is NOT what everybody is thaught in elementary class, to start with.


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## Quitty (Apr 10, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> You also can't use a model to predict anything. You can just assess after the fact that it complied with model X. Else Halley's comet would still be there for its next rendez-vous. I can talk "physics" if you want, but make sure to knwo what "physics" is. It certainly is NOT what everybody is thaught in elementary class, to start with.


You've never studied physics, have you?..
A model is used to predict the change in a system based on a change in a parameter. Nothing more, nothing less.

Halley's comet, by the way, is exactly what i'm implying; a model was used to predict its return and that model was correct, but variables (Jupiter, IIRC) were missed and thus the date was wrong -
so while you predict the apple falls downwards based on a model, you can't accurately tell the speed without accounting for all variables.

Equally, if an instrument's sound is composed of numerous variables, you can predict the outcome of a change in woods, for example - but you can't quantify the exact frequency response because you can't account for all the variables.


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## shanejohnson02 (Apr 10, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> You also can't use a model to predict anything. You can just assess after the fact that it complied with model X. Else Halley's comet would still be there for its next rendez-vous. I can talk "physics" if you want, but make sure to knwo what "physics" is. It certainly is NOT what everybody is thaught in elementary class, to start with.



Actually, you *can* use models to predict. I do it all the time with long-range communications. We use a prediction model that takes into account things like frequency, F-layer ionization, time of day, etc in order to bounce an HF beam off the upper atmosphere and hit a target a few miles wide, from a range of 400-1000 miles.

I also enjoy long-range shooting. There are literally hundreds of different models available that help you calculate a shooting solution. Most of the time, they are within .5 minutes of angle of being dead-on. The models take into account things like air temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed / direction, bullet aerodynamics (ballistic coefficient, muzzle velocity). There are even EXTREMELY accurate models that add in the ballistic coefficient change (because as velocity changes, so does the BC) and the rotation of the earth (to account for the coriolis effect).

The model is just that...a model. But in most cases they are very accurate and can at least get you in the ballpark of being correct. I will say that 99% of the time I've used it, the calculations have been correct.

The fun in physics comes from trying to figure out why a model didn't hold up. That's usually where the interesting discoveries are made.

Which brings me full-circle back to the article. The current thought is that a Strad is superior to pretty much anything else. It's the standard by which all other bowed instruments are judged (because Stradivarius didn't just make violins). The results from this study do not agree with the current "model" that we would all expect. It doesn't really prove anything though, because you can't measure how much "better" something is. Subjectivity and group consensus are not necessarily iron-clad.


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## Andromalia (Apr 10, 2014)

Quitty said:


> Halley's comet, by the way, is exactly what i'm implying; a model was used to predict its return and that model was correct, but variables (Jupiter, IIRC) were missed and thus the date was wrong -


It wasn't late, it exploded, while the model predicted a forever motion, as it actually wasn't designed for anyting else.

What I mean by that is that, however many times your model was right, you cannot 100% guarantee it will be right_ next time_. You have to retest and see it it worked again. Hence it not being a predictive model, as opposed, to, say, mathematical models you _know _will give the same result.
In mathematics, 2+2 always equal 4. (Let's stay simple and keep to basic algebra, don't bring quantum into this, please  ) 
In physics, 2+2 equaled 4 38413564 times and the next_ ought to_ be identical. But you don't _know _until you tried. Check Langton's ant for a more detailed view on this if you're interested.


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## Rev2010 (Apr 10, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> It wasn't late, it exploded



Where are you getting that information from??  According to a quick lookup, "The next predicted perihelion of Halley's Comet is 28 July 2061":

Halley's Comet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*EDIT - you referring to this? http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso9103/


Rev.


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## redstone (Apr 10, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> Any well know world class violinist can do this. I personally know three Stradivarius owners though my father. I'm pretty well versed in the classical music world. I own an 18th century italian viola myself (was my father's, estimated 250-400K depending on market).



How can you know no other strat & clones sound like a 1967 fender strat ? By owning three of them ? Nope.

Any rich old fart can borrow 10 violins from every brand/luthier and compare them to some stradivariuses to prove wether or not they are so different. But who did ?


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## tedtan (Apr 10, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> @Shane also made a very clear point that you can't plug in a fender strat and instantly sound like Meshuggah simply because of the player. The scale length of the fender, the pickups, woods, hardware, strings, etc will also make the sound wildly different.


 
Of course gear has an inherent tone; that should go without saying. In fact, in some styles like djent, for example, where players use high output pickups into high gain guitars with a couple of compressors and a couple of noise gates or indie rock where the players are simultaneously running through a fuzz or three, two or three modulation pedals, a couple of delays and some reverb, these may be the _only_ things we hear, because the subtleties of the player's tone and dynamics are far overshadowed by the gear itself.




Rev2010 said:


> @The difference in sound between two players on the same instrument is noticeable sure.


 
The fact that we, as players, bring our own tone to the instrument, primarily through the picking hand, was the point I was making, not trying to claim that I have special modeling fingers that can replicate the sound of various gear. I'm not deaf, after all.


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## stevexc (Apr 10, 2014)

tedtan said:


> not trying to claim that I have special modeling fingers that can replicate the sound of various gear.



I hear Line 6 is working on those for winter NAMM 2015.


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## CRaul87 (Apr 10, 2014)

Bareknuckles and Blackmachines....


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## shanejohnson02 (Apr 10, 2014)

The point is people are misunderstanding the definition of "tone".


A player's style and nuance has absolutely nothing to do with the basic timbre of the instrument.


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## thraxil (Apr 10, 2014)

shanejohnson02 said:


> The model is just that...a model. But in most cases they are very accurate and can at least get you in the ballpark of being correct. I will say that 99% of the time I've used it, the calculations have been correct.



As George E. P. Box said, "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."


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## ramses (Apr 10, 2014)

Thorerges said:


> The paywall is so high you might as well just post the entire paper.



Sorry about that. For whatever reason, I can see the full paper using the link I posted.


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## neotronic (Apr 10, 2014)

tedtan said:


> Hmmm... I don't take the "tone is in the fingers" comment to mean that a player can create ANY tonal difference with his fingers any more than stating that he can magically transform one instrument into another, like transforming his banjo into a cello simply through his technique. That's just foolishness. Rather, it simply means that two players will _sound_ different because they _play_ differently. And not just their note choice, timing, phrasing, etc., but the actual _tone_ each produces, too.



Yeah, a friend of mine is a blues player, and when he picks mi 7string ibanez plugged into engl savage using my favorite settings, even if he tries to play metal it still has the blues sound. Although the sound id heavily distorted it's still more blues sound than a metal sound.


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## shanejohnson02 (Apr 10, 2014)

neotronic said:


> Yeah, a friend of mine is a blues player, and when he picks mi 7string ibanez plugged into engl savage using my favorite settings, even if he tries to play metal it still has the blues sound. Although the sound id heavily distorted it's still more blues sound than a metal sound.



But it's probably a "blues" sound because he's using notes and techniques that are associated with blues music. The instrument itself will sound the same.


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## skeels (Apr 10, 2014)

Guitars=chaos theory.


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## mongey (Apr 10, 2014)

This article is being hotly debated on a few different gear sites at the moment 

I cant claim to know anything about violins . My only thought is this.I don't subscribe to the theory that we have spent hundreds of years making instruments sound worse . build techniques change yeah but I have no trouble believeing new instrument play better and sound at least on par with their lofty predecessors 

I've never played a 50's or 60's strat or les paul .and i'm sure there are many great things about their build quality and feel . but i'd bet a mid range korean made guitar today intonates and plays better 

IMHO the player does influence the tone of an instrument to a degree .but I think even what your thinking when you play can change how it sounds so i'm a bit of a hippy there . But a instrument does have a core "tone" that isnt linked to the player


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## Andromalia (Apr 10, 2014)

mongey said:


> I cant claim to know anything about violins . My only thought is this.I don't subscribe to the theory that we have spent hundreds of years making instruments sound worse . build techniques change yeah but I have no trouble believeing new instrument play better and sound at least on par with their lofty predecessors



Nobody is saying Stradivarius play better, what people are saying is that luthiers all over the world for centuries have been unable to build an instrument with the same tonal characteristics. It doesn't mean that only Strads sound good. It means they're the only ones to sound like they do. And nobody has a clue why, because replicating a modern violin is easy enough to do. 
We likely are unable to build pyramids today, if it comes to that. We still have no real idea how they were built apart from some far-fetched hypothesises.



> Where are you getting that information from??


Ack; looks like I remembered the wrong comet, it was Shoemaker-Levy actually. Crashed into Jupiter a few years ago.


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## AceFransson (Apr 11, 2014)

not surprised at all...


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## Explorer (Apr 12, 2014)

Out of order:



Andromalia said:


> We likely are unable to build pyramids today, if it comes to that. We still have no real idea how they were built apart from some far-fetched hypothesises.



There was an awesome episode of Nova, "This Old Pyramid," where, only using tools and muscle available to the ancient Egyptians, they were able to build a small pyramid. 

But you are correct in that some asserted that we would likely never be able to do so. They were wrong eventually, yes, but they did exist before the demonstration.



Andromalia said:


> Nobody is saying Stradivarius play better, what people are saying is that luthiers all over the world for centuries have been unable to build an instrument with the same tonal characteristics. It doesn't mean that only Strads sound good. It means they're the only ones to sound like they do. And nobody has a clue why, because replicating a modern violin is easy enough to do.



I thought the assertion, around for years, is that the Stradivarius instruments did have some golden tone which cannot be duplicated.

And so the experiments, like the current study under discussion, have been set up to find out if the "mojo" even exists.

And in the few experiments with blinding, it looks like they can't be identified as being golden instruments based on their sound, even though the mojo can be perceived when one knows which are the golden instruments. 

And that inability to accurately identify the instruments which supposedly have the mojo, based on sound alone, means that it's probably a bias, and not something real. 

More blinded studies like this will either confirm or disprove the hypothesis, and if the evidence keeps confirming it, it will really turn things over, especially when the old guard (the ones who have stated that it doesn't matter what evidence comes up, they refuse to believe a modern instrument can sound as good or better than a Strad) finally disappears from the scene. Then they will look like the Flat Earthers, currently gone except for one small group who maintains the belief contrary to observation, mostly for religious purposes.

----

I've been involved in a few discussions where some have disputed the study's observations, mainly because they don't agree with the hypothesis: If the golden instruments are sonically distinct, then they will be distinct even if you don't know which is which. 

Since the subjects couldn't tell beyond what chance predicts, then the conclusion would be that the instruments don't sound distinct in the way proposed.

I've asked the skeptics if they had an alternative hypothesis which would explain the evidence and observations of the study, but all they keep tossing out is talk which never settles down to an actual claim, just their own dissatisfaction and disbelief in the results....


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## Andromalia (Apr 12, 2014)

> I thought the assertion, around for years, is that the Stradivarius instruments did have some golden tone which cannot be duplicated.


It mostly is the case (that's earsay, I can't make a damn difference myself) but there are some caveats with the test and what people think. 

The question was: " When asked to choose a violin to replace their own for a hypothetical concert tour"

NOT "which one is a stradivarius".

It actually make sense they chose the most resonant violin. Their answer _might _have been different if asked for a recording, or for regular orchestra duty at home. I'd pick a pignose over a 150w triple recto to play in my room. Choice would be a bit different if I was offered stadiums.

You then have "A single new violin was easily the most-preferred of the 12". Which lead to think they *did* hear a difference and, more importantly, agreed on it.

This is a VERY far cry from the statement title of this topic. I'm inclined to think that if they were asked "which one is a stradivarius" or "which fits a quatuor best, to play Vivaldi" and they were all knowledgeable with how they sound (I have no clue how a Mesa Roadster sounds, never played one, heh) they'd have homed in on the old violins. They still might have picked the new ones to play Offenbach or Beethoven.

I don't dispute it is possible that the ooooh and aaaaahing over stardivarius when people know it's them is somewhat loaded. I do dispute the kind of test that was led, paired with the question that was asked, can shed any light over this.




> There was an awesome episode of Nova, "This Old Pyramid," where, only using tools and muscle available to the ancient Egyptians, they were able to build a small pyramid.


Will try to find it, old egyptology is in my casual fields of interest. Your size comment make me doubt, because the main issue is "how did they move those granite blocks the size of my living room to sich heights". Size may actually matter, for once.


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## ramses (Apr 12, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> The question was: " When asked to choose a violin to replace their own for a hypothetical concert tour"
> 
> NOT "which one is a stradivarius".



They *did *ask them to point out which one is a Stradivarius.

You missed an important statement that's in the paper's abstract:



> Soloists failed to distinguish new from old at better than chance levels.



Keep in mind that all the "old" were Stradivarius.


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## Explorer (Apr 12, 2014)

Andromalia said:


> The question was: " When asked to choose a violin to replace their own for a hypothetical concert tour"
> 
> NOT "which one is a stradivarius".
> 
> ...I'm inclined to think that if they were asked "which one is a stradivarius" or "which fits a quatuor best, to play Vivaldi" and they were all knowledgeable with how they sound (I have no clue how a Mesa Roadster sounds, never played one, heh) they'd have homed in on the old violins.



As has already been noted, they were directly asked.

Here's one of the better write-ups without having to pay.

Stradivarius Violins Aren




Andromalia said:


> Will try to find it, old egyptology is in my casual fields of interest. Your size comment make me doubt, because the main issue is "how did they move those granite blocks the size of my living room to sich heights". Size may actually matter, for once.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SiHWCTHs8g

And here's an interesting website which touches on historical sources regarding moving pyramid materials.

Moving Large Objects

And, just for grins, I'll note that the Coral Castle, using 1,100 tons of coral rock, was built using hand tools by a guy who was 5' 0" and weighing 100 lbs. 

Coral Castle Museum

----

Okay, so back to topic...

I'm looking forward to the next studies to come out of the same experiment, particularly the one detailing the audience's perceptions. It's noted in the article that the Strads again didn't distinguish themselves, and it's been a major tenet of those opposed to the conclusions that a Strad will only distinguish itself in the performing hall. (I know, they used to claim more, but moving the goalposts in this case apparently won't help.)


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## ElRay (Apr 14, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> ... Then we could discuss whether or not that impact is made insignificant by the rest of the signal chain. ...



And thank you for further illustrating my point.

No body has any need to refute your claim, because you claim isn't proven.

Newton's 3rd law does absolutely nothing to support the tone wood myth.

Also, my statement isn't a run-on sentence. It's just a long and complex one. 

Ray


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## Jake (Apr 14, 2014)

Just read through this whole thing. Whoa boy
sitting here like this now


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## Herrick (Apr 15, 2014)

Interesting study butt I'm not surprised. I've never believed in "mojo".

As for the subject of Wood, I will say that Wood does not matter to *me*. When I ordered my Carvin guitar & bass, I chose the standard Woods. If Wood matters to others and they can hear (or think they hear) significant differences then that's cool. It really isn't something to get worked up over


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## Floppystrings (Apr 15, 2014)

Squire vs. Blackmachine.

Lets do it.


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## Andromalia (Apr 16, 2014)

Floppystrings said:


> Squire vs. Blackmachine.
> 
> Lets do it.


Get Ola Englund to post prod it and no one will notice.


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## Animus (Apr 23, 2014)

As far as electrics I am of the camp of tone woods not having a significant affect on "tone", which is to say how bright or dark it will be. Think about the magnetic nature of the pickups. It's not a microphone. If anything different types of woods only have an affect on the sustain through the pickups, as strings will vibrate longer with more wood density and vice versa.


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