How do the tonewood of a guitar body, neck and fretboard combine to contribute to the final tone?
How does the tone of a guitar body, neck and fretboard combine to contribute to the final tone?
Many guitar manufactures go on about how each part has a certain tone. Like a maple neck having a bright tone, but a mahogany neck has a warm tone. However they never mention how these different tones contribute to the final tone of the guitar.
I realize this is ignoring many factors that also contribute (generally far more considerably) to tone. But for the purposes of this question if it is important please assume it refers are using quality wood in a electronic stratocaster guitar with a bolt on neck and all other equipment being equal.
More specifically how does the tone of say a body contribute. What if you have a bright toned body and a warm neck, a all warm tonewoods for all of these, all bright, or does it not really matter that much in the end?
(2)2 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
Depending on how the strings are attached to the guitar (how much string to body contact there is), different densities of body wood can give you slight tonal differences. How the neck is attached also factors in: neck through body will transfer more sound than a bolt on.
For example, a guitar with an in-body tailpiece, floating bridge, and neck through body can have some tone difference comparing a soft wood or plywood body to something like a hard maple neck and body. The softer woods have some frequency absorption/dampening.
While this tonal difference shows up on a spectrogram, as stated in Richard's answer it is unlikely in a performing situation that a listener would notice a difference.
I assume you are talking about electric guitars. If not, ignore my answer.
For electric guitars, the answer is, "they don't, in any noticeable way". "Tonewood" for electric guitars is, to the best available scientific knowledge, marketing hype. Tests indicate that listeners cannot reliably tell the difference between the sound of two guitars with body or necks made of different woods, if the other parameters of the guitar are kept constant (If you happen to read German, you can have a look here; it's quite funny - many listeners even think that the same guitar played twice, by the same player, sounds different). So if you cannot even tell the difference each component makes, asking how they combine their influences is pure speculation.
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © freshhoot.com2026 All Rights reserved.