How/why is the tone of an electric guitar affected by the type of wood it’s made from?

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The pickups convert vibrating strings to electrical signals, so how would the type of wood they’re embedded in affect the tone? (Or even a hollow vs solid body?)

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The wood makes virtually no difference to the tone of a solid body electric guitar.

Most guitars have laminated bodys, where one wood comprises the bulk of the body, then a thin laminate of a higher grade and more attractive wood forms the top. It’s usually this capping wood people refer to when discussing so-called tone woods.

Given the capping wood is quite thin and is permanently glued to the core wood it has little capability to resonate, nor participate in any other phenomena that could explain differences in tone.

If a piece of wood is to lend colour to the sound it must absorb or transform some of the energy of the strings. If you take energy from the strings you reduce the sustain. This is not what most players want, so good solid body guitars are deliberately made stiff to resist this tendency.

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