MDF - The new wood of choice

[astro]

I've never played an MDF guitar, I suspect that if it had a solid colour paint job that I would never know that it isn't real wood.

I suspect that strings, pickups, build quality, electronics and hardware are probably the main factors that really make a difference in tone, much more so than the species of tree. I sure as hell can't tell what kind of wood is in a guitar just by listening to it.

[laterallateral]

Hell, I can barely tell if I'm hearing humbuckers or singles, most of the time.

[matocaster]

your right fran.
with bolt on guitars wood has NO affect on the sound, unless you are eric johnson and full of yourself.
as far as "new" wood of choice, no, not so much. dano used mdf back in the 50's
and actually used it on the hodad and re-issues.
there is another company that uses alot of mdf but i can't remember who.

I highly disagree. Wood has just about everything to do with tone, bolt on or not. Unless you are running active pickups. Now we are not talking about acoustics or hollow bodies, those you can get away with it. But solid bodies are another story. I own a custom guitar shop, we put this theory to the test (and now i'm thinking we should have made a video for it). We put a new alder body up against a new ash body up against a new basswood body against a mdf, all 2 piece tele bodies, all sounded different, the basswood and MDF failed pretty bad in tone, we used the same hardware and tailpice and pickups (with lindy fralin blues specials) on each body. We also tried maple neck vs. rosewood and yes again there was a difference there. It was more slight with the necks. But there is a difference. Also we put the Nitro VS. poly to the test and nitro won by far, i'm thinking we should do this whole testing again and make a video to prove this.

[gaybear]

your right fran.
with bolt on guitars wood has NO affect on the sound, unless you are eric johnson and full of yourself.
as far as "new" wood of choice, no, not so much. dano used mdf back in the 50's
and actually used it on the hodad and re-issues.
there is another company that uses alot of mdf but i can't remember who.

I highly disagree. Wood has just about everything to do with tone, bolt on or not. Unless you are running active pickups. Now we are not talking about acoustics or hollow bodies, those you can get away with it. But solid bodies are another story. I own a custom guitar shop, we put this theory to the test (and now i'm thinking we should have made a video for it). We put a new alder body up against a new ash body up against a new basswood body against a mdf, all 2 piece tele bodies, all sounded different, the basswood and MDF failed pretty bad in tone, we used the same hardware and tailpice and pickups (with lindy fralin blues specials) on each body. We also tried maple neck vs. rosewood and yes again there was a difference there. It was more slight with the necks. But there is a difference. Also we put the Nitro VS. poly to the test and nitro won by far, i'm thinking we should do this whole testing again and make a video to prove this.

to prove it, it would have to be a blind test. y'all already knew what the wood was, and had preconceptions.

[jcyphe]

I don't buy much into the wood theory. I believe it makes very little difference and you have to be a tone freak to hear the difference. I have played or heard Strats the most ubiquitous guitar of all time made of ash, alder, baswood, poplar, mahogany, plywood, and even lucite(think Nile Rodgers) and they all sounded like a Strat.

I also recently got to play a Les Paul with a korina back and neck instead of mahogany and it sounded exactly like a Les Paul. EXACTLY.

[Will]

You can have my MDF guitar when you pry it from my COLD DEAD FINGERS.

[hotrodperlmutter]

what about a pine body tele? i can get a custom body for like $50, but a friend of mine said they're shit for resonance, that's why FEDNAR quit making them 50 years ago.

[laterallateral]

I dunno... I tried a Classic Vibe Telecaster with a pine body, a few days ago and that thing sounded every bit, if not better than it's Mexican Alder bodied sister.

[LaurenJ]

Are guitars like djembe drums where the harder wood the better the sound?

One of my classmates mentioned that about the drums, she made 2 out of stoneware ceramic, about as hard of a material as you can get, and the others in whatever drum circle she was in were jealous of the sound it got.

Yes, my school is full of hippies.

[mickie08]

wood makes a difference. That said, when combined with amps, pedals, and a band mix it is a non-issue. When you play them next to each other through a clean setup you can hear small differences. Once you add it in with everything you can not hear it.. All the other factors make alot more difference.

[James]

There was an interesting thread on EA about guitar tones. People posted MP3 clips of them playing guitars straight into amps, sometimes with one pedal for distortion and then others tried to guess or approximate what was used. I'll try and find a link to it.

[James]

Lank/

It's a fairly old thread so it's likely not all of the links work. There are also some gear trends over there that might come into it a little, Traynor amps and jazzmasters are common, but the gear is probably quite varied.

[stewart]

i thought the main thing (up to a point) was density of material, not how expensive the wood is.

[Fran]

Accoustically wood will make a difference but process the guitars signal and most of the subtleties are lost. I even read somewhere that poly finishes sound better ROLF, some people have too much time on their hands imo.
Oh, i also have an 80s plywood BC Rich and it actually sounds better than an agathis model i owned previously. In conflict to what i believe, my mahogany JS sounds way better than my original basswood JS did, although hardware and electronics are different some of it is clearly due to the timber used.
I would be very interested in seeing that test video.

[matocaster]

what about a pine body tele? i can get a custom body for like $50, but a friend of mine said they're shit for resonance, that's why FEDNAR quit making them 50 years ago.

We had one of those classic vibe teles with a pine body and it sounded pretty good, to be honest it was very resonant, the actual reason Fender stopped using it was for two reasons, 1. It was more expensive to use as they were located in southern cali and it was costing them a pretty penny to bring it in. 2. it does not dry out very fast, Fender was more interested in turning guitars and found that waiting for the wood to dry out was costing them money, pine holds moisture longer than ash or alder.

[Mages]

Are guitars like djembe drums where the harder wood the better the sound?

well allegedly, the harder (or denser) the wood the brighter the sound.

I think a lot of these mojo tone things have some truth to them but they really have such a minor effect that only if you add several of them up will it make any kind of significant difference in sound. the construction details of the pickups and the strings will make the biggest difference in how the guitar sounds. after that, the more distant the part's connection is from the strings the less of an impact it is going to have on the sound.

[matocaster]

Jump to 3:00 in this vid

[matocaster]

This guy is really annoying but good info

[jcyphe]

Fender(even vintage) used whatever wood was available to them. That's why all this stuff is so funny to me.

[stewart]

IF IT AIN'T 30 YEARS OLD IT STILL THINKS IT'S A TREE.