Wood vs Pickups

Making this episode nearly did us in...

This was a serious undertaking, and hopefully it was not for nothing. Trying to tackle the issue of whether the wood itself makes any difference to the sound of an electric guitar is a divisive topic to say the least. We all know that pickups make a huge sonic difference, probably more so than just about anything else. But does the wood itself contribute to the sound? Does a particular guitar have any inherent sound quality that carries over regardless of pickups?

Trying to capture these subtle differences on recording is really really challenging. Here was the basic experiment: Take two strat style guitars that are very similar, but sound different acoustically, swap out pickups between them (actually whole pickguards in order to keep it accurate as possible) and see if the inherent characteristics of the guitars carried over, of whether the sound was mostly coming from the pickups. The results? Well, you be the judge.

At The Groundwire, we generally tend to say that every ingredient in the tone chain affects the end result. Some may be more subtle than others, but the tone chase seems to always end up tackling both the macro and the micro. So, we are certainly getting granular here. Ultimately, a Strat will sound like a Strat, but maybe, just maybe, an Ash bodied Strat may inherently sound differently than an Alder bodied Strat. Maybe? Many sound clips here may help us decide.

**Headphones or High Quality Speakers will be pretty essential to getting the most of this episode (all Groundwire episodes really, but especially this one)**

Gear used:
“White Strat”- K-Line Springfield: Alder Body, Maple Neck, Rosewood Fretboard
“Red Strat”- Custom Built Partscaster: Ash Body, Roasted Maple Neck, Rosewood Fretboard

Pickups:
Don Mare Formvar 50’s
K-Line Signature
Smitty Classic 59’s

Both Guitars have the same Gotoh tuners and trem, Raw Vintage saddles and springs, CTS Pots, and Orange drop caps.

The idea here is that the only variable in play is the pickups and the actual wood of the guitar.

1965 Blackface Fender Deluxe Reverb
Pedal Doctor 4 Speed Overdrive

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