Best video ever! Everybody now knows tone wood doesn't matter. It's the color of the guitar that makes all the difference. Red guitars have a warmer sound than blue guitars. :)

Number 11: Hair Length

Koolaid I thought you had a glass of wine for a classy discussion on tone wood.

I'm not ready for this......

Pro tip: Don't worry about "budget" woods ruining your tone, or hoping that "hand selected premium wood" will give you magical tone :) Rather, here are 10 or so of my favourite practical ways to shape your guitar tone into what you want! Enjoy!

Leave it to Darryl Braun to take the most controversial guitar topic ever and make it a smooth, relaxing yet informative video about it.

"A thin strip of rosewood or maple on your neck" Hahahahaha… Brilliant!

Glasses Braun should have his own show... Sounds like he knows what he's talking about

The only reason I care about wood is how nice an exquisitely finished neck or body looks.

Pick choices. Size, Shape, Material, Thickness. The pick you use has a greater influence over your 'tone' or 'sound' than many people consider. A variety of Picks is a cheap way to change things up. Also cheaper to collect picks than guitars, amps, pedals, etc...

But, don't let any of that interfere with your desire to own all of the guitars.

Tone is also affected by how full the beer sitting on the amp is.

For number 3, I would have also made this a 2 part. Not only does the way you pick change the tone, but the pick material, shape, and thickness! I'm always surprised at the difference whenever I try a new pick.

Oh I would love to see the faces of people when they realize they didn't catch the difference between a high-class hollow-body electric and a solid pressboard guitar. That would make for a good "reaction" video!

AMEN. My absolute favorite guitar is my '93 Korean Squier. PLYWOOD!

People should pick their woods based on stability, weight, and looks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That press board has to be made from ground up Honduran mahogany, grown on the south facing side of a lush mountain forest, to sound that good!😂👍😎🎸🎶

Yeah, “tone wood” only applies to acoustic instruments. I one thousand percent agree with this video. It’s crazy that people are so ardently devoted to the idea that fretboard material, etc. makes a discernible difference on an electric guitar. I think luthiers and brands like the idea of tone woods because it provides a unique, significant category around which to define quality and price. Well finished frets aren’t nearly as sexy and marketable as AAA flame maple. It’s hard to really sell basswood, but Brazilian rosewood is traded like a precious metal, so it must sound amazing.

You forgot the type of pick. Thicker picks or picks made from different materials sound very different.

My favourite choice of guitar body is concrete. I call it ‘tonecrete’.

Lovely video. I personally believe Amps and Pickups are the real factors of tone.

I totally agree. There are so many other factors that influence tone more significantly than wood. Not to say wood has no influence on tone, but it's certainly not as much as some claim that it does. Good job on illustrating that point so well. And good advice on choosing an instrument that plays well and sounds good, regardless of the brand or price!

Those glasses make you look super smart. I am highly suspicious that the whole "tonewood" idea was started by guitar makers to charge more for their instruments. Thanks Darrell for another excellent video.

Just want to say. I love your new intro. The pick slide makes me smile way more than it should :) Love your videos keep it up Darrell! Thanks for keeping it real!

Red Gretsch with gold hardware, I don't care about the tone, it looks like it'll sound great!

To add to my earlier post, to my knowledge only one robust scientific study of electric guitar tone wood has ever been done. (Although there are few dodgy student papers circulating.) This showed that tone wood has no effect on the timbre of an electric guitar. This has flown under the radar for some years, probably because it was originally published in Portuguese. This was 'Sobre o acoplamento corda-corpo em guitarras elétricas e sua relação com o timbre do instrumento'. (String-body coupling on electric guitars and its relation with the timbre of the instrument.) By Rodrigo Mateus Pereira(1), Albary Laibida Junior and Thiago Corrêa de Freitas, and published in Physicæ 9, 2010, pp. 24 - 29 Abstract. (Translation.) Nine electric guitar bodies were built in the form of the Telecaster model by the author RMP. These were assembled using the same neck and pickup assembly. Once each body was assembled two strings of the electric guitar were mechanically excited and the sound, obtained directly from the instrument, was recorded for later analysis. Also recorded was a musical piece played with each electric guitar. These sounds were analysed via a Fourier transform in order to obtain the component harmonics of the sound, these harmonics are responsible for the timbre of the instrument. The harmonic spectra of each electric guitar were compared to each other and there were no significant differences between them. Thus the variations of timbre of electric guitars, according to the results obtained here, depend on other factors than the wood of the body itself, a fact that arises from the absence of a significant coupling between the string and the body of the instrument. Also proposed is a modelling of the string-body coupling, which shows that only a negligible amount of energy from the vibrating string reaches the body of the instrument and that a smaller amount still returns up the string.

The whole tonewood debate has always baffled me, I can understand it related to acoustic or classical guitars but for electric guitars it's really down to weight and looks more than tone

31 guitar manufacturers dislike this video.

I love your honest apraisment of guitars, realy informative. much appreciated. thank you

Very cool channel, straightforward content and no stupid humor, you just got a new subscriber.

the whole "listen to an artist you've never heard of and try to guess their tonewoods" is an argument I've been using for YEARS hahaha

Quick recap (but watch the whole video): 1. Amp EQ section 2. Amp speaker upgrade 3. Pick angle and location of picking 4. Tone knob on guitar 5. Pickup selector 6. Mic location on amp when recording 7. Guitar effects 8. Pickups type and height, and electronics such as pots 9. Fresh strings 10. The biggest question of them all, watch vid.

Love it! Thanks, Darrell. I especially liked that last comparison. I have an '86 Squier Strat, made in Japan, and an '18 Danelectro 59. Both have single coils (different styles, but still, single coils). Do they sound a little different? Yes, if you listen very carefully and have a pretty sophisticated ear. Is the difference enough to matter? Not to me. Tone woods might make a difference with an acoustic (I have a couple Ovations, too, with spruce tops and plastic bodies), but for an electric, I think you're spot-on. It's amp and pickups, strings and picks, technique, etc. As you demonstrated with the cut-up Squier Strat a few videos back. The wood does almost nothing for sustain OR tone. Nice work!

Tone wood Darrel is my spirit animal

I think a lot of us believe certain myths about guitar because they are perpetuated by our peers and our heroes. I use to be a fervent believer in the whole "tonewood" debate, until I started to swap out pickups, electronics, tubes and speakers from my gear. I quickly realized that it is the sum of all the variables that contribute to your tone. Number one on the list should be the player. If you have bad technique or you are sloppy, no amount of gear will save your tone. Great video as always sir, keep putting these topic videos out, I really enjoy them.

g8 podcast, very true. mick ronson once said.. " the sound is in your fingers, its how you pluck it" in a thick northern english accent. three things i want from a g8 guitar 1.: playability( no fret buzz, nice neck etc) 2: g8 looks,balance, ergonomics etc 3: reliability, solid construction etc pickups and electics can always be changed at a later date!

Another brilliant "mythbusters" segment! Great stuff. So much good information and for those that are stuck on the "tonewood" argument, and a lot of food for thought. I will say, that I am a "tonewood" believer. Not in the classic sense where I think it completely shapes tone, like some people, but I do believe it is at least part of the equation. Maybe not the majority, but does at least play some part. Especially in the higher end instruments that use real quality cuts of wood. I can say this because I watch a lot of Wildwood Vids where Greg Koch plays seriously high end instruments on the same amp with the same settings month after month. Ultimately, I think Frank Zappa said it best. "Shut up and play yer guitar!" Peace, and to a healthy and happy New Year, Darrell!

Outstanding video Darrel. How Dare You Sir. 👍

Simply fantastic. Thanks for being straightforward and authentic

This was absolutely legendary sir. If you dont have a mic, and dont use recording software or modeling solutions (they do still exist) Then the same applies to where you sit in the room in relation to where your amp is. Sit with the speaker pointing right at you, its going to sound a lot brighter then if you're sitting off to the side of the amp somewhere.

ENOUGH WITH BS TONEWOOD.

Scale length is also very important imho

Darrell's face when he takes a sip of Kool-Aid! 😆

My guess before I watch it: 1) Technique 2) Player's Understanding/knowledge of Guitar 3) Rhythm 4)Pickups 5) Feel of the instrument 6) Properly intonated saddle and working tuning pegs (Maybe this should be #1 but at first I thought that would be a given 7) Amp/effects 8) Electronics 9) Proper setup, string Hight and rounding of fret ends 10) Body shape/design

Reaaaaally useful video for breaking myths ,thank you a lot ,bro

But... But... That purple heart stripe clearly makes my tone sound more "purple" right?! Right?! 😂😂😂

Biggest way to change your tone on fretless bass, move your fingering hand. It's hugely obvious on that instrument. I honestly did not know about that pick angle trick which was really cool! Too bad I can't pick...

Holy Cow!...I have been picking for many, many years, did realize that the pick angles, etc made SOME differences, etc, but that simple little pick demo was amazing.!

my guitar has a maple fingerboard and has a sweet, sirup-like tone :)

Sorry... You failed to mention the most important part of tone. Colour. I'm all about tone colour

Absolutely. On an electric guitar the most subtle, if any, tone modifier is the plank of wood is made off…

I agree with all you said, but there are a few more things to consider: 1. In addition to the pots & pickups, the tone capacitor (& resistor) changes tone, by reducing bass & mid-range heard, as well as moving the resonant peak. Pots & caps only sound like treble is increased, but it is an illusion from there being less bass. In fact, passive components virtually never increase anything...only cut it...with tone controls mostly cutting that resonant peak. 2. The amp's equalizer controls are active components, that can increase as well as cut the level of frequency bands. BUT, having just bass/mid/treble controls ignores the most valuable control, which is the ability to boost the 1 or 2 "presence" bands, in between mid & treble (...what we may hear as a mid-range boost). Amp mfrs know this, which is why they add on a huge surcharge to have presence controls on an amp (...even though the component cost of a few caps, resistors & a pot or two is just a few bucks). For that reason, I think the most valuable pedal is an inexpensive 5-band equalizer, with a builtin audio interface to ensure that a clean signal goes to the amp. 3. One other crucial pedal is reverb. Even a little bit...too little to be obvious...improves the richness of overall tone. Spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on pedals, before a hundred bucks on the two I mentioned, is ridiculous. 4. Huge tonal differences are achieved by splitting/tapping humbucker coils, and by having the option to combine humbucker coils &/or entire pickups in either a series or in parallel (or a combination of both)...easily accomplished with push-pull pots &/or the Freeway (10-way) switch. 5. Another valuable mod is to add a simple true balance pot, so you can mix the ratio of bridge to neck output, rather than being stuck with either being fully on or off. 6. Finally, every guitar should have a treble-bleed, unless you never turn down the guitar's volume below "10". I know you don't prefer TB's, but that is ridiculous, since, again, they have no effect at all when the guitar volume is not turned down at all...especially if you install a "no load" volume control.

I agree totally with you that tonewood don't have a drastic effect on tone. But i have the feeling that it has a big influence on the feedback you are getting from your strings while playing. I always can tell you, if i like a guitar or not when it is not plugged in. And that is an important factor which drives my playing style and my creativity. I may be wrong of course. But pure tone, i totally agree, that there are more important factors and that it is impossible to "hear" different wood types as every piece of wood of one woodtype is different so... Btw very nice and informative video. I'd like to see more of those in the future. And ofc merry christmas and a good new year :)

Now honestly, you have the vibrato of your ST set up floating, the pick ups on the ST are attached to the scratchplate, now doesn't this eliminate a lot of the impact of the "tonewood"? And a second thing, I think swamp ash has such a beautiful woodgrain, it's a sin to have a solid finish on a swamp ash body.

1) Tuning Stability. 2) Pickups. 3) Strings. 4) good cables. 5) good amp. 6) Practise.

The thickness of the pick changes the tone too, along with all the other things you mentioned. The thickness of the pick changes the pressure of the attack on the strings.

Tonewood Darrell needs to calm down a bit. Can I have that guitar used for number 5, by the way?

I recently got a Squier contemporary strat HH. Its poplar! CVs pine or alder. I also have an old Hamer in some sort of mahogany. They are all bolt onstage and all sound awesome thru my Vox

That was brilliant Darrell, thank you. I learnt so much about tone 😎🎸

You made some very good points, that while body and neck material and type of construction does have an effect on tone, it's way way way smaller then these many other things that you mentioned, which other things could be added to this video as well. So bottom line, don't be obsessed about what your guitar is made of, but pay attention to your playing and some of these other things that were mentioned.

Tonewoods? How about tone glues?: I once read on a forum that a guy had bought a goldtop Les Paul ´59 reissue which cost him (I think) around 3000 dlls. When he got it, he was dissatisfied with the toanz, so he had it shipped to a "specialized" luthier shop. They trashed the finish...sorry, "reliced" the finish, drilled a hole in the neck, steamed the neck off the body, sanded off what I bet was less than a millimeter of glue joint and rejoined the neck to the body using hide glue, - you know, just like Granddaddy's Les Pauls were made- which cost over 2000 dlls to get done. When he got it back, he reported that he now was closer to his dream tone than ever before. He claimed that the negligible amount of hide glue made it sound "truly vintage".

Ive found the guitar of my dreams And then it got discontinued

Well done. I agree with your approach. Put the right pickups in an electric guitar made out of iron, plug it into a nice tube amp, and I think most folks would be hard pressed to tell you it wasn't "tone wood." Pickups are detecting the vibration of the string, not the body in which they sit. The case of acoustics is a completely different story.

this channel is BRILLIANT! I looooove to watch all the marketing blabla smashed to pieces en to see what's really affecting tone, playability, etc.

Good stuff! I still always mic my amp demos. 🇨🇦👍🎸😁

I have a MiK ply body Squier strat that sounds almost identical to my US strat.

I can't believe you didn't mention the location and proximity of lay lines, star signs (Zodiak), sun spot activity, length of hair, size of personal record collection, stance while playing guitar... I could go on.

I used to be one of those "always rosewood fretboards!" kinda dudes and after swapping the neck on a guitar for a beautiful rosewood neck I quickly realized that there was almost zero tonal differences. The only difference I did notice was the change in a feel which was almost insubstantial in comparison to a good setup. Basically, from my limited, airheaded experience, there is definitely a difference in sound and mostly feel, but if you aren't happy with your tone it should be one of the last things you consider checking. Double bump on the speaker change if you want a massive tone change.

I have two questions when buying a guitar: What are the pickups? Is the guitar Daphne Blue or Surf Green? You are right about mastering the EQ on your amp...your advice is always on point, thanks Darrell.

Lol "putting down the Kool aid".

Hi Darrell, Brilliant Video, If that does not settle the Tone Wood debate I don't know what wood! I remember in one of your Videos you saying that PUP's are 90% of your Tone👍👍👍 That aside the Comfort of the Neck is so important and a very Presonal thing for each Player. Excellent advice as always 👍👍👍 . I hope you and your Loved ones have a Great Christmas/Holidays and an Awesome New Year, stay safe. Melbourne, Australia ♥️♥️♥️.

From personal experience, once you plug a guitar in, or especially use any effects; you can literally bolt a neck to a 2x4 (I’ve done it) and it won’t matter. Your skill and technique are the most important things.

You forgot the most important factor, making a good guitar face. Jokes aside I think tonewood makes a different it’s just more subtle than people would like to believe. I usually choose my wood based on weight feel and look more than anything tho. Also strings make a huge difference in tone. Flatwounds vs roundwounds is a crazy difference.

Me: How dare you, Sir! Darell: “Me: How dare you, Sir!” Me: Exactly!

When it comes to electric guitar , only thing that really matters is the amp

That was excellent!!! THANK YOU! As an intermediate player, going out and buying something expensive exotic wood guitar will not help my playing, as I just need to practice!!! Tonewood is just like associating guitar body shapes to specific genres of music!

You forgot to mention tone paint...a black strat sounds more like david gilmour and a red strat sounds more like mark knopfler....proven scientific fact...tons of data

tonewood snobs and wine sommoliers are cut from the same mold

Darryl, I trusted you man! I studied for 3 years to master the art of sonic engineering (no, Chris Chan was a Sonicologist, totally different), and even built my own amplifier out of fairy wings, Ent roots, and a magnet made from the core of a supernova, designed the most accurate on-board EQ Certified Perfect Tone Recreation by Ronnie James Dio, Elton John, Pavarotti, and one of the guys who wrote the music for the TMNT Coming Out of Their Shells Tour. I threw my guitar away, and my tone got considerably better. It's just so hard to hear, it's almost like I should have kept my guitar, but... nahhhh, you know what you're talking about, I trust it just takes a few years for the tubes to warm up. Probably shouldn't have built them from Molybdenum.

Totally agree - I think if we are talking tonewood, the speaker cabinet probably matters more than the wood on the guitar, especially because it is right at the end of the signal chain and whatever it produces doesn't run through the whole signal chain ... unless we're talking about recording ...

*_H O W D A R E Y O U S I R ?_*

How dare you sir?

Before the video even starts. 1. Action 2. Tuners 3. String gauge 4. A good set of saddles 5. A decent tuner. 6. A good properly filed nut 7. A decent amp (nothing too pricey.. a $200 stagerite tube amp is a good place to start and is based off of a fairly well known circuit. Easy to modify. Has spring reverb) 8. Speaker(s) 9. Decent quality instrument cabkes. 10. Decent quality speaker cables. (Poorly made cables can degrade if the limmits are exceeded. This can damage output transformers.)

There are so many variables going into an electric guitar sound that the guitar material inevitably becomes one of those that you can neglect

Can you hear the different between wood types, yes. Is it a big differencs, no.

There is no tone in electric guitar wood. It's all in the pickups, amp & its settings, & pedals. I've made a guitar out of a 2x4 and with good pickups & a good amp it sounds as good as any other $3500 guitar.

Darrell "Mr. Guitar" Braun, once again another excellent definitive video setting the perimeters as to what affects the tone of an electric guitar. Tonewood is quite significant for an acoustic, but virtually insignificant for an electric, and you went directly to the amp right off the bat. Bravo!

His voice and smile are therapeutic

Johan Segeborn has some videos showing the differences in woods in electric guitars. There is a difference.

I agree it’s all what inspires you to pick up the guitar and play more/better. And if that is the tone wood for you then great!!!! But to talk down to someone trying to learn and be better at what they love because they don’t have the most expensive wood in there guitar. That’s just being a snob and I have no time for those people in my life. Be inspired play more and you’ll sound better!!!

WRT to all the knobs and settings making a difference, I nerded out a few months back and came up with the below: - Just with the basic Tele with ungraduated Tone & Vol. reduced to say, 10 different levels, plus the 3-way pickup switch, we have 10 x 10 x 3 = 300 different settings. I just bought a basic Fender amp which has 6 x 12-graduated controls plus a 2-way Fat switch. This gives us another 12^6 x 2 settings, = 5,971,968, which x 300 from the guitar gives 1,791,590,400 possible combinations. Just let that sink in!

This is a good one, because it means that if you get one good quality guitar with good quality pickups and tuners and it suits your style of play it will be good for almost anything. It is more important to find the guitar that suits yourself most.

Thank you for saying this and based on your vast collection of different woods, you have first hand knowledge on the subject I've been saying this for years but nobody believes me My motto is, if you find a guitar you feel comfortable with, don't worry about the hardware, you can upgrade it, the most important thing thing is to make sure you feel comfortable with the guitar, the upgrades will get you a great tone Then I say, figure out what do you like your amp to have.......fx loop, 2 channels, solo boost, separate eq....things like that Then once you find the amps that have those options, or get to as close you can, then try those amps out with your upgraded guitar, you'll find that sometimes, the most expensive one does not mean it's the best for you, sometimes you plug in and as soon as hit a chord..........its like the skies opened and the sun shines it's ray's right on you, sometimes you have to really really mess around with the eq knobs to find that sky opening sound Then once you got the amp, then experiment with pedals, just cause your buddy has a nice chorus sound, that doesn't assure you that you will get the same sound with that same pedal with your rig It sounds like a long dumb process but any person with years of experience with different guitars, amps and fx will tell you this Don't listen to those peeps who say, "if it ain't expensive, it sucks".....don't be those John Mayer types But if you have gone thru this process and find you feel comfortable with your expensive gear, then that's you but don't say your rig is for everyone or the best for this or that, no it's the best for you In the end, if you can't wow a person with whatever guitar in your hands..........you probably should practice more

Literally everything about the guitar. If people have made resin and lego electric guitars that sounds great, it should be obvious that 'tonewoods' don't matter...

In the test, I was able to differentiate between the pickups, but the wood, no. It really doesn’t matter. Thank you for this.

I couldn't agree with these more. I used to believe that tone didn't matter, it was just the notes you played, and it was either super clean or super overdriven high-gain sounds. Years of guitar experience and learning have thankfully proven me wrong.

So happy that you’re close to hitting 300k subscribers, great to see you doing well ❤️🎸

I like certain woods and finishes because they look good. In an electric guitar there's so many things that aren't made of wood that have a much larger impact on how the guitar sounds.

I miss this content. I love your builds but I come back for this!

I read I think a quote onlineto the effect of: however you feel about the sound of the type of wood your guitar is constructed of. No one ever take into account the resonant qualities of the bellies pressed against the guitar when being played.