OT: guitar body weight

[zener]

I know that different wood type affects the overall tone of an electric guitar, but how about the weight of the body?

I mean, with everything the same or constant from pickup, strings, bridge etc. inculding of course, wood type, would a guitar sound different from one with a heavier body?

Are Flying V's guitars usually lighter than the usual guitar ranging from a Strat to a Les Paul type of body?

[smoguzbenjamin]

My (new) guitar is made of Mahogany, which is nicely resonant and quite light, so I like my (new) guitar :mrgreen:

[ejbasses]

"I know that different wood type affects the overall tone of an electric guitar, but how about the weight of the body? "

=> denser woods make heavier bodies. denser woods are also stiffer. Denser woods have better harmonic character than softer woods. although dense woods can also sound warm.

examples of dense woods are ash maple and bubinga.

softer woods give an instrument a warmer sound. soft woods agathis and bass wood. cheaper guitars are usually made out of this type of wood but it doesnt mean that theyre only for cheapies. Micheal tobias uses agathis on his MTDs. now Micheal tobias doesnt exactly make cheapies.

i think this also answers your second question.

"Are Flying V's guitars usually lighter than the usual guitar ranging from a tele to a Les Paul type of body?"

=> From my experience flying Vs tend to weigh heavier. I think it also has something to do with the geometry of the shape(balance and other factors). but they usually weigh heavier because the body IS bigger than a normal stra or paul.

[petemoore]

The less the string moves the body, the less inertia is taken from the string. In this sense longer sustain of an 'unfeedbacked' [unamplified to the point of feedback] guitar string will be greater [up to a point] with a heavier body, if all else is the same.
 When a guitar is amplified, the above statement is less important, to the point of being moot [when feedback from speakers, through the body, to the string, through the pickup, to the 'assigned' beginning of the loop [does a loop have a beginning/no], the effects/amplifier sections.
 Once the output of the speaker reaches a certain point, 'it' [the whole setup] can be caused to have a greater influence on string sustain, and cause the string to control the feedback loop to be controlled by it's harmonic.
 In an amplified feedback situation, a hollow body will feedback [uncoltrollably] at a much lower output volume. A semi hollow will feedback, but not as much as a hollow body, the solid body electrics body weight/density can eliminate alot of the 'uncontrollable' feedback.
 The speaker moves the body at a resonant frequency, this inertia is translated through the bridge to the string, resonating it, and allowing infinite sustain of focused, controllable' harmonics.
 There are sound 'absorbtion' and resonance issues of body woods, weights, densities, size....etc. ...putting these aside the heavier the body the less easy it is for the speaker to cause inertia to be 'felt' by the string.
 Heavier body: will tend to feedback at a lower volume.
 Anyway I hope you get the idea, there are so many things...
 Ppl like the heaviness of a Les Paul for it's ability to sustain, yet not feedback uncontrollably at extremely high volume levels. A flying V is probably quite similar in it's ability to do this. A Strat is lighter and smaller, but only marginally different than a Les Paul [IMO] as it is 'close enough' to the top of the 'envelope' [envelope limit: a guitar 'body' made of say a 2,000,000 pound chunk of metal would be like REAL close to not moving at ALL] that it's not all that different than the heaviest solid body guitars, it Is different though.
 Basically people like the guitars that have 'that' ring to them. Allowing certain amounts of resonant frequencies to influence the string sustain/harmonic feedback in a likeable fashion.
 An accoustic guitar eats alot of the string vibration up, the string is what 'powers' the body, this depletion of inertial energy by the body has a damping effect on string sustain. Hit the string/guitarbody with sound [from an amplification of string and body tones], the air moves the body, the body moves the string, string wiggles the amp electronically, the amp oves the speaker, speaker moves the air, air moves the body,...feedback loop!!!
 1. Solid [or hollow, and inbetween] body sustain, or lack of [without amp]
 2. Feedback induced sustain [with amp]

[Nasse]

:? Some times weigh is good some times not. I have limited knowledge and experience but I teel somethin what I believe

I made two short scale (like most of Gibson guitars) guitars many years ago and was seekin that Les Paul type of tone. The guitar body wood was somewhat too light for that tone, so I added big pieces of lead metal underneath bridge. I only did some listening tests, had no oscilloscope or computer then. But it sounded *very* clearly more "solid" and sustained that way. I later did a demanding genuine Les Paul restoration job. Somebody had broken the neck, and some other idiot had taken the original neck away and made a new awful replacement neck, I believe it was made of birch. The original fingerboard and tuning machines were left without injuries fortunately. The neck was quite O.K. but it resonated and the angle with the body was ridicously wrong, and because it had no truss rod it was warped.  I hand made totally new Les Paul neck using mahogany. It worked quite well indeed after my restoration. I made some mistakes, the big one was fret job, I filed them little low so the guitar played like shit though the sound was real good as original but that is another story. :oops:  

But I did several listening tests and some serious spy job with "real things" to get the shape and materials back to original. At that time it was very expensive quitar, and almost totally impossible for me to get real one, but anyway that was a chance for me to know "what makes it tick".

That gibson les paul had total weight of accurately about 5 kilograms. That total weight has very important factor to tone I believe. My Fender Strat weights 3,5 kilograms. Thats a big difference

But here is a trick what I believe is true: If your guitar (strat style maybe :wink: ) is made of little too heavy wood and does not sound lively resonant ok, just put on THICKER STRINGS so it will sound o.k.

[Tony Forestiere]

You could also perform some "sacreligious" thing like I did on my '75 Gibson Marauder...glue the neck in place and use over sized screws to secure it. I'll never regret the increase in sustain and control of intonation!

[smoguzbenjamin]

I bought the guitar. DANG this is great! â,¬75 for a nice sunburst guitar that sounds great even on my shitty ibanez practice amp.

Now to scrape some cash together and get that 50W amp finished.

[Fret Wire]

Cool  What style is it?

[Ammscray]

"I know that different wood type affects the overall tone of an electric guitar, but how about the weight of the body? "

=> denser woods make heavier bodies. denser woods are also stiffer. Denser woods have better harmonic character than softer woods. although dense woods can also sound warm.

examples of dense woods are ash maple and bubinga.

softer woods give an instrument a warmer sound. soft woods agathis and bass wood. cheaper guitars are usually made out of this type of wood but it doesnt mean that theyre only for cheapies. Micheal tobias uses agathis on his MTDs. now Micheal tobias doesnt exactly make cheapies.

i think this also answers your second question.

"Are Flying V's guitars usually lighter than the usual guitar ranging from a tele to a Les Paul type of body?"

=> From my experience flying Vs tend to weigh heavier. I think it also has something to do with the geometry of the shape(balance and other factors). but they usually weigh heavier because the body IS bigger than a normal stra or paul.

My experience is different there...dense heavy bodies like the crappy strats and LP's made in the 70's tend to not resonate very well, and sound muddy with not much detail or articulation between notes...they also don't sustain very long because of the density, it seems like the notes start to decay right after they're hit...the maple ones were always really too bright on some of those strats too...

on the other hand, lighter wood bodies like the early LP's and strats from the 50's-early-60's resonate better and have the detail and sustain...at least the ones I have do...my 62 strat weighs 6.5 lbs and sustains more than all my Gibsons...of course I'm talking alder here, not basswood which has a muddy, mushy quality to it no matter what the weight is...

 it makes me laugh still to this day because in the 70's those guys really thought that heavier "wood" be better but all they did was ruin alot of potentially good guitars IMO...

on the V thing, the mass of the body is actually less than a LP and also the LP has anywhere from 2 to 5 pieces of maple on the top, adding alot to the weight...both my 67 V's weigh 7 lbs and my LP (which is on the light side) weighs 9 lbs...that isn't to say that there aren't heavy V's out there but most LP's weigh 10 lbs and I haven't seen a V that heavy yet...

[One-eyed Jack]

I'm a novice maker, but I tend to think that a hard-tail guitar has more sustain than one with a Fender-Wilkinson style trem just because the bridge is screwed down tight to the wood. Maybe one reason some Strats have inferior sustain to some Les Pauls is because the Strats lose some energy to the knife edge and springs in the trem.

Thinking about wood and tone: if you have your guitar on the stand, plug it in, and give it a sharp rap on on the body with your knuckle, a lot of what you hear oughta be sound transferred through the vibrating wooden body and neck into the strings. Usually it's the other way 'round--the strings drive the body.

Can anybody hear strong differences in tone between different guitars doing this?

[Mark Hammer]

I'm super busy today and in the middle of a 5-minute break between interviews, so I didn't read the thread.  You'll pardon me if I repeat what has been said.

Body weight is probably not as important as neck/body balance.  Dense, solid necks with light, fluffy bodies lose string energy, as do dense, solid bodies with lighter, resonant necks.  Neck/body joint is also a key factor there.  I have light bodies with light necks that resonante and sustain nicely,m and heavy bopdies with heavy necks that sustain nicely.

[smoguzbenjamin]

Cool  What style is it?

It's a strat model, but rear-routed so no fretboard. It has a nice shiny sunburst: orange in the middle and deep deep red on the edges. Bridge humbucker and two single-coils, and the tone is GREAT. I can go everywhere from sparkly strat-sounds to warm bassy riffs

Pics due in a couple of days...

[Fret Wire]

Burst, Rear routed, no pickguard, and it has good tone. Sounds like a real player and a looker!    Can't wait to see the pics!