If you want a nitro finish tele

[telecast]

If you haven't reached the point in your playing that you can't notice no big deal. I couldn't always tell but don't diss me just because I can tell a diffenernce between better quality strats.

Ooooo! The experience card!

Ok, let's play. I have been a professional guitar tech since the early 80's. I've refinished more guitars than I can count in nitro, water based acrylic, poly, and oil. I have shot new finishes over factory, and stripped them down to bare wood. I've shot finish only, deliberately avoiding a sanding sealer coat. I can tell you without a doubt, the finish makes such a small amount of difference in the sound that it's negligible. It's not even worth thinking about. Old Leo and his automotive finishes over the dipped base coat knew that.

Do you know why Leo had to come up with a bridge that allowed intonation adjustments? Because on a solid body guitar, the sound is coming from the pickups, not the wood. The pickups hear all. On a hollow body guitar, the wood contributes so much that there are overtones hiding the out of tune strings, so the human ear has a much more difficult time picking them out. This isn't a guess, it's well documented.

The hype about nitro V. poly-whatever, thick V. thin, old v. new, and (ugh) 'tonewood' (what a crock) is just that, Hype. It's the same hype that makes people spend many thousands of dollars on an old guitar. The whole 'older is better' argument started after CBS and Norlin fucked up the two best known guitar brands in the world. Quality control was so bad people wanted the old ones. It's now at epidemic proportions.

You say you can hear the difference between your thin skin and one of your regular finished Strats. I believe you 100%. But, I can also hear the difference between 2 MIM standards. The ONLY way to make a fair assessment would be to have two identical bodies, one finished in thin skin and one in regular poly. Then swap all of your parts, neck, tuners, pickups, bridge, everything, to the other body. Unless you've done that, you're comparing apples and oranges. Now, that'd be pretty impracticle, right? So, while I think we can all agree with the assessment that your thin skin sounds better based only on your statements, I can't go along with the fact that it's the finish doing it. The argument just doesn't hold water.

[StratTone]

I agree with you in so many ways I think you just not seeing. I believe/know that thinner finish does produce a better tone (the definition of tone is pleasing to the ear, everyones ear is differetn) and is more resonent but Tone wood is out there. That is why you can pick up two MIM's and one sounds better. I have a Squire that I love. Sounds good to me so I play it. In fact it is in my top 5. My poly SRV rings out great and that has a lot to do with the 2 piece body. 3 piece bodies are much to stiff. The more pieces the more stiff. If you break a solid piece of wood in half then glue it back it is now as stronger piece of wood. Now that being said I have heard 3 piece guitars that sound better than 2 piece or even one piece because all wood is different. I totally agree that a solid body guitar picks up what the pickups hear BUT don't you realize that the pickups "hear" different tones from the wood?? That is why you can take identical pickups from one guitar to the next and they will sound different.

[Plugger]

[...] The ONLY way to make a fair assessment would be to have two identical bodies, one finished in thin skin and one in regular poly. [...]

And of course, there are no two pieces of wood that are identical, so the only scientific (as in acceptable control of the variables) method would be to use the _same_ body, i.e., finish it, listen to it/record it/whatever, strip it, refinish it, etc.

Silly stuff, of course. But I'd bet Telecast is exactly right. I seriously doubt you'd hear any difference whatsoever.

-Mark

[JAM]

And of course, there are no two pieces of wood that are identical, so the only scientific (as in acceptable control of the variables) method would be to use the _same_ body, i.e., finish it, listen to it/record it/whatever, strip it, refinish it, etc.

Silly stuff, of course. But I'd bet Telecast is exactly right. I seriously doubt you'd hear any difference whatsoever.

-Mark

Exactly. Telecast is right on.

[Gravity Jim]

You say you can hear the difference between your thin skin and one of your regular finished Strats. I believe you 100%. But, I can also hear the difference between 2 MIM standards.

Precisely. Exactly.

[thebisch]

I don't know about the sound difference between Nitro and Poly (I have never refined the same body from one to the other before), if there is one, but I do know going from a thick poly finish to no finish on my old maple bodied Kramer Pacer back in the day opened up the tone audibly, and it wasn't subtle.

[curt1lp]

StratTone said:

"I totally agree that a solid body guitar picks up what the pickups hear BUT don't you realize that the pickups "hear" different tones from the wood?? That is why you can take identical pickups from one guitar to the next and they will sound different."

Well thats a repectable statement but I'd like to be devil's advocate here:

I believe that the pickups could sound different for a number of reasons when you swap between guitars and that wood is not likely to be one of them: I think the most likely explanation would lie in variances of pots and caps rather than wood. pickup and bridge adjustment differences might also play a role. For instance a PIO cap sounds vastly better to my ear than a 2c green capacitor. But even equal model caps can vary. Pots can vary. (My Gibson 87 standard had 100 k tone pots. When I changed them to 300K the tone muddiness went away.) I would like to know how it is that pickups could hear a difference between woods when the pickups produce their voltages by sensing the movement of metal strings above. they are physically blind to the properties of wood as it is not metal. Perhaps it is pickup microphonism that actually picks up the acoustic properties of wood. In a modern potted pickup surely the effect of michrophonism will be small?

I would agree that wood type would have a role in sustain and as sustain is part of tone then that would be where your tone woods come in. Then again the tremolo block material would most likely have a far greater impact on sustain than wood. Personally I'd take a steel tremolo block and standard MIM grade wood over tonewood and a cast zinc thin tremolo block any day.

I think the finish of a guitar could affect acoustic tone but that this would not be noticeable once the guitar is plugged in. To illustrate this I give a related example: I have noticed strats sound 'cheap' acoustically compared to Les Pauls due to the plastic plate and cavities, some almost sound like toys when strummed acoustically. (the worst ones IMO are the swimming pool routed bodies). Yet when plugged in the tone of both strat and Les Paul is perfectly acceptable to my ears. So that to me confirms that it is mainly the electrical circuit that detirmines tone in a solid body guitar.

[Stratoblaster 63]

I will agree that a thin finish guitar can contribute to the tone. But not as much as one would think. A good resonant piece of wood will
without a doubt contribute to sustain.Much More so than putting on a thin skin finish.
I have swapped out pickups on a guitar thinking they were great pickups ( and they were ) only to discover that they did not sound the same in another guitar.
I also have two ( amomg others) very different( from each other) 63 Strats, one has pups in the 5.5 K range, the other upper 5's and low 6'S. The 5.5 K guitar sustains better than the other guitar.Swapping pups the less resonant guitar falls off with the 5.5K'S in it, and the more resonant guitar picks up with the 6K'S in it.Having said that, however, I like the way each guitar sounds with their respective pickups, rather than the switched senario, and both guitars sound pretty even that way to each other in their original format.From the experience, it shows me that a good pickup or a good piece of wood can work where one or the other is lacking.
I will also say from my Bros experiences he changes identical looking hardware from one guitar to another and the density of the
metals pick ups tone too.
I too prefer a nitro finish over a poly more for the properties of the material itself and the look, and I agree that it can contribute to tone, but not a night and day difference like a pickup or a good piece of wood can.

[telecast]

Tone wood is out there. That is why you can pick up two MIM's and one sounds better...I totally agree that a solid body guitar picks up what the pickups hear BUT don't you realize that the pickups "hear" different tones from the wood?? That is why you can take identical pickups from one guitar to the next and they will sound different.

Absolutely the wood makes a difference. I never said otherwise. What I said was, the idea of 'tonewood' is a crock of shit. If that sounds contradictory, it's not. The fact is, that you can 'tap tone' a piece of wood for a solid body guitar, run it through an oscilloscope, or whatever, and you still won't know if it's a good guitar or a bad guitar until it's been assembled and played. The wood makes up a portion of how it all works together, but it's the sum of the whole that makes a good guitar, not just finding a piece of body wood that sounds pretty when tapped.

Some wood is more resonant, or at least appears to be more resonant to the ear. Will it increase sustain? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on all of the other variables. Does a set neck offer more sustain than a bolt neck? No. I've seen and had bolt necks that'll sustain for two days, and beautiful set necks that die off like Wile E. Coyote realizing he just ran out of cliff. I've also seen them go the other way. Same with: Wood, tuners, neck material, fretboard material, pickups, tailpieces, bridges, nuts, strings, blah blah blah ad infinitum. Simply choosing a bunch of parts based on what's worked in the past may or may not yield desirable results. A 'tonewood' ash body, maple neck from USAGC, A set of heavy locking Schaller tuners, Lollars, a vintage bridge...could result in a piece of crap. it's not likely, but it could.

Again, it's the sum of the whole. And when you consider ALL OF THOSE VARIABLES, the finish on the body falls so far down the list as to be almost irrelevant.

[StratTone]

I will agree that a thin finish guitar can contribute to the tone. But not as much as one would think. A good resonant piece of wood will
without a doubt contribute to sustain.Much More so than putting on a thin skin finish.
I have swapped out pickups on a guitar thinking they were great pickups ( and they were ) only to discover that they did not sound the same in another guitar.
I also have two ( amomg others) very different( from each other) 63 Strats, one has pups in the 5.5 K range, the other upper 5's and low 6'S. The 5.5 K guitar sustains better than the other guitar.Swapping pups the less resonant guitar falls off with the 5.5K'S in it, and the more resonant guitar picks up with the 6K'S in it.Having said that, however, I like the way each guitar sounds with their respective pickups, rather than the switched senario, and both guitars sound pretty even that way to each other in their original format.From the experience, it shows me that a good pickup or a good piece of wood can work where one or the other is lacking.
I will also say from my Bros experiences he changes identical looking hardware from one guitar to another and the density of the
metals pick ups tone too.
I too prefer a nitro finish over a poly more for the properties of the material itself and the look, and I agree that it can contribute to tone, but not a night and day difference like a pickup or a good piece of wood can.

I agree with you totally. I say it does make a difference but tone wood and pickups play the biggest role. People just don't like to believe it. Sometimes you have to pay a lot for those sublte yet small things that make a guitar better. Most people ears wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my Custom Shop NOS 60's and my squire. Only musicians can tell. That being said only some musicans can hear the difference between a finish. The more gain you use the less important paint and tone wood come into play. Also the statement I made about pickups sounding different in other guitars was assumed that I used all the same electronics.

[telecast]

I say it does make a difference but tone wood and pickups play the biggest role. People just don't like to believe it. Sometimes you have to pay a lot for those sublte yet small things that make a guitar better.

Ah, and then there are those that will believe whatever they wish, based on a need to justify and defend their purchase.

They fall into the same category as those who listen with their wallets.

[hudpucker]

Ah, and then there are those that will believe whatever they wish, based on a need to justify and defend their purchase.

They fall into the same category as those who listen with their wallets.

bingo.

[stevearino]

Man, you all have it soooooooooo wrong! It's in the 3 saddle brass vintage style bridge man! Nitro or poly has nothin to do with resonance, it's the brass saddles man!
BTW - I'm really diggin the tones I get from my 05 AmSe Tele Polyester coated geetar. She rocks mang!
Although, I will admit, I am playing my Poly coated Kramer 1984 much more as my nitro coated Gibson SG 61 RI just sits there neglected :o

[Guitar_Mc]

You guys are all nuts!

Tone from a guitar is ALL in the tuning machine finish. The chrome ones are bright. The black ones are darker. I can hear it! Can't you?

[Marcondo]

Change from one brand of strings to another like go from Fender to DAddario thats a change in sound you can instantly hear.

The finish is the least important part of a solidbody guitar.

[Offshore Angler]

I stand by my original statement. Even more so now.

[flintpunk]

Ooooh, this thread got a little dicey while I wasn't paying attention. I'm gonna have to weigh in with Telecast. I think when you're building a guitar, you never know what you're gonna get. I've had a nitro finished Les Paul that was a great metal guitar, but had no soul to speak of. On the other hand, I've got a "nickel thick" poly-finished Japanese Charvel Strat clone that I gave $140 for. This thing was cased it's whole life. Must have been owned by a "dirt farmer". When I got it, it looked brand new. I played it and wasn't impressed. I was going to off it, but I never got around to it. On a whim, I pulled it out of the case and threw in a set of Fender Delta Tones. That guitar truly came alive. I couldn't believe the sound out of such a cheap ass guitar! It's got a damned pointy headstock and I hate the look, but I can't get away from playing it...It is the sum of the parts! Maybe some of you guys have seen that Hwy 1 bodied, Tele necked, relic-ed monster I recently bought. That guitar resonates like none I've ever played! Picture a bolt-on necked guitar with a neck that doesn't even fit the pocket correctly! I'm not sure why, but when you play it sitting down with the guitar on your leg, it feels like you've got a hornet's nest sitting there! It's unreal. But with all that sustain, it doesn't sound as good as the Charvel! Guys, it's the luck of the draw and the sum of the parts. I think you have to parts swap until you stumble on "your sound" and then go with it. The vintage wood, tone wood, thing is waaaaay over-rated and has driven the cost of vintage guitars to untouchable levels! I'll bet there are guys here playing Mexican Strats they picked up for $200 that will sound better than someone else's nitro-finished $16,000 1963 Strat. Anyone up for proving it on tape?

[Don]

You guys know these things are made in factories, right?

I think the player makes the biggest difference in tone.

It's embarrasing handing another player your "tone turd" and hearing them make wonderful music (with good tone) with it!

[stevearino]

You guys know these things are made in factories, right?

I think the player makes the biggest difference in tone.

It's embarrasing handing another player your "tone turd" and hearing them make wonderful music (with good tone) with it!

LOL Tone turd! That's funny! I had Eddie Van Halen over yesterday and he played my Am Deluxe Strat. He sounded like me on it.

[Stratoblaster 63]

Well just to add to the subject. My Bro happens to be a working and recording musician and regularly in the studio and recording his new CD at the moment .He has been building and dialing in a Strat that is a two piece center seam select piece of alder.This guitar is being dialed in and assembled and played with different components for months now.It is being bulit to vintage specs with a set of early 60'S black bottom pickups.The guitar is assembled and the neck pocket fit and the neck angle is dialed in. He has been playing it through an amp and says it sounds very good, he has a decent playing ear .The guitar body is bare wood the last step once it is all set up and dialed in, is the finishing of the body, which will be a three tone nitro finish in SB. We were just discussing the possibility of the sound changing and will be taking keen note of any changes once it is done.The guitar will probably be assembled once the finish has dried properly and then played "as it is" for a while before is is buffed and compounded.We will see what happens to the tone in these three steps 1.Bare Wood 2.Nitro finish without buffing curing 3.Cured and compunded and buffed.

[Guitar_Mc]

Stratoblaster63,

Record it at each stage and take note of all settings, mic setup etc.

And Please Share.

[Camoradi]

hudpucker wrote

Yes, we must all heed your subjective opinions, tastes and choices, right? (I'm hoping you just forgot to add an 'I'm just joking' emoticon)

Sorry hudpucker, in that all that happens on this forum is largely personal opinion, I assumed you were making a witty and ironic observation, hence my throw away reply. I did after all originally say

...and I think this is the nice thing about nitro, it simply feels better,......

where I specifically used the 'I' in the sense of 'me', leaving it wide open for anybody else to have an opinion. I didn't mean to make you think you were forced to agree with me in any way.



StratTone wrote

I don't know about you but I have enough time in a day to play guitar, teach lessons, work a 9 to 5 and have a window tinting buisness on the side. And then also learn new things. Imagine that..........

If you haven't reached the point in your playing that you can't notice no big deal. I couldn't always tell but don't diss me just because I can tell a diffenernce between better quality strats.

That being said only some musicans can hear the difference between a finish.

Well StratTone, I guess if you don't stick up for yourself, nobody else will. I think Napoleon (amongst others) had a similar self view. And while his main attribute was an inflated ego, his size didn't match it. A common failing. That aside, and to humble me even more, it would be interesting to know how good you are? Better than......who, other than me? Or how do you do the trick of telling apart a thickly painted guitar from a thinly painted guitar just by listening to it and without any prior knowledge of its 'type'?

Lets face it, if a scientific test can't be done to say yes or no to the superiority, or otherwise, of a thin skin finish, the only meaningful opinion is if people like the sound, or not. In which case the thickness of the finish is utterly irrelevant. So Stratoblaster 63,

1.Bare Wood 2.Nitro finish without buffing curing 3.Cured and compunded and buffed.

while the sound may change for better or worse, in itself it will be meaningless comparison in relation to 'thick or thin' unless you can assure yourself that an alternative even thicker poly finish wouldn't have been better than the nitro finish, or no finish. But I guess you were just mentioning it as an interesting aspect of the debate, not a solution.

[Stratoblaster 63]

I will do the best I can. Brother will be able to tell. He is very particular about tone.I don't know how he does it sometimes.
He is always good at helping us out with various problems.He
bought a Historic Gold Top a coouple of years ago and sent two of them back while in the process .He found dead spots on the neck where there were over tones or tone drop. Bought a set of new speakers last week, tested them out and shows me, "Look(listen) when you play at a certain range you get tone cry out of these speakers" He could hear it.Sent the speakers back to the factory and they contacted him back and said he was right, they sent him another set of speakers !! Right now he says his project Strat is one of the best playing and sounding guitars he has put together and owned. While reading this thread it dawned on me that he was playing it assembled while the guitar is in bare wood. He said himself "It sounds great right now, I wonder, and i hope not if finishing it will have an affect on the sound" ? Even he is curious ?

[NeoFauve]

Stratoblaster- If your bro has some extra time, ask him if he can try different colors too!
If he's gonna go to all that trouble, he might as well go all the way and attain the final answer.
I mean, if the outermost millimeter or so is a discernable tonal factor, recipe differences between various colors must matter too. The metal flake in LPB or Inca Silver...

Whatever he does, I hope he pours most of himself into making a good record, and just dabbles in this stuff for the sheer WTF?-factor.


I wonder what the black tape contributed to EVH's "Brown Sound."
http://www.lilypix.com/photos/showpi...=531&pid=51624

[Stratoblaster 63]

Bro is NOT going to any trouble at all.It is just coincidence that the guitar he is building right now,and dialing in, happens to be at the stage of the process and at the point where it is still Bare wood. Not for the sake of the point in question. It's all part of the process of working on and dialing in the guitar before the finishing.Just a matter of keep track and seeing what happens to the guitars tonal properties etc... before during the finishing process.No trouble to observe and listen etc.. to what it sounds like now, and when the SB nitro is applied .Nothing special is being done, or anything out of the way over and above the normal building process.It all would be done that way regardless.

[StratTone]

Ah, and then there are those that will believe whatever they wish, based on a need to justify and defend their purchase.

They fall into the same category as those who listen with their wallets.

I do agree with you but not on this subject only because I used to think the same way. It takes a while to adapt an ear to hear it. I'm not trying to say I have an all around better ear than you by now means but in this isnstance I believe I can hear what your not hearing. I'm not trying to justify a purchase either. Hell if I spend $1,000 on a piece of poop then that is my buisness and I dont' need to justify anything. ;-)

[StratTone]

Change from one brand of strings to another like go from Fender to DAddario thats a change in sound you can instantly hear.

The finish is the least important part of a solidbody guitar.

I totally agree with you. My point is (which you guys aren't listening to) is that ANYTHING you do to a guitar has the ability to change the tone. Strings sound way different. Finish does come into account it is a fact. Is it major NO but is it there YES!! I love MIM's MIA's Custom shops all of them. The strat to me is the #1 guitar on the market. If you can't afford a Custom shop no big deal. I've heard players with a Squire bust the asses of a guy playing a MIA on stage all the time. All that we are dicussing in tone qualitys are there EVEN FINISH but the most important thing is the man hands............!!!!!! I can pick up my Squire and take it to a jam with all confidence.

[StratTone]

You guys know these things are made in factories, right?

I think the player makes the biggest difference in tone.

It's embarrasing handing another player your "tone turd" and hearing them make wonderful music (with good tone) with it!

You hit it right on the head!!! It is all in the hands!!!! I just love strats so much I have bought 9 of them. I'm not a one guitar guy. I like polyurthane, polyester, nitro, 7.25, 9.5. 12'', it doesn't matter I love the sound of them all. I'm just saying in a low gain bluesy situation a nice tone wood nitro guitar will sound better.

[Gravity Jim]

If people understood more about how their senses (receptor and processor, both ear and brain) work to create their perception, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. Sadly, back in junior high school, when they should have been teaching us about human physiology and brain chemistry, they thought all we could handle was tips on showering everyday.

[StratTone]

Stratoblaster63,

Record it at each stage and take note of all settings, mic setup etc.

And Please Share.

That really won't prove anything unless you are right there. A mic and or the recording can alter the tone.

[StratTone]

hudpucker wrote



Sorry hudpucker, in that all that happens on this forum is largely personal opinion, I assumed you were making a witty and ironic observation, hence my throw away reply. I did after all originally say



where I specifically used the 'I' in the sense of 'me', leaving it wide open for anybody else to have an opinion. I didn't mean to make you think you were forced to agree with me in any way.



StratTone wrote






Well StratTone, I guess if you don't stick up for yourself, nobody else will. I think Napoleon (amongst others) had a similar self view. And while his main attribute was an inflated ego, his size didn't match it. A common failing. That aside, and to humble me even more, it would be interesting to know how good you are? Better than......who, other than me? Or how do you do the trick of telling apart a thickly painted guitar from a thinly painted guitar just by listening to it and without any prior knowledge of its 'type'?

Lets face it, if a scientific test can't be done to say yes or no to the superiority, or otherwise, of a thin skin finish, the only meaningful opinion is if people like the sound, or not. In which case the thickness of the finish is utterly irrelevant. So Stratoblaster 63,



while the sound may change for better or worse, in itself it will be meaningless comparison in relation to 'thick or thin' unless you can assure yourself that an alternative even thicker poly finish wouldn't have been better than the nitro finish, or no finish. But I guess you were just mentioning it as an interesting aspect of the debate, not a solution.

No intent to sound egotesticle. ;-) Sometimes things come off different in text and not in person. To me you sounded like you were attacking me/accusing me of being dumb for "buying into the hype". That in its self is and insulting thing to say. I am a pretty open person and used to think finish didn't matter. But in a low gain situation I can make a difference. VERY sublte but more resonent for sure. Thick poly traps the wood from resonating. Now I never said ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER. In some situations I prefer my '00 Poly MIA. It just sounds better through my HRD than my nitro Vintage style guitars. In fact I really dig the late 90's MIM way more than the new MIA's. Again this is my opinion so don't hate me for having one.

[Stratoblaster 63]

Like I said we all do have a finish preference but if a guitar plays and sounds good I really don't care what finish is on it. If we really want to get stoopid, we can start talking about how humidity and temerature changes effect the way a guitar sounds, because it might have an effect. Like oh my guitar sounded better today than yesterday because it is 90 degrees out the wood expanded and opened up so that the wook and the finish breath better LOL !!! Just pick up the guitarand if it sounds good play it even if it has a brush job on it !!

[hudpucker]

You hit it right on the head!!! It is all in the hands!!!!

If tone is 'all in the hands' then send me your old used brand name electrics and I'll send you some brand new inexpensive analogues. You should sound exactly the same since tone is 'all in the hands', right?

[curt1lp]

Ok I have a thought about this:

All those things that make up a guitar and the way it plays HAVE to go through the pickup eventually. It is the sound bottleneck for the note right.

If finish makes a difference it has to go through the pickup, if wood makes a difference it has to go through the pickup. That is scientific fact. The pickup is generating a voltage according to the vibration of a string above it, and also the pickup itself and its innards ARE VIBRATING. The pickup is designed to gather electromagnetic information, it will not gather acoustic information such as wood resonance unless the acoustic information is fed into the string or the pickup itself by creating vibration of metal in a magnetic field.

Now if the wood and finish and the whole host of other things that are said to make the tone better actually do then they HAVE to change the way the pickup vibrates in relation to the string or vice versa, thats a scientific fact.

SO maybe we should be buying boutique pickup springs, or maybe the pickup should be screwed into the wood so it can gather more wood and finish resonance. Maybe the pickup should be weight balanced so it can resonate properly with the guitar.

I've got no issue with the finish affecting the wood resonance, everything affects everything else on some level, some may even be able to hear the difference I just think that logically the pickups, strings and the type of connection between the pickup and the guitar are orders of magnitude more important for the eventual sound of the guitar than the finish. I love the look of a nitro finish however. If it makes the guitar sound a little better thats just icing on the cake.

[Plugger]

No-one has mentioned the importance of having the right balance of carbon isotopes. Older wood has a different ratio of carbon isotopes to newer wood. This is a scientific fact. And different isotopes have different mass. Never underestimate the importance of isotopes.

I like lots of carbon 13 in my wood, personally. Not everyone can hear it, of course. But for the truly discerning, the tonal difference _is_ there...

-Mark

[StratTone]

If people understood more about how their senses (receptor and processor, both ear and brain) work to create their perception, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. Sadly, back in junior high school, when they should have been teaching us about human physiology and brain chemistry, they thought all we could handle was tips on showering everyday.

Get of that pedistal!! Because I don't know how my brain works. In fact I never even studied anything about my body...............Dude my best friend is a doctor trust me I know how the brain works.

I feel like showing you guys some Oscope examples of this fact to just prove it.

[StratTone]

Like I said we all do have a finish preference but if a guitar plays and sounds good I really don't care what finish is on it. If we really want to get stoopid, we can start talking about how humidity and temerature changes effect the way a guitar sounds, because it might have an effect. Like oh my guitar sounded better today than yesterday because it is 90 degrees out the wood expanded and opened up so that the wook and the finish breath better LOL !!! Just pick up the guitarand if it sounds good play it even if it has a brush job on it !!

You are dead on brother!!! Hell we could even take wall measurements of the voltage applied at the time of playing. Then we can all make sure we have power conditioners to keep the voltage steady.....but then which power condition has better tone??????? We will never know....... lol

[StratTone]

If tone is 'all in the hands' then send me your old used brand name electrics and I'll send you some brand new inexpensive analogues. You should sound exactly the same since tone is 'all in the hands', right?

No you just took it that way. What I am saying is "I will sound like me no matter what I plug into".

[curt1lp]

"I like lots of carbon 13 in my wood, personally...."

Me too but unfortunately guitars with more C13 are a little out of my price range. Seriously.

[StratTone]

Ok I have a thought about this:

All those things that make up a guitar and the way it plays HAVE to go through the pickup eventually. It is the sound bottleneck for the note right.

If finish makes a difference it has to go through the pickup, if wood makes a difference it has to go through the pickup. That is scientific fact. The pickup is generating a voltage according to the vibration of a string above it, and also the pickup itself and its innards ARE VIBRATING. The pickup is designed to gather electromagnetic information, it will not gather acoustic information such as wood resonance unless the acoustic information is fed into the string or the pickup itself by creating vibration of metal in a magnetic field.

Now if the wood and finish and the whole host of other things that are said to make the tone better actually do then they HAVE to change the way the pickup vibrates in relation to the string or vice versa, thats a scientific fact.

SO maybe we should be buying boutique pickup springs, or maybe the pickup should be screwed into the wood so it can gather more wood and finish resonance. Maybe the pickup should be weight balanced so it can resonate properly with the guitar.

I've got no issue with the finish affecting the wood resonance, everything affects everything else on some level, some may even be able to hear the difference I just think that logically the pickups, strings and the type of connection between the pickup and the guitar are orders of magnitude more important for the eventual sound of the guitar than the finish. I love the look of a nitro finish however. If it makes the guitar sound a little better thats just icing on the cake.

Ding Ding Ding!!!!! We have a winner. My point exactly. :-) Hell Eddie bolted his pickups right to the guitars body for that same reason. I can say that no doubt the pickups feel the vibration trur strings. Some people who have small feed back problems take out the springs and use the rubber tubbing.