“I don’t buy it”: Paul Reed Smith has no time for people on the internet who think tonewood doesn’t matter
The classic tonewood debate isn’t dying out we fear, as Paul Reed Smith is once again having his say on the matter.
Opinions on just how much wood matters when it comes to the sound of your guitar vary, even Leo Fender didn’t see that much of a difference between the various types. Just two months ago however, Rhett Shull carried out a tonewood experiment and found there was a clear tonal difference in his results.
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Reed Smith is an avid defender of the importance of tonewood, though he doesn’t like to use the term. At PRS – his own guitar brand, of course – they simply just see it as wood. All that matters to him is how well it rings.
In a new column for Premier Guitar, Reed Smith explains, “For me, the species is less relevant than the qualities of the wood. Those qualities are: length of time the wood rings when you hit it, the amount of water remaining in the wood after it is dried, the resins in the wood being crystallised/not gooey, the ability to have strength as necessary (i.e., a fretboard needs to be resistant to sweating, whereas back wood doesn’t), its ability to not warp over time, and its aesthetic appeal.
“A magic guitar can be made of many different types of wood, but those woods need to have certain qualities and need to be handled correctly throughout the manufacturing process. So to me, woods matter.”
He adds, “To me, if wood doesn’t matter, then logically it follows that the material the bridge is made of doesn’t matter and the material the nut is made of doesn’t matter. What I believe, because of scores of experiences, is that if we make two identical guitars out of different woods, the guitars will sound different from each other. Then, if we exchange all the parts from guitar A and guitar B – the tuning pegs, nut, electronics, bridge – they would sound almost the same as they did, and still different from each other…
“Bottom line, to throw away one of the main ingredients for making instruments because the internet says ‘it doesn’t make any difference’ is, to me, like saying dead strings, rubber bridges, soft finishes, and wet woods make no difference. With all due respect, I don’t buy it.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
