Tonewood?

I'm thinking about buying a new guitar, and i'm sincerely wondering how much of a difference tonewood actually makes?
Making this a separate thread instead derailing a /gg/ thread.

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This will turn into a shitstorm, just be aware. As far as we know "tonewoods" in a solid body guitar have, if any, a very subtle effect on the overall sound. Pickups/pickup position and strings should still be mostly responsible for how a guitar sounds.
So you could build a tele out of mahogany and it'd still sound like a tele, basically. Maybe slightly different. I wouldn't worry about the species of wood, it's more important that it's properly dried and decent quality hardwood IMO (for structural reasons and "sustain").

heavy mahogany short scale guitars sound darker and fatter
light alder and maple long scale guitars sound sharper and clearer

It's the short scale, not an effect of the wood. Short scale guitars accent the lower-mid partials of notes by having the same pitch as a longer scale, but with a shorter vibrating area and lower tension to reach standard tuning.

Everything else you said is what you are hearing with your eyes, it's an illusion.
Magnets pick up disturbance in tge magnetic field, turn it into an electric signal, and send that to the amp.
If one is very critical, the only effect wood has on something is conservation of energy based on how dense the body material is.
In the classical guitar realm, some luthiers will put tons of extra mass(like Greg Smallman) on everything except the guitar top in order to produce more volume by wasting less energy vibrating the back and sides.
For heavy, dense, electric guitars it isn't making any difference in tone.

It's difficult to discern cedar vs spruce classical guitars in blind tests. There's a difference, but it's difficult to determine.
Don't hear with your eyes.

I'm not OP, but something else to consider is nut material. It's one of the 2 spots that anchor the strings. I had an issue with a bass where the E string was just completely dead/dull sounding. No matter how often I changed strings. When I replaced the nut (which had a shitty cardboard shim under it from the previous owner) with a graphtech nut all the issues went away even with the old strings that I considered dull/dead before. And yes that issue was on the E string no matter if I played the open string or fretted a note.

agreed that the strings, length, and nut make most of the difference, but the density of then wood not only effect how the string vibrates, but how the bridge, nut, tuning pegs, and pickups vibrate as well.

That could have been a factor, cardboard absorbs energy very well.
Nuts made of softer materials do not conserve as much energy, which could result in a dead sound.
The best option, since purely metal nuts could be conducive to buzzing, would be to have a dense nut made and line the string contact points with bone to prevent them from moving and buzzing.

It only really makes a noticeable difference when the guitar is made of fucking metal.

In principle, yes. But how much really? You can fundamentally change the sound of a guitar by swapping the pickups or the pickup location, or strings, etc. Changing ash to mahogany would at best be a subtle difference going by everything I know and everything I've played.
It just surprised me, a lot, since I expected it to only affect the open string. But the actual anchor points seem to make a difference in how much energy the string can contain, so it affects sustain and in a worst case scenario completely takes the life out of the string, even when you play a fretted note. Just something to keep in mind, maybe a bone nut is a decent upgrade or something to consider over the cheap, soft plastic nuts.

>But how much really?
who knows? that's why there is debate. i assume it's slightly noticeable but not too important. the main thing with wood though is how the weight affects you playing it. i don't want it to feel like paper, but i also don't want to fuck up my back after awhile.

>who knows?
I've played jazz basses with the typical ash bodies, with alder bodies (bkth sith maple necks) and with mahogany bodies and exotic tops (with crazy 5 or 7 layer bubinga/mahogany necks), etc. All sounded like jazz basses because they used single coil pickups in the same location. That's where I'm coming from at least. Most people haven't done anything even close to a 1:1 comparison, from my experience I can only say that if there is a difference it is very subtle since all of these instruments fundamentally sounded like jazz basses.

I didn't really believe it until I recently got an Swamp Ash guitar after only owning mahogany. I don't think it really changed the sound, but it feels more responsive to dynamics and such

But... you also just got a different guitar. How can you attribute any of its characteristics to the wood? It could literally be anything else that's different compared to your other guitars.

Well I also used the same Nazgul Sentient pickup sets in both because I like the sound. The ash guitar has noticably more sustain and is much punchier. It could also be the wiring/pots/pickup placement for all I know

>It could also be the wiring/pots/pickup placement for all I know
Exactly, it could literally be any other factor that is different between the guitars you're comparing. If your new guitar has 500k pots and the old one uses 250k pots that would already make a significant difference.

Ash
Alder
Maple
Mahogany
Basswood
Pine
Rosewood

What do these woods have in common other than all frequently being used in guitar parts? Well they are all abundant, mostly local (to the US), and therefore cheap. Naive as fuck to think they're chosen because they have some magical effect on the sound of a guitar.

they are all abundant
>Mahogany
>Rosewood

If that were true guitar makers would just use fucking plywood

Only because plywood doesn't sound sexy for marketing, a well built plywood guitar could sound as good as any other

>a well built plywood guitar could sound as good as any other

Citation needed

Ears needed

well here's merely a homemade one so we can't be sure of "well built", yet it still sounds perfectly fine youtube.com/watch?v=hEoYNoBjT3U

>sounds perfectly fine

if thin and with no resonance or sustain = good then maybe

Literally made out of fucking cardboard: youtu.be/7Oo2H-W7d6A
And it sounds like a fucking strat.

>Falling for the fender jew marketing with overlayed guitar sounds

They just want you to think that they are actually master guitar builders and not mexican slave drivers. Also niggers can't play anything other than blooze and slap bass

Trees are organisms that aren't all identical even when they're the same species. How the logs are cut could also be a factor. It's hard to say anything reliable about wood.

Ironic when I assume you're someone that's fallen for the "tonewood" jew marketing

>They just want you to think that they are actually master guitar builders and not mexican slave drivers.
Erm, Fender didn't build that guitar. What are you talking about?