guitar body wood

[Dave W]

on reexamination, I think you're right, Dave.  They must use a smoother bit to do the cover route and finish the shallower cavity, is that for a battery?

Specs say it comes with a rechargeable battery pack, I don't know where it's located. Smoother area may just be coated with conductive paint under the finish.

... I haven't done side-by-side tests of basses with different body woods with identical electronics and strings, which is what it would take for me to be convinced.  My current belief is that if wood makes a difference (not saying it doesn't, but also not saying that if there's a difference, that it is a drawback), electronics and strings make a lot MORE difference.

Compare these guitars unplugged: LP Standard, LP Studio (thinner maple top) and one of the all-mahohany LP variants. Same body size, same mahogany neck. You should be able to easily hear the differences in body woods.

May not be as obvious plugged in, still everything affects tone in some way. How much is hard to say. Different woods absorb or enhance different frequencies.

[Freuds_Cat]

who is it here that says "the sound is in the glue?"  

[sniper]

tone ply? lol. the thing that got me in the pic is that i thought i saw grain in the bottom of the control cavity without many if any at all mill marks like i would see if it were capped with a "true or real" wood vs being routed out of a solid piece of wood.

my Chinese Epi EBO is ply but ply what?

[Pilgrim]

May not be as obvious plugged in, still everything affects tone in some way. How much is hard to say. Different woods absorb or enhance different frequencies.

I won't argue with that...including the assertion that it's hard to say.

One argument one could make about a high quality laminate is that many folks seem to perfer bodies made from denser, heavier woods.  Seems to me like the resins holding laminates together lead to a similar density in the body.  Perhaps the issue is whether that density would be resonant, or would deaden the sound.  Dave's unplugged test would probably be a good way to find an answer.

[Freuds_Cat]

I guess you can go through the stages like:

1. solid plank
2. Laminated smaller planks
3. Plywood
4. Resin/fibre based instruments

To be honest I've heard each of these methods sound both good and bad depending on the instrument itself.

[exiledarchangel]

If you play loud and fast, wear silly clothes onstage and got lots of groupies and cocaine, wood doesn't matter.

[Pilgrim]

If you play loud and fast, wear silly clothes onstage and got lots of groupies and cocaine, wood doesn't matter.

Well, maybe to the groupies.

[exiledarchangel]

Well, maybe to the groupies.

Ofcourse, Your Naughtyness!

[dadagoboi]

'Wood" certainly does matter to the groupies

[ack1961]

I'm not convinced that a good, solid laminate is a drawback in a solid body.  My Lotus fretless is a laminate and it sounds great.  Gibson's color-laminate SG-series uses layers as well.

I haven't done side-by-side tests of basses with different body woods with identical electronics and strings, which is what it would take for me to be convinced.  My current belief is that if wood makes a difference (not saying it doesn't, but also not saying that if there's a difference, that it is a drawback), electronics and strings make a lot MORE difference.

That Electromatic is plywood and it sounds pretty awesome.

[dadagoboi]

That Electromatic is plywood and it sounds pretty awesome.

My StratoBaster is really crappy plywood, maybe Luan, and sounds a lot better than my OLP Stingray.  Must be the cocaine or the silly clothes.

[Pilgrim]

My fretless is (probably) a Lotus originally, and I know from refinishing it that the body is laminate.  Sounds great.

As Dave says, a laminate body probably sounds minutely different - but IMO, not to its detriment.  Different does not mean bad.

[Dave W]

Remember most thinline hollow and semihollow electrics are laminated, with the notable exception of Rickenbacker. Sure, a Gibson ES-335 or EB-2 will be a higher grade laminate, probably lumber core, and with a high appearance grade top. But it's still a laminate.

[Electro Dale]

Here's some FYI
The Guitar and Bass body routing is done on a CNC machine in 1 pass with a spiraled up-cut router bit that has multi cutting sections of carbide on each flute.  This is done for a faster production method.  Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson and Epiphone all use this CNC cutting method and doing it this way it leaves those small groves that appear to be laminations giving the viual appearance of plywood.
Your Robo guitar is solid Mahogany with a Maple cap it just looks like plywood.
There are plywood bodied guitars, mostly inexpensive Chinese or Korean ones that can also be semi hollow.

[dadagoboi]

Thanks, Dale!