MJR's Guitar Specs

What Wounded Land was saying is that the paint either helps/hinders the vibrations of the guitar.......cos lets face it, without vibrations in the strings there would be no sound. I don't have any clue on this sort of stuff though cos I've only ever owned one guitar. It sucks cos when I want a new one (I'll be wanting one really awesome one) I still won't fully understand everything even if I try out a couple to hear the differences.
 
Wounded Land said:
The paint/finish of an electric guitar ABSOLUTELY effects its tone! Obviously not as much as other aspects of the guitar, but it relates to how a guitar body vibrates.

NP: Sonny Landreth "South of I-10"

My question is, to which degree would the paint affect the tone of an electric guitar?
Even though theres certainly a level of resonance through the body, it's still a solid piece of wood (or tight layers of wood) and on the other hand, the specific guitar (MJR's) doesn't have anything really tone-hindering like a heavily customized body...
So I'd say that because the strings vibrate and the pickup(s) amplifies the sound, maybe around a 20% of that sound would resonate through the body and get caught by the pickup. Of that 20%, probably a mere 5% soundwise would be affected by.. the paint.
Are there really that many metal/rock guitarists with loads of distortion effects -not to mention the rest, ie chorus, compressor, delay, reverb etc.- weighing down their tone, that care so much about that 5% the paint would alter? I would just say no.

PS. Please correct me If I am wrong, I am not a sound engineer. :)
 
I know finish can greatly effect an acoustic guitar's ressonance, but I don't know about electric...Eric Johnson's signature guitar is supposed to have some special paint or lacquor used in it to make the guitar sound better too so...*shrug*
 
Yngvai X said:
I know finish can greatly effect an acoustic guitar's ressonance, but I don't know about electric...Eric Johnson's signature guitar is supposed to have some special paint or lacquor used in it to make the guitar sound better too so...*shrug*

The whole story is different on acoustic/classical guitars as they rely 100% on wood and design quality to produce their sound. I know about Johnson's Fender signature and the paint used, I just don't believe that most guitarists playing heavy stuff with tons of post-processing going on, would care about such a subtle detail.
 
Acoustic guitars rely solely on vibration of the body. Electric guitars rely on a magnetic field emitted by the pickups. Unless the paint effects the magnetic field of the pickups, (Not including guitars with painted pickups.) how does the finish effect the overall tone coming out of the amp?
 
ptah knemu said:
Acoustic guitars rely solely on vibration of the body. Electric guitars rely on a magnetic field emitted by the pickups. Unless the paint effects the magnetic field of the pickups, (Not including guitars with painted pickups.) how does the finish effect the overall tone coming out of the amp?

Well by that logic, you could say what does it matter what wood is used to build the guitar? Obviously it must have some effect on the tone.
 
Carl Thompson makes some of the best basses in the world, and he doesn't care at all how the wood affects tone, just that it's light. And his basses sound awesome.
 
Yngvai X said:
I know finish can greatly effect an acoustic guitar's ressonance, but I don't know about electric...Eric Johnson's signature guitar is supposed to have some special paint or lacquor used in it to make the guitar sound better too so...*shrug*

Erics stat uses a nitrocellulose lacquor (clearcoat) which is very hard and allows for better resonance and sustain. However im sure to 99.98% of guitarists out there, the difference would be unnoticable. Only a hardcore OCD Audiophile like Eric could tell the difference.

But as far as a finnish producing better mids, or to focus any specific tonal region, I just cant see it...everything from pickups, to neck joints, to neck woods, body woods, even nuts and bridges and tuners, sure, not paint and finnish..

oh, and since were on the ideas of specific artists specs, rumor has it EVH puts a chip in the back of all his guitars because he believes the wood has to breath....
 
ptah knemu said:
Acoustic guitars rely solely on vibration of the body. Electric guitars rely on a magnetic field emitted by the pickups. Unless the paint effects the magnetic field of the pickups, (Not including guitars with painted pickups.) how does the finish effect the overall tone coming out of the amp?

the stirng is touching the bridge wich touches the body which touches the paint. thus when the strign vibrates so does the bridge/body/paint. the types of material and design of these things determine A.) how much innitiate vibrato obsorbtion the instrument has, and B.) The related 'echo' of the body's vibrations reflecting back on the strings.
 
I dont know man...never heard of caparison..there headstocks make them look line those freakin samsonic walmart/kmart/media play guitars...i think that was a bad move goin from ESP to that. I mean i guess that doesn't matter that much...but its got a bit of significance.