Do types of wood really affect an ELECTRIC guitar's tone?

I got shocked a few times from my first electric guitar. Nothing too bad but nasty enough to stop playing.

There's a couple of interesting articles here:

Pickups at Wikipedia

and

A "How Things Work" site

Wikipedia bears out the AC current idea. :) But I don't think that the issue is whether the current from the pickup is alternating or direct, it's that the signal generated is tiny and harmless to the player. I can't see how anybody could be in danger from it, no matter what the body is made of or how poorly it's insulated.

But several guitarists have apparently been electrocuted. How? What can definitely kill you is the mains current in the amp. If that found it's way up the lead you could be in a spot of bother, but presumably it would require some sort of malfunction to happen. Maybe you'd also need a bit of bad luck as to what and how you were touching at the time?

Here's something on how people have been electrocuted by their gear:

Fries with that guitar Sir?

Keith Richards trying to smash his microphone with the guitar..

I found some others but they were all very vague and didn't appear to be written by anybody with any actual technical knowldege of what failed or how they made contact with the fatal current.

Our mains systems here are well earthed (grounded) but that's probably not the case elsewhere, and people have been known to mess with parts of their gear that they shouldn't... :shock:

Good luck at your next practice session guys.. :P

Cheers,

Chris.

Oh I definitely agree that the signal going from your guitar to your amp is tiny, I read that it's in the microamp range. I also definitely agree that any fatal current would be from some sort of HUGE error from the amp. Anyways, I'll admit that I'm at least wrong about metal guitars being more dangerous than wooden ones! I guess the whole DC or AC current being generated from the pickups is up for debate: at least it's an interesting conversation for us electrical geeks though :D Everyone else can proceed to laugh, roll your eyes or fall asleep.

I got shocked a few times from my first electric guitar. Nothing too bad but nasty enough to stop playing.

Did you ever discover how and why?

From what I read, the most likely thing seems to be a poorly earthed and/or wired amp sending a current up the shielding on the lead. The lead only has a single wire going down the centre to carry the signal to the amp. No additional power leads hidden in there. Plus the shielding around it which appears to act as an earth (ground).

I've assumed that (as there shouldn't be any mains current in the guitar itself) the main job of this wrap-around metal shielding is to shield the weak signal from outside electromagnetic interference. I've read that this can come from the rest of the gear, lights, wiring in the walls and so on. I guess that whatever it might pick up can be dissipated through the earth system??

However, if the amp is faulty, and poorly earthed then any stray current in the amp could travel up the lead to the guitar instead of harmlessly down to earth through the earth/ground system.

But I'm a mechanical engineer not an electrical one, so I could be wrong and I'm happy to learn here. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Wow, this thread has certainly gone on a tangent.

Doesn't the signal only travel in one direction? It was my understanding that feedback and shocking due to poor grounding was the result of static electricity from the user of the guitar, with little or no interaction from the amp itself.

Oh I definitely agree that the signal going from your guitar to your amp is tiny, I read that it's in the microamp range. I also definitely agree that any fatal current would be from some sort of HUGE error from the amp. Anyways, I'll admit that I'm at least wrong about metal guitars being more dangerous than wooden ones! I guess the whole DC or AC current being generated from the pickups is up for debate: at least it's an interesting conversation for us electrical geeks though :D Everyone else can proceed to laugh, roll your eyes or fall asleep.

Very few electric signal or power sources are stricly AC or DC. We usually categorize them by which component is dominant. The output of a guitar pup is mostly AC, but depending upon the exact harmonic content can contain a small DC component as well. The voltage can be somewhere in the vicinity 1 to over 2 volts peak-to-peak (one way to measure the AC portion) from a hot humbucker. But the source resistance is several to over ten thousands of ohms, so the current sourcing capability is tiny: maybe 100 uA rms. This source resistance (and source reactance, the inductive and capacitive parts) are the reason a good amp has a megohm input impedance -- so it won't load down the pup's output ... especially at high frequencies.

About currents that kill: These can be in the tens of milliamps -- not really a lot, but applied across the heart (e.g., hand-to-hand internal path) can cause defrib => heart attack. Higher currents (100s of milliamps to many amps) often travel on the skin of the victim causing burns, which of course also can kill.

now ... back to your regularly scheduled discussion of wood.

Thanks for clarifying gnease.

I like maple.

It was my understanding that feedback and shocking due to poor grounding was the result of static electricity from the user of the guitar, with little or no interaction from the amp itself.

Good point about static electricity also being a possibility. Perhaps that's what Sleutelbos felt? I went to touch my son on the shoulder the other day and a spark jumped from my hand to him and we both felt a modest jolt (no guitars or equipment involved). A friend who works on computers has to be very careful to earth himself before working on them (as any tech should) because he seems to build up static a lot. He's ruined both a stick of RAM and a motherboard on separate occasions and actually saw and felt the spark that caused the damage. But I don't think that's the main danger with guitar.

I found this article, which is by a "licensed master electrician", and it explains some different scenarios in which faulty wiring in your equipment can cause fatal shocks. I found it to be a very interesting and informative read.

An explanation from somebody who seems to know their stuff.

Cheers,

Chris

I like maple.

Maple sort of proves my point about tonewood. Quilted maple is soft and floppy. Bird's-eye maple is very hard and stiff. Flame maple can cover the whole gamut. Yet guitarists believe that all maple sounds the same, which goes against the rules they have set up for rosewood and mahogany. Go figure.

from The Heretic's Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods

:twisted:

It was my understanding that feedback and shocking due to poor grounding was the result of static electricity from the user of the guitar, with little or no interaction from the amp itself.

Good point about static electricity also being a possibility. Perhaps that's what Sleutelbos felt? I went to touch my son on the shoulder the other day and a spark jumped from my hand to him and we both felt a modest jolt (no guitars or equipment involved). A friend who works on computers has to be very careful to earth himself before working on them (as any tech should) because he seems to build up static a lot. He's ruined both a stick of RAM and a motherboard on separate occasions and actually saw and felt the spark that caused the damage. But I don't think that's the main danger with guitar.

I found this article, which is by a "licensed master electrician", and it explains some different scenarios in which faulty wiring in your equipment can cause fatal shocks. I found it to be a very interesting and informative read.

An explanation from somebody who seems to know their stuff.

Cheers,

Chris

Static electricity doesn't build up on a properly grounded and earthed guitar/amp system. It never gets a chance to build up, because the charges are continuously drained to earth (safety) ground.

The most interesting part of that linked article is in the sidebar, which recommends the use of mains testers and a GFCI in the power circuit (same advice as in a recent topic in the Live forum).

Something many people don't know: To all electricians the "black" wire is one carrying the juice -- the 'hot' one, often taught as black = bad or dangerous. White is the neutral return, and green is the earth or chassis or safety ground. This is how houses in the US are correctly wired. To most electrical engineers (who contrary to the belief of most of their relatives don't learn to wire homes and businesses, and don't learn to repair TVs) "black" is a color used for the neutral return or one of the grounds in consumer electronics. My point: Don't assume that an electrical engineer is the right guy to wire your home, business or electrical appliance. He or she may not know the standard wiring conventions, making the work possibly unsafe.

OT: Right, Slej, not all maple is the same

Don't know if it's been said but... the denser the material, the longer the sustain of a natural note sounds :roll: Just telling you guys

Static electricity doesn't build up on a properly grounded and earthed guitar/amp system. It never gets a chance to build up, because the charges are continuously drained to earth (safety) ground.
Sorry if what I wrote was unclear there. Sure it shouldn't "build up" in the system - but I wasn't trying to say that it does. :) What I was suggesting that could happen is that the static electricity that can build up in your own body might be released to earth via the earthing system on a guitar.

As I'm sure you know, it's not unusual to build up a charge of static electricity in your body. It can build up from something as simple as taking clothing on and off. It can be released when you touch another person (as happened when I touched my son) or when you touch something like a metal gate. It's why you should either wear an earth strap, or at least ground yourself first, when you work on computer hardware.

It's not happened to me with a guitar yet. But I don't see any reason why it couldn't travel down the lead to earth, depending on the guitar and what I touched. I've had static jolts through touching all sorts of things including gates, car doors, other people and even door handles, so I don't see any reason to exempt guitars. :wink: Maybe it's just my magnetic personality... :P

Thanks for your tips. It's always good to learn more about anything to do with safety (and about guitars..). :)

Cheers,

Chris

Having had a Ton of guitars over the years I've noticed that structural integrity of the instrument really has a lot to do the final sound. I've played a number of Strats that were exactly the same, same year, model, finish, set-up, etc.. And they all sounded different, not a lot different, but a little different. I think that the actual wood used and the natural variances in it does affect the sound. Older guitars made from old growth wood seem to sound better than newer ones with faster grown wood.

When I play an electric guitar for the first time, I don't plug it in. I listen to where the sound comes off and some times I can feel the body vibrate also, if it sounds good and clear, with a good vibe from the body and neck, then chances are that the guitar will sound good plugged in.

In a Strat, I look for a good stiff neck and a fairly heavy body, they seem to sound good to me.

In a set neck guitar, I look for the same things but I also look at the neck joint, making sure that it isn't cracked or too shallow. (Think older SGs)

I used to look for the thinnest necks because of the size of my hands, then I started playing thicker necks and noticed a big improvement in the tones, maybe my playing has adapted to the point that I don't have trouble with them.

My 67 ES335 has a thin neck and it doesn't have the "Beef" of my Epi Supernova, (an ES kinda clone), they both run the same pickups but the Epi has a thicker neck, I think this is why. Don't get me wrong, I love my Gibby, but not for RnR, it's a great blues guitar.

Just my opinion......