My speculation: Crispness of the fingerboard, resonance of the mahogany must have an influence. My second instrument in this build has finger board mad from a scrap piece that sold to me as Madagascan Rosewood. It definitely isn't. I think it might be Cocobolo. The wood is dark brown with orange/brown marbled grain. This fingerboard (unmounted) had an amazing resonance to it - completely different to the Indian rosewood. When I "knock" this instrument, it has a much brighter sound to it. The fingerboard is the only obvious difference to the other two.Norman86 wrote:Something that im sure will have an effect is the age of the wood and electronics.. Then again, im not sure that especially the electronics age plays as much of a role in older instruments, as the sound of those 59's in their original time, is probably what lapdawg was going for?!G-Man wrote: I would love to hear a side by side comparison with one of your beauties and an actual '59, and I'm dying to hear what the LP aficionados will have to report back after having a go.
(This question sounded better in my head, i hope it transferred correctly?! :-[ )
Surely: The PAF's are the core of this issue. There are a lot of beliefs out there about how different factors influence the how a PAF sound. I have read many strong & varied opinions. I suspect that we over complicate what the real basics are. I have tried out some ideas & each PUP I make has a record of the things & properties that went into each. i.e. winding method, number of winds, ohm-age etc. etc. Maybe I'll learn someting.
Hard to know: "The age of the wood & instrument influence the tone." How could anyone could know for sure. I have read so many people say that tone improves with age. Never seen anyone argue the opposite. ...but there is so a lot of human condition involved here. I can believe that the feel of something changes completely with age and character. i.e. there is something intrinsically different about something that is old and has "Mojo", but is that's not an objective sound test. Maybe its more about our own sense of mortality than actual change of tone with aging. How could we really know?
I always think of what Clapton said - [not verbatim] : When you put an LP through a Marshall stack & crank it, you get this amazing sound that was not intended by the manufacturers. i.e. the holy grail sound was more flook, less science -at least to start with.