“The entire audience in the room could hear the tonal difference”: Guthrie Govan has held tonewood tone tests in guitar clinics – and the results were unanimous

The Aristocrats’ Guthrie Govan has settled the tonewood debate once and for all. According to Govan, he went through the trouble of having two different models of his signature Charvel specifically because of the tonewood. 

“[They’re] identical in every way apart from the choice of body wood. Trust me, all ye naysayers – it really does make a difference,” says Govan in an interview with Ultimate Guitar. 

He goes on to say that he has hosted guitar clinics where he had the opportunity to sample multiple guitars that were identical in every aspect except for the tonewood. 

“In each case, the entire audience in the room confirmed that they could hear the tonal difference – even the people who seemed doubtful prior to hearing the demo. Every piece of wood is different, but I think it’s easy enough to pick out a general characteristic like the signature midrange ‘honk’ of mahogany.”

He continues, “To approach this from a different angle: if a guitar suffers from a ‘dead spot’ which can be heard acoustically, that same dead spot will be equally apparent when you plug the instrument into an amp. 

“I’m no scientist, so I wouldn’t presume to explain *exactly* how this stuff works, but… Given that the strings are physically attached to the wood, surely the wood’s natural resonant characteristics would be capable of accentuating or suppressing certain frequencies and harmonics within the strings’ vibrational pattern.

“So… Wouldn’t the pickups be reading the strings’ vibrations after they have been colored by the wood’s unique timbral imprint?”

Whether body wood affects electric guitar tone is a long-running debate in the guitar world, among players and builders alike. Paul Reed Smith, for example, has maintained they play a pivotal role in a guitar’s sound, while Leo Fender believed the difference between woods is negligible.