Fascinating, JFL. I believe the vast majority of tone for a given player comes from pick ups and amplifier. It appeared that electronics offered some effect but the rest is miniscule. Beyond that it comes down to how a really good player can make any guitar sound decent. The problem for the tone chasers is still that there is such a vast array of pick up and amplifier options but the law of diminishing returns is always present.
John

Tone chasing. An expensive hobby that gave me GAS. There is likely no justification for owning the number of guitars I do, but much of it is rooted in tone chasing. At first it was upgrading to a more playable instrument, but after that it was mostly tone chasing.
I used to say you could make a 2×4 guitar sound good. I guess this video proves that.

Today plug ins seem to be the way tone is chased. Sculpting a dry signal into what ever you want it to be.

One question I could never quite answer was how can you find a great tone one time, then return to the same guitar and settings a day later and it sounds like rubbish. Anyone else have that experience or is it just me?

Interesting video. Incredible amount of work. It seemed the pickup change made the largest difference in tone.

That was really interesting stuff, im just about to watch some of his other videos now..

Thanks for posting this, JFL. I’ve seen this guys videos before, and he always has something interesting on offer. The question of tone has been interesting to me for years, so I’ve watched every video I could find on the subject – from the engineer who built a concrete body guitar, to comparisons of different types of pickups – and this is the best so far. But getting people to actually accept his conclusions will be very difficult, because for years guitar manufacturers have been bullshitting people about the importance of body and neck wood, neck attachment method, bridge and tuning peg quality, and on and on. If they didn’t, what would else would they have to talk about in their marketing promotions?

We do know that just about every guitarist sounds different from the other. However, many Strat players can/do sound alike. Gibsons sound mighty different from Fenders. I still believe the kind, amount and density of the wood makes a difference. Pickups, amps and effects and obviously the player itself has much to do with this.