What are the top three factors that determine an electric guitar's tone?

[Promit]

Other than pickups and their supporting electronics. What do you consider the three top contributing factors to the sound and fundamental tonality of a guitar? Is it the neck wood, fretboard, scale length, body wood, bridge style, weight, nut, frets, etc. Curious to see what everyone considers to be the key aspects of what make a particular guitar sound the way it does.

 

[Coldacre]

tuning pegs, scratch-plate, toggle switch

 

[Trea]

1. The player
2. Scale length
3. Pickup type

I know you said other than pickups but I don't see how you can ignore the type of pickup at least.

 

[Promit]

I know you said other than pickups but I don't see how you can ignore the type of pickup at least.

Pickups is too obvious and too dramatic. It'd be on pretty much everybody's list and probably #1 so including it is pointless. For that matter I'm not sure player should count either...

 

[Member 37136]

This again? All the components and variables work together in ways you can't measure individually. What difference does it make, anyway?

 

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

Scale, body wood, body weight

Nothing else has a major impact on tone outside of pickups.

 

[TheFlyingBear]

This is my perception:

1. Neck joint/construction
2. Bridge and saddle type
3. Neck wood

 

[archey]

Pickups, amp and fingers

 

[vds5000]

1. Type of wood
2. Body shape/size
3. Scale length


4. Pickups (not so much brands, but type)
5. Hardware

 

[Multicellular]

ya, other than Pickups, strings, and plectrum....none of the rest is saying much but..

scale length
neck wood (can I could fretboard and neck as 1?)
body wood (including if chambered, semi, etc.)

 

[StrongStrummin']

1. Fingertips/ Hands
2. String Thickness
3. Neck

 

[TheWalkingWounded]

1. Body construction. Not the type of wood as much as whether it's solid/semi-hollow/hollow.
2. Scale length.
3. Bridge/saddle(s).

 

[JPF]

1. How all the wood bits work together
2. How all the metal bits work together
3. How all the wood and bits work together

This determines how the instrument feels in my hands and how its tone sounds to me.

 

[lost sailor]

Decked vs. floating bridge (I get extra twang decked)
thickness of picks (fatter picks are thicker tone makers)
"how all the wood and bits work together"

 

[GuitarToma]

woods
hardware
setup

 

[TwangAddict]

Neck wood density/shape, bridge, and finally body wood.

 

[gigs]

Amplifier
Amplifier
Speakers

... the stuff before that in the sound chain is in the noise.

 

[belafonte]

how you handle the strings....

 

[Sweetwood]

having built around 600 guitars now:
wood
frets
fingerboard
pocketed fret slots (adds sustain)
tight neck joint
type of glue
air dried v kiln dried sounds different
truss rod
nut material
bridge saddle material
strings
type of finish (thin v. thick as well)
...outside of pickups

 

[tweedfix]

What I ate for my last meal
How often I get to play with The Girls
mass/hardness of parts that couple vibrations to the chassis