Do the acoustic properties of an electric guitar matter?

There's an age-old debate on guitars on whether a guitar's acoustic properties matters when you plug in the guitar and play it through an amp. Some say yes, some say no.

To me, it does matter. You have to separate the effect of the electronics over the natural sound of the wood. Terry McInturf said it best before as a ball park analogy:

The acoustical nature of the electric guitar's chassis imposes firm boundaries upon what the guitar can sound like amplified.

Think of the acoustical sound as being the fence around the perimeter of a ballpark; within this boundary, we can emphasise/de-emphasise certain frequencies by means of different pickups, strings, etc etc.

But we can never leave the ballpark.

For the resultant tone plugged in, there are many factors. not just the electronics, but something called sympathetic oscillations. There's a famous watch by Swiss Watchmaker FP Journe called the Resonance. It demonstrates sympathetic oscillations by having 2 completely independant but identical "pendulums" connected by a single bridge. The result is while both are oscillating at different frequencies, they will synchronise with each other in a matter of seconds, and both pendulums will move in perfect synchrony. This concept was first discovered and actualised by Abraham Louis Breguet (another famous watchmaker) back in 1795.

This sympathetic oscillation can also be found in guitars where the strings vibrate, and the guitar vibrates along. This vibration also moves the pickups (the main reason why unpotted humbuckers in hollowbody guitars squeal at high gain and feedback easily) and this results in a clash of vibration frequencies because both items are of different masses. This changes the way the pickups will react to the string vibrations and the singals it will produce. If the guitar doesn't vibrate, the resultant tone generated by the pickups will also be different, hence guitars can tend to sound a bit "warmer" when the pickups are potted. (cover capacitance aside)

An acoustically dead guitar will produce tones which are mostly dependant on the properties of the pickups. This is why Joe Satriani insisted in the beginning, a guitar from Ibanez which is acoustically "dead". He wanted the pickups to do the work more than the guitar. In such cases where the guitar is acoustically dead, and you get great tone plugged in, it's mostly the pickups and electronics that are at work. Changing the pickups will change the tones completely. A resonant guitar will produce tones which are a combination of the guitar's vibrations and the pickups processing capabilities. Changing the pickups will change the tones, but the inherent character (the ballpark Terry mentioned) will still be there.

I for one believe it is linked, but is not entirely crucial to choosing a guitar. It all depends on what you are looking for in a guitar. For me, the way to test guitars acoustically is not to strum the guitar wildly. It's not a test of your skill or chord vocabulary that you want to achieve here. More importantly, it is the single note quality and the multi note quality of the acoustic sound that's on show here.

Next time, try this: Bring the said guitar to a very quiet room. Pick 3 different notes on each string, low, medium and high. One string at a time. Softly, such that the strings don't hit the frets. All 3 notes on the same string should demonstrate the same decay properties. And for me, the key to a good acoustical tone, is the roundness of the note as it decays. It should be a "dooo" sound rather than a "eeeh" sound as it decays. If this almost vocal-like quality apprears on all strings at 3 positions, then you have a well made guitar where all the woods used are working in harmony. Same applies for chords. Use full barre chords, and you should hear the same qualities.

That's how I judge a guitar, at least.