ToneTree (2-pack)

Download the Technical Notes

TECHNICAL NOTE ON THE TONETREE’S EFFECT ON
VIBRATION FLOW INTO THE HEADSTOCK

Why does the tiny ToneTree improve the tone of the upper strings so much?

When thinking about getting superb tone from guitars, everyone naturally homes in on the quality, shape and thickness of the wood used for the body, the material of the bridge, the type of strings, the pickups, etc. All the focus is on the lower half of the instrument.

But headstock resonances have a far bigger effect than almost anyone imagines. Attach a small piece of anything as highly damping as lead or rubber or plasticene to the headstock of your guitar and you will be amazed at how dead and lifeless it sounds. But attach a small piece of non-damping metal and you’ll get a nice improvement in tone.

How can this be? The physics are simple. When you pluck or bow a string, you are pumping energy into the string to make it resonate. Half that resonant energy travels as vibrations down the string towards the body and half travels up the string towards the headstock. The physics of strings says you can’t have more energy traveling in one direction than the other. What happens to that energy? At the body end, the vibrations flow into the body via the bridge, the string anchors or the tail piece and the tail block (for hollow bodies). The body resonates in response and reflects those resonances or vibrations back into the strings. That’s why the body and the bridge have such a big effect on how good your instrument sounds.

But remember, exactly the same amount of vibrational energy is also flowing up the string into the headstock via everything that anchors the upper end of the string: the tuner, the nut and the string tree . So, just like at the bottom end, those vibrations flow into the headstock, causing it to resonate and reflect those resonances back into the strings. In other words, it is impossible for the headstock not to have about as big an effect on tone as the body of the instrument. That means anything you do that changes the vibration flow into the headstock has a very audible effect on tone, whether for better or worse.

What makes the ToneTree sound so much better than stamped steel or roller string trees?

Mapleshade Studio’s 30 years of pioneering vibration control research and listening experiments have established that four factors dictate success in improving sound: material, mass, shape, contact area and contact pressure:

A. Material: Over the years we have tested by ear almost 50 different materials for transmitting vibrations including standard and high hardness steels, titanium, aluminum alloys, ceramics, carbon fiber/graphite and brass. Brass came out by far the best sounding, more uncolored and clearer than any other material. Not all brass alloys sound the same, so we then tested half a dozen alloys to come up with the optimum alloy. Of course today that is the one we use in the ToneTree. And since the mounting screw is a critical element in the vibration path from the string into the headstock, we made sure the ToneTree’s mounting screw is also brass.

B. Mass and Shape: Our beta-test guitarists tested a half dozen prototypes of varying shapes, thicknesses, lengths and weights to arrive at the best-sounding configuration of improved string tree. All our brass prototypes had significantly more mass than standard steel string trees. We went on to test our final optimized design on both Strats and Teles from multiple makers. Our guitarists heard highly satisfying improvements over standard string trees on all makes and models. Moreover, on models that had only one string tree for the two high strings, we found that adding a second tree for the next two strings yielded even further improved tone.

C. Contact Area: The size of the contact patch between the GoldFinger and the headstock is of crucial importance. Without exception, transferring or draining vibration via small contact areas—preferably single point contact—sounds clearer and more resonant than transferring the same vibration across larger flat-to-flat contact areas. The reason is simple: with flat-to-flat contact, reflections and “micro-rattles” (because the two flat surfaces can never mate perfectly) muddy the sound; with point-to-flat contact eliminates reflections and micro-rattles. That’s why we designed the ToneTree with a rounded ridge across the bottom, in essence emulating a rounded fret’s single point of tangency contact with the string above.

D. Contact Pressure: In all of our previous vibration control research, we have found that excessive contact pressure always deadens sound—the optimum pressure must be determined by ear. Therefore, the ToneTree’s height is completely adjustable via the mounting screw. Our beta-test guitarists found this to be an essential feature. Without exception, they achieved the best tone by adjusting for the lightest possible downward tension, that is, as light as possible without causing string buzz.

What improvements in tone can you expect with the ToneTree—and why?

With the ToneTree replacing a factory or aftermarket string tree, you will immediately hear better dynamic impact, more chime and more treble energy in the high strings, along with newfound clarity as well as longer sustain. The reasons for this improved tone are easy to explain in terms of the four critical design factors outlined above.

First, the steel or graphite materials of standard and aftermarket string trees deaden and damp the vibrations flowing through them while brass sounds cleaner and more dynamic. Equally important, the ToneTree’s mass is about 3 times greater than stamped steel trees and 5 ½ times more than graphite ones.

Next, none of the other string trees have the small, fret-like string contact patch of the ToneTree. All of them are fixed in height—and that height is far too low, causing excessive downward pressure that deadens the string’s sound.

The steel aftermarket roller string trees insert yet another impediment to the clean flow of vibration over and above the relatively poor sound and inadequate mass of the steel. The roller’s vibration must pass through an extra contact patch that is prone to looseness and micro-rattles, namely, the roller-to-shaft bearing interface.

The ToneTree is a perfect example of the small, seemingly unimportant details that can transform the sound of even the most expensive instruments.