Naked Rics

[kennyhowes]

Hey folks - in your collective experience, does a guitar or bass' tone become darker if the finish is removed? Does having a finish in turn brighten the tone?

I expect a bunch of goofhead responses from the title of this thread, but if someone could answer me for reals that would be nice.

[alanz]

Acoustic, maybe, semi-hollow body electric not really, solid body definitely not.

I have some empirical data, too, wanna see it?

[paologregorio]

Interesting; I had always thought it would be the other way around if the finish was removed from an acousitc/semihollow.

[deaconblues]

Paging Mr. W...

[jps]

Somewhere I recently read that someone did a comparison and found virtually no difference. IIRC, it was Roger Sadowsky, maybe.

[weemac]

I have found that guitars with the finish removed sound perhaps a little softer, but definately kind of richer and more complex.
This goes for Solids as well as Acoustics. A solid body guitar is still an acoustic guitar to a degree..
However sometimes a hard finish on a softwood instrument (like pine) will improve the tone a lot, as with it's finish removed it could sound a bit doughy. A hard finish can tighten the tone somewhat...
Horses for courses...
emac.