The online tests are now closed! We’re keeping the text below only for historical purposes.
We’re conducting two online tests as part of our ongoing study on the preferences of guitar players for different woods used for the back and side plates of guitars. These tests are open to both musicians and non-musicians, but guitar players are especially encouraged to take part.
A short description of each test is provided below, but if you’d like to start the tests immediately here are the links (test instructions will be provided following the links):
Test 1: Guitar wood ratings link Test 2: ABX guitar wood discrimination link
If for any reason you happen to stop in the middle of a test, and close the test page, you can resume from where you left off by simply clicking on the test link again, up to one month after you started taking the test (and provided you’re using the same computer and the same browser).
Test 1
Description: Guitar Wood Ratings. In this test you will presented with recordings of six guitars built to the same dimensional and material specifications, except for the back/side plates. The woods used for the back and side plates of the six guitars are: Brazilian Rosewood, Honduras Mahogany, Indian Rosewood, Maple, Sapele, and Claro Walnut. On each page you will be presented with 4 recordings of one of these guitars (at random, and without knowing the identity of the guitar wood), and you will answer the following questions (giving a score on a 1 to 5 scale):
- How do you like the overall sound of the guitar?
- How bright is the sound of the guitar?
- How warm is the sound of the guitar?
- How balanced is the sound of the guitar?
- How clear is the sound of the guitar?
- How rich is the sound of the guitar?
- How strong is the sustain of the guitar?
- How loud is the guitar?
Each guitar will be scored twice during the test. At the end of the test you’ll be presented with the scores that you’ve given to each guitar for the first question (“How do you like the overall sound of the guitar?”). The test should take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Please take the test by clicking on the link below:
Test 2
Description: ABX Guitar Wood Discrimination The purpose of this test is to understand how well listeners can tell apart recordings of the same tune made with different guitars. Only three guitar woods will be used in this test (Brazilian Rosewood, Sapele, and Claro Walnut). On each trial you will be presented with three audio tracks recorded with two of these guitars. The first track was recorded with one of these two guitars (let’s call it “Guitar A”), the second track was recorded with the other guitar (let’s call it “Guitar B”). Your task is to say whether the third track was recorded with “Guitar A”, or with “Guitar B”. The tunes played for each track are the same, but the two tracks recorded with the same guitar will not be identical, because we asked a professional player to repeat the recording of each tune with the same guitar several times, and the two tracks recorded with the same guitar come from different repetitions. At the end of each trial you will be provided with feedback as to whether your response was correct or not. The test consists of 24 trials, and it should take about 30 minutes to complete. Please take the test by clicking on the link below: