Re: Any Love for Basswood?
My 2 favorite guitars in recent memory, an EVH Wolfie Special and Ibanez Premium RG920, are made of basswood, sound great, granted they both have solid maple caps too. My main guitar from 1993 - 2001 was a Charvel Predator, basswood, sounded killer. The body I used for my Frankie inspired guitar is from an early 90's Peavey Predator Strat style guitar, I swear it's alder, the tech who recently routed it for me and installed the OFR keeps telling me it's basswood, he says it's very soft, but I say it's very light and the color is that light brown alder, if it's basswood it sounds great. I had a Jackson Perfomer Rhoads, that I installed DD's in, basswood, sounded pretty good. The only guitar made of basswood that I didn't like the sound of, until pickup swap to DiMarzio Breeds, was a late 80's early 90's square heeled RG550, with that ultra thin neck, I think it had to do more with the paint stirrer thin neck than the basswood body.
I think wood is really unimportant, not in that they don't sound different, but that you can have dead pieces of cheap mahogany that sound terrible, and higher grade basswood that sings.