Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

[treyhaislip]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Poplar is kinda like the poor man's alder & they're pretty similar. Depending on the make up of the two bodies...quality & resonance of the wood, thickness of the finish, how they couple with the neck, etc. you might not notice a huge difference in tone. Then again...it might be drastic, you never know until you bolt 'em all together. I'd rather spring for a higher quality swamp-ash or alder body from Warmoth or whoever.

I agree...I've always understood poplar to be a poor man's alder. I personally would take a solid poplar body over a 3+piece alder body...

I had an early 90's poplar body MIM Fender Strat. I updaged the pickups and pots to American Standards and absolutely loved the tone.

 

[El Supremo]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Many high end guitars are/were built from poplar. Jackson used it for their high end stuff, Fender did for their US models ( excluding the vintage reissues), Parker...
I have a US Fender strat and Jackson Dinky built from poplar and they're both clearly heavier than their alder counterparts with a more pronounced bass and treble presence to them and slightly more resonant.
Great tonewood, just not very suitable for clear finishes which probably accounts for the lower price.

 

[Moniker Guitars]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Both are solid (pun intended) options. We use Alder on all of our bodies due to the noticeable clearer tone with our setup. There are many factors and what may work for one, may not work for another, but across the board Alder never has let is down.

 

[Hellmark]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

I have two poplar guitars (a strat copy and a custom design of my own), and both sound great. The custom one I built I made from book matching two pieces. Both have some clear, with the start being sunburst, and the custom having a transparent red.

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

 

[Archer_of_Fish]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Poplar is kinda like the poor man's alder & they're pretty similar. Depending on the make up of the two bodies...quality & resonance of the wood, thickness of the finish, how they couple with the neck, etc. you might not notice a huge difference in tone. Then again...it might be drastic, you never know until you bolt 'em all together. I'd rather spring for a higher quality swamp-ash or alder body from Warmoth or whoever.

I wouldn't say 'poor man' is a good way to put it. Steve Morse picked Poplar over Alder....he isnt really a poor man's player.

If the wood fits your ear it is all good

 

[JMunn55]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Poplar is 10% cheaper roughly at the prices I'm seeing. I don't mind heavier and more resonant, so I'll probably go for it. I probably wouldn't notice the sound difference

 

[MkIII Renegade]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

I wouldn't say 'poor man' is a good way to put it. Steve Morse picked Poplar over Alder....he isnt really a poor man's player.

If the wood fits your ear it is all good

Jackson used to use poplar for the USA Soloists, and perhaps they still do on certain models, so it's not exactly poor man's anything....

 

[dave74]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

My old orange-crackle 88 Charvel H/S (neck-thru w/jackson-floyd and pickups) was a good sounding poplar guitar.
Definitely a punchier more focused and deadened tone compared to the vast majority of alder super-strats I've played.

Overall I do prefer alder because it just seems to have a more "life" to the tone.
I'm sure not a fan of alder for the standard emg set, even though it's forever been a staple combo for jacksons and esps.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

 

[Mincer]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Yeah old thread. But since it was posted, I have an alder Music Man & a poplar one, with just about the saem body shape. The poplar one has a ton of mids. The alder one is much more scooped. I've went through several types of pickups in the poplar one to scoop out the mids (a Jazz & C5 is in there now), and it still is more middy than my Alnico II Pro & Custom Custom one.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Jackson used to use poplar for the USA Soloists, and perhaps they still do on certain models, so it's not exactly poor man's anything....

Well have to amend that to 'company making lots of profit' man's alder in that case

 

[Sirion]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Wow, this topic has risen from the grave five times as far as I can tell. Really strange to see the names of some old-timers from ten years back here again.

For what it is worth I think virtually all talk of superior and inferior is useless when it comes to tonewood. There have been enough stellar guitars made of poplar to show that anybody who is still talking about 'poor man's alder' is either trying to sell something or repeating conventional folly they've read online.

Mincer gets it right, I think. I have a couple of poplar guitars, and they sound slightly more focused around the mid frequencies than my alder guitar, and other alder guitars I've tried. Effects will vary between pieces of wood, though, so I would not be surprised if one could find one guitar of each wood where one would be fooled by conventional wisdom if one compared them. Poplar can also, as already stated, be a rather soft wood, and the finishes on mine have been somewhat frail, but it can also be slightly heavier than alder, but not so much that it should cause concern.

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Don't think I've every owned an all poplar guitar. Got a Godin "strat" that has a maple body with polar wings. Not much of a strat gut but I like the Godin. Maple body and neck (rosewood board), I guess it would be expected to be bright but it's really not. It is fairly heavy though.

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Body wood: Poplar vs. Alder

Obviously one is more poplar than the other.