In your own opinion best tone wood

In your own opinion best tone wood


  • Total voters
    54
  • Poll closed .
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

Actually, I think the point that LLL was trying to make is that there's no single best tone wood.

I think my collection would exemplify that.

I've got guitars made of alder, ash, basswood, poplar, mahogany, and one even made of a wood called Jabon. I'm find of all of them tonally, even though they all have very different tones.

Also, wood is an ingredient of tone. You don't eat a cake and go "Mmmm... AP flour!" You go "Mmmm... GOOD CAKE!!!" Now you can use good ingredients and make a bad cake or some inexpensive (or just different) ingredients and make a good cake.

I think too much emphasis is put on single aspects of guitar tone while missing the big picture.

And on top of that, everybody has different tastes, so there's no single thing to please all.

Yeah but, c'mon man...

we're talking about guitar wood here...

But as you know, in the province of Moldania somewhere in Eastern Europe, they make hurdy-gurdys outta birch.

And over in the Appalachians, the mountain men craft their piccolos outta hard rock maple.

Therefore, you're wrong.

:lmao:
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

19494_Wolfgang_Custom_Relic_USA_Gold_WGC000521A_1.jpg

19494_Wolfgang_Custom_Relic_USA_Gold_WGC000521A_a.jpg

19494_Wolfgang_Custom_Relic_USA_Gold_WGC000521A_b.jpg

I quite like that, but in a different color.
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

Yeah but, c'mon man...

we're talking about guitar wood here...

But as you know, in the province of Moldania somewhere in Eastern Europe, they make hurdy-gurdys outta birch.

And over in the Appalachians, the mountain men craft their piccolos outta hard rock maple.

Therefore, you're wrong.

:lmao:
I bet a birch guitar would sound pretty decent. Has anybody ever made one?

And we have had pretty decent sounding (but heavy) hard rock maple guitars.
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

an interesting note for the tone wood debate. Still sounds like a strat! Probably doesn't tune worth a damn... but the strat sound is there! :wall: :nervous:

 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

an interesting note for the tone wood debate. Still sounds like a strat! Probably doesn't tune worth a damn... but the strat sound is there! :wall: :nervous:


Look at the action around the 3:50 mark when he's holding it in his hands. Looks pretty damn high to me.
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

c'mon we all know buckethead uses the bones of dead slunks in his guitars, so that must be great! :headbang: :joke:
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

Hell yeah! Incoming PM bro
How'd you go? Get what you need? I picked up some Blackwood slabs the other day that if you pinch it by the corner, let it hang and wrap it with your knuckles it goes 'ping' like a xylophone block. Tasty.

Sent from my HTC One XL using Tapatalk
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

Ok, the issue with this best tonewood thread is that you have not drank enough coo-laid yet. SO, I will share the perfect ultimate holy grail spec guitar with you:

Guitar scale length: 24 3/4. Everyone knows that you need a Gibson scale length to achieve the ultimate tone, with that being said the body shape MUST be a les paul style with a double cut away because you NEED to be able to get your thumb around the neck at all positions on the fretboard.

Next, we don't use mahogany for the neck and body. no no, it's not holy enough, we use LIMBA! It's Mahogany +, so it's the best. As for neck body construction? Neck-through. It's the only way. forget everything else. To kick it up a notch we will join the body to the neck with carbon fiber splines for ULTIMATE TONE TRANSFERENCE.

Since we have a Limba body, we need not one, not two, but THREE tone-woods to make it better, we will use a Walnut as an accent layer [that's hollowed out] to give it some PUNCH and Flamed-to-death Koa as the main top to give it it's mid-range and sweetness and at the very core will use paulownia to take weight off and add resonance (thank you Gil Yaron).

The neck will not be a one piece neck. no no no. We need ultimate tone, so we will go the mayones route. The neck will feature multiple woods, this is how it will work

Limba - goncalo alves strip/pau ferro spline/goncalo alves strip - Limba - wenge strip/Pernambuco spline/wenge strip goncalo alves strip/pau ferro spline/goncalo alves strip - Limba
(spline is thicker than strip) We will have carbon fiber rods in the neck to make is super stable and take some weight off.

Goncalo alves and pau ferro work together and are very stable. Good for holy grailness. Pernambuco is the ultimate tonewood, the end so it is the center spline. Wenge is something we use to support the fretboard. Wenge works well with ebony and Brazilian rosewood, which is why our fretboard will be african blackwood, the middle ground.

The neck headstock will be a scarf joint headstock with maple splines in it for tone transferance and stability (Ruokangas trick) and we will keep the neck volute because it feels nice.

The headstock face will have a bookmatched piece of brazilian rosewood because it will make it sound better, and the back of the headstock will have ebony on it to give it snap.

And there you have it. The perfect set up for the holy grail of guitars. All that's missing is zephyr pickups that are based off the Yaron air-gap pickups for ultimate voicing and tone, with super high end botique controls, and a Hannes bridge-meets-evertune-meets-floyd rose type of bridge for ultimate string sepparation, tuning stability, tone and comfort.


:D
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

^ You need some proper dwaven made mithril strings on that bad boy or you won't really get the best tone you could.
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

i still think my poplar body on my dk-2 sounds the best of all my guitars and its made oyut of what alot have called a cheap wood/alder substitute.. i have guitars w/mahogony,basswood, ply,and alder.. out of them all.. the poplar body resonates the absolute best.. i can feel every vibration of the strings through the body and overall.. it just sounds better unplugged as well as plugged in
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

Ok, the issue with this best tonewood thread is that you have not drank enough coo-laid yet. SO, I will share the perfect ultimate holy grail spec guitar with you:

Guitar scale length: 24 3/4. Everyone knows that you need a Gibson scale length to achieve the ultimate tone, with that being said the body shape MUST be a les paul style with a double cut away because you NEED to be able to get your thumb around the neck at all positions on the fretboard.

Next, we don't use mahogany for the neck and body. no no, it's not holy enough, we use LIMBA! It's Mahogany +, so it's the best. As for neck body construction? Neck-through. It's the only way. forget everything else. To kick it up a notch we will join the body to the neck with carbon fiber splines for ULTIMATE TONE TRANSFERENCE.

Since we have a Limba body, we need not one, not two, but THREE tone-woods to make it better, we will use a Walnut as an accent layer [that's hollowed out] to give it some PUNCH and Flamed-to-death Koa as the main top to give it it's mid-range and sweetness and at the very core will use paulownia to take weight off and add resonance (thank you Gil Yaron).

The neck will not be a one piece neck. no no no. We need ultimate tone, so we will go the mayones route. The neck will feature multiple woods, this is how it will work

Limba - goncalo alves strip/pau ferro spline/goncalo alves strip - Limba - wenge strip/Pernambuco spline/wenge strip goncalo alves strip/pau ferro spline/goncalo alves strip - Limba
(spline is thicker than strip) We will have carbon fiber rods in the neck to make is super stable and take some weight off.

Goncalo alves and pau ferro work together and are very stable. Good for holy grailness. Pernambuco is the ultimate tonewood, the end so it is the center spline. Wenge is something we use to support the fretboard. Wenge works well with ebony and Brazilian rosewood, which is why our fretboard will be african blackwood, the middle ground.

The neck headstock will be a scarf joint headstock with maple splines in it for tone transferance and stability (Ruokangas trick) and we will keep the neck volute because it feels nice.

The headstock face will have a bookmatched piece of brazilian rosewood because it will make it sound better, and the back of the headstock will have ebony on it to give it snap.

And there you have it. The perfect set up for the holy grail of guitars. All that's missing is zephyr pickups that are based off the Yaron air-gap pickups for ultimate voicing and tone, with super high end botique controls, and a Hannes bridge-meets-evertune-meets-floyd rose type of bridge for ultimate string sepparation, tuning stability, tone and comfort.


:D

While you clearly understand much of guitar technology, you still understand nothing grasshopper. The soul of the guitar resides in its guitar makers headstock sticker. If it does not have the correct name brand sticker it has no soul and is unplayable.
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

While you clearly understand much of guitar technology, you still understand nothing grasshopper. The soul of the guitar resides in its guitar makers headstock sticker. If it does not have the correct name brand sticker it has no soul and is unplayable.
So, for perfect death and black metal tones you'll then need guitars with no headstock label at all?
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

So, for perfect death and black metal tones you'll then need guitars with no headstock label at all?
Exactly, it must also be made of blood wood.
All my guitar builds are mahogony so far, and my production guitars are basswood primarily
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

Does the Gibson custom shop offer Daedric guitars actually?
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

While you clearly understand much of guitar technology, you still understand nothing grasshopper. The soul of the guitar resides in its guitar makers headstock sticker. If it does not have the correct name brand sticker it has no soul and is unplayable.

well OF COURSE it says "Paul Reed Gibson made by Music Fender" :p
 
Re: In your own opinion best tone wood

well OF COURSE it says "Paul Reed Gibson made by Music Fender" :p
Such a guitar can only be made by god himself. I played one once, or rather it played me. I also played a rickenfenderson.


I cant really support the idea of a "best" tone wood. They are all just different, not better. It could be any wood and thats just a preference of the player. I like mahogony but its not the end all. Alder or ash is fine too. Basswood sounds great with some guitars. The pickups determine a majority of the sound, like 90-95% but the overtones are affected by wood too. The whole thing vibrates and reverberates and some back washing vibrations resonate in the strings on some level. The pu being connected to body has nothing to do with its magnetic field. The string is floating tensioned between two points from the bridge to either nut or fret. Its creating a wave form in the magnetic field and only the resonating harmonics from waves originating from a plucked string going out through the bridge through the body and back again Come from wood and affect very little.

The wood affects what we hear unplugged (acoustically) and can greatly affect sustain by absorbing energy given relative density and grain structure. This is my understanding.
 
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