Lil tonewood discussion thread

[Clint 55]

Out of the woods I've tried so far, a swamp ash body and all maple neck is my favorite combo. Ya, with the fx on I can't really tell a difference but I do play clean a lot. I like how the swamp ash is warm and defined without being grainy. I also like how maple has an upper mid grind haha! My 2nd favorite is basswood.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

My G&L SC3 is all maple. It’s funny that I wouldn’t call it bright necessarily (esp. with the MFD singles) but basically treble tones are *loud* and full of girth.

I dislike basswood; low frequencies just don’t have presence compared to other light-weight woods, or other woods that people use to soften highs (like mahogany.) Paulownia in particular can be even lighter/softer, but sounds better and less mushy for me. Then again I prefer a bright guitar through a darker amp/set with presence quite low anyway.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I played a Loudin Aoustic in Europe last week made from 500 yr old Bog Oak.

It sounded unreal....

although the guitar was $10,000 :lmao:

Honestly, I was going to buy it when I didn't know the price (thinking it was a 3-5k pricetag) but when he came back with 10k,.... yeah, I'm out.

always expect a shock when you play the only guitar without a pricetag in the store....

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I like Maple with not so bright pick ups for solid bodies.

I love Ebony fretboard the most.

I think Korina wood is inferior to Maple and Mahogony -it seems to mute some narrow bands in the low mids -like an EQ pedal would

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

Mahogany is better

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I'm unconvinced that wood type in an electric guitar makes enough difference to matter when the guitar is plugged in. If you had a mahogany bodied guitar with a mahogany neck and a maple bodied guitar with a maple neck I bet that you wouldn't be able to tell one from the other with different pickups/pickup height adjustments/speakers in your amp. Get an electric that looks pretty enough to make the front of your pants uncomfortably tight and that plays well - you'll be fine.

Ebony fretboards feel nicer than rosewood. Maple necks look super sexy. Flame maple is always hot. That's about the extent of my tonewood analysis.

Acoustics are a whole different animal though.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

^ All u have to do is try poplar. Wood unequivocally makes a difference plugged.

Nice contributions everyone else.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

It makes a small difference on a solid body electric -just very subtle and honestly the tonal difference between Mahogany and Maple can be matched with a few pulls of the sliders on a graphic EQ pedal.

Maple Fretboard versus a Rosewood is pretty easy to hear as well ONCE your ear is trained for it.

Once again, the differences we are talking about make NO DIFFERENCE to the overwhelming majority of consumers of music. There's two dudes in your audience out of 500 who know and they can only hear it on the album.

So selecting a guitar based on wood "sound" is an exercise in futility for the end result.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

So selecting a guitar based on wood "sound" is an exercise in futility for the end result.

That's not true. Maybe for standard alder axes. But you couldn't pay me to play poplar. I would probably also be depressed if I had to play my custom guitars in mahog for the next several years.

 

[Masta' C]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I guarantee you couldn't tell what most of my guitars were made of if they were all set up the same, had the same pickups and you were blindfolded, LOL!

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

Both my Mustangs are poplar. I never noticed much I would call ‘poplar’ about it, seems like it could be similar to a few other woods. I know was used by Fender on some Strats in the late eighties or so, they seemed to think it would ‘pass.’

I think the difference between woods is noticeable, but not usually a make/break thing- Dislike basswood compared to the others for example but I own both mid and low-level basswood guitars and play them anyway; they work, it just annoys me when I ‘feel’ it. Differences between two pieces of the same wood are unpredictable enough anyway.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I guarantee you couldn't tell what most of my guitars were made of if they were all set up the same, had the same pickups and you were blindfolded, LOL!

I couldn't. But I still like to optimize my gear the way I please. LOL!

Edit. 10 times out of 10 I could identify my old alder strat with ssl1s and with the body swapped to poplar. LOL!

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

That's not true. Maybe for standard alder axes. But you couldn't pay me to play poplar. I would probably also be depressed if I had to play my custom guitars in mahog for the next several years.

I'm not saying it it doesn't matter to you, a guy intimately familiar with the tones and nuance of his guitar tones and hopefully Gale soon too. BUT the audience for consuming live or recorded content doesn't give a **** and cannot tell -hell 9/10 guitarists can't tell the difference between most guitars.

I'm saying the net tonal impact and result of solid body tonewood selection on an electric guitar is incredibly negligible for end result -the result being the people listening to your guitar besides yourself.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

Well ya to the audience. I wouldn't have known crap either before I started assembling.

Another thing I'd like to add: When too many aspects of the guitar itself are compromised, I just don't enjoy playing it. That's why I moved on from upgraded Squiers to custom Warmoths. Ya a lot of people just plug in and rock whatever but I'm not like that. I like to have every possible component dialed and the wood is a big part.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I'd still like to try a Steinberger style neck through made with ironwood and carbon fiber wings.

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[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

^ All u have to do is try poplar. Wood unequivocally makes a difference plugged.

Nice contributions everyone else.

I like poplar. I use it a lot.

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[jimilee]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I love swamp ash, but I don’t like how heavy it is.


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[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I guarantee you couldn't tell what most of my guitars were made of if they were all set up the same, had the same pickups and you were blindfolded, LOL!

I disagree with this, especially when it comes to pickups.

You can have one guitar that sounds fine with a particular pickup, and stick it in another and it sounds like ass.

Case in point; I had a customer that bought three new guitars and wanted me to swap pickups around between them. We ended up with a Duncan Jazz taken out of an Alder bodied guitar. In that guitar it sounded as you would expect.

The pickup ended up in my parts box. I had a basswood FirstAct GarageMaster a friend gave me. Nice guitar, but the stock pickups were crap. So I stuck the Jazz at the neck. In that guitar the Jazz was very boomy sounding. It had this very prominent low wolf tone. You couldn’t play the pickup without rolling all the bass off on the amp.

But in the alder guitar it was fine.

So I ended up winding a pickup with mismatched coils, using two different wire gauges. That eliminated the low end bump, and now the guitar sounds great.

Another example: take a Les Paul and an SG. With the same pickups they sound very different.

Wood is not a material that’s all the same. Depending on the density and weight it will have different energy absorption qualities. Wood works like a comb filter.

This is because of the loss coefficient of the material. The softer and lighter the wood, the more energy from the strings gets absorbed by the wood (as vibrations).

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[jimilee]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I guarantee you couldn't tell what most of my guitars were made of if they were all set up the same, had the same pickups and you were blindfolded, LOL!

But would you be able to tell the difference yourself? Half of why we play guitar is for ourselves. I can tell the differences in the woods of my guitars, but you wouldn’t hear it.


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[Demanic]

Re: Lil tonewood discussion thread

I disagree with this, especially when it comes to pickups.

You can have one guitar that sounds fine with a particular pickup, and stick it in another and it sounds like ass.

Case in point; I had a customer that bought three new guitars and wanted me to swap pickups around between them. We ended up with a Duncan Jazz taken out of an Alder bodied guitar. In that guitar it sounded as you would expect.

The pickup ended up in my parts box. I had a basswood FirstAct GarageMaster a friend gave me. Nice guitar, but the stock pickups were crap. So I stuck the Jazz at the neck. In that guitar the Jazz was very boomy sounding. It had this very prominent low wolf tone. You couldn’t play the pickup without rolling all the bass off on the amp.

But in the alder guitar it was fine.

So I ended up winding a pickup with mismatched coils, using two different wire gauges. That eliminated the low end bump, and now the guitar sounds great.

Another example: take a Les Paul and an SG. With the same pickups they sound very different.

Wood is not a material that’s all the same. Depending on the density and weight it will have different energy absorption qualities. Wood works like a comb filter.

This is because of the loss coefficient of the material. The softer and lighter the wood, the more energy from the strings gets absorbed by the wood (as vibrations).

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Yes, but isn't that frequency dependent? Soft materials absorb high frequencies, but lower ones can pass depending on the grain.

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