mahogany strat body?

[appar111]

I'm piecing together a new strat and plan on going for the tried and true single humbucker, single volume knob setup. Still debating a vintage strat trem or a hardtail.

The other thing I'm thinking of trying on this build is going with a mahogany body as opposed to my usual choice (alder).

Will there be a huge difference in sustain/fatness by going with mahogany instead of alder?

The neck will be maple with a maple board, and the single humbucker will be a Duncan 78 wind with a 500K volume pot.

 

[dominus]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Short answer - depends on the piece of wood.

Long answer - While tone charts can be fairly reliable, you can end up with a lightweight (or dead) piece of wood that seems to be more characteristic of another species.

 

[appar111]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Short answer - depends on the piece of wood.

Long answer - While tone charts can be fairly reliable, you can end up with a lightweight (or dead) piece of wood that seems to be more characteristic of another species.

Ok, so that's not really much of an answer at all. And if that's the case (i.e. depends on the individual piece of wood), why is anyone worried about wood type at all?

I'm probably safe to assume it'll be warmer sounding than swamp ash, right?

 

[greekdude]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I'm piecing together a new strat and plan on going for the tried and true single humbucker, single volume knob setup.

Why sacrifice a guitar that can (with some intermediate wiring skills) do at least 17 tones to just ... one. I hope the cavities for the other two pups are there. Just in case you change your mind and go modding.

As far as mahogany is concerned, Jim Root's signature strat/tele are made of Mahogany.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Why sacrifice a guitar that can (with some intermediate wiring skills) do at least 17 tones to just ... one. I hope the cavities for the other two pups are there. Just in case you change your mind and go modding.

As far as mahogany is concerned, Jim Root's signature strat/tele are made of Mahogany.

Because sometimes you just need a guitar to do one thing well. Never needed 17 tones out of one axe myself...better to master one and worry about my playing then what combination of pickup/cap/series/parallel/phase whatever my guitar is on at the time.

 

[greekdude]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Because sometimes you just need a guitar to do one thing well. Never needed 17 tones out of one axe myself...better to master one and worry about my playing then what combination of pickup/cap/series/parallel/phase whatever my guitar is on at the time.

come on man, you use a computer, you drive a car, you breathe, all these activities are harder than keeping this 5-way switch at position 5, the toggle in the left, and the push/pull pots at the push position. + the rest 16 sounds do not harm this 17th "good" one in the slightest. The strat can do all that. Its in its nature. It can do convincing tele-twang, all the classic strat quack in many variations, and can come close to some LP "boing".

 

[MontyAwesome]

You're out of line. If somebody wants the simplicity of a single pickup guitar, that's their perfectly valid choice. He came here to ask about mahogany bodies, not be lectured on why what he wants is wrong.

In response to the OP, mahogany bodies traditionally are considered to have a darker and warmer sound than other tone woods like alder and swamp ash. With that said, there are variations between different pieces of wood of the same species which makes it hard to predict how it will sound precisely exactly until played.

come on man, you use a computer, you drive a car, you breathe, all these activities are harder than keeping this 5-way switch at position 5, the toggle in the left, and the push/pull pots at the push position. + the rest 16 sounds do not harm this 17th "good" one in the slightest. The strat can do all that. Its in its nature. It can do convincing tele-twang, all the classic strat quack in many variations, and can come close to some LP "boing".

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I've built a few mahogany strats, with and without hard tails. They can be surprisingly bright like alder. The neck woods still dominate in my opinion. Sustain is usually excellent. A hard tail mahogany body will probably be darker and smoother sounding than the similar guitar with a trem.

 

[appar111]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Cool, no worries MontyAwesome & greekdude. My type of playing doesn't necessitate having a lot of different tones; just a good distorted bridge tone and clean bridge tone, which a single humbucker delivers. My main concern is with the wood choice on this one.

Lake Placid Blues, thanks for the answer, and Dominus, thanks for the reply that reminds me that I need to be wary of making an assumption of what a certain wood sounds like, because it might not always sound like that depending on the other parts, individual piece of wood, etc.

 

[Oinkus]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Answer to the question is no.

 

[vinta9e]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Overdone wiring sucks.

 

[dominus]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Lake Placid Blues, thanks for the answer, and Dominus, thanks for the reply that reminds me that I need to be wary of making an assumption of what a certain wood sounds like, because it might not always sound like that depending on the other parts, individual piece of wood, etc.

I built four Telecasters recently. All from the same model/series, all made from the same wood, they were all even the same color. One body weighed a pound more than the rest and was completely tonally dead. I took that one back apart. The other three sound great.

On paper, I think your build sounds great. When you get it assembled is when you'll find out what it sounds like.

 

[muttznmongrelz]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Just do it...I've veered away from alder, poplar, etc and really prefer Heavy Ash or Mahogany Bodies...way more depth, fullness, fatness etc. both of the guitars below are 2 Piece Mahogany Bodies and both sound GREAT.

2013 Warmoth Strat






2013 USACG Quarter-Sawn Maple Neck, Warmoth Mahogany Iceman with Seymour Duncan Jazz/JB-Custom Custom A2 Hybrid TB, '85 OFR w/37mm Big Brass Block

 

[Mr. B]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Building a single pickup guitar doesn't sound as crazy as what I've been mulling over. I practice scales silently while we watch TV at night and I keep a beat-up older Ibanez S in the living room just for that. I've thought about building a guitar with a beautiful flame top and shredder type neck, fixed bridge, tuners and thats it. No pickups, no jack, no knobs, no switch. A non-electric electric guitar.

 

[ChAoZ]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I agree that for most distorted styles all ya need is a humbucker in the bridge and a vol knob so you can make sure it's on 10 :headbang:
IMHO if you're going trem then a floyd is the only way to go,I have been experimenting with down tuning a lot lately so find that a hard-tail is best for this ,
Try the Mahogany and see if it's for you or not ,The great thing about bolt on's is you can change it out later if ya don't like it

 

[kramersteen]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I agree that for most distorted styles all ya need is a humbucker in the bridge and a vol knob so you can make sure it's on 10 :headbang:
IMHO if you're going trem then a floyd is the only way to go,I have been experimenting with down tuning a lot lately so find that a hard-tail is best for this ,
Try the Mahogany and see if it's for you or not ,The great thing about bolt on's is you can change it out later if ya don't like it

 

[dominus]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I agree that for most distorted styles all ya need is a humbucker in the bridge and a vol knob so you can make sure it's on 10 :headbang:

Or just wire it straight to the jack. Then it's always on 11.

 

[AlexR]

Re: mahogany strat body?

Wood is varied - it not like 'every piece of x wood will sound precisely like this', it more like a cluster of dots centred around a tonal signature. You will get something in the ballpark, but its possible you could have a piece of mahogany sound quite similar to alder if the two bits chanced that way. You'll never know until you fire it up.

 

[Stratman]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I have played a Warmoth telecaster style guitar that used a mahogany body that was capped with about ½ inch of maple.

It also used a SD mini-humbucker in the neck position and a SD single coil in the bridge position, wired with a tonestylist modular telecaster 4-way switch.
Warmoth 24-¾ conversion neck made using maple with bubinga fretboard.
Bridge was one of those string bender type (I forget the name) where you push down on the guitar and some device changes the tuning of the B string.

Substain and tone was out the wahzoo.

Really great tone combinations from the body and neck woods and pup selection.

My idea - go for it!

 

[Demanic]

Re: mahogany strat body?

I've been GASing for a single hum ax for a while now. Post some sound clips when you get it done.