Oak as a tone wood.

[kramersteen]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

Mmmkay..we're done here/

You can get different grades of any wood, Sure the **** at lowes are or our bunnings wouldn't be great but a premium slab of quartersawn oak maybe completely different?

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

I am going to post something on Peter crossleys behalf

tap it...

does it sound good??

if it does, give it a try..

if it doesnt,

make something useless out of it...

like a tele..

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

Well...lol...I can say without a doubt I would choose the pallet guitar over the Gibson. I love their LPs and ES and SG models, their electrics...but the acoustics Gibson makes are a waste of wood, IMO. I am definitely a Martin guy, and I have NEVER, in 45+ years of guitaring played a Gibson that made me go "Wow!" Not J200s, Doves, Hbirds, SJs, 45s...nada. Not a one that I would spend my money on.

Well, to each his/her own...I've played tons of guitars that I wouldn't spend my money on–including Martins. I personally prefer Martins for finger picking and Gibsons for strumming. I have played on Gibsons that sounded bad and some Martins that sounded bad too...

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

I built an oak guitar. It sounds awesome, but I can't really pinpoint any sound properties of the wood - because it's the only oak guitar I've ever played. It is totally worth trying though.

I am intrigued, do you have any clips of this guitar to show what it sounds like?

 

[ericmeyer4]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

This is from a thread on TGP:

The GVCG Esquire in question... Oak body.

7.2 lbs soakin' wet and a pleasingly complex tone. Here's Jonathon's description...

It's built around a lightweight 1 piece vintage Oak body, this wood was over 50 years old, it's dry, dense and highly resonant. It reminds me a lot of ash in it's sonic character, with perhaps a more dense midrange, , and a very tight bottom end. It is meatier than Pine, and not as dark as Alder. I wanted something different than the flyweight Pine '50's I have been doing, which tend to be neck heavy, and lacking in some fundamental bottom end fullness. This guitar will light up a tube amplifier.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

C'mon Boogie Bill..step up your game , man. Its one thing to make a Tele out of Oak, and quite another to make a high end acoustic form Oak Pallet wood.
Would you expect a Taylor Pallet guitar to sound and respond(more important is the response) as a, say Premium Rosewood Gibson Songwriter? A Martin Rosewood D-28?
It couldn't.

Well, you can hear it at the 2:00 mark... not bad at all...

 

[Zombiwoof]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

Speaking of walnut, I just recently got an email that Fender has a run of walnut Strats out now. I would think they would be heavy, but maybe they found some lighter wood.

Al

 

[Bludave]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

In general oak and Walnut a hard woods(yuk yuk) and tend to be bright. This can be compensated for in which pickups you use in it. Depending on the configuration(humbuckers vrs single coils). If you were building a solid body and were using humbucking pickups I would seriously look at Seth Lovers. These are Alnico II and have a nice darker type of tone to them and would work extremely well in a Oak or Walnut guitar, if you were going to build singles then consider Antiquity Alnico II, or some varient of it. I would definately stay in the Alnico II family.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

I am intrigued, do you have any clips of this guitar to show what it sounds like?

I've uploaded one a while ago that was really bright. I am still learning how to fully use my mixer, and the EQ was set to be really bright. I didn't really notice it as much because my speakers were crap and muddy at the time, so treble was necessary for clarity. I'll have to redo it.

I think a lot of people badmouth guitar woods they've never even played. I think people who say oak inherently sounds bad are just trying to rationalize why guitar makers wouldn't use it; they really don't know why. I think I can safely say that, because pretty much the only way to get an oak guitar is to have it built or build it yourself, and that is a very small minority of guitar players.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

I was asked for clips, so here's my oak guitar in a Right-Guitar/Centered Bass/Left-Guitar mix. Both guitars are my oak guitar, with a Pearly Gates in the bridge, and a Vox Night Train 15W that I modified myself. The amp modifications decreased the gain, removed aggressive and overbearing highs, increased the middle and upper midrange, and slightly scooped the ~400Hz frequencies (so upper lows/very low mids).



If you want to critique the actual song/recording, I have a thread up in the Tips and Clips subforum.

 

[ChAoZ]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

I made a semi-hollow out of an oak pallet from CAT ,looked a bit like a bowling alley sounded better than I thought it would but had sort of a home made sound to it ,which is ironic cos it was home made but none of my other guitars sound this way ,they say not to put high output pickups in hollow type guitars but this had a Dimarzio super distortion and it rocked

build thread here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.193333947452577.41516.171858869600085&type=3

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

wow. I love that bowling alley look. What's the alt-color wood, still oak with a different stain? I'm big up on that look.

 

[ChAoZ]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

wow. I love that bowling alley look. What's the alt-color wood, still oak with a different stain? I'm big up on that look.

It's Paduak ,nice and red to match the red metal flaked back

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

Very nice. I'd like something similar, I think.

off u see did MRSAge, I m on tapa talk and auto correct is hating on me

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

I believe John Petrucci has several guitars made by Mr. Ibanez that were made with chinese ancient oak bodies and hand painted by Michelangelo. Not that guitar noob, the guy who painted Jesus on that ceiling and stuff.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.

View attachment 55108

Rad!

Loving that baby dinosaur foot headstock.

 

[ninjawa7]

Re: Oak as a tone wood.


Mine sounds great! I made it out of solid red oak with a white oak fretboard. Mine also had a much darker grain cause the tree I used had been struck by lightning, so I figure water got down in the grain and it really made it stand out. The only downsides is: the truss rod does very little to adjust action cause its so dense, it is a good bit heavier than my Les Paul, and oak likes to bow. When I built the neck it was hard to find a piece that wasn't warped bad. Since then, Ive made another out of oak and another out of cherry and have come to the conclusion in my opinion that the sound is mostly what quality pickups/electronics you put in it; not what it's made out of. Anyway, I put 3 P-rails in it with 3-way switching for each pickup setting and a 5-way pickup selector switch. Ill never need to buy another electric.