Re: Pickup configuration you never see.
Really makes you wonder about this whole tonewood debate, most people don't even know what wood they're arguing about.
good question. density (average dried weight), janka hardness, modulus of rupture and elastic modulus are very important measurements to determine how a wood will behave sonically. For example, swamp ash and alder are in the same corner, but are fairly different from for example swietenia mahogany. For some woods there is just one variety (or the varieties are very close to one another, like USA ash vs EU ash vs Olive ash which isn't technically an ash species but a denomination for figured/colored ash). Mahogany has just become a blanket term because the original mahogany, what is now called Cuban mahogany, is gone and woods in the same family (swietenia/honduras mahogany) has usurped that material, or woods that LOOK like it, got the name.
But you cannot say that wood does not matter. I have done too much testing with it, within the same species and cross-species, to say it doesn't matter. Yes, Kaya, swietenia, sipo and sapele are mahoganies but they really do different things in your tone, if you keep all the other variables the same. I won't go into what the sonic differences are, but a luthier should know the differences and should know how to work with them. For example, I am a huge fan of swietenia and sapele: kaya and sipo less, because of how the other two are workable and sound like. But if you want consistency, ash and maple are your best friends, by far. Hard ash and soft ash (swamp ash) are extremely consistent because there is only ONE ash species that we call ASH. Black korina, same thing. Very consistent. That way, as a luthier/builder, you can fairly accurately predict what the tone will be like for a given project.
Also, what's highly underestimated is the thickness of a blank. An SG of 38mm thick mahogany will sound completely different than an SG of 45mm. The thicker the body, the fatter the tone. It's that simple.
Personally, I try to veer away from mahoganies as much as possible because of the immense impact their harvest has on the environment. Black korina is much more affordable, for the same weight. And with a red dye, when making for example a '59 style burst LP, the color will match anyway. Maple is always a safe bet (regardless if it's soft sugar maple or hard maple: you just have to know what you're using but you can smell it as soon as you sand or plane it) as well as ash (same deal as with maple: the smell will tell you INSTANTLY what it is).
The largest problem with the tonewood debate is mahogany because everybody has an idea of mahogany, manufacturers use mahogany on so, so many guitars but because it is a blanket term, it's not clear what it truly, truly is so people are confused to the actual 'tone' it yields (without knowing they are confused, might I add) so a lot of people tend to dismiss tonewoods as a 'thing', but that's imho unwarrented. Heck, I have build over 250 guitars now and build approximately 50 test guitars where I can swap out necks and bodies just to test wood-to-wood ratios and the effect of thickness of blanks. How many can say that? Not so many, I'd say.
For example. If you want to have a fairly modern LP but with a medium weight, I'd say, pick a neck with a color and feel you like, because frankly, necks matter but not THAT much (yeah I know, I go against the grain in this respect but see my statement above: I've built way too many to not have even a decent grasp of what woods do; thickness of the neck blank matters MORE than the materials!) and get a swamp ash body back with a maple top. I'll finish it in a look that suits your wishes. Heck, I can make it look like a '59 sunburst with the classic red dye back if you want.
Wood species matter but only because they have a certain strength and moduli and if you can find a wood that has similar specs, yup, you can swap it out. Thickness matters more in that respect than species. That's why brazilian rosewood can easily be substituted for katalox or wenge, gaboon ebony for ceylon ebony, swamp ash for alder or swietenia, etc etc.
But then again... this is just my opinion
