Why agathis wood is so hated??

[astrozombie]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

Look, I'm sure that Suhr could make a basswood or agathis axe that would drop jaws.

I associate agathis with squier. maybe it's that...

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

A quick look on wikipedia reveals the distribution of the species and the ratio of trunk to upper branches of the tree itself. Small wonder that the Cort factory makes such extensive use of the stuff.

Some opinions say "like mahogany", others say "comparable to alder". No explanations as to the way in which agathis resembles either of the other two.

The bottom line is, after tap testing then careful choices of hardware and pickups, it should be possible to arrive at a decent sounding instrument.

 

[Liko]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

The primary reason it's hated is because it's associated with Asian guitar production, especially Indonesian production of the lowest-tier Squiers, Ibanezes and Epiphones. Agathis is a family of conifer trees native primarily to the Indonesian archipelago and nearby coastal areas of Southeast Asia and Australia. It's a distant relative of spruce with similar qualities. Because it's used as a cost-cutting measure for import guitars (it's much cheaper to source local wood than to ship American tonewoods to the factories), it's automatically assumed to be of lower quality than traditional tonewoods like alder, ash or "genuine" mahogany (there are wood species other than what Gibson traditionally used that are allowed to be called "mahogany", including several native Asian species).

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

Look, I'm sure that Suhr could make a basswood or agathis axe that would drop jaws.

I associate agathis with squier. maybe it's that...

+1 on the Squier and low end connection (even after my defense haah I get it).

Sort of off topic here...but I've played a few Suhr's and I wasn't overly impressed. Maybe It was ruined because of the hype, but they were all underwhelming. Not a bad axe by any means, certainly of high quality, but just did not get the 'wow' factor everyone raves about.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

I don't know if anyone hates it. It has just come to be used on many lower-end Asian-made guitars, so people assume bad things about it. It's basically a common, inexpensive, strong, relatively lightweight, good general purpose wood in Asia. For the same reasons, alder and ash (common, inexpensive, strong, relatively lightweight, good general purpose woods in North America) came to be the primary guitar woods used by Fender (after pine was proven too soft and lacking in nice grain patterns on prototypes).

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

I bet you its better than paulownia, Oh man that **** is way soft. When i used it i bored the cavity holes by hand holding the drill bit. That's how soft it is.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

It's cheap, and like anything else, cheap means it can't be good.

Wood cost depends a lot on availability. If I were a guitar builder in a country where Agathis is very close then that will be more affordable (than trying to import Alder or Mahogany) and I would try to make instruments made of that for sure.

I mean, if it was so great, we'd have seen vintage guitars made with it instead of mahogany, maple, walnut, and shtuff like that.

I guess you are right but then I think years ago Basswood was not that much an appreciated wood either. Was it? Being a soft would does not help for durability I guess.

Then also the eternal debate on wood vs tone.

 

[arwanfarizi11]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

I have a SH-12b in the bridge of my jackson dinky, it squeels very nicely, has a lot of treble and cuts really good, exactly what I want for playing in a band and also playing things like power metal. The output is not too hot and rolled off, the pickup sounds very nice clear, bell like to me. It suits my needs very great. For the neck position I might get a Jazz neck, or a 59 which would be pretty similiar to the SH12 since its based on the 59. And in general it has much more dynamics than the actives I tried and sounds just better and more natural to me, the EMG's sound very compressed to me

Maybe I'll try duncans someday, but for now pretty satisfied with EMG, maybe duncans on my next axe, Idk haha

 

[arwanfarizi11]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

I'd dispute this 'Agathis is the new Basswood' view. Many of the old Yamaha Studio Lords (Les Paul replicas) were built with Agathis bodies before Basswood even appeared as a body wood. That would probably indicate that other builders (at least in Japan) had also used it before the Basswood era began.

I'd also challenge the word 'hate' in regards to Agathis. At worst, many players may not know what Agathis has to offer, but i've never seen anyone claim to despise it. If anything, I've seen many more people with strong dislike for Basswood.

Then I think people just don't like agathis because of it's cheap, right?

 

[arwanfarizi11]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

Look, I'm sure that Suhr could make a basswood or agathis axe that would drop jaws.

I associate agathis with squier. maybe it's that...

I don't know where to test or even get a Suhr guitar here in Indonesia

Could you give a video review link or something

 

[arwanfarizi11]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

The bottom line is, after tap testing then careful choices of hardware and pickups, it should be possible to arrive at a decent sounding instrument.

I agree with you on that, I just replaced the neck and it sounds amazing

 

[arwanfarizi11]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

So here I think many people don't think agathis is a good tonewood because it's used in cheap guitar

New question, will agathis be a great tonewood when used with good hardware? Because I'm really curious with this agathis and all the potentials

 

[dotsdad]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

Then I think people just don't like agathis because of it's cheap, right?

^^^ yes.

 

[shred4Him]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

Funny how alder was chosen for the same reason... Cheap. People blow this stuff way out of proportion. I would be far more worried about construction quality than the woods.

 

[MetalManiac]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

The point is, you do not want your 5 grand custom shop being built out of secondary poor tone- tap wood. For a thousand dollar korean guitar, then yeah.The Cort I had ( Mat Murphy) was an amazing guitar for the price- it was Agathis, and sounded great. It wasn't Custom shop Gibson , and if you played the two side by side, unless you were tone deaf, you'd probably agree the one made with the best materials was a much better guitar.

 

[dominus]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

A quick look on wikipedia reveals the distribution of the species and the ratio of trunk to upper branches of the tree itself. Small wonder that the Cort factory makes such extensive use of the stuff.

Some opinions say "like mahogany", others say "comparable to alder". No explanations as to the way in which agathis resembles either of the other two.

The bottom line is, after tap testing then careful choices of hardware and pickups, it should be possible to arrive at a decent sounding instrument.

90+% of the time it's closer to Mahogany. I did have one agathis bodied Squier that was so f-ing bright I couldn't handle it. And I *like* bright.

I bet you its better than paulownia, Oh man that **** is way soft. When i used it i bored the cavity holes by hand holding the drill bit. That's how soft it is.

I'll take Paulownia over Agathis any day. Granted, I'm liking Paulownia better than most other woods anyway.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

^ Just made my first Paulownia strat. Its a hardtail, and I made sure to drill all holes with the smallest drillbit that would work for the particular screw. Other than having to accommodate the soft wood, I find it a really great result as a guitar. The guitar was also intended as a light relic, so the wood softness almost 'helps' in that regard.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

It takes 4 years to grow how good could it be? ha! nar tone wise its ok and its nice to carve i just don't think its a good wood for guitars.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

I have an Ibanez RG-120 that started out with an agathis body and low end Ibanez tremelo. I swapped the body for a mahogany one with a fixed string through body bridge. I think it sounds much better now.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[TRex]

Re: Why agathis wood is so hated??

T-Rex played an agathis Flying V

Man, when did that happen. It must have been a crazy night to see me with a V.[emoji14]