Xeromus
Tone Ninja
Is it because many of you guys haven't played a basswood body guitar or because you associate it with cheaper guitars or both? Some of the coolest sounding guitars I've played were solid basswood or maple capped basswood. A lot of high end guitar builders use it extensively and many very expensive signature model guitars are basswood. Ibanez Satriani and Jem, music man petrucci and EVH axis, peavey wolfgang, etc. etc.
I'll add some descriptions from Suhr and Tom Anderson guitars:
Suhr:
"Basswood- Strong Midrange, balanced tone and light weight. Light color and almost no grain patterns Basswood is best suited for solid colors or is excellent as a backing wood for a maple top. All necks work on Basswood, Indian would be on the woolier warmer side.
Basswood Back / Quilt Maple Top - Ok, this may be the Holy Grail of tone, The Basswood response is extended by a 3/16" Maple top adding more clearity and grind to the fattness of the Basswood, my favorite! Usually colors chosen will be opaque on the back with transparents on the top, LP style. Most Excellent with a Maple neck."
Tom Anderson:
" Basswood
Pronounced bass like the fish. This wood gained popularity in the 80s and for a time was probably the most used wood for locking tremolo guitars. It is very light weight and produces a fairly even and full mid-range response throughout the entire band width. Many people feel it is extremely well matched with humbucking pickups because it produces a lot of the same frequencies that humbuckers easily reproduce. This is not to say that single coil tones aren't great as well. Toward the end of the late 80s, a few other species of woods were mistakenly thought to be basswood and this seemed to lead to a decline in basswood's popularity. However, true basswood does produce a very pleasing midrange tone and is the only type of basswood used here at Tom Anderson Guitarworks. Ifs natural color is light blonde to of white with little to no discernible grain. For this reason, an opaque paint color is usually chosen for a solid basswood body.
Maple Top on Basswood
This is by far the most popular body wood combination for all of our Drop Top models. Basswood/Maple produces a very rich, full sound with great low, middle and high end. Its timbre is a bit more of a fundamental tone with fewer overtones than the more traditional body woods. It is extremely popular for many styles of music because of the wide tonal spectrum that it produces. This combination is rather light in weight and looks beautiful with almost all transparent colors. $100 more on Hollow T series."
I'll add some descriptions from Suhr and Tom Anderson guitars:
Suhr:
"Basswood- Strong Midrange, balanced tone and light weight. Light color and almost no grain patterns Basswood is best suited for solid colors or is excellent as a backing wood for a maple top. All necks work on Basswood, Indian would be on the woolier warmer side.
Basswood Back / Quilt Maple Top - Ok, this may be the Holy Grail of tone, The Basswood response is extended by a 3/16" Maple top adding more clearity and grind to the fattness of the Basswood, my favorite! Usually colors chosen will be opaque on the back with transparents on the top, LP style. Most Excellent with a Maple neck."
Tom Anderson:
" Basswood
Pronounced bass like the fish. This wood gained popularity in the 80s and for a time was probably the most used wood for locking tremolo guitars. It is very light weight and produces a fairly even and full mid-range response throughout the entire band width. Many people feel it is extremely well matched with humbucking pickups because it produces a lot of the same frequencies that humbuckers easily reproduce. This is not to say that single coil tones aren't great as well. Toward the end of the late 80s, a few other species of woods were mistakenly thought to be basswood and this seemed to lead to a decline in basswood's popularity. However, true basswood does produce a very pleasing midrange tone and is the only type of basswood used here at Tom Anderson Guitarworks. Ifs natural color is light blonde to of white with little to no discernible grain. For this reason, an opaque paint color is usually chosen for a solid basswood body.
Maple Top on Basswood
This is by far the most popular body wood combination for all of our Drop Top models. Basswood/Maple produces a very rich, full sound with great low, middle and high end. Its timbre is a bit more of a fundamental tone with fewer overtones than the more traditional body woods. It is extremely popular for many styles of music because of the wide tonal spectrum that it produces. This combination is rather light in weight and looks beautiful with almost all transparent colors. $100 more on Hollow T series."
