Perfect wood

[Rockybluejazz]

If you could only have one electric guitar-persish the thought. what wood would it be made out of and why? This question came to me while researching making my own guitar. I know that there are many of us that play many different types of music so I'm asking this in a general manor. Or in other words what would you consider to be the most versital wood sound wise? For me it would have to be Swamp Ash. It's darker then Alder but not as dark as Mahogany.

 

[piebaldpython]

Well........at lot of that depends on what sound you're going for and what kind of pups you plan on installing.

Your pups and electronics are the "meat" of your sound. The wood is the "dipping sauce", so it should enhance the pups. Pick wrong and you can have something that doesn't sound "optimum". Said another way, the wood "colors" your sound.

I have a custom lap steel with premium humbuckers......and the body is made from highly figured curly maple....and it screams.

I have another lap steel, being made as we speak, with premium Tele-style single coil pups......and her body is premium swamp ash with a walnut cap.

Yet another lap steel....and she is made out of aluminum with a PAF humbucker and coil tap switch......great for honky-tonkin' and getting a sound that you just can't duplicate with wood.

FYI, some of the baddest of Leo's early Teles were swamp ash.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rockybluejazz]

Thanks for the input. I agree with your comments about the pups. There are a lot of variables with an electric guitar. So I guess that I'm focousing on the dipping sauce rather then the meat. I'm a Chef so I really like your comparison. I think it's fitting. There are some sauces that go well with more things then other sauces. So it's Like I said it's not the type of sound I'm asking about it's the most sounds.

 

[DeanEVO_Dude]

The more and more that I play and pay attention to the sound the guitar makes, and shopping for new (and "new to me") electric guitars, the I gravitate towards the "tried and true" Les Paul type of construction - read: Mahogany or Mahogany with Maple cap or top, Mahogany neck with Rosewood fretboard. Even with acoustic guitar (don't own one YET) I seem to like the sound of Mahogany back and sides...

One of the most beautiful electric gutars that I ever heard was an 80's Vantage V635 (ES335 copy). All Mahogany, really sang UNPLUGGED! Saddly, missed out on that one, it was bought from the store before I could get the money. You can see below, the guitars I own, and the first one I usually grab is the Dean, second is the Stagg (both Mahogany/Maple).

 

[Rockybluejazz]

Great choice!

 

[deeaa]

Really comes down to what kind of sound you want. Little as the wood matters to the sound, it still does affect it clearly, and I guess the choice is mostly between mahogany and swamp ash; those do sound quite different from each other.

BUT if I could order it in any shape plus had the money, I'd have my guitar built out of Flaxwood. That seems to me like perfect stuff for guitar construction, and can deliver both clear and bright and convincing focus like ash and mahogany.

 

[Andy]

I thought about the question and realisd...no 2 guitars of mine are the same combination of wood.
yet they all have a certain tone and playability I like.

so i would have to know what type of guitar I could take to my desert island (If I could pick the wood)..

 

[6stringdrug]

I have owned quite a few guitars and all different woods/combos. My favorite tone was my les paul studio, all mahogany. But I love my humbucker equipped ash telepartsfrankencaster. Just a thick rich tone. If I had my choice, mahogany/maple les paul style. Been a legend for 50+ years and still the sweetest to my ear.

 

[kiteman]

I found this interesting when I was swapping pups on my guitars. I had 3 sets on my custom hand made guitar which is mahogany body/maple neck and they were on my other guitar which is maple neckthrough/alder sides/maple cap. The pups just sounds mellow (better) in mahogany.

I have another guitar which is walnut body/maple neck and I never swapped pups on it. I like the way it sounds so I leave it alone.

 

[deeaa]

My wife asked me what was I browsing and I said I'm reading what the fret guys are discussing about perfect wood, and she just lifted her eyebrows. LOL.

 

[otaypanky]

While I have no doubt that different woods have different sonic properties I wood never choose a guitar based on the woods it was constructed of. The selection process for me begins with a great feeling fretboard. Sound and tone are next, but they can be tweaked a bit so that may not be a deal breaker if the neck and feel is killer. For me, it's all about the feel and tone.
My '66 335 is basically made from plywood with a veneer and that one sounds pretty good to me. I have other guitars made from alder, mahogany (both with and without a maple cap), palownia, a hollow body with a one piece mahogany back and sides with carved maple face, and there's not a clunker in the bunch, they all sound wonderful. The only one that is unique is the palownia guitar and that's because of the very light weight of the guitar not because of radically different tone.

 

[Bloozcat]

Swamp ash is a really good tone wood, and I'd probably pick it as my second favorite.

If I had to pick just one wood it would be cypress...a piece of really old cypress. I never would have known about this if it weren't for this great discovery:

My friend Pat at Resurrection Guitars worked for the county in which we live before making custom guitars full time. While doing that he had to pull a tree from the channel of the waterway at a local park. The tree turned out to be a large old cypress. By counting the rings they determined that it was 137 years old. Pat asked if he could have a piece of the old tree and was told he could have all of it if he liked. He took a large section home and after cutting away the worm eaten outer husk, he cut it up into planks and let it air dry. Because the tree had been sunmerged for so long it cured slowly and naturally with the oils leaching out over time. The planks dried with little or no checking and Pat made his first set neck, solid body electric guitar out of cypress. He'd never even thought about using cypress before this.

The guitar isn't much to look at as it's slab sided and painted in black nitro, but oh, what tone it has! The first thing you notice is how loud the guitar is. He's never been able to figure out why, but all the guitars made from planks from this tree are loud. Over the years Pat has made many guitars from other woods with the exact same body and neck shape. Not a single one of them has ever been as loud as those made from this tree. Weird sounding, I know, but absolutely the truth. The sound from this guitar is warm, clear, and very even accross the tonal spectrum. With a good tube amp it seems to respond to whatever tonal range you're trying to coax out of it. If you wan't clear, crisp highs, set the amp for it and the guitar delivers. Want mid heavy lead tones, set the amp up for them and the guitar delivers. It's almost like the guitar can sense what you wan't from it.

This guitar has garnered such a wide spread reputation that Pat gets regular requests to "borrow" it for for recording sessions. And not just from local muscians, from some pretty heavy hitters in the guitar world.

Now, if I can only find another 137 year old cypress tree that's been sitting underwater for a few decades. It's out there somewhere, just waiting...:thumbsup

 

[Rockybluejazz]

Kauer is making guitars using Spanish Ceder. It's suppose to have a great sound wiith properties of both mahogany and Alder with great string definition. heres http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazi...ylighter_Standard_Electric_Guitar_Review.aspx the review. and heres http://www.kauerguitars.com/ their web page.

 

[deeaa]

Yep Blooz my granddad used to make violins and boats and whatnot wooden, and he used old wood salvaged from lake bottom for some parts, for the sound.

 

[Bloozcat]

Yep Blooz my granddad used to make violins and boats and whatnot wooden, and he used old wood salvaged from lake bottom for some parts, for the sound.

Apparently some enterprising people have caught onto this. I saw a show on TV a couple of years back about people who were salvaging maple trees from lake bottoms, mainly for the violin market but also for guitars. There's a whole forest of them throughout the southern US where the federal government created the TVA hydro-electric plants back in the 1930's and later. They just dammed up canyons where large rivers flowed and the back filling created water reservoirs. In the process, thousands of trees were "drowned". They've been curing under the cool water for a long time.

 

[marnold]

Most of the superstrats I tend to prefer are basswood or alder. Doesn't really make a ton of difference to me. I probably like alder a little better just because it isn't so soft.