what effect does body wood have on tone?

[Rocky]

Yes, but can you tell when the mahogany was cut down from the Brazilian forest and dried in the kiln. That's where I have trouble. :lol:

You sure would. There is no mahagony in Brazilian forests. Most of it comes from Central America.

O-kay, uh ... tell the difference in tone between FSC certified mahogany and smuggled mahogany.

Smuggled mahogany sounds a little muffled to me....

 

[RR]

I am a clean to moderate gain guy, it is VERY easy to hear the diff b/w ash, Alder, Mahogany etc.

:shock: Yes, but can you tell when the mahogany was cut down from the Brazilian forest and dried in the kiln. That's where I have trouble. :lol:

But say one of my Fralin pickup had one extra wound, yeah, that's easy to make out. :lol:


Just kidding Rocky, there's some generalization you make about tonewoods which your ear could tell you. :wink:

I can even tell you if the person cutting the wood showered that morning.

I'm f'n GOOD

I'm not that good yet, but I could tell you if mahogany was cut down with Stihl chainsaw or another brand.

Smuggled mahogany sounds a little muffled to me....

Cool, I have chameleon type mahogany guitar body. I turned the tone control down, its sounds just like smuggled mahogany, turn the tone control up, sounds like FSC certified cut mahogany. :lol:

 

[Pablo1234]

Their is no such thing as smuggled mahogany. Wood dealers just tell you that so you will pay more for their wood. And wood dealers are a trick of your mind, just becuss you can see them and hear them and look them up dose not mean they realy exist. To realy buy wood you need to purchase my Wood Dealer Spectrum Finder Thingie to truely be in contact with wood sources. Don't let your midn play tricks on you. Purchase WDSFT at your local dealer today.

 

[RR]

Their is no such thing as smuggled mahogany. Wood dealers just tell you that so you will pay more for their wood. And wood dealers are a trick of your mind, just becuss you can see them and hear them and look them up dose not mean they realy exist. To realy buy wood you need to purchase my Wood Dealer Spectrum Finder Thingie to truely be in contact with wood sources. Don't let your midn play tricks on you. Purchase WDSFT at your local dealer today.

O-kay I'm in a unique situation, my wood dealer knows I'm luthier (or pretend to be, I just build guitars for myself because I play with myself -- uh, that did not come out right :? -- anyway I threaten him to give me good discount on exotic tonewoods or I'll start building only "air guitars", that's how I get my discount on tonewoods. :wink:

 

[Rocky]

You sure would. There is no mahagony in Brazilian forests. Most of it comes from Central America.

O-kay, uh ... tell the difference in tone between FSC certified mahogany and smuggled mahogany.

Smuggled mahogany sounds a little muffled to me....

I guess that joke didnt work.

 

[MetalMatt]

I'm a believer that woods effect tone. Here is a good read, for those who have the patience.

http://www.gear-monkey.com/forums/index.php?topic=14.0

Thanks to the guy who wrote the whole thing, it's packed full of info.

 

[ytse_jam]

I'm a believer that woods effect tone. Here is a good read, for those who have the patience.

http://www.gear-monkey.com/forums/index.php?topic=14.0

Thanks to the guy who wrote the whole thing, it's packed full of info.

thanks for the great link

 

[Martin]

One of my guitars is a custom made ES335 style guitar. Unlike a Gibson it's not made from moulded plywood, it's actually made from hand carved curly maple.
Regardless of the pickups I have fitted I can tell you that when you play it unplugged and then play a Gibson in an A/B comparison the difference is very noticeable and even more so when plugged in. The natural sustain is amazing compared to a Gibson, this thing sings.
I am no expert, just a player and I have to say it's not my imagination. I have been approached countless times at gigs by people asking what type of guitar it is and complementing me on the tone.

www.bacornguitars.com check out the 335's mine is the darker double octave one, sorry the picture is not so good.

 

[devilrob1979]

One of my guitars is a custom made ES335 style guitar. Unlike a Gibson it's not made from moulded plywood, it's actually made from hand carved curly maple.
Regardless of the pickups I have fitted I can tell you that when you play it unplugged and then play a Gibson in an A/B comparison the difference is very noticeable and even more so when plugged in. The natural sustain is amazing compared to a Gibson, this thing sings.
I am no expert, just a player and I have to say it's not my imagination. I have been approached countless times at gigs by people asking what type of guitar it is and complementing me on the tone.

www.bacornguitars.com check out the 335's mine is the darker double octave one, sorry the picture is not so good.

I can attest to this as well. I have an Edwards (ESP) ES-335 that is also made of solid maple with mahogany neck and center core. This guitar is absolutely alive and a head and shoulder difference from a Gibson ES-335. The nice thing is it cost 1/3 of what a Gibson does too. Thanks Japan.

http://www.espguitars.co.jp/edwards/original/E-SA-138LTC.html

 

[Martin]

Speaking of 335's, a friend has given me a copy to change out the lectronics and the pick ups. Does anyone know of a tool that I can use to reach through the f-holes to install the new ones ?
Sorry this is off subject.

 

[devilrob1979]

Here ya go:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=278088

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=242225&highlight=335+wiring

 

[devilrob1979]

One of my guitars is a custom made ES335 style guitar. Unlike a Gibson it's not made from moulded plywood, it's actually made from hand carved curly maple.
Regardless of the pickups I have fitted I can tell you that when you play it unplugged and then play a Gibson in an A/B comparison the difference is very noticeable and even more so when plugged in. The natural sustain is amazing compared to a Gibson, this thing sings.
I am no expert, just a player and I have to say it's not my imagination. I have been approached countless times at gigs by people asking what type of guitar it is and complementing me on the tone.

www.bacornguitars.com check out the 335's mine is the darker double octave one, sorry the picture is not so good.

I can attest to this as well. I have an Edwards (ESP) ES-335 that is also made of solid maple with mahogany neck and center core. This guitar is absolutely alive and a head and shoulder difference from a Gibson ES-335. The nice thing is it cost 1/3 of what a Gibson does too. Thanks Japan.

http://www.espguitars.co.jp/edwards/original/E-SA-138LTC.html

dude that's a SICK jazz guitar. where can you buy one of those in USA? I used to have an epi dot. I have a couple of japan made guitars now, rg1570 and elitist LP, they're pretty **** good man.

I got mine from this guy.
http://www.katanaguitars.com/main/top.html
Shipping to the US is $140 but I got it in 4 days and that includes a weekend. It showed up express on the day Veteran's day was observed. I haven't put it down much since.

 

[Martin]

Meant to say, I know Dean Campbell of Campbell American Guitars pretty well.

Anyhow, I was visiting him at the factory one time and I played around maybe 8 different guitars of the same design but the body woods were different.

There were some very noticeable differences, we used the same amp etc. well anyway, meant to say that earlier.

 

[gonzo]

what i learned in my research on building a project guitar


yeah, i know, it's blahblahblahblah..
but i thought i'd share for anyone who is interested in building project guitars..


in my years of playing, and building the odd project here and there, the one thing that i consistently saw, was that if it sounded spanky without being plugged in, it'd sound spanky plugged in.

and if it sounded dead sitting in the shop, and if i plugged it in, dead.

(now, this is not to be confused with lots of gain, and radical tone shaping, and all that...
just the basic pure sound of the guitar amplified, versus acoustically playing it)

and i've switched out bridges and electronics, even nuts, and they all did do a little something....

but i think the magic comes from the 'tone' of the neck, and the 'tone' of the body.

and then the mojo is, marrying the two together.


when i researched and built my project strat (see past thread on 'project strat'), my luthier and i, had at our disposal, 5 strats in house, for sell or repairs or work....
3 fender strats of various vintage and country of origin....
and 2 brand new american made strats.

plus, we had a few other strat wannabes-- Godin, Ibanez, the odd project guitar..

we did, at various points in the discovery process, take apart most of them.

one thing i noticed, was that certain 'necks' would not pass the 'tap test'.

what the tap test was, was simply hanging the neck (with all hardware off of it) from a hanger thru a machine head hole, and 'tapping' on the wood with the finger.

you could rap the back of the neck with your knuckle, and you could hear a distinct 'ring' or 'tone' in the wood.
every single neck was different.
some were solid maple, some maple with maple caps, some with rosewood caps....

all different.
as you would expect.

but some were dead sounding, and some were very lively.

needless to say, the 'lively' sounding necks, sounded the best on the bodies.

the bodies, a similar thing.
when i asked for my strat body, i decided on alder, and i specifically asked for the 'lightest 2-piece alder body' they had...

why 2 piece?
i don't know, i guess cuz the nicest body i found in the test, was a lightweight, 2 piece body that had a nitro finish on it, so that's what i patterned after.

i also had read a lot of articles on pros that had vintage strats, and that seemed to be a common thread.

when i got my alder body, while it was still raw, it had that 'tap tone'.

now when we experimented with various pieces at hand, you could hear the difference in the overall sound of the guitar (plugged in or not) when switching the necks out with different bodies.

also, the necks that had vintage style truss rods (one of the reasons i went with the USACG necks over the warmoth necks) was another big 'aha'.

it seems that, the way the wood is cut, and how the truss rod was installed, made the biggest difference of all, over wood types and fingerboard selection...

i took a maple/rosewood warmoth neck, with a gibson conversion scale, the double expanding truss rod thingy (which really makes the neck heavier and somewhat dead sounding) and a/b'd it against my freshly minted USACG neck with rock maple neck and pau ferro fretboard, basically the same neck as the usacg, except for the truss rod and the fret wood.

no contest.

my neck had the 'tap tone', and the warmoth did not.
plain and simple.....

i was absolutely convinced.

another difference BETWEEN my neck and the warmoth i compared to, in particular was the construction of the 'tiltback' headstock.
the usacg uses a volute construction...
the warmoth used scarf joint.
that seems to have some bearing as well.

moral of the story....
it's gotta be the wood.

 

[Martin]

Thanks for posting that Gonzo... your philosophy falls in line with my own findings. I too have hasd a couple of guitars made and I followed similar methods.