Greetings,
Today I am in the mood to share a bit of knowledge on the topic of tone woods for guitar.
A brief background if you don't mind...if you do skip this paragraph! I have played
guitar for about 20 some odd years now and I have had the opportunity to play literally hundreds of guitars. My first "real" job after high school was being a guitar teacher at a higher end music shop in Chicagoland. Students were always late, blowing off lessons w/o notice, you name it. While I waited around I played with the guitars in the shop. A few years of that lead me to believe that I loved playing guitar more than teaching...and that I might want to think about school for a "more reliable" source of income. But I never stopped appreciating guitar. So much so that I started to build them...
If you are anything like myself you always dreamt of the perfect guitar. That felt like it was made just for you...with the perfect tone...the perfect look...the whole package. For this piece we are going to briefly touch upon the tonal aspects of various types of wood and how the different parts, (body, neck, fingerboard) affect the overall tonality of the instrument.
I will not be covering every type of wood in the world. :) I will however cover many of the major players that you'd want to know more about.
Not every type of wood makes for a good guitar. Some are tonally dead, don't generally come in large enough quantity/quality or their small size makes them impractical.
The opposite ends of the spectrum tonally for aurally pleasing woods are as follows: bass to bright with warm being in the middle slightly towards the bass side. Gibson guitars tend towards warm and Fender guitars tend towards bright.
Not very surprising will be this next bit of info then...Gibson and Fender favor different woods in their guitars construction. This combined with different scale lengths, different pickups, etc. make each company's offerings sound different.
Let's finally delve into the different woods huh?
Maple (North American) - Is a very strong and heavy hardwood which is why so many guitar necks are made up of this. Pretty creamy color with large attractive grain is why so many necks aren't painted...they are clear coated. Tonally it's bright with a very defined treble. A guitar made 100% out of maple would be strong and attractive...but overkill on the treble & weigh a metric ton. ;P
Poplar - Is an unattractive wood that is light weight and used in many lower end electric guitar bodies. You pretty much HAVE to paint over poplar as it's a greenish sickly color. Why is it used in so many guitars then? It's cheap and tonally similar to Alder.
Alder - Is a creamy attractive wood that is also light in weight. This is a VERY popular body wood choice for Fender for example. Alder is bright and well defined tonally.
Mahogany - Is an attractive reddish wood with tight open grain patterns. Warm tonally with accentuated mids and lows. Mahogany is light in weight and makes up the vast majority of the wood used on Gibson guitars. (necks and bodies)
Swamp Ash - Is an attractive creamy colored wood with large well defined grain. A mid weight wood that is popular on some high end Fender guitar bodies. Tonally similar to Alder but with a bit more upper mid punch.
Indian Rosewood -
Is a very attractive dark reddish colored wood with dark brown/black grain pattern. It is warm tonally. Commonly used on fretboards for many guitar manufacturers. Also very popular as a body wood for high end acoustics.
Cocobolo - Is in my humble opinion the most attractive wood of them all. Wild color variations in the grain are possible; from purples to yellow to red to orange to black. The sapwood is creamy yellow and contrasts dramatically with the heartwood. (heartwood is the more desired portion of the tree) Related to Indian Rosewood; it shares the tonal aspects of that wood. Used on very high end guitars for tops or as a fingerboard. There are no major guitar manufacturers that use cocobolo on their production guitars to my knowledge. Custom guitars only. I am preparing a guitar build using a cocobolo top. Cannot wait. :)
Ebony - Is a very dark wood...black as it gets hence the name. It is also very hard, very heavy and strong. I know of no guitars production or otherwise that have a "all ebony" guitar. One of the reasons is tonally ebony while visually very dark...is aurally very bright and on the edge of shrill. Also the guitar would weigh a ton. Very popular however for use as a fretboard wood. It feels very slick to play over. Glassy even.
Well those are the woods that I'm covering today...that will encompass 95% of the electric guitars on the market for certain. I skipped a few major players in the acoustic market such as spruce and cedar, but I do not build acoustics...nor do I play them that frequently. I don't want to give you second hand knowledge that I'd have to google. That's weak sauce in my book.
As always all comments, ideas and thoughts are welcome.
- Adam
