Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey Everyone,
I doing my first build pretty soon and I've learned alot from reading through the forum. I have a question concerning the wood for the body and neck. I've looked at alot of websites concerning guitar woods and types of sounds they produce but they seem to be pretty inconsistent. I would like to know all woods most commonly used in solid bodies and what kind of sound they produce( body and neck wood) and i would also like to know how oak sounds in solid bodies. From the research i've done i'm leaning towards mahogany because i've read it produces warm tone and i play a mahogany bodied guitar, it's just very expensive. What are some alternatives that sound as good or better? especially for hard rock styled music(if the wood even affects the sound to this level) Any input or advice will be much appreciated.

Cash Rogers

The reason you've gotten inconsistent descriptions is because most of them are talking out of their posteriors. Dish out for good pickups, use wood that's stable, and you'll have a good sounding guitar. The wood, at best, can colour the tone a bit.

(It's a funny thing that the 'mahogany sound' in solidbodies sounds a lot like...any guitar with a humbucker...and the 'maple sound' sounds like...any guitar with a single coil. It's almost like they associated the sounds of Strats and Les Pauls with the woods instead of the pickups...)

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I've thought about this because of the differences in the instruments I've either made or owned. I believe they're due to the density of the wood, which makes noting trends between species not entirely inaccurate, but not rote fact either.

My 10 pound alder jazzmaster with Lollar Blondes sounded very different than my 6.2 pound alder strat with the same set of pickups transfered over. The body had considerably less dampening and a lower natural pitch, which factors into a warmer sound that is more acoustically responsive. Yet you could make a strat out of spruce, get a body that's just a bit lighter, and have a sound with more mid range.

My solid maple Godin LGXT had an atrocious sound. An SG I had for a while was very different than a Les Paul. My alder strat has a different character than a friend's ash strat, but who knows what would happen if we swapped a pickguard in and out to test.

I very much agree with Bob....provided you pick woods that are not setting you up for a failure from the start because they are not stable, you are going to gain SOO much more going with a nice set of electronics...

However, once you get into it a bit, you can notice subtle similarities coming from differing wood choices on guitars - especially once you start building multiple instruments of the same geometry and electronics. Lower density open pored woods can serve to attenuate some of the higher frequencies the guitar produces, while hard, very dense woods leave allow those frequencies right through. There is some merit to this, but it is subtle...

Stephen

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www.ziegenfussguitars.com

The woods chosen for the body and neck of an electric guitar have a huge bearing on the
overall tone of the guitar. Play any of the most popular guitars with identical electronics rigs
in them that have offered by the finest electric makers in the world and you'll immediately
be able to distinguish between the different tones that are created by the different woods
used in their construction.

There are woods that will kill the tone of an electric guitar, no matter how high the pickup
and electronics quality is, but there are completely different tones achieved using Alder, Ash,
Mahogany, Maple, Walnut and others in the list of more common and popular body and neck
woods.

Even the combination of woods used in carved top Les Paul or PRS style guitars and drop
top or capped bodies presents a broad and obvious palette of very different tones. A great
resonant body slab capped with either a slab or Maple or a carved Maple top sound completely
different from the same body and shape, complete with carving made from a solid piece of the
body wood choice.

There is a difference and that's why every reputable maker for many years that the electric
guitar has been developing has specified the body woods under the paint. They sound different
from one another and many players have formed strong preferences for particular woods in the
models that they play because of those tonal differences generated by the woods.

An electric guitar is a lot more then a good playing set of pickups. The woods do more than
just look cool under a great burst or finish. The electronics and woods work together in creating
what you and your audience here when you plug in. Choose carefully and choose with some well
directed research under your belt.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Thanks for all the help with this, but has anyone made an solid body with oak? i can get it for free and i'm curious whether it sounds good in electrics

I think oak will be way too dense and heavy, but it would be good to practice on to get a sense of the woodworking involved. What are the electrics you like made out of? Basswood?

that makes a lot of sense but my dad has a 73 tele with humbuckers and it sounds nothing like a lespaul. I'm a noob and don't have a lot of knowledge so this could be a stupid point lol

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson

I like gibson a lot, my guitar is a gibson explorer and gibson uses mahogany. I would prefer mahogany but i was thinking of using the oak to practice beforei go and buy a nice piece of mahogany to screw up!

I agree! I should have a 1st grade one piece mahogany body blank here tomorrow. A beautiful piece of maple came in tonight.

What kind of guitar do you want to build?

I'm thinking of a les paul for a more classic look to contrast with my explorer or the Gibson ZV style guitar. It has the horns of a sg and the wings of a flying v. I think it is a pretty unusual design that you don't see everyday. It's more unique.

Where do you get your wood? I've had trouble finding any place with a blank 14in. wide( size i need for my current design), do you know a good place where i could get a one piece blank this size?

I picked mine up from Luthier's Mercantile. The blanks are 13.5" wide. Les Paul's are just under 13.25".

Cash, I need to get to a sparring class, but wanted to let you know my blank measures 14" wide exactly.

I may be playing the part of "Captain Obvious" here...but it seems to me that, unless the pickups you're using are micro-phonic, the only way the amplified tone of the guitar is affected is how the string vibrates in general. Different wood densities will transfer vibration through the strings differently , and design can affect how wood transfers vibration...sooooooo, couldn't we engineer the design based on wood density to transfer vibration the way we want? Oh...wait...acoustic guitars already exist.

Cool, i'll check it out thanks, and thanks for all the help, i really appreciate it, everyone

Dean also makes the "split tail", I like the dean version,just alittle better

Zakk wylde actually designed the dean split tail about zeven years ago with dean guitars. This is when Dean B. Zelinsky was the owner. He no longer is. It was originally called the Zakk Wylde Dean muddy bullseye. He just took his design to Gibson.

Peavey used to make a solid body electric with an oak body - the model was T60, IIRC. It's the only production guitar I've ever heard of that used oak as the body wood. I have no idea what it sounded like - maybe you could look it up on Harmony Central and see what people who've had one have to say. They also made a bass version, model T40.

--Steve

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---Steve

Wood can affect tone. The harder and denser the brighter the tone. Softer and more porous produce mellower tone.
In an acoustic this is a major factor. In a canoe paddle solid body,not so much.
Other factors include scale length. Short Les Paul scales have nice mids, singing highs and muddy out of focus low around G,F#,F,E on low E string. Longer scale are strats with nice lows, fat mids and nasal highs unless you are using at least 11s.String gauge is a major tone factor.
The amount of wood in the body coupled with the manufacture of the neck ,bolt on, neck through or set neck affect tone and sustain.
(hint, usually the opposite of what you think)Nut material,Bridge material and type,also minor yet relevant tone control. Zero fret or no has control of the tone of at least 6 notes tone and probably a larger factor than wood in that case. Is it Solid, Chambered,Semi hollow or Hollow? Nuther factor. Some even claim headstock mass plays a role,I haven't explored that tho.
Electronics are the major factor in tone for solid bodies. So we can assume that a Teledeluxe w/ Fender bucks ,long scale and harder wood will sound different than a Paul with similar rigging. Short single coil Gibsons still won't produce Strat sounds.
In the end, use stable wood and control tone with more relevant factors.

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Anything too stupid to be said is sung. -Voltaire

Every part of a guitar is a filter that affects the sound under differing conditions.

I thought I read he acually designed it, I've seen him play the Gibson live, sounds great

But on topic I know that oak is a very heavy wood, that would probably be hard on the back.
I've also heard oak can deaden the sound, mostly with acoustics. Where lighter woods like spruce are usual.
Although,
I think white oak would be a unique top, I'd keep it thin with lighter body like swamp ash.

I have wondered about oak, myself. There are all kinds of oak, some very dense and heavy like white oak or southern grown red oak. I am willing to bet the red oak of the mountains of the eastern to northeastern US would produce a warmer tone on account it's growth rings are so close together making for a much lighter pourous board. The color is sweeter too.

When I was at PRS we built a prototype singlecut jumbo (basically a carved ES-335) out of poplar. It sounded better than the maple ones...just didn't look as nice.

I think that if you do your part as a builder, the guitar will probably sound pretty decent no matter what would you make it out of (and vice-versa!).

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

I know this thread is old and probably played out but I just wanted to comment that the Peavey T-60 with the natural finish was made out of Northern Ash and not Oak. They were extrememly heavy and, in my opinion, not a very good instrument. However, the T-60's which were colored were mostly made from Maple and were decent guitars. The first guitar I ever owned was a white maple T-60 and a great guitar.