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Im working on a neck though. Before I start carving up the neck, I have a quick question. Im using a flame maple neck without any walnut running through (neck throughs usually have a strip of walnut running the length of the neck to reduce some of the brightness from the maple). I would hate to cut the flame maple in half to put a walnut strip in there, but Im worried about having a guitar thats WAY to bright. What do you guys think? -Alex

I'm really not an expert but... I never heard that we have to put walnut (especially walnut?) to reduce brightness of maple.

Are maple neck really make ''bright'' guitars?
Is walnut really less bright than maple, and why?
Any kind of laminate adds stiffness... and I guess that stiffness will give you brightness.

You don't want walnut, don't put any walnut.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

I wouldn't cut it in half. As you say, it's kind of a shame. As for it being "too" bright, well, that's a matter of opinion and taste. Fender necks have nearly always been solid maple; if you consider that too bright for your intended tone, then you could always use something else. I think that the "skunk stripes" are usually a matter of structure and economy rather than tone anyway-- you can end up with a stiffer neck through lamination that you would with a solid piece, and in general, the stiffer the neck, the brighter the tone. A common practice is to laminate several flat-sawn boards together vertically so you get essentially a quarter-sawn neck-- although there is some dispute, I guess, on whether quartersawn wood is really stiffer, it certainly seems that way to me.

Some of your brightness can be cut by using a rosewood or ebony fingerboard.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

A solid flame maple neck would look awesome. It's a matter of what you want it to look like.
I like to laminate my necks w/ purpleheart or a strong kind of tonewood to increase it's strength and accent it. Racing stripes!
You might want to add carbon fiber strips along side the truss rod to reinforce it. That would keep the flame look on the back and increase it's strength. Just a suggestion.

I built an all maple/bubinga neckthrough once, all considered "bright" woods.
It has a nice sparkle on the high end without being harsh, and is also full and bassy.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Which "maple" are you talking about?

There are approximately 129 species which can be named "maple"....

I find this interesting because you guys only mention terms which not only dont mean anything but which cover a multitude of varieties of the same generic wood family.

So here is an article which I wrote a couple months ago which you may find interesting...

http://www.hufschmidguitars.com/SoundandSpecies.pdf




You are going to love my article, welcome to the club of people who dont blindly follow marketing stereotypes...



still "maple" does not mean anything, which specie did you use?

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http://hufschmidguitars.com

Echoing what others have said, "too bright" is of course a relative idea. If you like Fender tone, you shouldn't have a problem. They've been going with all maple necks and people don't seem to mind. So if you want an all-maple neck for the look go for it! Even if it does end up "too bright" for your taste, there are a bunch of ways to reduce the brightness electronically (difference pot and cap values, etc.).

As for the question of strength, I'm a firm believer in multi-laminate necks for the added strength, but also because I just think they look really cool. Some people find it offensive to the eyes though. If the walnut strip you're referring to is the Fender "skunk stripe", that wasn't intended for strength purposes (although a Fender buff may correct me here), but for the sake of truss rod installation.

All that said, if you want an all-maple neck (assuming it's hard maple we're talking about), you shouldn't have a problem. Go for it!

Thanks for you info. I did some research before hand (mainly from the warmoh website) but I guess my facts were a little off. Thanks for all the help. I know that maple give a bright sound and my main worry was that haveing a neck-through with maple would be too bright (I now understand that this is only opinion). thanks! -Alex

Thank you for the tutorial on Wood http://www.hufschmidguitars.com/SoundandSpecies.pdf !!
I will admit my complete ignorance on the varying tonal qualities of different maples, walnuts, and mahoganies. I used to think of maple=bright, walnut=crunch, and mahogany=warm. Boy was I wrong!
Please illustrate us further, could you mention the brightest, middiest, and warmest maple? Is the list on your column from the brightest stiffness to weight ratio to the mellowest walnut? Is African Mahogany http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_nec ... Blank.html warm or bright?
I would be extremely thankful!

I used sugar maple (Acer Saccharum) with birdseye figure. Not sure which Bubinga species I used, it was the brownish one, not the pinkish or purplish ones.
The wings were Acer Rubrum with quilt figure, same Bubinga on the show faces.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

You misunderstood the idea of the article...

There are so many different stiffness to weight ratio in the same board, this is why you can not relie on a general guide, most of this is pure marketing.

You will also find out that most species from the "mahogany family" sound totally bright... Why? Because they have a high stiffness to weight ratio, especially african species like sipo or sapelli. (just a detail: the term african mahogany can also implie several species...)



People tend to forget that most of this "sounds descriptions" have been imported from the acoustic guitar world, but if you think logically, how can you possibly say that a "mahogany body" let's say 5cm think sounds "warm and muddy" and even start comparing wood sounds to a 3mm back which is working as an air pump in an acoustic guitar ?

Benedetto explains this extremely well in his amazing "building an archtop" video series which I highly recommend, he talks about the various stiffness of maples and which ones you want to use in order to create a warmer or brighter sounding instrument but again, we are not talking solid body electric construction here but archtop guitars...

Stereotypes are a major fudge up in the guitar industry, you can litterally make people believe what ever you want when you have money and celebrities using your brand and this is what most of the brands relie on in order to make sales and money....

Anyway hope this helps...

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http://hufschmidguitars.com

I read all the engineering stuff about wood years ago, and finally decided that since God grew every tree differently that there would be no hard and rules I could follow.

That said, I still needed something to base my decisions on (and to tell clients when they had questions). So I went with my ear.

To my ear - the color of a wood determined the basic shade of tone it would produce. Ebony - dark, maple - bright, etc. Then the hardness of the wood determined the attack of that tone. Again, ebony - hard, mahogany - soft, etc.

It worked for me, even if it sounded like a load of hooey.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

While this is all nice and romantic and probably a good idea in some cases, this is unfortunatelly exactly the reason why there are so many sterotypes out there in the guitar industry...

Been building guitars since 1996, and I've always refused to explain ''wood sound'' in a mystical way because I want to try and explain to the customer what he is buying and why does it sound the way it does and my reasons for using specific timbers....

Most big manufactures for exemple only use generic terms, you know that when you spend 25'000$ for a Les Paul Jimmy Page, you are getting a "mahogany" neck and a "mahogany" body.... Way to go

Most guys in forums will actually start a topic about "what is the difference between mahogany and sapelli?" and will ask what is the difference when it comes to the sound...

I then see people ''who have experience'' starting to say that mahogany sound a little warmer then sapelli and that sapelli sound brighter" hahahahah

Sapelli is a specie which belongs to the mahogany family, sapelli is mahogany.....

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http://hufschmidguitars.com

Knock on the piece of wood.
If it sounds good,
use it, if it's straight and the grain orientation YOU want.
Compare with other pieces of wood.