Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: MDV on October 15, 2009, 01:09:13 PM
-
Are you up for any wood, so long as the bit of wood is good, and you have a reasonable idea what the sound is like. Wenge, meranti, sycamour, birch, koa, padauk, etc - any wood, basically
Or
Do you like to stick to the standard 'Name' (for the purposes of discussion) woods, that are most regularly used in guitars; maple, mahogany, rosewood, basswood, alder, ash etc.
-
I voted the latter, btw. 6 months ago I would have gone for 2, a year ago for 1. Changed my mind, hence the question.
-
As someone who spends half his life studying the Warmoth showcase, I'm definitely interested in trying different timbers. I'd love to try one of the neck woods that doesn't need a finish.
They do tend to be a lot more expensive though, and not so easily available, so I end up with the tried and tested swamp ash, alder and maple.
If I do venture into the exotic-wood forest, it'll most likely be for nothing more than a fingerboard.
-
I ummed and ahhed for several moments there, and then finally voted 1.
I could almost vote for any of the options, but then I thought this way:
I pretty much buy off-the-shelf, mid-price, "vintage-esque" guitars - and I usally want them to have "the right stuff" in them where possible...
But otherwise, I tend to buy guitars, not woods, if it's made of hardboard, and it plays, then it's made of hardboard :lol:
I'm not averse to fancy stuff at all, but I'm not big on figured woods showing through on my guitars...
And then, finally, I realised, if I was going custom I'd be asking for, er, the old standards:
a) Mahogany body possibly with maple cap, mahogany neck with rosewood board
b) Alder/Ash body, maple neck with maple/rosewood board
.... I'm a luddite! :lol:
-
Normal stuff for me thanks.
-
I dont mean exotic
I mean anything.
-
Normal stuff for me thanks.
You have got that goncalo alves neck though! How's that guitar coming along?
I dont mean exotic
I mean anything.
Yeah, when I said exotic I really meant "non-standard", not necessarily tropical hardwoods or whatever.
I have to say, in terms of looks there's nothing I like better than ash, so that's firmly in conventional territory. I'm a bit bored with rosewood at the minute.
-
I went for the middle option.
I like the classic mahogany/maple combo for LP's and Jets.
I like the classic maple or maple/spruce combo for hollow bodies.
But then my Esquire is Pine. And I also dig Korina.
I'd also considder to say "to hell with wood" and go for something made from metal.
I also had a USA Reverend that was plastic and wood fibre and resin. And how about those Resoglass Airlines?
-
Normal stuff for me thanks.
You have got that goncalo alves neck though! How's that guitar coming along?
True, but on a partscaster, you can take a punt. I would have been just as happy with maple, which was a similar price, but I thought I'd give the GA a go.
The guitar is great - really good clean/crunch tones.
If was speccing up a custom guitar, I'd go with normal stuff. Same applies if I was bothered about resale on anything too.
-
i am up for anything - but i would want to handle the wood and check it over to make sure i think it will make a good guitar
-
They do tend to be a lot more expensive though, and not so easily available, so I end up with the tried and tested swamp ash, alder and maple.
If I do venture into the exotic-wood forest, it'll most likely be for nothing more than a fingerboard.
If you get the cost of the paint job, usually the exotic gets cheaper than maple
I really enjoy exotic woods!
-
i am up for anything - but i would want to handle the wood and check it over to make sure i think it will make a good guitar
Fnnarr, snigger...
-
If you get the cost of the paint job, usually the exotic gets cheaper than maple
Yeah, I know what you mean, if you get Warmoth to paint a maple or mahogany neck it can be another $95.
I'd quite like a Canary neck..... but as usual, they hardly ever appear in the Showcase.
-
Some unconventional woods look REALLY purdy too.
-
bit of both, here. For the "classic" guitars, I like them to be "right". For more modern guitars, I don't care as long as it does the sound I want. I have a similar philosophy with amps (and fx, i guess).
I didn't vote as I got confused with the options... :lol: I don't think any of those three is exactly what I'm saying.
-
I've got no idea what the tonal difference is but I like me some weird-assed wood pr0nz. :)
*Possesses a few oddities*
-
Looks like most of us dont really care what the wood is called.
Anyone actually got any guitars made largely from a non-standard wood? I'm not just talking about a fretboard here, either!
-
Does korina count? Probably not, they were using it 50 years ago!
-
I'm up for a non-conventional wood as long as I know somewhat what the characteristics are.
MDV mentioned birch, so I'll wander a bit into that. Might actually be useful information for some! I don't own any guitar with birch (yet!), but a finnish company here uses it very much. Ruokangas guitars, http://www.ruokangas.com/ (http://www.ruokangas.com/). Below is an example picture of one of their models with (Duke), which has a flamed birch top. The body and neck are spanish cedar, the fretboard ebony.
Birch is very much like maple in tone. I also mentioned spanish cedar, which is what Ruokangas found is very close in tone to the mahogany used in the old Gibsons and such. And lightweight too. If you do the math, you probably know what sort of tone that guitar model goes for ;)
(http://wallpapers.bpix.org/wallpapers/60/Ruokangas_Guitars%2C_Duke_Series.jpg)
-
I'm really interested in trying stuff that is definitely not (usually) on the menu for guitars. In real terms though most of us have a guitar that contains material we have never actually heard of. Manufacturers use all sorts of sorts of timbers that are universally described as "mahogany" (anything vaguely pink) maple (anything white that is relative;y strong) and so on. A guitar with a "mahogany" body could in reality be made of Sapele, Afromosia, Meranti, Luan and god knows how many other pinkish woods. So I guess we're all up for trying things that are not on the list of usual suspects; intentionally or not.
Cheers,
-
The main interest for me would be to find a species close to in tone to the 'traditional' woods; like Juha Ruokangas did with spanish cedar, as getting good and (relatively) lightweight mahogany is getting harder, at least in large quantities.
Grr, off-topic but I don't want to start another thread about it. For the luthiers here, what exactly do you do when you rate wood for instrument use? Weight, visual aspects, tap tone (what do you listen for..?), grain? I genuinely want to know :) I guess it's up to the individual luthier..
Why I want to know is that it would be nice to find a plank of really nice wood laying around somewhere in my familys possession, and then having a luthier build me a guitar from that ;) That would bring a certain vibe.
-Zaned
-
The main interest for me would be to find a species close to in tone to the 'traditional' woods;
Well, I'm sure there are a lot out there that are similar in archetypal sound to the standard stuff, but surely its at least as interesting to use woods that have their own strengths not normally found in the traditional woods?
Meranti for example, that Bob mentions, has the best qualities of mahogany (low end and mids) and swamp ash (chimey high end and more of it, and more tightness in the lows), and bobs making a guitar for me now thats mostly meranti for this reason.
-
Well, I'm sure there are a lot out there that are similar in archetypal sound to the standard stuff, but surely its at least as interesting to use woods that have their own strengths not normally found in the traditional woods?
Meranti for example, that Bob mentions, has the best qualities of mahogany (low end and mids) and swamp ash (chimey high end and more of it, and more tightness in the lows), and bobs making a guitar for me now thats mostly meranti for this reason.
Good point. I guess my desire for a 'substitute' is about finding a good quality replacement for something that is not found anymore for a reasonable price. We guitarist are sometimes (read that as 'almost always') a quite traditionalist bunch :) We compare new things to what has been used for decades.
But what I like is that sort of tone reference what you gave on Meranti. You know what to expect, at least to some extenct. It's nice to hear if the luthier can say how the wood would generally sounds in an LP style guitar, or in a bolt-on strat.
-Zaned
-
Surely any discussion of this type needs a mention of the Taylor 'Pallet Guitar'
This was an acoustic guitar made by Bob Taylor from an old (probably oak) shipping pallet that had been in the back of the factory for a few years, and a piece of 2x4, of unknown wood type, complete with nail holes. It was basically made to demonstrate how the skill of the luthier and the guitar design is more important than the materials; it was taken to many guitar shows and by all accounts it sounded amazing, though I never heard it myself (and don't much like acoustic guitars in any case.)
-
I've got some unconventional wood. In my pants.
-
I have quite a lot of different woods in my guitars (especially in necks). I have had an all walnut guitar for almost 20 years and that probably started me (though years ago I had a custom built LP Special with an all mahogany body and a birdseye maple neck - very 70's!).
Besides the standards, I have necks in aframosa, wenge, goncalo alves, bloodwood (satine), purpleheart, anigre and rosewood with fingerboards in kingwood, pau ferro, bloodwood and aframosa. All of them came from Warmoth and some were special orders for me to see what they sounded like.
I am one of the people who does believe that the wood makes a difference to the tone and having these different woods has shown me that I am right! The pickups can then make a big difference to the overall sounds, but the initial characteristics are from the wood, and so the final sound of the guitar will still have that in it, and the overall attack comes just from the wood imho.
-
Besides the standards, I have necks in aframosa, wenge, goncalo alves, bloodwood (satine), purpleheart, anigre and rosewood with fingerboards in kingwood, pau ferro, bloodwood and aframosa. All of them came from Warmoth and some were special orders for me to see what they sounded like.
Do you have any particular favourites (for necks, fingerboards or neck/fingerboard combinations) out of all those, Phil?
-
Besides the standards, I have necks in aframosa, wenge, goncalo alves, bloodwood (satine), purpleheart, anigre and rosewood with fingerboards in kingwood, pau ferro, bloodwood and aframosa. All of them came from Warmoth and some were special orders for me to see what they sounded like.
Do you have any particular favourites (for necks, fingerboards or neck/fingerboard combinations) out of all those, Phil?
I like the goncalo alves/kingwood and the bloodwood/ebony a lot. I forgot that I also have a ziracote fingerboard on my Wez JB SG, which is really nice too. Probably the one that I think doesn't do a lot for the tone would be the aframosa (it is a one piece neck too), though it might be that I was expecting too much or it might work better with different body wood and pickups (I have it with swamp ash and a set of apaches with baseplates).
-
normal stuff here - boring i know ;)
-
I went for option 2, on the basis that most of my guitars are made from the usual suspects, but I went for a koa top on my Warmoth Soloist, and will almost certainly build/have something built in the future that uses some 'different' timber as a major part of it.
-
Martin do an acoustic that has a neck made of thin strips (1.5mm - 2mm thick?) of timber glued up into a block that the neck assembly is machined from . The body back and sides are made from some sort of plastic laminate (wearite / formica?) with a wood grain finish but glued together in the traditional way. The top (sound board), is a nice piece of Sitka Spruce and the overall sound is really quite impressive. Of course the Martin purists are not too impressed but what the hell; a Martin that actually sounds like a Martin for £300; gimme more!
Just to clear up a point about me trying to advance the cause for meranti as a tonewood; it has to be Dark red meranti; DRM as it is refered to at timber suppliers. Unfortunately the price of DRM has more than doubled in the last year and is about three times the price it was three years ago. You just can't keep a good thing secret.
Having worked with Mark (MDV) for the best part of a year on this idea of a guitar fabricated from different materials to nail a particular, very specific, tone I'm seriously considering specialising in this form of guitar construction in future. It holds great promise!
-
Hi Bob,
could you (or any other luthier here) enlighten me? What are the aspects on which you rate wood for instrument use? Weight, grain orientation, visual aspects, tap tone..especially the tap tone interests me, what are you looking for? Different things of course for body and neck woods. Like I said in a previous post, I genuinely want to know. Still the daydream of finding some old wood stashed somewhere and having a guitar made of that.. :lol:
If it's a personal recipe or something like that, it's ok 8)
Thanks in advance!
-Zaned
-
Well, I'm not a luthier and cant speak as to wood selection as per specific peices of woods tonal properties in that regard, but with the legra I have (c'mon bob, its been ~3 years or more in the making, really! The MDV602 was the seed), the MDV602, and with the design of the current one, the tone of the woods (however bob selects/determines that) AND the structure of the guitar were considered in great detail to achieve the desired tone.
-
Hi Bob,
could you (or any other luthier here) enlighten me? What are the aspects on which you rate wood for instrument use? Weight, grain orientation, visual aspects, tap tone..especially the tap tone interests me, what are you looking for? Different things of course for body and neck woods. Like I said in a previous post, I genuinely want to know. Still the daydream of finding some old wood stashed somewhere and having a guitar made of that.. :lol:
If it's a personal recipe or something like that, it's ok 8)
Thanks in advance!
-Zaned
Basically woods used in guitars need reasonable mechanical strength to withstand string tensin and handling. Ideally it should also be free from resin pockets ('cos they're just plain messy) which unfortunately excludes some very usefull woods.
After that it's a matter of thinking about what type of sound you want; harder woods like maple tend to accentuate high frequencies and softer materials tend to favour lower frequencies. There are exceptions to this general rule; really light swamp ash for instance has a lot of open grained pulpy material between harder strata so it tends to be warmer sounding but with loads of attack and sustain. Brian May's guitar is made out of oak, blockboard, mahogany veneer and an old stainless steel knitting needle; you won't find that in any of the text books.
Theres's more detail here http://www.legraguitars.co.uk/construction.htm and even more detail from the link at the bottom of that page.
Hope that helps,
Cheers
-
Great, thanks!
-Zaned
-
Basically woods used in guitars need reasonable mechanical strength to withstand string tensin and handling. Ideally it should also be free from resin pockets ('cos they're just plain messy) which unfortunately excludes some very usefull woods.
After that it's a matter of thinking about what type of sound you want; harder woods like maple tend to accentuate high frequencies and softer materials tend to favour lower frequencies. There are exceptions to this general rule; really light swamp ash for instance has a lot of open grained pulpy material between harder strata so it tends to be warmer sounding but with loads of attack and sustain. Brian May's guitar is made out of oak, blockboard, mahogany veneer and an old stainless steel knitting needle; you won't find that in any of the text books.
Theres's more detail here http://www.legraguitars.co.uk/construction.htm and even more detail from the link at the bottom of that page.
Hope that helps,
Cheers
Hey Bob,
Just where did you dig up that info on May's guitar? Have you ever actually held the red special!?!?!?!?
-
Hey Bob,
Just where did you dig up that info on May's guitar? Have you ever actually held the red special!?!?!?!?
I've built a couple of replicas and the guy I built the first one for had a huge portfolio of info including photographs of the guitar taken when it was being worked on by someone he knew (pic attached; hopefully)
Since then I've done more research on it; there's tons of stuff on the net and there's even a guy in Japan that produces replicas of all the bridge and trem parts as well as complete guitars.
-
Just wanted to add that the pics are of the original Red Special not one of my replicas!
-
Just wanted to add that the pics are of the original Red Special not one of my replicas!
Phew
Good catch
I mean
errrr
I wonder why you'd say that?
-
slightly off topic but what about combining woods with something like carbon fibre? the process parker flys use seems expensive, but I've seen sheets of carbon fibre for a tenner, so I was thinking it might be cheap and easy to add to the body of a guitar so you could make the body thinner or add more sustain, or maybe use it for floyd rose blocks and plate thingies
would any of this work or is it more about the wood mass than the strength?
-
I have been intrigued by Walnut forever.
-
Just wanted to add that the pics are of the original Red Special not one of my replicas!
Phew
Good catch
I mean
errrr
I wonder why you'd say that?
lol, not sure, but now I'm really curious how much a Legra take on the red special would look/sound/set me back, given my fandom of Queen and my penchant for red guitars......
Bob when you do these one off replica's of other signature guitars do you have to refrain from posting them on your site to avoid getting tangled in legal mumbo jumbo?
-
lol, not sure, but now I'm really curious how much a Legra take on the red special would look/sound/set me back, given my fandom of Queen and my penchant for red guitars......
Bob when you do these one off replica's of other signature guitars do you have to refrain from posting them on your site to avoid getting tangled in legal mumbo jumbo?
That's a complicated question 'cos the answer is different in almost every case. What is embarrasing is when people use words like Tele or Les Paul when they review them as these are registered trade marks that I would never use myself but could still drop me in the proverbial cr@p.
In the case of the Red Special the replicas differ from the original in a number of ways; for instance the bridge and trem arrangement isn't very user friendly and the short scale very fat neck would be unplayable for many people so those features tend to get changed. Andrew Guyton has done a limited run of replicas with Brian May's co-operation and these are accurate in every respect except the neck profile I think. The guy in Japan who's name escapes me for the moment also makes fairly accurate replicas.
-
I have two strats, one made of alder and the other of agathis. The former is bright, slightly twangy and has an overwound MQ sitting comfortably in the bridge. The latter is a bit dark and not too clear acoustically, but a Holydiver in the bridge has actually managed to work wonders for it.
When new guitar time rolls around, I definitely want to try a new wood that sounds different from the norm and from what I already have. I don't mind heavy guitars (for now) but I don't want mahogany 'cause it's become typical and is rather expensive. Any "unconventional" woods I could get from warmoth on the cheap?
I'm considering ash since I like the way mids sizzle on it, but that's conventional.
-
Agathis is one of the woods that gets used in place of mahogany for being pink and more readily available/cheaper. I dont have terribly good experience with it (same as yours - lifeless, dead) but I dont know if thats indicative of the wood in general or just horrible bits of it that end up in £300 LTDs. I've heard mahogany sound as bad in far more expensive gutiars...who knows.
Good on you for wanting to go out of your way to try something different! 'Fraid I cant really recommend any for sizzly mids specifiically. Maybe DRM though, given the references to ash and mahogan
-
Since then I've done more research on it; there's tons of stuff on the net and there's even a guy in Japan that produces replicas of all the bridge and trem parts as well as complete guitars.
That's Kazutaka at K'z guitar works. His Red Special Pro was amazing (but I guess too expensive to continue to make). Here's an English link http://www.kzguitarworks.com/englishpages/e_products.html (http://www.kzguitarworks.com/englishpages/e_products.html) and a Japanese one for Cap'nDesslock http://www.kzguitarworks.com/ (http://www.kzguitarworks.com/)
Back to woods, I'm really intrigued by Godin and their silver leaf maple/poplar bodies. Has anyone tried one?
-
Back to woods, I'm really intrigued by Godin and their silver leaf maple/poplar bodies. Has anyone tried one?
I really Godin guitars; they're always stretching the envelope with the things they do. Maple and poplar mixes work really well; one version of BB King's "Lucille" was a maple / poplar / maple sandwich.
-
Back to woods, I'm really intrigued by Godin and their silver leaf maple/poplar bodies. Has anyone tried one?
yeah, but ages back. I can't really remember much about it, other than I liked it. I wish there were more godin dealers here in ireland, they're one of those "good value" brands which it seems like the shops don't want you to know about... :lol: Only thing I don't like is that it's a pretty steep mark-up for the ones with figured tops, and they're only a veneer too, I think. Of course, the ones with the figured tops look much nicer... :lol:
-
A mate of mine, very good guitarist, swears by his godin.
Alas I've never played one.
-
I have a couple of guitars which are not quite standard materials. A Gibson blueshawk which is similar to the bb guitar bob mentioned with popular and maple body. Also the first guitar I built due to what I could get my hands on was Padauk body with bublinga neck and ebony board, and it sounds great though being a single coil sort of strat style I might change the neck at sometime as with the very hardwood of the body and the ebony board can make it a bit to bright and with if anything to much attack.
-
Alas I've never played one.
have you secretly been reading lord of the rings again?