Acoustic guitar top woods

[FernandoDuarte]

Hey guys!!

I'm planning ordering a custom acoustic guitar and would like to know if someone can help me with woods for the top...

The backwood and the model is pretty much set up as, when I was drunk by sleepyness, ordered a striped Macassar Ebony back for small guitar (7-1/4" wide) thru LMII... This sets me on the martin 00 model:


Obvious, I'm not ordering a martin. I'm going to have a brazilian luthier building it.

My main resource used to "decide" on the back and my thoughts now about topwood was the Taylor website... On these pages talking about wood and tone:
http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/features/woods/Tone/
http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/features/woods/BodyWoods/?bw=macassar
http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/features/woods/TopWoods/

Now I'm thinking on the top... One of the luthiers that I get the first contact about building a guita, some months ago said to avoid Rosewood and go for the Mahogany as I want a big fat tone... As Macassar seems to be close to mahogany (with a tad more highs) and it's very beautyfull I went for it, in a GAS moment...

So, I'm trying to figure what shall I use to keep the tone fat... Though first on the Engelmann, Carpathian or the Adirondack Spruce. They seems to have more mids and fuller sound than Sitka.... Then I thought about putting a Mahogany top... Not sure if it's a good idea...

Does anybody here has any thoughts about it?
Thanks!!
Fernando Esteves

[WezV]

i like the warmth of red cedar

[Elliot]

 I agree with Wes - I have a Macassar body/cedar acoustic and it sounds great.  Just out of interest- why OO?  I would associate that with fingerstyle and thus a Martin style rosewood/sitka combo to get the notes to jump out. 

[FernandoDuarte]

Thanks for the idea! What do you think would be the difference from red cedar vs redwood??

Well, was a sum of things:

1st - I usually don't like the tone people gets from steel string - too thin and brittle, wanted something more alike a nylon sound (I don't like to play on nylon strings...  :roll: )

then was like going against dreadnought, because of this and because everybody have it and I wanted something different...

And then I had some cheap-a$$ internet search and people where saying on acoustic foruns that this guitar is good... words like "cannon", "big sound for the size" and things alike, made me think it could be cool...

Mind that I know very little about acoustics, this was not really a decision made by knowledge :lol:

[Telerocker]

I had a Seagull with cherry sides and cedar tops and it sounded stellar. Only sold it bec the electronics (high E was way too soft) didn't work live as I wanted. I like the fullness and warmth, the nice round highs, of red cedar. If you're a fingerpicker you will like more the attack and crispiness of palissander sides/back and spruce top.

[FernandoDuarte]

No, I play with flatpick and believe I'm a heavy hand, comparing to the guitar players I see... So I was told to avoid the cedar and redwood because of it, said that they do not work very well on high volume...

Thinking now in Adirondack Spruce, read that it is the "fatter" spruce...

[Telerocker]

Well, that is very nice tonewood too.

[FernandoDuarte]

Wood porn!!!

[Telerocker]

Yeah, that's adult stuff  :lol:

[FernandoDuarte]

Yeah, that's adult stuff  :lol:

;)