Tonewoods: underrated and overrated

[redir]

The word 'tonewood' is overrated. Any wood is a tonewood it just depends on what tone you are after and how you put it together to get it.

[Otterhound]

I agree with the OP .
Tonewoods : underrated and overrated .
Well said sir .

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by redir

The word 'tonewood' is overrated. Any wood is a tonewood it just depends on what tone you are after and how you put it together to get it.

That's a pet peeve of mine. Why not just call it 'wood'.

[Guitarplayer_PR]

Originally Posted by stringjunky2

That's a pet peeve of mine. Why not just call it 'wood'.

Because not all wood is used for guitar making/playing.

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by Guitarplayer_PR

Because not all wood is used for guitar making/playing.

When we talk about wood for guitars, that it is 'tonewood' is a given.

[jessupe]

Originally Posted by stringjunky2

That's a pet peeve of mine. Why not just call it 'wood'.

because when you put the word "tone" in front of it you can charge 10 times as much for the exact same wood species and grade that is not "tone wood"

what you really want is luthier sifted wood that has been properly seasoned and stored

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by jessupe

because when you put the word "tone" in front of it you can charge 10 times as much for the exact same wood species and grade that is not "tone wood"

what you really want is luthier sifted wood that has been properly seasoned and stored

It becomes a veblen good. Put 'Dior' on a pair of jeans it becomes haute couture.

[muscmp]

purely subjective question.
answer: i don't find any overrated nor underrated. i love them all and that is why i have a variety.

play music!

[Tony Burns]

I guess its more of a personal thing - what i like you may not like and visa versa - I feel that sapelle , Walnut ( figured of course ) and Hard rock Maple are three tone woods Id like to see more of .( feel their underrated ) and dont feel any wood is over rated . Sound depends on allot of things, just picking a tone wood and giving it a thumbs down doesn't seem right to me - i own a Goodell AKS and it is a great guitar ( a few of you folks dont like Koa -I feel it depends on who uses it and how they use it -as with any tone wood ) Maple ( with its many varieties ) is also a phenominal tone wood with allot of personalities .

[printer2]

Originally Posted by Guitarplayer_PR

Because not all wood is used for guitar making/playing.

Darn rights. Some are used in house construction. Like this 2"x4" before I saved it from that fate. But it did need some work.







The fretboard will be going on once I finish the balsa guitar.



Well the neck and fretboard isn't balsa.


I just didn't have time to go to the tonewood store so I made due with what I had.

[jessupe]

Originally Posted by muscmp

purely subjective question.
answer: i don't find any overrated nor underrated. i love them all and that is why i have a variety.

play music!

Well unfortunatley I think there is a little more on the line than peoples preferences.

We must understand that when groups of people, for what ever reason come to believe that "this" "stuff" is better than "that" stuff a snowball effect of group think takes over and as time goes by we have what we have with ebony,brw,eir and other species that were "hunted" to the brink of extinction, this of course has a devastating effect on the species itself, but also a ricochet effect that bounces all over the place destroying other life that relied on these forests for their ecosystem.

We have a "western" mentality that very easily looks away and has no problem sending money over to some "locals" to go "find" "material" in unmanaged wild environments so they can supply the "machine" that consumes these materials at unchecked and unprecedented rates. So you can have your "preferences" and have Eir with a nice pure black ebony with no streaks, many have of course been conditioned to wants such things cause thats what a Martin has, for example.

Now recently we have Cites and the Lacey act and while its "nice" to have some effort made towards saving these species but laws generally are cumbersome and often have unintended consequences such as creating black markets and actually increasing the devastation based on driving up the price...

So what this all comes down to is changing peoples ways of thinking. A good place to start is to ask how is it or why is it that I think what I do about any particular thing, because the more you look at and ask these questions the more the answers become "cause that's the way it is, everyone knows that, everyone thinks that, because those guys did it that way and that the way its always done" and frankly we can;t afford to be that naive and complacent because at a certain point it turns form complacent to complicit. Quite simply being too ignorant,naive, uneducated and uncaring to do anything about it because you don't know any better soon turns into knowing what you are doing,knowing it is environmentally and morally incorrect andstill doing it anyway...

So this is no personal attack on you what so ever, please don't take it that way, this is more of a plea saying " the mantra of; get what pleases you/me personally" of what ever may be out there in the market, to; endangered woods should be phased out of use and looked at like wearing fur coats.

I think older builders who have stashes of wood should be free to use that stuff, but until the day we have hydroponic indoor managed forest facilities pumping out all these endangerd species like a factory farm for consumption, the only way I see to stop the madness is to change the way people think...Go Maple, Walnut, use semi precious stones,not abalone , there are plenty of fast growing managed species that are spit out like a farm and they are very usable for making just fine instruments

There is a song that plays in every forest, it is the song that all the creatures that live in that forest make, their song is now a sad song, it is a song of the end, the permanent death of what they are, their species going extinct, the only way that song will continue to live is if you, and everyone around you wakes up to the fact that the "do your own thing" ie. continue to use and buy instruments made with these species is the wrong way to look at it...

To take a much more proactive approach to making it 'wrong" to even think about using these materials in my mind is the way to go

Don't rely on laws to tell you what the right thing to do is, just know what the right thing to do is and do it.

I have very little "exotic materials" , I will use what I have,asit was already killed and I very much believe in the way of the american Indian and using every precious drop of what gave its life for you, but in the mean time I very proactively promote the use of the many materials that are out there that can be and are properly managed, things that don't kill the birds song forever so I can play one on my guitar

Sorry, end of the save the world rant

[MichaelD23]

I realize this thread is almost a year old but I came across it while searching for something else and found that I wanted to chime in. I have an S-body electric made of Paulownia (fastest growing hardwood known) and it rocks. Super light, good sustain, visually pleasing. Not sure how effective it would be for acoustic guitar construction, but for an electric body no problem.

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7

Overated:
Any tonewood not selected by a builder skilled in the art, used to make a guitar by a builder who does not know how to properly work with it.

Underated:
Any tonewood selected by a builder skilled in the art, used to make a guitar by a builder who knows how to properly work with it.

My $.02

I'd find it easier to answer the OPs question if he had said "over-used" and "under-used".

[drbluegrass]

I think one of the best kept secrets in acoustic guitar woods is grenadillo. But the word is slowly leaking out. Especially with the relatively recent success of the Prewar Guitar Company offerings.

[Muddslide]

I definitely do think certain woods can be said to have certain tonal characteristics in general but I also think this can be greatly overstated.

No two guitars are going to sound identical even if they are made of the exact same woods with the exact same construction and rolled out of the shop or factory back to back with consecutive serial numbers.

There are just so many contributing variables, as well outlined in some of the quotes below:

Originally Posted by vindibona1

It's simple: THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PART. Wood selection on the back, top, sides are single components that CONTRIBUTE to the whole instrument, but none can be lumped into one category.

And let's not forget that every unit that should sound identically often do not.

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

Given the range of variation in properties within any given wood species, picking one species out as 'superior' or 'inferior' is unjustified, particularly if it's done on the basis of a single, or a few, examples. Given that, I'd have to say that any wood species that is considered to be 'magic' in and of itself is over rated. It is distressingly easy to make a poor guitar out of great wood: simply using 'the best' species won't guarantee great sound.

Some important points here. One of the things this touches on (and which was echoed by a few other posters I didn't quote here) is the idea that scarcity and/or expense automatically equates to something being "better" or higher quality, and of course this is nonsense.

Brand name on the headstock, year of build, country of origin, woods used and price tag have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with quality or what may be perceived as "better."

Beyond that, of course, concepts such as "better" and "quality" are entirely subjective. One simply cannot validly state that X wood is superior to Y. It's purely subjective based on the tastes, ears and experience of each individual. Is a pre-war Martin dread of spruce over rosewood "better" than a vintage mahogany-topped Gibson? Not objectively, no. Are either superior to a modern Taylor of koa or maple? No. It can't be asserted as a truism. Different players respond to different things for different reasons.

Originally Posted by JeffreyAK

Just off the top of my head, things that are more important than (or at least as important as) the variety of wood used to build the guitar include:
1) How hard the player picks the strings.
2) What picking instrument (flat pick, nails, fingers) and technique the player uses.
3) How many strings are usually ringing at any one time.
4) The string construction and gauge.
5) Tuning of the guitar (standard vs. alternative, up/down).
6) Whether or not your forearm rests on the top (I only recently discovered how much difference this makes with some guitars, including one of mine).
7) Guitar size, particularly top size.
8) How the guitar is constructed and braced, and by who.
9) Hearing ability of the player, particularly sensitivity to high frequencies that degrades with age.
10) Environment player is in when he plays, like room size and contents, wall proximity and angle, presence or absence of a big cushy couch, etc.

So I really don't think one can pick out a particular wood, particularly on the back and sides, as being either under or over-rated, given all the other variables that are at least as important to determining whether or not you like what you hear when you play.

^^^This. 100%, all day long.

Originally Posted by stringjunky2

People will believe what they want to believe because that choice of b&s wood is a feature they can control and highly visible. When I had my guitar built the luthier said to pick what I like the look of because he felt his actions overwhelmed any subtle differences.

^^^Also worthwhile to note.

Originally Posted by Fresh1985

Personally I think laminated guitars are underated, people seem to turn their noses up because they arent solid wood but they can still sound great, plus they are more or less immune to the effects of humidity and are difficult to damage.

Agree. I've been playing long enough to appreciate and be able to differentiate between construction types and solid vs. laminate. I've owned and played some exquisite guitars in my time. For where I am now in my life, playing, health-wise, and my aims in playing, good cheap laminates are more than sufficient, and technology has advanced to a degree that a guitar player can find very consistently decent guitars in any price range.

Another thing to consider is that aside from gear geeks like us, nobody else knows or cares what the guitar you are playing is made of, what it cost, etc.

And if you are playing through a mic or amplified, or playing with any other musicians, these subtle nuances are lost.

More, there are so many variables you can alter-- strings, picks, fingers, technique, etc., that can drastically change a guitar's voice that IMO have a more profound impact than wood.