All good points. After a handful of commissions, I’ve become much less concerned with the species of wood and more concerned with the quality of specific sets a builder might have. In my first commissions, I wanted to manage every minute detail. These days, I give builders quite a bit of latitude to decide on materials. I often ask builders what they have in their woodpile that excites them and go from there. I have some general boundaries around what I like, but I find it more fun to let builders that I trust make the decisions about the materials. I’ve played so many good guitars from virtually every variety of spruce that I generally don’t sweat the top species much (I start with red spruce but can be convinced otherwise). For back and sides, honestly there are so many materials that make insane guitars that I am highly suggestible in this regard.
My current theory of commissioning guitars is to give the builder a lot of latitude to do what excites THEM. That has played out very well for me but requires, in my opinion, a lot of faith in the builder. When I’m working with someone like Burton or Slobod, I’m more than happy to say, “What do you have on hand that really excites you?”
Brazilian, Madrose, EIR, cocobolo, koa, ABW, maple, mahogany, you name it. It can all be amazing. With the right builder, I could be convinced to use just about any of them. If you don’t have the right builder, none of this stuff matters one iota.
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