Guitar woods? Bah humbug!

[Racerbob]

While reading the article I was reminded of a recent video by Michael Watts about the custom Kostal MDW that was made for his somewhat similar comments on what he was looking for in the ultimate guitar for him.

[brianmay]

Originally Posted by A Scot in Otley

This amused me. An excerpt from a John Williams interview on guitar woods ... or more accurately, those who pontificate about guitar woods. Enjoy.

https://classicalguitarmagazine.com/...john-williams/

Didn't realise bah humbug was a wood . . . do you know its Latin name?

[Treenewt]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Actually, mulberry can make a darned good guitar. I came very close to having one made once.

While I haven't seen a mulberry guitar in person, I have seen quite a few Red Mulberry sets at a local supplier's shop, and they tapped pretty dang well. I was surprised, as I've had these trees in my yard over the years and it never occurred to me.

[rllink]

I always enjoy reading people's discourse on tonewoods. It is interesting all the differing opinions. But like a lot of things with guitars and guitar playing, I don't want to dive in so deep that I start drowning in it. I hear that as well in some people's voicing and I make a conscious attempt to not get pulled under.

[A Scot in Otley]

Originally Posted by brianmay

Didn't realise bah humbug was a wood . . . do you know its Latin name?

Lol. Nice one.

Tangentially, many years ago I'm sure I read that 'humbug' was a term for a fraud or something along those lines. I just thought it was a black and white striped boiled sweet

[RussellHawaii]

Two things I note from the article:
- It’s over 30 years old. Doesn’t change anything, but still.
- He mentions ‘Gerry Garcia’ in the first paragraph. I assume there’s a classical guitarist of this name? Or is he talking about Jerry?
Nothing but respect for John Williams. He does not dismiss the importance of tonewoods here, he emphasizes other aspects. I think.

[Ken Carr]

I still remember an old article in Wood and Steel magazine where Taylor made a spiffy looking guitar out of a wooden shipping pallet. I doubt it would sound as glorious as a guitar built out of "proper tone woods", but it might surprise us how good it does sound.

[John Arnold]

I built a few pallet guitars in the early-1980's.....long before Taylor. The pallet woods I used included curly hickory, ash, pecan, ambrosia maple, and walnut.
In my case, using pallets was a way to save money, since the wood was free.
I have long been an advocate of using domestic hardwoods instead of exotic tropicals that are increasingly threatened. Cherry, walnut, black locust, and osage orange are fine sounding woods.
Catalpa, mulberry, and sassafras are promising as well.

[roscoe2311]

Originally Posted by rllink

I always enjoy reading people's discourse on tonewoods. It is interesting all the differing opinions. But like a lot of things with guitars and guitar playing, I don't want to dive in so deep that I start drowning in it. I hear that as well in some people's voicing and I make a conscious attempt to not get pulled under.

Couldn't agree more with everything you said

[MinorMajor12th]

Interesting. On a related note, I recall reading an article, maybe a decade ago, about acoustic guitars and sustainable materials, with Chris Martin and Bob Taylor. They talked about the market challenges of using anything other than traditionally-accepted woods.

For a similar example, I have a sapele Martin 000-15. From what I recall, Martin was making the model in both mahogany and sapele, but so many buyers rejected the sapele versions that Martin added an "M" to the name and has only made them of mahogany since.

And even though mine has a marvelous depth of tone, I couldn't sell it for nearly as much. It is marred by stripey wood.

Just as well. I recently sold my more traditionally made, higher-end acoustic and kept the comparatively plain stripey satin brown one.

[Alan Carruth]

'Blind' tests of different B&S woods, such as in the 'Leonardo project', suggest that they make very little difference in the sound. I strongly suspect that the main variable there is density, possibly followed by damping, but it would take a lot of work to 'prove' any of that.

From what I've been able to tell spruce is spruce, with the possible (and questionable) exception of Sitka. Again, one of the main variables seems to be density. Redwood and WRC both have markedly lower damping than most spruces, so there could well be a difference between them and spruce, even if you control for density.

Like John, I've used a lot of different woods in building, and found it possible to get decent sound out of any of them if you use them right. Since it's probably not possible to make make guitars that sound exactly the same, even from well matched wood, I wonder how much difference using similar woods could make. Again, given that you'd need to make a fairly large number of instruments with exceedingly tight quality control to do a proper statistical workup, I don't think we'll ever settle the question.

[Glennwillow]

I have just about nothing to add to these discussions, but I find them very interesting, regardless. I always appreciate comments from the luthiers on the forum!

- Glenn

[koolimy]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

'Blind' tests of different B&S woods, such as in the 'Leonardo project', suggest that they make very little difference in the sound. I strongly suspect that the main variable there is density, possibly followed by damping, but it would take a lot of work to 'prove' any of that.

From what I've been able to tell spruce is spruce, with the possible (and questionable) exception of Sitka. Again, one of the main variables seems to be density. Redwood and WRC both have markedly lower damping than most spruces, so there could well be a difference between them and spruce, even if you control for density.

Like John, I've used a lot of different woods in building, and found it possible to get decent sound out of any of them if you use them right. Since it's probably not possible to make make guitars that sound exactly the same, even from well matched wood, I wonder how much difference using similar woods could make. Again, given that you'd need to make a fairly large number of instruments with exceedingly tight quality control to do a proper statistical workup, I don't think we'll ever settle the question.

I have a theory that's not founded in any sort of science or actual knowledge, that our brains are prediction machines which use our senses as inputs to create the sound or sight that we hear or see.

So we use all our inputs in recreating the sound we actually hear, and one of those inputs is our vision. When we have our vision available but suddenly lose our ability to use it, we lose the ability to recreate the whole sound we actually hear, similar to how things taste different when you lose the ability to smell. But when our vision is restored, we are suddenly able to perceive the minute differences. That's why actually playing a guitar is the best thing possible, because you have all your senses available to you (hearing, seeing, smelling, touch, hopefully not taste LOL).

Of course for people who lost their vision their body adapts to compensate for that loss of input, so their hearing allows them to perceive differences most people cannot perceive.

So my theory is that we actually hear with our eyes in a way LOL.

But this is totally non-scientific mumbo jumbo from a person who's just trying to rationalize why I could not hear the changes in guitars in the Leonardo project tests.

[mcduffnw]

To add to what Mr. Carruth and Mr. Arnold have said, here is a very interesting treatise from luthier and current/former??? Huss & Dalton employee John Calkin. This is just a small portion of the beginning of this article, which you can read in full out online. John wrote this back in the very early early 2000's I believe...but it is even more relevant today...IMO...than it was back when he first put it out there.

There is...in my personal opinion, and based on my 51 years of experience with guitars and being a guitar nerd...much MUCH truth in what John says. If you have not ever read the full article, do check it out!!!



A Heretic's Guide To Alternative Tonewoods by John Calkin

"Why do we even need alternative wood species for musical instruments? That's a perfectly valid question, and the answer is that we don't. Rosewood, mahogany and maple have served us well for centuries , we know what to expect of them, and our customers have already come to accept them as trustworthy and will pay for them. So why look further?
First of all (and speaking from a steel string guitar perspective), let's discard the notion that some species of wood make good instruments and that others don't. The concept of tonewood is a hoax. Of the few things that we can do to a guitar and still call it a guitar, changing the wood it is made of will have the least impact upon the quality of the sound that it produces. The tonal difference between a mahogany guitar and a rosewood guitar is exactly the same as the difference between two mahogany guitars or two rosewood guitars. Can you tell what a guitar is made of while listening to an unfamiliar recording? No one I know claims they can. No one at the blind listening sessions I've attended could reliably distinguish between mahogany and rosewood guitars, or maple and koa guitars for that matter.
Guitars sound like guitars. No matter how poorly or bizarrely they are made, you'll never confuse the natural sound of an acoustic guitar with that of a banjo, a mandolin, a drum or a flute. Obviously, not all guitars sound alike, but even when we think we can distinguish a night-and-day difference, it won't be so extreme that one will sound like a guitar and another won't. We may have a strong preference for one or another, but they will all sound like guitars. If they didn't, they would be called something else.
The tone of a guitar lies more in the hands of the builder than in the materials from which it is constructed. With increased experience, the level of craftsmanship increases. As the quality of the luthier's instruments goes up, the tonal difference between the instruments goes down. There are not only fewer dogs, but it becomes more difficult to build one that stands noticeably above the others. I noted this phenomenon in my mountain dulcimers years ago, and more recently have seen it happen to my guitars.
Psychoacoustics plays such a large role in this matter that it's difficult to discuss tone objectively. ( I think that it's called psychoacoustics because trying to figure out stringed instruments will make you psycho.) We hear what we expect to hear, what we have been taught to hear, what we want to hear, and often what we hope to hear. Many luthiers and musicians alike spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars collecting information and recordings and they have come to have a stake in the sanctity of its rightness. They need the vast body of instrument mythology to be correct, and strongly oppose the possibility that it may be bogus. This makes it extremely difficult for a daring luthier to sell instruments that aren't made of standard varieties of wood..."



Words of wisdom from a man who lives the life of which he speaks...


duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Actually, mulberry can make a darned good guitar. I came very close to having one made once.

It makes a fine vintage...and modern vintage replica?...field hockey stick as well {;-)


duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher