rosewood vs mahogany

[acoustic]

hi there from new zealand,
i would like to know how much difference the back and sides make to the overall tone of an acoustic..
i was told that the soundboard makes up for 99.9%of the tone.

[trombone]

Maybe not that much, but a lot of it.

I would liken it to a good suit --

The soundboard would be the quality of the material, and the back and sides the color of the material. No matter how good the material is, if it's a horrible puce and magenta paisley polkadotted mess, nobody will want you to wear it. Meaning, the back and sides contribute enough to the tone to be picky about them, too. After playing hundreds of instruments (besides my own), I can say that this is more true than the soundboard statement. Otherwise, why wouldn't they take the cheap way out with lots of veneers? You can often get prettier wood that way.

[LarryH in Texas]

Hi, Jules,

If you do a search on "tonewood" on the forum, you should find several threads that talk about the various tonewoods and their characteristic "sounds".

Rosewood (back and sides) has a bass-y, more fundamental sound, maple has a very bright sound, mahogany is somewhere in between. You'll also find discussions of the tonal qualities of koa, cocobolo and the other woods Taylor (as well as other manufacturers) uses.

You'll also find some discussion of the tonewoods in the large Taylor catalogs on past years, perhaps also on Taylor's web site.

Hi Jules. Whomever told you that was either having fun with you at your expense or they didn't really know much about acoustics or they were trying to push you into buying guitar with plywood sides and back so they could make a bigger profit.

I'm not sure you will get any unanimous agreement on the exact amount of tone that comes from the top vs. sides vs. back vs. neck/headstock vs. other parts (bridge/saddle/nut/pins/etc.) since there will be variations from one guitar to the next. While it is true that the top contributes the most, the back and sides also contribute a fair amount. You can tell this yourself by sitting down and A/B listening to similarly constructed acoustics (for example a bunch of Taylors) but with different solid sides and backs such as rosewood, maple, koa, mahogany, etc. There will be a very noticeable difference in the tones you hear. Then A/B these with ones with plywood sides and backs and you will hear the solid wood ones having much richer and more complex tones and undertones. Then, if you could own a number of them and play them over the years, the solid wood ones would noticeably improve their sound even beyond what they started with while the plywood ones with solid tops would not improve as much as only their top wood would open up. The more you play acoustics, the more you hear these differences.

[JayGon]

I agree with Jim. You can simplify and control the exercise by using the exact same body styles and tops (strings should be the same, too, if possible) and vary the backs and sides, say with a 514 and 714 with cedar tops, or an 810 and 610 with Sitka tops, etc. Believe me, you'll notice a difference. Plus, it'll be fun playing all the different Taylors.

Jay