Does the age of the wood effect how a guitar sounds?

[Mycroft]

The Mahogany on the back of my custom McAlister was cut over 200 years ago, and salvaged, for example. And there is Laurie Williams 5000 year old Kauri guitars, from New Zealand.

If it sounds good, does it really matter?

[abn556]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

The Mahogany on the back of my custom McAlister was cut over 200 years ago, and salvaged, for example. And there is Laurie Williams 5000 year old Kauri guitars, from New Zealand.

If it sounds good, does it really matter?

Everybody wants their stuff to be some kind unobtanium. I have noticed this trait more in guitar players than any other hobby group of people that I’ve ever associated with. Its very predictable and gets a bit tiresome. If I had a nickel for every time I heard some guy tell me about his special this or that guitar that was some kind of non-documented one off that was slipped out of the back door of Gibson when no one was looking. There’s always a barely credible sounding story that accompanies these claims. If you don’t believe, spend a few hours looking at some of the things people say on Reverb ads.

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[Talk2Me]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

The Mahogany on the back of my custom McAlister was cut over 200 years ago, and salvaged, for example. And there is Laurie Williams 5000 year old Kauri guitars, from New Zealand.

If it sounds good, does it really matter?

Does it matter? To the sound? Probably. To the look? Not likely. To playability? Not hardly? So you can make a fuss and get potential buyers to pay more money? Oh yeah.

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

The Mahogany on the back of my custom McAlister was cut over 200 years ago, and salvaged, for example. And there is Laurie Williams 5000 year old Kauri guitars, from New Zealand.

If it sounds good, does it really matter?

If it sounds good/great/pick your superlative...TO YOU...then NO...it absolutely DOES NOT MATTER how old the tree/wood was when cut, how long it sat after cutting and/or processing into raw tonewood including being torrefied...these days, how long it sat on the tonewood suppliers shelf before being bought by a builder, and how long the builder had it before they used it.

Old Growth, Second Gen Growth, Third Gen Growth, Super Rare and Exotic or Super Plain Jane and readily available...what matters is that the wood was well cut for the purpose of making a guitar, and that it is alive in a vibrational/musical sense, and the builder does a good job of working it properly for the type of guitar and tone he is after.

And that some player loves it when they play it in the end.

Unless of course, bragging rights and fever swamped guitar nerd envy and praise are also desired out of the guitar and the wood it is made of by the potential buyer.


duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher

[srick]

Now - if the pickups on that guitar were as old as the pyramids, that would be a different story altogether.

[fpuhan]

That this question should be posted in the electric guitars section of AGF is cause for laughter and merriment. With electrics, wood has little to no effect on tone.

[Mycroft]

Y'all do realize that it was a rhetorical question?

And the post was more about the fact that they found some 7500 year old wood buried in the oxygenless muck of a Chinese swamp, and built a guitar out of some of it.

Kind of neat, I thought. Apparently the electric guitar subforum thinks otherwise.

[Steve DeRosa]

When it comes to electric guitars the sound question is open to debate - I come down on the "yes" side, but YMMV...

What is less in question is that of stability: wood that has been aged/seasoned/air-dried for a century or two will be inherently less prone to the vagaries of temperature/moisture - and while such woods inherently command a healthy premium, it wasn't all that long ago that production-guitar stock was routinely air-dried/seasoned for a decade of more...

[abn556]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

When it comes to electric guitars the sound question is open to debate - I come down on the "yes" side, but YMMV...

What is less in question is that of stability: wood that has been aged/seasoned/air-dried for a century or two will be inherently less prone to the vagaries of temperature/moisture - and while such woods inherently command a healthy premium, it wasn't all that long ago that production-guitar stock was routinely air-dried/seasoned for a decade of more...

I think you can objectively say that wood does make a sound difference on electrics. I have an all mahogany bodied Custom Shop Les Paul Custom 57 Reissue. It has the same exact pups, wiring harness, and setup as my maple capped Les Paul Historics. It sounds different.

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[Glennwillow]

If it sounds good, does it really matter?

I think if it sounds good, that's pretty much all that matters. Looks matter for many of us, but sound and playability are the big things, I think.

Wood aging might make a difference in how an electric sounds, but I'm not sure I can hear any difference. In my own experience, I think my old Gibson ES-335 sounds the same today as it did when it was new 45 years ago.

I think an electric guitar sounds like its pickups and the wood on the guitar just holds things together in an assembly.

- Glenn

[TobyB]

It almost certainly will make a theoretical and real difference.
But ... in the grand scheme of things, it's probably trivial in significance... the sort of thing a small twist of the guitar and/or amp controls will adjust too.

"EVERYTHING matters" is a phrase that is parroted out in answer to similar questions... and whilst technically true ... i wonder whether anyone crunching the numbers from the latest experiments at the CERN LHC factors in the choice of wood and paint colour on the toilet doors?

[Russ C]

Literally - it does, but the difference in your strings by the end of set 1 is more imo.

[hubcapsc]

the choice of wood and paint colour on the toilet doors?

Bikeshedding...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

-Mike

[fpuhan]

We can probably blame Lester Polsfuss (aka Les Paul) for this never-ending "debate." Had he not attached guitar halves to "The log" -- for purely aesthetic reasons -- we might be playing electric guitars with a whole different look to them.



Here's my take, based on the fact that I own several non-wood guitars. The effect of wood on sound:

Acoustic guitars: Major
Hollowbody/semi-hollowbody electrics: Some
Slab (solidbody) or non-wood: None

(My aluminum-bodied Fender Stratocaster. Sounds like a... Strat)

[Guitarplayer_PR]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

The Mahogany on the back of my custom McAlister was cut over 200 years ago, and salvaged, for example. And there is Laurie Williams 5000 year old Kauri guitars, from New Zealand.

If it sounds good, does it really matter?

Not at all.