Choosing the Right Woods for a Custom 7 Baritone?

[trem licking]

trem? if trem, i recommend something harder than basswood as its a soft wood and CAN make trem posts lean with time under string tension (yes, i know it can/does work and nearly every ibanez is basswood, but I've seen a number of them with ovaled post holes and tonewood does not exist so why chance it?). also, basswood dents easier yadda yadda.
No trem? any wood you like the look of. solid paintjob? cheapest wood. Natural/trans finish? wood you like the look of.
Long winded way of saying, don't pick your wood for tone.
Enjoy the process!

 

[AltecGreen]

hmm interesting, so there is at least some quantitative data showcasing variability between wood species and guitars. It's a shame that the only one that tries to address the player's perception of those differences didn't particularly flesh out their conclusion. That would be more in line with the general argument about tonewoods, is whether the average guitar player can accurately/reliably perceive those tonal changes.

I wish they would have delved further into how they accounted for the "identical construction" in the Itemm study. I wonder if they sourced the woods from the same trees, same billet, etc. I get that it's probably outside the scope of the study but it matters if the intent was for the guitars to be "identical".

Unfortunately, they did not go down that route. That would be a tricky task and one that required help from a luthier. They have done studies that included the actual player.

There's a fair amount of work although nothing with cutting edge scientific techniques. I doubt they could get funding for that kind of research.

 

[soldierkahn]

There's a LOOOTTT of guys on here that have been down the custom route before. Trust us when we say, don't go custom unless you actually know what you want. You'll just end up wasting time and money.

for the most part, I would definitely agree with that, but i also know that I wouldnt have learned half of what I know now without asking questions and sorting through feedback. it wasnt until i started really researching into the feedback that i got that I started really being able to understand how everything affects your sound, positively or negatively.

 

[Señor Voorhees]

so if you cant read tab, you shouldn't LEARN how to read it? you're not really bein helpful, but SSO will SSO.

Somebody didn't read my second post where I apologized.

edit: also, that's a bad analogy. lol

 

[Themistocles]

Im a bit of an alder fanatic... it isnt sexy, it isnt special but its light, tonally even handed and if you get a resonant piece it gives a lot of haptic feedback. I have a 7 with a through body alder neck and maple cap. Not certain if thats good in a baritone but Im a fanatic so this post is just an outlet for my quirk... it may be advisable to ignore me. That said its very different than a maple neck and with graphite rods is totally stable, also the lighter weight neck makes it balance better physically.

 

[soldierkahn]

Im a bit of an alder fanatic... it isnt sexy, it isnt special but its light, tonally even handed and if you get a resonant piece it gives a lot of haptic feedback. I have a 7 with a through body alder neck and maple cap. Not certain if thats good in a baritone but Im a fanatic so this post is just an outlet for my quirk... it may be advisable to ignore me. That said its very different than a maple neck and with graphite rods is totally stable, also the lighter weight neck makes it balance better physically.

if you're rocking a neck-through, i would venture to say you are hearing more maple than you are alder

 

[soldierkahn]

Somebody didn't read my second post where I apologized.

edit: also, that's a bad analogy. lol

the analogy was great, your argument was bad

 

[Strtsmthng]

if you're rocking a neck-through, i would venture to say you are hearing more maple than you are alder

I read ALDER NECK in his post though?
That's uncommon for an electric, maybe more common on a nylon string.

 

[soldierkahn]

I read ALDER NECK in his post though?
That's uncommon for an electric, maybe more common on a nylon string.

I think i might have misread it.... "I have a 7 with a through body alder neck and maple cap". i read that as maple neck with alder wings and a maple cap. do they make alder necks? i would think itd be too soft?

 

[budda]

Did we ever find out what the builder suggested?

 

[cip 123]

@budda out here still waiting to hear what the builder says like

 

[Bearitone]

Light. Rigid.

If you make it light and spec it right you will pick it up more often than any of your other guitars.

 

[teamSKDM]

id say also consider your finish. if youre going for a natural look id choose swamp ash or mahogany , but a painted finish of some kind on basswood would be fine. i had a natural finish basswood guitar and it was way too spongey of attack

 

[Themistocles]

I read ALDER NECK in his post though?
That's uncommon for an electric, maybe more common on a nylon string.

Yup you are correct. The neck through is quartersawn alder (like Holdsworth used on his first carvin axes). Its a thick maple top true... but its a shaft of red alder that runs through the guitar. Its interesting. Very unlike any other axe Ive played and though I dont believe the fundamental note and attack is effected much its really noticeable when sustaining a single note or a long doom chord. As a sustainable and available hardwood it has interesting properties.

 

[Themistocles]

I think i might have misread it.... "I have a 7 with a through body alder neck and maple cap". i read that as maple neck with alder wings and a maple cap. do they make alder necks? i would think itd be too soft?

Not too soft, its only a little softer than honduran mahogany and there are 2 beefy graphite reinforcing rods in the neck so its super stable for tuning and for weather changes. Holdsworth used it on some of his carvisn, which is why I felt comfortable with them doing it... they took thei time selecting the wood... it even has some fun grain.

Overall, I think its easy to read what is expected (I do it too)... its not like language on the internet is held to a high degree of precision. But yeah alder through body neck... koa sides and maple cap, ebony board. super lively and lots of overtones

 

[ElRay]

Here are some links to the journal articles. ...
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...the-sound-of-a-solid-body-electric-guitar.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...-time-of-solid-body-electric-guitar-tones.pdf
...

And this is why the anti-tone-wood-myth people slap their heads when pro-tone-wood-myth folks "cite" studies. These two articles do not even remotely show any predictive value of tone woods. The first maps-out dead spots and admits that they may change based on fretboard thickness, fret material, etc. - no mention of frequency/damping profiles that could be used to accurately and predictably affect the tone. The second paper focuses on string vibrations in a rigid frame that isolates the string from any potential "body wood" vibrations. It also touches on the effects of pick-ups, again diluting the tone wood is important myth.

I will admit, tone wood is the easiest thing to control, so you do get a lot of the "Well, the light is better over here ..." decision making.

 

[bostjan]

For neck stability, stiffness is more important than hardness. A spruce neck is stiffer than a maple neck, and spruce is a softwood. Of course, with a softer wood, you want to be more careful about banging the neck into anything. But, in terms of how well it will hold strings, stiffness.

The idea that only maple can be used to make a guitar neck is a myth perpetuated by the syrup industry. Actually, it's not; I just wanted to say that.

 

[ElRay]

... so there is at least some quantitative data showcasing variability between wood species and guitars ...

Look at figure 8 in:

Arthur Paté, Jean-Loic Le Carrou, Benoît Fabre. Modal parameter variability in industrial electric guitar making: Manufacturing process, wood variability, and lutherie decisions. Applied Acoustics, Elsevier, 2015, 96, pp.118-131. 10.1016/j.apacoust.2015.03.023 . hal-01148234

It very clearly shows there is ZERO predictable effect of maple vs rosewood as a fingerboard material on the string vibrations measured.

Arthur Paté, Jean-Loic Le Carrou, Benoît Navarret, Danièle Dubois, Benoît Fabre. A vibro-acoustical and perceptive Study of the neck-to-body Junction of a solid-body electric Guitar. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. hal-00810874

This one actually went the extra effort to start to investigate the effect of neck joint. They only had one each of neck-through, set-neck and bolt-on. To have any statistical validity, they'ed need at least 10 of each. That said, their one point data samples showed no predictable CONDUCTIVE variance at the bridge and relatively small differences in conductance at the fretting point of neck-through and set-neck. There was a shift in peak frequency in the bolt-on, but again, one data point really doesn't mean anything -- it could be some other aspect of that single guitar. However, the big thing is that there is no linking between location-specific conductances and the tone produced coming out of the speakers.

 

[The Spanish Inquisition]

 

[AltecGreen]

And this is why the anti-tone-wood-myth people slap their heads when pro-tone-wood-myth folks "cite" studies. These two articles do not even remotely show any predictive value of tone woods. The first maps-out dead spots and admits that they may change based on fretboard thickness, fret material, etc. - no mention of frequency/damping profiles that could be used to accurately and predictably affect the tone. The second paper focuses on string vibrations in a rigid frame that isolates the string from any potential "body wood" vibrations. It also touches on the effects of pick-ups, again diluting the tone wood is important myth.

I will admit, tone wood is the easiest thing to control, so you do get a lot of the "Well, the light is better over here ..." decision making.

Some of the papers I link discuss the techniques for measurements used by the main workers in this field. Also, I was responding to someone else and was talking about other measurements like the variability in measurement between guitars on of the same models. So yes many of the articles do not directly address the issue of tonewood since it was not the main purpose of my post.