Choosing the Right Woods for a Custom 7 Baritone?

[KnightBrolaire]

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.

Yeah I get that. I was merely commenting on how there was SOME quantitative data showcasing the variability of woods. I wasn't implying it was somehow statistically useful.

 

[Themistocles]

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.

The jelly/jam/compote fruit topping industry agrees and is prepared to reward us financially! (being in the pocket of the jelly industry! :O) Seriously though too many maple necked electric guitars... especially when reinforcements are so good these days.

This message brought to you by the good people at smuckers (aka the illuminati)

 

[teamSKDM]

okay so genuine tone wood debate question for some guys to ponder. I have a guitar with a floyd rose , locked at the nut and even after placing my hand on the fretboard to completely mute the strings if i pluck the strings BEHIND the nut they still ring out very loud and clearly. what is happenning here as far as how this sound is traveling to the pickup? alot of people say tonewood is unimportant as only the strings vibrating within the magnetic field of the pickup is what matter and wood is not magnetic , however im struggling to believe the sound is passing both through a tightly locked nut and my muting hand via the strings leading me to think that the sound must be traveling throught the entire guitar and the wood and being picked up by the pickups ? meaning that your pickups do infact pickup the sound that is traveling through the entire guitar and not just the strings themselves?

 

[Carl Kolchak]

I ended up going with a mahogany body and a maple cap. Should have a NGD post about it sometime next week. Yippee.

 

[Strtsmthng]

I ended up going with a mahogany body and a maple cap. Should have a NGD post about it sometime next week. Yippee.

Next week??!!! What builder is that?
Also, what did you pick for neck?

 

[nickgray]

alot of people say tonewood is unimportant

Relatively speaking, it is. Think about it - guitars with humbuckers sound way more similiar to one another compared to guitars with single coils, for example. You have pre-gain and post-gain EQ that can drastically change the sound, the IR (mic placement and choice of mics) has an enormous impact, the cab, the speakers.

How many albums have you listened to? And how many times have you thought "hey, this dude's playing a mahogany guitar with a maple cap"?

meaning that your pickups do infact pickup the sound that is traveling through the entire guitar

Try hitting the body, you'll hear that knock through the amp. Pickups are microphonic to a certain extent, and distortion amplifies this effect massively because that's kinda what distortion is - amplification, it's just that the original signal is massively changed in the process.

 

[Carl Kolchak]

Next week??!!! What builder is that?
Also, what did you pick for neck?

Perhaps I opted for a pre-built guitar?

And to answer the wooden riddle, it's a mahogany body with a maple cap, and mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard.

 

[Strtsmthng]

Perhaps I opted for a pre-built guitar?

My bad, that makes a lot more sense then

 

[AltecGreen]

Perhaps I opted for a pre-built guitar?

And to answer the wooden riddle, it's a mahogany body with a maple cap, and mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard.

You bought a Les Paul?

 

[KnightBrolaire]

You bought a Les Paul?

prob an esp EC7

 

[Señor Voorhees]

Perhaps I opted for a pre-built guitar?

And to answer the wooden riddle, it's a mahogany body with a maple cap, and mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard.

Sounds like a good ol' Gibson or something, but I could be wrong. How are you finding it? I understood "flubby" to mean "warm" and undefined, and mahogany is allegedly SUPER friggen warm, especially when compared to ash which you said you hated. Glad you found something that appealed to you regardless. New fiddles are always a good time, even if you end up hating them in the long run. lol

 

[Hoss632]

Little surprised that you find swamp ash to have a muddy tone. To me swamp ash is the best wood for 7 string low tuning stuff. It's also the only tone wood that I can tell is noticeably brighter than other tone woods. basswood for me has always been the muddiest sounding. At least on the guitars I had. Alder I liked because it was light and had a more balanced tonal sound on the charvel that I tried through the same amp as my personal guitar. Anyways sorry to ramble. But if you don't want ash I would say go with alder and put a maple cap on it and the maple neck.

 

[Carl Kolchak]

You bought a Les Paul?

Consulting Magic 8 Ball, and.... you're wrong!

prob an esp EC7

SSO Quija board declares, "Wrong answer!"

I will give a hint though, it's grey.