How do you choose your woods?

[Rap Hat]

Taste. When I lick my guitars, I like to have some flavor. Mahogany used to be my go to, but I've started to detect a bitter aftertaste, so I think my palate is refining. Maple's just blah, rosewood has a weird sickly sweet oil to it. Bubinga is my current favorite (almost hoppy, with hints of musk and cherry), but I should be trying bamboo next. Let's hope it's good!

 

[SirMyghin]

Generally I pick woods that match the image I want, aesthetically. After that I tend to play safe and with woods I am familiar with, instead of rolling the dice of weird looking exotics. I don't think the wood is going to play a significant roll in sound, but at the same time I want to stay without the bounds of my experience, just in case.

 

[Stealthdjentstic]

Im with max too. Weight is now an important factor too :/

 

[KarlMagnusRobin]

Feel
Sound
Weight
Looks

I don't like über fancy looking wood (apart from koa and walnut), I like it simple so feel and sound definitley comes first!

Alder, Basswood and Mahogany is probably my favorite's tone wise!

 

[ASoC]

Looks
Weight
Workablilty
Feel

Almost everything else can be solved through other means.

I like Alder for these reasons. It's light, easy to work with, and I love the grain that it has. It doesn't hurt that alder is one of the cheaper options

As far as necks, I've never made one. But from the guitars I've owned, I don't think I'll ever deviate from the maple neck. I like maple as a neck wood, fretboard woods are all about aesthetics for me, I normally like ebony or maple if I don't feel something exotic.

Top woods are entirely about aesthetics for me, I love walnut topped guitars

 

[Hollowway]

Yup. Looks is definitely #1 if it's not going to be painted. Then price, then weight. Never tone, unless it's an acoustic.

 

[HighPotency]

Looks
Weight
Size
Recommendations

I am paranoid and want pieces big enough for a one-piece body when possible.

 

[TRENCHLORD]

reputation

Maple neck-thru either mahogany, alder, or basswood wings for painted finish.

 

[SirMyghin]

Im with max too. Weight is now an important factor too :/

I am odd in that I like my axe to be heavy. And well balanced of course.

I likes them big I guess

 

[123321123]

I'd go with whatever the professional sound engineers says works best for the sound I'm going for. They're going to be the experts on how different woods compare.

 

[canuck brian]

For the body - if i'm using something known to be bright, i try to offset it with something warmer for the most part. Other than that, it's mostly aesthetics.

For the neck - stable woods and definitely laminated necks. 1 piece necks scare me. I'd like to be using roasted maple now in every neck i build. I think the 7 necks i have under construction right now have roasted maple.

Fretboards - aesthetics. maybe i'm not that good of a guitar player, but i coudlnt' really hear the difference between my RG770 with it's rosewood fretboard neck attached and the RG770 maple fretboard neck attached. Both from the same year, same body, same pickups, same amp, same settings. Obviously couldn't compare it against other fretboard woods.

 

[IkarusOnFire]

How do I choose my wood? Google tells me what woods to use!

On a custom order...I like to experiment. I realize this might be risky - what if that wenge neck just doesn't sound like I had wanted it to?

So, IMHO, the woods I choose are being picked for sound and aestethics. I like my guitars to be guitars - so I usually prefer a mid-range focused instrument - and some woods (both experience and google tells me this) just make that match better

Maybe woods don't matter much - but I cannot help but find that mahogony guitars are very often related to dark, rich, warm tones...while alder guitars usually have tags like strong attack and bright...

My conclusion is, that if I want a brighter sounding guitar than my custom right now (which is primarily a mahogony guitar) than I might want to shift my woods over towards what I hear is brighter I had a Jackson with an alder body, maple neck - emgs in it - my custom is mahog body, maple neck with emgs. My custom is much darker sounding, and my jackson was much brighter.

...and on goes the debate about tonewoods So to sum it up - I choose my woods by reading about them, trying them in different combinations, and then trying to make the different woods come together towards a sound I am after

 

[Purelojik]

Price - aesthetics - machineability

its also why for my recent build that was completed. i used sapele. the body blank was 35 bucks. you cant beat that. lol not to mention the added bonus of an astounding tap tone and incredible ribbon figure.

so thats a bonus.

the hype about woods is just what it is...a hype. i remember Huf's article on woods and sound and density to something ratio and while it all sound good at the end of it all it just boils down to aesthetics. i remember asking him then if its true what he says, then how does anyone really know if the piece of wood they have is truly suitable for building... he deleted my comment.

EDIT: cause i remember someone here building a pine guitar or plywood one and it sounded pretty decent lol. which throws a lot of everything out the window.

 

[Konfyouzd]

Well I was hanging out on TalkBass.com for a while and one of the members there posted some sound clips. It was more like a game.

And he would take a Fender (or some other name brand bass) and then he would take the neck from that same model, put it on a body he made out of cheap scrap wood and he'd play the same musical passage twice (once with one and again with the other).

He then allowed folks to vote on which they thought was alder (or ash or whatever the hell) and which was the scrap wood. Almost no one could tell the difference (or so the results said) even though roughly 70-80% of them were CONVINCED they could hear the difference prior to knowing the truth.

Thought it was interesting; that's more or less what sparked this thought in the first place. That and the fact that I'm having a custom built and I always say I don't believe the hype, but as I watch money leave my bank account and I think about choices I made I guess I'm just full of paranoid anticipation.

 

[UnderTheSign]

Yup. Looks is definitely #1 if it's not going to be painted. Then price, then weight. Never tone, unless it's an acoustic.

Same here. The internet seems to be full of "tone wood" mysticism and myths these days. Generally speaking, sure, some woods will have certain aspects due to their density - ebony will always feel different from mahogany. To say it's such a major thing though? Not really, especially not with all the effects, hot pickups and amps around these days.

 

[Navid]

#1: Price
#2: Look
#3: Stability

I am no rich person so I tend to chose standard woods. Standard woods are those like mahogany, alder and ash. They're almost in every guitar shop and they're affordable.
If I feel like spending extra money I get a good looking body top and/or a good looking fingerboard, but no, no buckeye burl. Spending more doesn't mean spending all i've got...

Since I want the guitar to last as long as possible I chose to laminate the neck wood to make it as stable as possible.

My currently-in-progress build is fully made of african mahogany, cheap but stable and nice looking.

And no, I don't believe in Wood!

 

[Rook]

Looks
Weight for bodies, feel for neck's

But if something looked awesome and weighed a tonne I'd go for it lol.

The tone thing, I there could be subtle differences but I think of a guitar of most woods that I've liked which negates any decision being made on that basis. I actually think any wood combination would be workable really. Same as neck profiles, I'll make whatever work

 

[aaron_rose]

availability looks tonal properties "guessing game" price

 

[Konfyouzd]

I'm less picky ab neck profile than I used to be but I'd still take an Ibby/Jackson-esque neck over the common Schecter if given a choice. :-D

 

[Danukenator]

Stability and use. For example, I think a spruce body guitar would be cool but spruce would be so prone to damage I'd say screw it. I'd always go multi-piece on a neck that is "raw" like wenge or rosewood.

For necks, Maple. Track record of working. Body, depends on if there is a top. I'd never go for the super rare one off woods for anything other than a top.