Thinking about an (almost) all walnut guitar. Bad idea?

[purpledc]

Its kinda funny. I used to NOT believe in the tonewood debate at all. But I had a carvin dc700 in all walnut with the same pickups as my current guitar. Same construction method. The only differences were SS frets and an all walnut body. Im not so sure I liked the carvin that much. One thing is for sure the guitar had scooped mids. So much in fact that if you used a scoop mid EQ curve on your amp you really lost all note separation. I had to use the mid boost feature on my amp and pump up the mids to get that back.

 

[baptizedinblood]

Check out my full-walnut Carvin.

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/sevenstring-guitars/165210-ngd-wait-over-carvin-dc727.html

It's a very unique sounding guitar...probably not for everybody. Playing in clean channels gives a VERY glassy 'crystalline' sound, with a very powerful low end. It is extremeley resonant and bright(not so much in mids). It responds really well to distorted channels as well, giving palm mutes a very nice purr, and a nice sharp attack for djenty stuff if you're into that. It's a bit lower in the mids, but I just EQ them up on my Axe-FX and it sounds great. I use stock pups but I'm switching to Liquifire/Crunchlab combo soon. If you're worried about mids, just do a pup swap to something that has emphasis on mids.

Edit:

All of my experiences with all Walnut have been very positive. It's very resonant, has some bite but can get dark also, very nice for high gain downtuned material. As a bass body/neck combo, it really tightens up the low end, makes each note stick out nicely.

Pretty much spot on.

 

[Jason Spell]

That Carvin's purty.

 

[Zado]

just to give you an idea

 

[Navid]

IMO You can't judge what the sound will be like now, especially if you're not the one picking the wood pieces.
Every piece of wood, even if it was cut from the same log, has a different density, grain pattern and mechanical properties.
That said, I'd suggest you to pick the most beautiful woods you can chose for the body top.

P.S. Many plywood guitars sound awesome until the player discovers what the guitar is made of.

 

[Pikka Bird]

P.S. Many plywood guitars sound awesome until the player discovers what the guitar is made of.

Exactly. I have an Ikea table top that I'm gonna build something from and then we'll see.