What makes good wood?

[Gas Hed]

Aside from pictures of your favorite supermodel that is...I have heard about AAAAA (is that enough As?) maple, or high grade Brazilian mahogany, but I'm not grasping the concept. What makes good wood? Is it a visual aspect or something about the wood itself (i.e. density, inclusions). And if it is density or physiochemical make up of the wood, what is needed for high grade? What makes a tree that good - lots of miracle grow?

 

Insight appreciated. I'm a doubting Thomas and I'm not so sure high grade wood makes a difference. Need facts, not the power of suggestion.

[Elias Graves]

 

EG

[Gas Hed]

Yes, that does make good wood EG.

I have a suspician this thread will take a different angle...

[warriorpoet]

Resonant wood imparts its own character on the sound, where less resonant wood interferes less with the natural sound of the pickups. Physics dictates different weights of wood will affect sustain differently (there's math involved). My personal preference is exceedingly light, resonant wood for a couple reasons. First, light guitars fatigue me less. Second, light wood is typically better dried, and, as a result, more resonant. I like it when wood fiddles with my pickups

[Gas Hed]

Resonant wood imparts its own character on the sound, where less resonant wood interferes less with the natural sound of the pickups. Physics dictates different weights of wood will affect sustain differently (there's math involved). My personal preference is exceedingly light, resonant wood for a couple reasons. First, light guitars fatigue me less. Second, light wood is typically better dried, and, as a result, more resonant. I like it when wood fiddles with my pickups

Now we're talkin - so pick a light, resonant wood, I'll guess alder, are there major differences within the family or should you expect to see the same properties (within a tolerance) from tree to tree, wood slab to wood slab, guitar to guitar?

[metallica_00]

AA, AAA, AAAA, etc is just a measure of the figuring (and I'm not exactly sure what objective qualifications that is based on if any). Just because a wood has more figure does not mean it will be more toneful. But from a visual perspective (for some) highly figured wood is generally considered appealing, and a flametop versus a plaintop typically commands a higher price. That's cosmetic,

 

This is a kind of interest article with Bill Collings of Collings guitars (some of the absolute best out there) about some of their wood selection process and some of his views on good wood/tone wood with electric guitars.

 

http://www.collingsguitars.com/Images/reviews/TQR.pdf

 

I thought this quote was kind of interesting:

 

TQR: What are some of the key things you

[warriorpoet]

 

Now we're talkin - so pick a light, resonant wood, I'll guess alder, are there major differences within the family or should you expect to see the same properties (within a tolerance) from tree to tree, wood slab to wood slab, guitar to guitar?

 

See that's where things get sticky. I prefer light, resonant wood for the reasons mentioned, but others prefer heavier woods (increased sustain, all other things being equal) or less resonant wood (less effect on the pickups, more fundamental/ less complex tone).

 

Where woods within the same family share structural similarities, there are many differences between slabs, even from different parts of the same tree. This is one reason you see guys playing dozens of the same guitar model to find "the one". Different pieces of wood are ALWAYS different, and understanding a species-general character is useful for just that- a generalization.

 

Here's a good experiment: go to your local GC and play a half dozen or so American Standard teles. I guarantee they will all be different. Now play an identical tele with an ash (rather than alder) body. See if you can notice the difference. Don't be disappointed if you can't- there's a real sense in which discerning tonal differences is a learned discipline.

[Bumhucker]

A lot of it comes down to preference.

 

Some people like a real light Les Paul ~8lbs... some prefer an 11 lb boat anchor.

 

I think lighter woods tend to make an electric guitar more resonant and let its natural character come through the amp.

[Gas Hed]

See that's where things get sticky. I prefer light, resonant wood for the reasons mentioned, but others prefer heavier woods (increased sustain, all other things being equal) or less resonant wood (less effect on the pickups, more fundamental/ less complex tone). Where woods within the same family share structural similarities, there are many differences between slabs, even from different parts of the same tree. This is one reason you see guys playing dozens of the same guitar model to find "the one". Different pieces of wood are ALWAYS different, and understanding a species-general character is useful for just that- a generalization. Here's a good experiment: go to your local GC and play a half dozen or so American Standard teles. I guarantee they will all be different. Now play an identical tele with an ash (rather than alder) body. See if you can notice the difference. Don't be disappointed if you can't- there's a real sense in which discerning tonal differences is a learned discipline.

 

 

Plugged in or unplugged?

[warriorpoet]

Plugged in or unplugged?

 

What you hear acoustically will affect the electric character. The trick is picking an amp that accurately reflects these subtle nuances

 

So play it both ways, then pick an amp that reflects those differences you noticed unplugged to complete your test. When you find the "right" amp you might be surprised just how much of a difference the wood can make.

[metallica_00]

I like to listen to the builders talk about this stuff, rather than us armchair hacks .

 

Here's a post from Terry McInturff (a well-known high end builder) on TGP which I think does a really good job describing why it's about much more than just pickups:

 

Hello all, Much of my own delight in perusing the various threads here at this outstanding forum involves discussions regarding the latest electric guitar hardware...bridges, tailpieces, pickups, tuning machines, finishes, etc.... I have learned quite a bit about such things here, as I am sure that many of you readers have as well. I would like to address a very pivotal and primary aspect of the sound of the electric guitar...one which I feel may get far less attention than it deserves...the unamplified, strictly acoustical sound of an electric guitar...and why it is of real importance. I shall limit my "lecture" a bit in order to (hopefully) generate questions in the Socratic style; therefor, it will be encumbant upon the readers to make this thread a success, by means of some of you asking good questions that I can help develop into a true understanding of the subject-at-hand. 1) The acoustical nature of any electric guitar imposes firm boundaries/limits upon what can ever be heard thru the speaker cabinet. The acoustic/unplugged sound of any electric guitar will reveal the limits of it's amplified tonal capabilities. Let us imagine the acoustic sound of an electric guitar as being the fence that surrounds a baseball park; there is a bit of space surrounded by a hard boundary. The "fence" represents the limits of what the acoustical nature of the given guitar can produce, tonally; the space surrounded by the "fence" is the place within which we can influence the tone via hardware, pickups, strings and the like; We can "steer" the amplified tone this way and that way via hardware, string, and pickup choices...but only within the boundaries of the "fence". We cannot efficiently boost any frequencies that do not reside (with any strength) in the acoustical nature of the guitar.(It is true that via various types of electronic trickery an extended harmonic series can be generated...I am talking about the basic, organic tones here). This may be why we often end up "chasing our tail" when it comes to trying to mod a guitar to our liking; all too often, what we want to hear is something that does not reside in the acoustical nature of the instrument, and therefor cannot be had by any means.

 

Full thread:

 

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=390420

[GAS Man]

Aside from pictures of your favorite supermodel that is...I have heard about AAAAA (is that enough As?) maple, or high grade Brazilian mahogany, but I'm not grasping the concept. What makes good wood? Is it a visual aspect or something about the wood itself (i.e. density, inclusions). And if it is density or physiochemical make up of the wood, what is needed for high grade? What makes a tree that good - lots of miracle grow? Insight appreciated. I'm a doubting Thomas and I'm not so sure high grade wood makes a difference. Need facts, not the power of suggestion.

 

Sorry, power of suggestion is what you'll get

 

But I tend to believe in this idiom

 

More tone =

More sustain =

 

A lot of that (which some will dismiss as pure BS) is that a good wood tone is resonant and for it to be so, it must soak up a good portion of the string energy. Somehow, almost magically, the pickups are able to pick up that minute internal resonance imparted onto the strings (and vibrating the pickups themselves) into the tone (so both the strings and pickups are actually in motion). The character of warm, snappy, bright, dark, etc can all be heard whether its good wood, bad wood or ash, walnut, or mahogany. In that respect there is no real good or bad wood, but whether or not the wood achieves the standard tone for that instrument be it a Les Paul or a Telecaster, etc. And as I'm indicating above, a denser build may impart less tone, but it will however also have a longer sustain. You can work with that as well if the pickups are well voiced for the wood. I remember pulling out stock pickups out of a laminate body Squier Stratocaster and replacing them with Lace Sensors only to realize later that Squier had done a better job of matching p'up to wood than I had done with my after market upgrade. The stockers were hot enough and with a good flat balance to the EQ, but the upgraded p'ups just tended to sound too thin in that cheap body.

 

I guess if I were a builder at Gibson and going to build my own guitar, I'd be out there in the wood shed thumping on a tuning fork and grabbing the slab that resonated from the fork better than most. If it were dead, I'd move on. But part of the reason that wood varies is climate which will affect the density of the xylem cells in the wood and those cells are larger in a wet climate or season. That and the grain character I would imagine are two of the bigger factors.

 

It's like the old debate about do you go shopping and pick the lightest of the strats on the rack. I guess the answer is "it depends". If light were the only objective, then we'd see more guitars with balsa blocks in them.

 

Those are my thoughts from having sorted through the wood piles.

[warriorpoet]

I like to listen to the builders talk about this stuff, rather than us armchair hacks . Here's a post from Terry McInturff (a well-known high end builder) on TGP which I think does a really good job describing why it's about much more than just pickups: Full thread: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=390420

That is a very cool way of describing it, and matches my "armchair hack" experience

 

edit: It's funny to read that Terry M does the very same things to ascertain a guitar's natural tone I've been doing innately for years. Some human experiences are oddly universal. Now, if I could even conceive of building a guitar anywhere close to that master craftsman...

[metallica_00]

That is a very cool way of describing it, and matches my "armchair hack" experience

It's definitely interesting stuff. Out of my own practical "hack" experience, interestingly the loudest solidbody guitar I have owned has not been a USA G&L or Prestige Ibanez, but my original $140 Squier Affinity. It's the loudest and sustains the longest. But even after upgrading the pickups and electronics, it still doesn't sound that good plugged in. Which is why I have come to realize the sheer acoustic volume and sustain don't matter, but instead the balance of highers/mids/lows...ie the timbre of the instrument, not the volume. My G&L, which is somewhat similar also being a Strat-type, sounds way way better plugged in than the upgraded Squier despite being quieter unplugged. And if you listen carefully to them unplugged, the G&L while quieter is actually better balanced and clearer sounding. And that's gotta be in the woods.

Further along in that TGP thread, Terry validates this, definitely interesting to think about.

It's clear that wood matters...I'm curious to learn more about how those guys go about selecting the good stuff from the bad.

[Gas Hed]

Sorry, power of suggestion is what you'll get But I tend to believe in this idiom More tone = More sustain = A lot of that (which some will dismiss as pure BS) is that a good wood tone is resonant and for it to be so, it must soak up a good portion of the string energy. Somehow, almost magically, the pickups are able to pick up that minute internal resonance imparted onto the strings (and vibrating the pickups themselves) into the tone (so both the strings and pickups are actually in motion). The character of warm, snappy, bright, dark, etc can all be heard whether its good wood, bad wood or ash, walnut, or mahogany. In that respect there is no real good or bad wood, but whether or not the wood achieves the standard tone for that instrument be it a Les Paul or a Telecaster, etc. And as I'm indicating above, a denser build may impart less tone, but it will however also have a longer sustain. You can work with that as well if the pickups are well voiced for the wood. I remember pulling out stock pickups out of a laminate body Squier Stratocaster and replacing them with Lace Sensors only to realize later that Squier had done a better job of matching p'up to wood than I had done with my after market upgrade. The stockers were hot enough and with a good flat balance to the EQ, but the upgraded p'ups just tended to sound too thin in that cheap body. I guess if I were a builder at Gibson and going to build my own guitar, I'd be out there in the wood shed thumping on a tuning fork and grabbing the slab that resonated from the fork better than most. If it were dead, I'd move on. But part of the reason that wood varies is climate which will affect the density of the xylem cells in the wood and those cells are larger in a wet climate or season. That and the grain character I would imagine are two of the bigger factors. It's like the old debate about do you go shopping and pick the lightest of the strats on the rack. I guess the answer is "it depends". If light were the only objective, then we'd see more guitars with balsa blocks in them. Those are my thoughts from having sorted through the wood piles.

Nice insight Gas Man.

[ashasha]

You know certain resonant frequencies are actually bad for a guitar because it can actually work against the string's energy itself. And from what I have been led to understand over the years that isn't even specific to a piece of wood, but it can actually be the cut or shape of the guitar itself.

 

I know that for me I do prefer lighter guitars with more {censored} going on in them. I call it "air" or "wooliness". It's just more complex stuff and it actually does blur the fundamental tone a bit. I guess that it actually gets you a bit closer to a semihollow type sound without going all the way there...at least it's like that to me.

 

I've owned a few really heavy, dense guitars that are "tight" or "sterile" sounding to me. I just dumped a fantastic Jackson on e-Bay because I just couldn't get it to feel right to me. Which brings me to my next point; I really do think that the way that a guitar feels when it's played is important. I want it to feel livelier and in my experience heavy dense woods don't get that same feel. I want it to feel like it's going to jump out of my hands when I beat on it.

 

Doesn't necessarily mean that it sounds better to anyone else other than me though.

 

And as for figured AAAAAAAAAAA tops; I really doubt that the figuring makes anything sound better; it's purely aesthetic. I like guitars that have a mix of wood types (Les Pauls are a great example). The mahogany body gives you some resonance and the maple top gives you back some high end....with that said my favorite LP is my all mahogany Classic. It feels like it's going to jump out the window on my sometimes.

[docjeffrey]

We cannot efficiently boost any frequencies that do not reside (with any strength) in the acoustical nature of the guitar.(It is true that via various types of electronic trickery an extended harmonic series can be generated...I am talking about the basic, organic tones here). This may be why we often end up "chasing our tail" when it comes to trying to mod a guitar to our liking; all too often, what we want to hear is something that does not reside in the acoustical nature of the instrument, and therefor cannot be had by any means.

 

Guitar makers who charge $3000+ for their wares have to convince us that the only way to get great tone is by using expensive rain forest timbers that cost a fortune. But I remember seeing Jack White string a thick wire between two nails on a 2 x 4 with a humbucker and a coke bottle for a bridge. It sounded awesome.

 

How do you explain the ES335? It's made from thin pieces of poplar and maple laminated together and then pressed into shape. There's no careful selection of instrument-grade mahogany or maple. It's pretty much a man-made laminate consisting of thin sections of readily available lumber. There's no inherent harmonic content in that stuff. The dark, brooding tone comes from the mahogany neck, the center block, the bridge and the tailpiece. The body doesn't add anything to the tone--in fact, it subtracts treble content.

 

I do own 5 Les Pauls supposedly made from the same basic timbers. Even though they all have different pickups, they sound remarkably similar. The one I paid $1250 for sounds almost the same as the one that I paid $3200 for. Yes, I can hear subtle differences especially in the lower register, but does one sound $2000 better than the other? Nah. But the expensive one looks cool as hell and it has the vintage correct size screws and the plastic parts are the right thickness. And there's some dude sitting in a McMansion right now drooling over his 10 Top PRS Family Reserve Custom 24 who swears that because he spent $15,000, he has the best sounding guitar in the universe. He also thinks that his wife looks great with her $12000 pair of fake tits and a $9000 nose job.

 

[cratz2]

I... I don't know what I think about all the wood snobbery. I think that only using the very choicest pieces would be very time-straining and would up the cost of the guitar severely. On the other hand, I have to think that a series of guitars made by a top builder using the choicest pieces would result in better guitars overall.

 

 

I was originally 'schooled' by an old timer who swore on the unplugged resonance being the #1 most important aspect of a guitar... I've grown to very much disagree with that as I've played two spectacular guitars that once plugged it were absolutely amazing but unplugged were as dead a Kelsey's. One of them was one of the limited edition 'Season' Parkers that cost like $5,000. On the other hand, the most naturally resonant guitar I've ever owned and one of the most resonant guitars I've ever played at any price point was a 1994 Korean Squier strat that not only had a lightweight plywood body, it also has cheap cast saddles and the neck was shimmed with two layers of thin Fender picks. Everyone that played that guitar immediately commented on how lively it was unplugged.

 

So maybe it's all crap.

 

To the OP... yeah, the A, AA, AAAAA are the ratings for the figuring in the grain. I love flamed maple as much as the next guy, but I much prefer Gibson's normal 'Plus' tops to their 'Plus Supreme A+++ Grand Master Flash Wizard' tops and certainly more than the most figured PRS guitars I've seen over the last 20 years. That holographic effect is usually most pronounced in subtly flamed tops rather than the AAAAAAAAA tops with so much figuring, there's no room left for that really 3D effect.

[warriorpoet]

I think we're shooting past each other a bit here. Resonance is different than its effect. In that TGP thread, Terry M comments on our perception of tone- namely that certain frequency ranges that are the most audible and "alive" are precisely the ranges that cancel out proper pickup operation. In his opinion, it isn't the "loudness" of the timber, but its timbre

 

The best example in the aforementioned TGP discussion is one of (conveniently) two apparently identical Les Pauls. One is acoustically "dead" but electrically "alive", whole the other is the inverse. Terry M attributes it to phase cancellation, and suggests a temporary fix for the poster. This is the same effect experienced in a concert venue where two ticket holders have entirely different sonic experiences even though they are less than 10 feet apart.

 

dj, of course your Gibson Les Pauls will sound similar- they're the same model built by the same company! The rest of your experience also sounds typical of what I've experienced: certain tonal ranges are more variable within a specific design than others. The best common examples I've seen are Fender American Telecasters. Some are meaty and thick sounding, others twang sharp enough to cleave one's ears in twain.

 

Also, as a disclaimer, as I'm sure you have noticed by now, OP: everyone's ears are different. What may be a screaming difference to one is unnoticed by another. For example, I'm a long-time tinnitus sufferer (likely due to the severity of ear infections as a child). Atypically, it's left me with extremely sensitive hearing in the upper ranges, and a mild hearing loss in the center to lower end of the middle ranges. The reason this can be important to understand is that my tonal understanding of "lively" and "resonant" is deficient in the very range the majority of musicians are most sensitive in. That, and I have a lovely perma-ring at F# to tune to

[munizfire]

EG

 

this helps alot in the process of making a good solid wood, if you need sites PM me

[Spudro]

I do own 5 Les Pauls supposedly made from the same basic timbers. Even though they all have different pickups, they sound remarkably similar. The one I paid $1250 for sounds almost the same as the one that I paid $3200 for. Yes, I can hear subtle differences especially in the lower register, but does one sound $2000 better than the other? Nah. But the expensive one looks cool as hell and it has the vintage correct size screws and the plastic parts are the right thickness.

No disagreement... only an opinion. A Les Paul guitar was designed to eliminate feedback, thereby having absolute minimum acoustic properties. Lester Polfus designed a dead log with pickups on it. I am not in any way slighting the fact that the Les Paul guitar changed the world, but Les's intention from the start was to create an electrified guitar that would not be plagued by feedback and other products of acoustical interaction with the player and the amplified sound product of his early electric guitar.

By sheer mass a Les Paul will be less prone to revealing nuances and details between them because of how successful they are at NOT being acoustic guitars.

Les Pauls are great and I own a R4 Historic. I am not slighting 'Pauls in any way. Les Pauls are pretty much the opposite of an acoustic guitar much like a Hammond B3 is the opposite of a Steinway Grand. Les invented a new instrument on a guitar platform.

My point is that wood and acoustic response matters a LOT, but when you get to the weight and thickness of a 'Les Paul' style guitar it will become harder to tell the difference due to the sheer mass of the solid wood body.

[DaleH]

Fender used Alder, Ash and Poplar because they were locally obtained and cheap.
Just happened to be alot of old growth timber to choose from back in the day.

[dc*]

Surely its obvious what makes good wood: Tree's

[C-4]

I have gone through a lot of guitars, been to a lot of factories, and listened to a lot of seasoned luthiers concerning wood.

In the last two years, I have gone to carbon fiber guitars, which naturally have a wider frequency response then any wood has, a 3-D sound, a tone which is as woody and organic sounding as any wood guitar I have played, and more sustain then I ever got from any wood guitar. The consistancy from guitar to guitar is astounding. I have two carbon fiber guitars from the same company and they sound so close, it amazes me.

As for wood, it is my personal preference to have it naturally air-dried over years. This is not something the larger companies can afford to do as they need the wood dried more quickly for manufacturing. Vigier is the only guitar company that I am aware of that naturally dries all their wood over years, and it is culled to be all the same top quality violin grade wood. This way, no matter which guitar you order from them, the wood quality will be the same on all models. While this guarrantees nothing, the consistancy is very close, as only a limited number of guitars are built there each year.

I firmly believe that all parts of a guitar have an affect on the tone, but especially the wood used. A guitar is equal too, greater or lesser then the sum of it's parts. I say this because there are some guitars which sound good, some which sound not so good, and some that sound spectacular.

Construction technique is also a major part of how a guitar sounds. The variables are so great when building a guitar, that the way to get more consistancy is with the materials used to build it, and the time. Having a time schedule does not help when building a guitar. It should be allowed that whatever time it takes to build the guitar is the time it takes, whatever that turns out to be.

[soundcreation]

My opinion is that resonance is just about the most important thing. All my best guitars and the best guitars I've ever played were the ones that were very resonant. When the notes just 'pop' off the neck..all over the neck. I really don't like the feeling that I'm "just playing the pickups". I find the overall tone of guitars like that very boring and uninspiring.

 

I know I've found a great guitar if I can pick play it sitting down unplugged, and feel it vibrating through my mid section. (yeah baby...) In my experience guitars like that tend to also have the most "round" tone. Balanced Highs, Mids and Lows, with none of the three dominating the others.

 

I'd be lying if I said I didn't like some great looking wood, but it's not nearly as important as the resonance.