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Hello all,

I been pokin around here a bit, and one thing I haven't seen much of, but
I'd love to hear more about is suggestions for wood combinations...   
Well, I'm planning on building 2 smaller body guitars (kind of a cross
between a OO and an LG) -- one sitka/mahagoney -- and the other is for
a finger-style guy. What do you guys think... what have you used in the
past that sounds good? I went with walnut/red cedar on a smaller
dreadnaught and it sounds really nice -- I've also gone the mohagoney/
sitka route on the same size body and they sound radically different -- I
would call the later more of a "strummer". What are your thoughts... what
are your favorite combinations? On small bodies and dreads? I think a
lot of newbies (like me) would be really curious... Thanks for your
thoughts. Wonderful site here. Ben

Ben welcome to the OLF. Good to have ya.

From what I know, which isn't much compared to most of the other guys here, the Sitka Mahog will give a brighter more balanced sound (hence the "strummer" guitar) and the Cedar, even in a dread will be softer and more mid to low end tones. That's just my experience and I'm sure there will some others to come along and correct me.

What are the specs on that smaller dread you mentioned?

There are a couple of builders here who have a lot of dreads under there belt (Tim McKnight I believe) and I'm sure you'll get some good recommendations from others.

Of course, as you may be aware, there is a lot to do with the difference in design (size, shape etc.) of a guitar when talking about sound, than throw in different woods and you have a huge variance in sound, tones and volume that can be reached.

Welcome to the journey.

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ARussellR38644.6254282407

As Russell said, it's all according to the type of sound your after and to some extent the type of music that will be played.

Like Russell I'm from the UK so tend towards European Spruce as my favoured top wood for finger picking (with the caveat that for a bit more warmth I go to cedar). Here are a few combinations and the characteristics that I perceive they bring. For the European you could substitute Adirondack or Englemann, although the latter has less headroom. Rosewood is given as a generic as there are many substitutes that would give very similar sounds.


European Spruce/Mahogany: Rich bright tone makes it good for vocal accompaniment, blues and modern styles of fingerpicking. Very versatile with a lot of presence across the range, lots of fundamentals,famous woody growl and a natural presence.

European Spruce/Rosewood: Classic tone combining depth. clarity and projection, brighter overtones with less forward fundamentals than mahogany but a deeper darker sound. Suits many styles from standard folk to contemporary.

Cedar/Mahogany: The Mahogany gives the cedar a very rich and upfront sound without the lower mid-range dominating which makes this ideal as a guitar for the modern altered tuning and more percissive styles of play as well as a very earthy blues guitar. A modern classic.

Cedar/Rosewood: The Cedar gives a big, warm, fruity quality for smooth sustained fingerstyle play especially for a smaller instrument.

As you can tell from the line at the bottom I am a particular lover of the sound that mahogany gives to a guitar, but the most important choice is the top wood. Which I believe for fingerstyle is a choice between European and Adirondack in the spruces and Cedar/redwood.

So much more change to the sound can be produced by alterations to bracing and top thickness etc that it is impossible to be dogmatic about woods. (But use mahogany anyway)

Colin

Colin S38643.2177662037

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ARussellR38644.6256828704

[QUOTE=Colin S] European Spruce/Mahogany: Rich bright tone makes it good for vocal accompaniment, blues and modern styles of fingerpicking. Very versatile with a lot of presence across the range, lots of fundamentals,famous woody growl and a natural presence.
[/QUOTE]

Great overview Colin. However, one flavouring that I would add is Cuban Mahogany especially paired with Euro spruce. With the stuff that I am using I would say that you get the best of both Mahogany and Rosewood. I use the phrase a lot, but to me Cuban Mahogany is "a mahogany with aspirations to be a Rosewood". You get that great note separtion and fundementals/growl that comes with mahogany but also shimmerey under and overtones that I would more usually associate with Rosewoods. One of my customers sent me a good description:

"I would say this guitar is fairly bright with a good balance of volume from the lowest notes to the highest ones. The trebles are fat and bright and the bottom is deep…deep. There is a certain “airy” quality to the tone that just works very well for finger style.   It also has good note separation meaning I can hear individual notes in a chord very well. Even though it is rich in overtones they don’t cloud the fundamental note like some rosewood guitars can do. It is very responsive in that it does not take much to get volume out of the guitar. The guitar is down right loud and projects better than any guitar I have owned to date. It seems to be able to take a “whompin” without compressing much, which also helps single note runs come out. I suppose this is due to the Euro/spruce top but either way, I have no trouble getting volume out of the guitar."

Colin - I'd be interested to hear your experiences with Cuban as I know you have used it.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dave, I guess both of the main strands of guitar wood run a continuum of characteristics. With the Mahoganies it runs from Large leaf though Small leaf to Cuban.

I think Cuban is a good wood for someone used to the rosewoods but needs that bit extra in the fundamentals, which sometimes rosewoods can smother with their overtones. While Cuban will still give that separation for the more percussive modern style of finger picking. Cuban however still gives that unmistakeable Mahogany slant to the sound.

If I was allowed only one B&S wood it would be Cuban without a doubt and, the one combination, would be Euro/Cuban.

However, I think a lot of the great attributes that your customer's guitar had was due in great part to the voicing and skill in building it that came from your hands. It's the skill of the builder that brings out and colours the characteristics of the wood.

Colin
Colin S38643.3988541667

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Ben, I build the majority of my guitars for finger style players. One combo the is very popular with my clients is Koa top with Indian Rosewood back and sides. Koa as a top produces a warm tone. Sort of make the sound full. Koa tends to be mid tone dominate. The IRW keeps it bright on the high end so nothing over powers the rest. Very nice for a finger style ballad guitar, say am OM. It is not the loadest top on the block but it is not mutted by any means either. One thing though, you have to pore fill koa tops to get a level finish.

Is it just me, or am I the only one that thinks that 94.85% of these tonewood discussions are silly? I mean seriously.....

I am not trying to be offensive or argumentative.... honestly....

... Does tonewood have an effect on the sound of a guitar?... Sure. But so does the type of wood in the bracing its overall strength, choice of fingerboard, the thickness of the plates, choice of nut and saddle, the flavor of glue you use and about 1,000,001 other "small" details.

I am not suggesting that you should NOT look for a magic recipe for what sounds great, but it seems like we all place WAY too much importance on that ONE variable. I think guitars need to be built as a whole, not as the sum of the parts.

Again... all things within reason, I am not suggesting oak tops or anything radical, but sitka vs. englemann vs. european vs. booga-booga wood?

We already seem to agree that no two PIECES of wood are the same... even from the same tree. So how much can we rely on these generalizations to give us an idea of what a guitar is going to sound like? Some of my guitars are better than others, and it seems to have less to do with the choice of materials and more to do with my experience at building THAT particular model. The more I build, the more I can get control of the sound.

Am I alone in this thinking? I know the buying public expects this kind of mojo talk... but amonst us "boys"?

I know we have our favorite woods -- and that is fine. I say build with what you like (obviously within reason). But it seems to me if you want to make your guitars sound better, brighter, louder, whatever.... just build more of them and broaden your base of experience. That seems to do more for me than anything.


Brock Poling38643.6459837963

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
Am I alone in this thinking? I know the buying public expects this kind of mojo talk... but amonst us "boys"?
[/QUOTE]

Am I alone in thinking that "sexist" guitar making posts like . . . apologies Kathy Wingert, Linda Manzer, Judy Threet et al - no sorry Al is a boy

Joking apart, I don't think anyone in this thread was saying that the wood choice is the "magic bullet" - I wasn't anyway. The whole piece and subtle variables all add up and are important ... BUT great chefs know the herbs, spices and other "secret ingredients" they reach for as part of their OVERALL recipie to get that special something they want.

I haven't worked my way by any means through all of the wood types and combinations yet (I'd love to but my wallet and shelf life of my body cells rule this out) but I haven't found a wood yet that gives the "piquance" I hear from Cuban Mahogany, in all guitar sizes from parlour, small jumbo through to baritone. Also I have made two of the same model within a 2 month period one in Cuban the other in Braz and they were both good but with the subtle "piquance" and differences there. That having been said you don't want the same flavour for ever!

Knowing when, where and more importantly why and how to use certain woods within the overall design and execution of an instrument is to me the sign of a great builder. Something I am miles and miles away from but am doing my best to hobble towards.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

ARussellR38644.6261689815

When a painter select colors for his painting he first selects a base hue to work from then adds and mixes to add highlights and shadows.

When we select top, back and side wood and thin brace and tune, we do the same thing. Either intentionally or inadvertently. The longer we build the more intentional.

[QUOTE=Dave White] [QUOTE=Brock Poling]
Am I alone in this thinking? I know the buying public expects this kind of mojo talk... but amonst us "boys"?
[/QUOTE]

Am I alone in thinking that "sexist" guitar making posts like . . . apologies Kathy Wingert, Linda Manzer, Judy Threet et al - no sorry Al is a boy
[/QUOTE]


Of course you know that my use of quotations was meant to signify that in our own little circle. Certainly I am not discounting the female luthiers... I would love to build as well as any of those you mention...

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Again, don't misunderstand me... I am not saying that it doesn't have ANY influence, but if you go back and look at some of the flowery descriptions we all use for tonewood I think that in the end it is mostly how you build it, not WHAT you build it out of.

I think the arguments for top wood seem far more valid, but even there I think the subtle differences between a nice hard stiff piece of Sitka vs. a nice hard piece of Englemann vs. a nice hard piece of Adi. are very hard to isolate. I think what you do with them has more influnce (by a ton) than the kind of wood we use.

I am also not suggesting that we immediately abandon all use of the "great" woods. On the contrary. I am in line to buy sets with the rest of you.

I just think we should call a duck a duck and give the credit (or the blame) to the luthier and not the wood.

(... or maybe I just watched Sideways one too many times and got to see the huge BS bandied about in the wine world and it got me to thinking....)

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock I am just making an analagy. I did not take your post to mean anthing but that the wood alone does not make the final tonal product

ARussellR38644.6264930556

I like cedar and mahogany combinations best for fingerstyle and I like red spruce and rosewood for flatpicking. I do not believe in magic wood, and I do, like Brock think that the myths are just that, but some topwoods are so different that you can rely and use those difference to your advantage. Gain a measure of control so to speak. Cedar's properties are just too different from Sitka's to ignore. Within the spruces there is alot of overlap and differences between one species and the next is as great as that found between one top and the next of the same species. Some of the hardwoods make very different sounding guitars when used as tops. (Koa and mahog for example) We paint our acoustic pictures with a broad brush

I haven't added my two cents in a while because I seem to stick my foot in my mouth way too much but, here goes anyway. Brock I really have to agree with you on this. Sometimes when I start reading some of the posts with all the descriptive adjectives about certain wood properties I get a little nauseated and have to scroll on past it. I know that certain woods and the various combinations have very different responsive effects on a guitar box. Along with the thickness, size, bracing..etc. I see the body of a guitar as more of an acoustical room. A good example would be a room with brick walls...it is more reflective and has an echo that is good for natural vocal effect. The size of the room, the heigth of the ceiling and type of flooring also have a lot to do with the sound. On the other hand, a room with padded walls, carpet on the floor and a drop ceiling produce a totally different sound. In the same way, an acoustic guitar body is effected by size, shape, reflective wood properties and so on. So, contrary to popular belief, I do believe that the back and side woods play more of an intricate part of the sound than most seem to believe. But, that's just my opinion based on my experience. The top wood and bracing patterns are a major portion of the sound production but, the vibration that it produces is amplified, damped or possibly muted by other factors of the body construction and the release ports (soundholes, side ports..etc). To sum things up and back to my point, I do agree that sometimes we spend way too much time and effort looking for those silly little descriptive words to differentiate one subtle tone from another. The proofs in the pudding I always say. O.K...I have my body armour on...

I will add my limited thoughts here, but agree with Brock. I have messed with several wood combo and sure some differences. I don't have enough of an ear to tell a bunch anyway. I build with certain woods because, well I like the way they look, and person getting it wants those wood combo's. Maybe they can tell a difference in picking, but bet if was behind a screen and picked songs and they couldn't see them, they probably couldn't tell what woods were being used. I have noted some in difference in say a addi top and some other top like cedar, but that is in the voicing and tap at different points. Not so much the sound, but difference I hear in sound changes, sustain and that sort of thing. Bottom line is I like building with Koa and cedar, but mostly because I like the look. If I were a player with a good ear who knows maybe could tell differnce. Guys at shop do however claim big difference in great addi top, addi braces and good brazilian back and sides, and I can tell that myself. Just to expensive to make with on a whim though. Also the whole build can make it or break it no matter what wood combo

I love that booga booga wood. It makes the best sounding guitars.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Whoa, hey -- didn't mean to open up such a can of worms... I was just
posing a question because I don't have that much experience -- I've only
made 3 guitars total. I really do appreciate everyone's input and I think
that was all I was looking for -- thoughts from those more experienced
than I. I really didn't think there was a magic wood, but I guesss I gotta
go get some of that booga wood.

I think all, yes ALL guitars should be made with curly western maple backs, sides, and neck. Then you throw a cedar top on it. Oh perfection! You want variety?! change your binding, headstock veneers and bridges all you want.. Yup thats what I think.. You don't have enough maple and cedar to fill your build schedules? IT'S OK, thats what I'm here for. Email me and we'll work something out


Jason38643.9952199074

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ARussellR38644.6268518519

The last time I said that while there are tendencies of particular woods to
contribute to the sound in certain ways, there are no magically synergistic
combinations of woods, Hank Mauel referred to my post as an
"explosion." I'm not sure what he meant by that. But I haven't changed
my beliefs, and I'm still in one piece.

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http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Brock I guess you were having a dig at me there, but I was just responding to a question asked using what I believe to be the best of my knowledge from 40 or so years of playing other peoples' gitars and more latterly of building my own.

You'll notice that in fact I just lumped tonewoods into two types of top and two types of B&S wood. Basically the Spruce family/Cedar family and Mahogany family/rosewood family and clones. I'm sorry but anyone that can't hear the difference between these four combinations has either got very indiscriminatory hearing or is playing badly made guitars. I'll go away now and build with MDF and plywood.

So many people here seem to get hung up on how pretty the wood looks and how shiny the finish is, sometimes I think we forget that we are trying to make musical instruments.

ColinColin S38644.207662037

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