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Well, I guess we know where Torres stood on this issue..... paper mache.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

To quote Mike Dotson over on MIMF, "everybody knows that pretty wood sounds better than ugly wood".

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=Colin S] 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.

Colin[/QUOTE]


It was no dig at you. Not at all. If you really want to know... this thread simply sparked thoughts I was already having but didn't express.

If you want to see this at its extreme... go check out the 13th fret for a while. Players frequently come in and ask about wood a vs. b and there are a lot of claims made. (Again, I think players expect this kind of mojo.. so I kind of consider it part of the marketing process... but go check it out... you will see what I mean.)

Again... (and this goes to your comments Russell...) I am not saying that it is not a factor. What I am saying is that SO MANY things go into the sound of a guitar that I just don't see how anyone can say with broad generalizations that one wood has a very x sound and another wood has a very y sound. Especially when you start splitting hairs between sub species.Brock Poling38644.325775463

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

ARussellR38644.6271990741

Brock's posts (I agree with him about woods) raise an ethical question. If
we accept that the customers have a mistaken idea about what I call
"wood determinism," i.e., a false belief that they can order up a sound by
their choice of wood species (when all they can order by choice of wood is
a tendency toward a certain sound, which tendency is dwarfed by the
myriad of other factors), then should we use this belief as a marketing
tool, or try to dispel it? I think a lot of builders have decided that it is
easier and more profitable to join 'em than to educate 'em. Eventually,
they probably start to believe what they ar saying; after all the customer
heartily agrees.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

[quote]Your first point you will get no argument from me on, that there are many factors in play that influence the sound of the finished product, What I am saying is with those factors being equal, the wood selection can significantly colour the Tone and Timbre of the finished guitar. Even at the level of sub species.[/quote]

Agreed.

The fact of the matter is that a newbie should get some good tonewood, but worry more about the construction than about whether his piece of wood will give him precisely the overtones he desires. Choose the wood family, start building, get the construction 'right', and then start worrying about the timbers. Heck, I know that's true for me; I'm not getting the maximum yield out of my instruments, not even close. Have quite a few to build before I'll consider myself even vaguely competent. But that won't stop me from wanting to try out different wood for both their visual and tonal effects :-)

As Mario's so fond of saying, the Devil's in the details, and frankly, if you believe the fit of a saddle and a proper setup can affect the tone, you'd better believe that wood selection will have an effect. Not as much as construction, but significant nonetheless (a EIR/Adi Dred will be more similar in sound to a Mahogany/Euro dred than to an EIR Adi SJ, OM, or Parlour, f'r instance).

Besides, isn't half the fun of building your own guitars that you get to play with different kinds of exciting tonewoods? In both tonal and aesthetic ways?

That is not really the point I was making though.

MY comment was really focused at the overly flowery language that is used to create broad generalizations of how a tonewood is -- dark, sparkly, etc. -- these terms are used all over the place.

Again just to set the record straight... I did not say that wood does not play a role... I said that we give far too much creedence to that ONE variable.

Of course I like to use lots of different and interesting woods. We all do.

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

I don't know that I agree that we lend too much credence to builders. The more I build, the more sceptical I am about any 'magical tonewood'.

I see that flowerly language as an attempt to put into words certain subjective experiences of the woods. Yes, it's overwrought and prissy, but it's also an inevitability, and it's better than nothing. Hard number might be more sensible (Q, deflection, that sort of thing), but they're not easier.

F'r instance, when it comes to tap tuning, or tap tone, people use all sorts of fancy words, pretentious sounding words. But once you start tapping woods yourself, you start hearing differences, you start feeling the nuances. Whether you're able to harness them to your advantage is a different issue. I'd have to say that it's my impression that players in particular have strong ideas about what part of the tone is being formed by the woods chosen, while the majority of what they're hearing is actually dictated by construction.

Howard you raise a good "ethical issue". I remember a great article by John Calkin in GAL some years ago where he talks about tone and workability of different rib/back tonewoods. His conclusion if I recall correctly was that all other things being equal the tonal differences are subtle. His article was followed up by a rebuttal by Harry Fleishman who claims he could tell the type of wood of an instrument from a recording (my editorial comment: what a load of utter crap).

Howard I hear you and agree, but if you head down the education process you are working against a lot of inertia. I suspect a lot of players subscribe to the choice of tonewood doesn't matter but still shell out the cash for premium woods thinking about later resale value. I shudder when I think of the premiums people pay for flatsawn Brazilian Rosewood guitars (or the mark-ups builders charge for the material). I've played some unspectacularly figured brazilian rosewood Martin guitars (think it was the Eric Clapton model) that was selling for US$8,000 and how disappointing the sound and look was.

Perhaps a little off topic, but I've been told by a couple of pro builders that maple rib/back flattops don't sell well. Any thoughts as to why?Anthony Z38644.6809953704

[QUOTE=Anthony Z]Perhaps a little off topic, but I've been told by a couple of pro builders that maple rib/back flattops don't sell well. Any thoughts as to why?[/QUOTE]

Theory: because maple is a light-coloured wood, ergo it must sound bright, and most people don't like bright.

There's no need for theory about color, I'm afraid. When famous players
like Clapton start appearing in concert and on album covers with maple
body guitars, they will sell well.Howard Klepper38644.943900463

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Sigh, probably all too true Howard.