Equally important are the design of the guitar, the skill of the maker, and the quality of the individual pieces of wood from which the guitar is made. Occasionally the denser mahogany logs would sink! This guitar has a 16 Series style build w/mortise & tenon neck joint and 5/16" A-Frame bracing. The woods used to build guitarsâacoustic guitars in particularâare called tonewoods, and they have enormous effects on the sound and price of an instrument. Standard Delivery Times. Torrefaction A process in which the soundboard is thermally cured in an oxygen-free environment to alter the cellular structure of the wood in a manner that replicates an aged tone. All very impressive, but what does it mean? The top end is clear, but does not 'sparkle'. Henk Maple can be loud and projective. While mahogany is much easier to source than Brazilian rosewood, it’s still an endangered species, due largely to illegal logging. The combination of mahogany back and sides with a spruce top is common as this partnership is one of great balance and versatility. The mahogany wood for the top, back, and sides of this ukulele have a brighter tone vs. the mango ukuleles. Keep in mind, too, that the sonic performance of a particular tonewood depends not only on the wood, but also the build of the instrument. Walnut behaves similarly to maple, though it has its detractors. Was saving up and actually have the money to get a fresh 000-15m and was going to put a K&K mini in it totali I’ve always felt maple is a great-sounding wood. Koa is native to Hawaii and is used commonly on ukuleles, but less so on guitars. Used for: Back/sides. This African relative of rosewood shares many of its tonal properties, and it is sometimes known as African rosewood. One of the most popular woods for acoustic guitar tops. For less that $1200 out the door, it … “Frankly,” he says, “the outlook for exotic, especially tropical, wood sources grows more and more bleak every year and we are not seeing a newcomer emerge that will fill in for fading species and heroically save the day. Most of us arenât wood experts, so what exactly do different woods have to do with the sound of an acoustic guitar? New posts New media New media comments New resources Latest activity. And then there’s the green thing: by definition, laminates help guitar makers make the most efficient use of precious materials from the forest. Red Spruce. Its appearance is similar to mahogany although sapele tends to … Our walnut L-00 had a snappy, crisp sound that opened up considerably during a few hours of working on ragtime fingerpicking, open-tuned blues, and strumming chords—deepening on the low end, sweetening on the highs, and delivering … What makes Brazilian rosewood so appealing is its great beauty—its deep, variegated coloring and its spider-web figuring. “If you like wood with a story, then it doesn’t get any better than this material,” writes Mark Dalton. Claro walnut can have a striking figuring that lends eye candy to a fine guitar. Arguably the most common tonewood, Sitka is a well-rounded tonewood, one suited for many styles of playing. “Honduran is my personal favorite,” Boak says. Top: Solid Sitka spruce. The way it’s cut, for instance, will affect both its workability for a guitar maker and its sonic performance. “But it has the uncanny ability to add complexity I liked it better than All Koa, Koa top and mahogany and all mahogany when I was fortunate enough to visit Shelly PRk in North Vancouver and plat four side by side… “I’ve owned three guitars with flamed maple back and sides,” says Petteway. AG editor Greg Cahill and Dana Bourgeois contributed to this article. In the early colonial days as Central America was being explored and settled by the Europeans (the … With its spice-like scent and far-ranging coloration (with deep, black grain), this Central American relative of rosewood is known as the “piano of tonewoods,” since it produces a bright, sparkling tone that accentuates the treble. The color is excellent and the grain is tight. Brazilian rosewood fretboards and their denser rainforest counterparts add sparkle and ring, and Indian rosewood fretboards can help fatten up the midrange. Honduran mahogany, (also called Honduras mahogany, big-leaf mahogany, or simply mahogany) has a warm and woody sound, high in midrange content, that’s dissimilar to rosewood. In no small part due to its use in classic Martin guitars, Brazilian rosewood has long been considered the Holy Grail. Plus the material has a very interesting natural edge. Served with love! Store Open To All Public The trebles have a unique earthy tone which records very distinctively. Endangered and becoming very rare, Brazilian Rosewood has everything other Rosewoods have to offer and more. The sets are only rough sanded and many are sprayed with naptha to give a better idea of the look of the wood under lacquer. It is important to remember that wood, when considered generically, can be responsible only for certain aspects of the tone of any guitar. I’ve played vintage guitars that still sounded stiff because they were left in the case and never played and I’ve played guitars that are less than a year old that sounded awesome.”, Examples: Gibson Hummingbird Vintage; Martin CEO-7; Blueridge BR-163A Top Craftsman Series. “In my estimation koa splits the difference nicely between rosewood and mahogany,” Boak says. Al Petteway, the master fingerstylist based in the Asheville, North Carolina area, says, “I’m not sure how much it has to do with the top aging and how much it has to do with the vibrations loosening it up. I’m not really fond of walnut, although it sometimes pleasantly surprises me,” Boak says. But overall, sapele is known for warm resonance and good projection. Not all builders find maple to be a suitable top material, though. Fender PlayStep-by-step lessons. Harmonic Content A piece of wood is capable of producing a fundamental tone and an array of harmonics (which include overtones). But as the steel-string guitar has evolved, luthiers and players alike have become more attuned to the sonic characteristics inherent to different tonewoods. Ebony, the traditional fingerboard material found on violins, classical guitars, and high-end steel strings, has the lowest velocity of sound of all the woods commonly used in lutherie and has definite damping characteristics. >>Learn more about the differences between Sapele and Mahogany … All of the Sitka spruce used in soundboards by Bedell Guitars, for instance, comes from trees that have fallen or are dead in Alaskan forests. Honduran mahogany, (also called Honduras mahogany, big-leaf mahogany, or simply mahogany) has a warm and woody sound, high in midrange content, that’s dissimilar to rosewood. 6,246 4,355 46. The San Francisco-based Blackbird Guitars, for example, has even created a highly resonant, proprietary plant-based synthetic called Ekoa. The wood has very distinct growth rings with light almost white summer growth and dense red winter growth. The British exported a lot of mahogany from Belize throughout history and during the 19th century they used the rivers of Belize as their main source of transportation. Falling between rosewood and mahogany is koa—a tonewood Martin first used on guitars in 1917, as a craze for all things Hawaiian swept across America. 6,246 4,355 46. Sinker wood—logs that long ago fell to the bottoms of rivers or lakes when being transported for milling purposes—is another source that precludes the harvesting of new tress. Categories: Available Instruments, Tenor, Ukuleles Tag: Mahogany. With that in mind, the door will be opened for acceptance of four-piece tops and backs, less ornate woods, laminates, and composite materials (Nomex or honeycombed tops, other non-wood materials) and for tempered (“cooked”) and otherwise treated woods—even in high-end, heirloom-quality guitars. Lively materials—those with a high velocity of sound, or low internal damping—best facilitate the transmission of vibrational energy (sound waves oscillating from the bridge). Hence this is a very eco-friendly product. In 1992, it was added to the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species treaty, and then, in 2008, to the federal Lacey Act, which made it impossible to import Brazilian rosewood without a labyrinth of permits and paperwork. For these reasons, a cedar-topped guitar is a good choice for a fingerpicker (it’s common on classical nylon-string guitars), but not necessarily a strummer with a heavy attack. Don’t know how all black walnut would sound in comparison but this combo is a keeper. 314-495-5453. Regarded as one of the world’s finest tropical woods, cocobolo grew increasingly popular after the 1912 opening of the Panama Canal made its transport easier. This is yet another quality wood for sides and backs of acoustic guitars. Compare. Used for: Soundboards, Back/sides. Brazilian rosewood guitar.). “Most luthiers, but not all, believe that the wood chosen for the top is the single overriding variable that determines the quality of tone of a finished instrument.”. to the tone.”, A spruce soundboard on a new guitar can have a bit of an edge to its tone, and many players like the way it starts to open up with playing time—something to take into account when auditioning any brand new spruce-topped instrument. The main benefit of buying a guitar with layered tonewoods is that it will have an attractive price—and often visually pleasing outer layers on those woods. Youâll be well on your way to finding the right guitar for you. Excerpted from the 1994 Acoustic Guitar article “Tapping Tonewoods.”, The back and sides contribute far less than the soundboard to a guitar’s sound, but their composition is nonetheless important. A “hardwood” by … In response to this unfortunate, but predictable, situation, but partly out of pure experimentation, builders also have sought alternative tonewoods, or, in some instances, they’ve used such synthetics as carbon fiber. The wood is Genuine Mahogany, Swietenia macrophylla, from Belize, basically the same texture and color as the sought after Honduras Mahogany, but it is unique because it has been submerged in the rivers of Belize for 75 to 150 years! The company also is planting its own maple forests, as well as stands of koa on the Hawaiian islands. Used for back and sides, koaâs tonality resembles mahogany. If you paired it with a Spruce top and a larger guitar it would be bolder and more aggressive for strummers and flat-pickers. The woods discussed above—ebony, Brazilian rosewood, and Indian rosewood—contribute similar tonal qualities when they are used as bridge materials as when they are used for fretboards. Claro walnut is a medium-sized tree of short bulky proportions. MichaelK Member. A finely made plywood guitar, for instance, will likely sound superior and be more resonant than a poorly built rosewood guitar—just as the finest guitar made from premium Adirondack spruce and Brazilian rosewood will only sound as good as the guitarist playing it. It looks more like the father, and sounds a little more like the mother IMO, although the lows are there. Sapele is a fast growing and highly sustainable African wood which is protected from over harvesting making it a fabulous choice for the environmentally aware. Examples: Taylor 714; Cordoba C9 Luthier Series; Seagull Guitars Coastline S12. Maple necks can impart a bright, poppy tone that can do much to reinforce the top end of a large-bodied guitar, while mahogany necks help push the overall palette into a warmer, more woody tonal range. Spruce is the most common tonewood for the steel-string soundboard (there are a half dozen species in the Northern Hemisphere). Historically, walnut hasn’t seen widespread use among guitar makers, but there are notable exceptions, like certain Epiphone archtops from the 1930s. The ebony market has long been plagued with irresponsible and wasteful forestry, compounded by corruption, and Taylor is working to operate cleanly in a way that ensures ebony’s survival. Because of this, in 1969, Martin started using Indian rosewood instead of Brazilian. If you find yourself in this position, this tonewood primer should help steer you in the right direction to realize your musical vision. This may not be much of a problem for large-bodied guitars made of red spruce or Brazilian rosewood, but it may be something to consider when designing smaller guitars, particularly those using some of the less resonant woods for tops and backs. Contrarily, a truly dynamic sound is delivered by the all-mahogany Blue MM version. Fundamental vs. Overtones It’s characterized by a relative high velocity of sound and strong fundamental content, though it lacks rosewood’s brilliant ringing overtones, making it a good choice for a player who wants a clear, direct sound, and for recording in general. Try These Practice Techniques, Guitar on a Budget: Pros Offer Advice on Getting the Most Out of Your Gear, Parlor Guitars: A Brief History and a 2020 Buyer’s Guide, A Guitarist’s Guide to Managing Aging and Overuse Injuries, The Digital Troubadour, Part 1: How to Record at Home on Any Budget, The Best Websites and Apps for Learning Guitar, How to Adjust an Acoustic Guitar Truss Rod, Out of the Shadows: Undersung Women of Blues Guitar, Laura Snowden Performs “The Parting Glass” | Acoustic Guitar Sessions in Place. Huss & Dalton, for example, has built guitars using old-growth mahogany discovered in the river bottoms of Belize and removed in an environmentally sensitive manner. Adding a solid maple top to a solid mahogany back yields a guitar body that exhibits many of the best tonal properties of both woods. In a more ambitious development, in 2011 Taylor bought an ebony mill in Cameroon, Africa, and is now the world’s biggest legal producer of that wood, used most often for fingerboards and bridges. Wenge, a dense, dark-colored African hardwood unrelated to the rosewoods, has tonal properties remarkably similar to those of Brazilian rosewood. Of course, you’ll want to play, and listen to, as many different options as possible before choosing your dream guitar. The combination of a mahogany soundboard with a back and sides of the same woods is midrange-rich and punchy and works especially well for country-blues fingerpicking. Messages 1,521. “Differences between woods can be as mysterious and complex as differences between people,” Maine luthier and, Slabs of tonewood from an ancient mahogany trunk known iconically as The Tree are among the most coveted tonewoods—even Slash of Guns N’ Roses had a custom acoustic built from The Tree (read about it in the March 2016 issue of. Our tonewoods selection will vary over time as some woods are harder to source for guitars. A great deal, actually. … Similar story for cherry, although I've heard fewer cherry than walnut guitars. Some of the most stunning Breedlove custom guitars have been crafted with walnut back and sides – on occasion, even walnut tops. Native to southeastern Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, this precious tonewood, also used for centuries in high-end furniture, became difficult to source in dimensions large enough for guitar-making in the last half of the 20th century. A couple of years ago, Taylor Guitars expanded its use of maple on backs and sides, and has undertaken an active maple reforestation program. It is a very "mid-rangey" guitar, although the highs and lows are certainly very good. “Adventurous luthiers do find and use exciting new woods, but rarely are the woods feasible options for manufacturers because, even if they are sustainably harvested and non-threatened, they are scarce, or the trees are rarely large enough for guitar plates, or they require additional care during the building process,” says Chris Herrod, LMI’s sales manager, on alternative tonewoods. Examples: Martin Custom Shop 000-14; Luna Vista Wolf Grand Auditorium. So a cedar/walnut instrument would have much softer tonal characteristics than (say) a spruce/rosewood combination. Menu. I do have guitar back and sides sets in rosewood, mahogany, sapele, maple, cherry and walnut, so I can tap to my heart's delight. “Differences between woods can be as mysterious and complex as differences between people,” Maine luthier and AG contributor Dana Bourgeois has written in this magazine. To test velocity of sound, a luthier will hold a piece of wood at a nodal point and tap it to listen for the response. The top or soundboard, as the name suggests, bears more influence on the way a guitar sounds than any other component, though the back also is a key component. if(!window.AdButler){(function(){var s=document.createElement("script");s.async=!0;s.type="text/javascript";s.src='https://servedbyadbutler.com/app.js';var n=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];n.parentNode.insertBefore(s,n)}())} var AdButler=AdButler||{};AdButler.ads=AdButler.ads||[];var abkw=window.abkw||'';var plc208206=window.plc208206||0;document.write('<'+'div id="placement_208206_'+plc208206+'">');AdButler.ads.push({handler:function(opt){AdButler.register(168183,208206,[300,600],'placement_208206_'+opt.place,opt)},opt:{place:plc208206++,keywords:abkw,domain:'servedbyadbutler.com',click:'CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER'}})if(!window.AdButler){(function(){var s=document.createElement("script");s.async=!0;s.type="text/javascript";s.src='https://servedbyadbutler.com/app.js';var n=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];n.parentNode.insertBefore(s,n)}())} var AdButler=AdButler||{};AdButler.ads=AdButler.ads||[];var abkw=window.abkw||'';var plc208209=window.plc208209||0;document.write('<'+'div id="placement_208209_'+plc208209+'">');AdButler.ads.push({handler:function(opt){AdButler.register(168183,208209,[300,250],'placement_208209_'+opt.place,opt)},opt:{place:plc208209++,keywords:abkw,domain:'servedbyadbutler.com',click:'CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER'}}) if(!window.AdButler){(function(){var s=document.createElement("script");s.async=!0;s.type="text/javascript";s.src='https://servedbyadbutler.com/app.js';var n=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];n.parentNode.insertBefore(s,n)}())} var AdButler=AdButler||{};AdButler.ads=AdButler.ads||[];var abkw=window.abkw||'';var plc208209=window.plc208209||0;document.write('<'+'div id="placement_208209_'+plc208209+'">');AdButler.ads.push({handler:function(opt){AdButler.register(168183,208209,[300,250],'placement_208209_'+opt.place,opt)},opt:{place:plc208209++,keywords:abkw,domain:'servedbyadbutler.com',click:'CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER'}}). While Brazilian rosewood has been offered in fancy instruments since then, both by guitar companies and independent luthiers, it has become even trickier to obtain. You see it all the time when shopping for an acoustic guitar: Sitka spruce top, mahogany back and sides, rosewood bridge, this wood, that wood, another wood. Generally considered the best tonewood for steel stringed instruments, Brazilian Rosewood is a highly prized choice for back and sides. Mahogany is a fairly dense/hard wood and is relatively heavy and strong-ish. It’s harder than both Honduran and African Mahogany. Highs are typically soft and not overly pronounced. The higher [you] go up the series, the looser the direct relationship with the fundamental.”. It grows up to 30–60 feet (9.1–18.3 m) tall, has a single erect trunk, commonly without branches for 10–40 feet (3.0–12.2 m), and a crown that can be wider than the tree is … 8AM-6PM EST, Monday to Sunday. From the October 2016 issue of Acoustic Guitar | BY ADAM PERLMUTTER, Fundamental vs. Overtones A fundamental tone is the initial sound heard when you pick or pluck a note (and which decays at varying rates depending on the sustain); the overtones are complex harmonic layers that can make the note swell after the fundamental is initiated. I have used black walnut a lot, and I admit I use it because it’s beautiful and I have a lot available, not because it’s necessarily my favorite tonewood for back and sides. I'm curious where Walnut falls in line from a tonal perspective. Messages 6,476. Flame maple is also commonly used for back and sides of American instruments, as on my Guild D30 guitar, gives a nice bright sound. … Steel-String Guitar. As a guitar top, dense mahogany has a solid, punchy tone with low overtone content and good high-end response. Highly desirable for steel-string acoustic tops because of its rich, full, clear and loud tonal quality. (Under those U.S. and international statutes, documentation is required to travel with a “Engelmann is a good choice for players who want a more complex sound when playing softly,” says Bourgeois, adding that European spruce shares characteristics with Engelmann, but has more headroom, making it ideal for players with a stronger attack. I have an SWOMGT, which is Cherry sides & back and a Sitka top. “One of its singular characteristics is that it’s almost perfectly transparent—it doesn’t sound like anything, which isn’t usually how you want a top to respond.”, Examples: Fender T-Bucket 400 CE; Rayco Squareneck Resonator. On the other hand, supplies of premium tonewoods have been diminishing due to increased demand, land development, and poor forest management. Mahogany. Maple is celebrated both for its range of figuring patterns—from curly or flamed to quilt to birdesye, which add beauty to an instrument—and for its transparency of sound, which reflects the sound of the top but doesn’t so much color it. Due to the age of these logs, all this material would have been old-growth timber. But that’s not even the most impressive salvaged tonewood: Earlier this year, Santa Cruz Guitars exhibited at the Winter NAMM Show a one-of-a-kind H13 model fashioned from a set of 8,000-year-old oak boards cut from a trunk found in a Czech sandpit and a fallen 3,000-year-old Sitka spruce tree salvaged from the melting Arctic permafrost. Khaya, another mahogany substitute, is also known for its brightness. They can also take on different characteristics when used in different models of guitars—even those built by the same maker. Even if chocolate chip is on your mind, our cookies make an important contribution to a great shopping experience. Add to cart. Photographs of sets that are not sprayed with naptha are listed as '(dry)' and those that have been sprayed are listed as '(sprayed).' “Brazilian rosewood is so rich and ring-y, and it has such a big range of workability, that no matter how it’s used it yields pleasing musical results,” Bourgeois says. “Sitka is the most consistently available, good-quality spruce there is, and that’s why we use it as stock on the majority of our guitars,” says Dick Boak, director of the museum and archives at Martin & Co. but also harmonic content, clarity of tone, and high-, low-, and mid-bias. These logs for over 100 years had been lost and forgotten, until now.All the logs were salvaged using environmentally sound practices using small boats and pulleys to remove these logs off the bottom of the rivers. If interested, I'm … “I wouldn’t typically recommend maple as soundboard tonewood,” says Andy Powers, Taylor Guitars’ master luthier. It has the same bass and treble as rosewood, but a bit more mid-range.
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