Best Sounding Woods
Dan Wood
I like the look of the archtop guitar. I have yet to
buy one. But I noticed that some guitars are
maple with spruce top other maple top laminated
other solid woods and some guitars are mohagany.
Does the wood of which they are made have
different sound characteristica? If so in what way?
I play country, some jazz and standards.
Dan
Adam Bravo
news:GwL7d.223192$%n4.1...@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
Searching for a compliment?
Gerry
<wo...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> I like the look of the archtop guitar. I have yet to
> buy one. But I noticed that some guitars are
> maple with spruce top other maple top laminated
> other solid woods and some guitars are mohagany.
> Does the wood of which they are made have
> different sound characteristica? If so in what way?
Archtops that are solid non-laminated wood (carved archtops) have much
better accoustic tone but tend to feedback. Any solid wood will have
more resonance. The laminated tops (I'm surprised there are maples of
this) are usually build up to a more firm, less resonant construct that
will have some fair accoustic properties, but reduce feedback. I never
heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood and
seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
> I play country, some jazz and standards.
If you tend more to electric I'd recommend a laminated top. If you
tend more to accoustic play you can begin the laborious process of
picking a fairly expensive carved archtop.
--
Invest wisely: Over the past 75 years, stocks have averaged annual gains of 2.3
percent under GOP administrations, compared with 9.5 under Democratic ones.
-- Jerry Heaster
Lumpy
> ... I never heard of a solid mahogany top.
> It's a very heavy and dense wood and
> seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
Mahog is used in a lot of flat top acoustic guitars
and the majority of ukuleles as well as some
archtop acoustics.
Makes those instruments very sweet sounding
compared to very similar instruments
with spruce tops.
Lumpy
--
In Your Ears for 40 Years
http://www.lumpymusic.com
Ra
> I never
> heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood and
> seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
It makes a great soundboard.
Check out the old LGO's by Gibson.
Sweet as can be.
--
best regards,
Ra
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them?
#####
"Ra" <use...@freetoys.com> schreef in bericht
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Greger Hoel
>I never heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood
>and seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
It's less dense and heavy than maple.
--
_______________________________________________
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Myth
"Ra" <use...@freetoys.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:mZO7d.223230$%n4.1...@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
> "Gerry" wrote
>
> > I never
> > heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood and
> > seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
>
>
> It makes a great soundboard.
> Check out the old LGO's by Gibson.
> Sweet as can be.
Maybe you could make one in Lignum Vitae ;-)
Steve
Nice acoustic sound.
-SteveYetter-
Ra
> Maybe you could make one in Lignum Vitae ;-)
Talk about dense and heavy!
LV sinks, even in salt water.
A solid body and neck of LV would probably
have eternal sustain though, if you could lift it.
Ra
"Greger Hoel" wrote
> >I never heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood
> >and seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
> It's less dense and heavy than maple.
There are all kinds of maple.
Some is relatively soft..
and some, like Rock Maple, is extremely hard.
Jack A. Zucker
quickly. Is LV like that too?
--
Experience a revolutionary way to approach the instrument.
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"Ra" <use...@freetoys.com> wrote in message
news:_LU7d.223484$%n4.1...@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
Gerry
<use...@freetoys.com> wrote:
> "Gerry" wrote
>
> > I never heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense
> > wood and seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
>
> It makes a great soundboard. Check out the old LGO's by Gibson. Sweet
> as can be.
It's such a heavy and dense wood though. They must slice it very thin,
yes?
Ra
> So what's an ALL mahogany archtop (top, sides, back, neck)?
> Does Gibson make them?
I don't know?
... but Heritage does.
http://www.surfpick.com/guitars/heritage/
You can order one here:
http://www.heritageguitar.com/dealers/qryDealer.asp
Ra
> > "Myth" wrote
> > > Maybe you could make one in Lignum Vitae ;-)
> Is it as hard as it is dense? I know certain woods dull the tools extremely
> quickly. Is LV like that too?
It's very hard.
It wears out your tools.. but it would be even worse,
if not for the large quantity of natural oil contained in
the cellular structure.
It helps lubricate when drilling or turning.
If you get a piece too hot when sanding,
the oil all bubbles to the surface.
You can't feel any oil on a finished piece though.
The oil keeps it from gluing properly, even with epoxy.
It has to be treated with acetone first.
LV won't accept any finish.. and needs none.
A fine sanding and polishing gives a finish like marble.
The worst wood I've ever worked with, is African Leadwood.
It's like trying to drill into Granite.
Max Leggett
wrote:
There's a good discussion of how various woods affect tone
athttp://www.musicplayer.com/lounge/guides/guitar1.htm
It's about solid bodies, but the same things apply to archtops - even
more so.
Lyle Robinson
Michael Greenfield who is just beginning a column on
www.jazzguitarlife.com. Let me know.
Lyle Robinson
http://www.jazzguitarlife.com
"Dan Wood" <wo...@bellsouth.net> wrote in news:GwL7d.223192$%n4.192526
@bignews6.bellsouth.net:
Nate Lamy
> So what's an ALL mahogany archtop (top, sides, back, neck)? Does Gibson make
> them?
> #####
> "Ra" <use...@freetoys.com> schreef in bericht
> news:mZO7d.223230$%n4.1...@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
> > "Gerry" wrote
> > > I never
> > > heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood and
> > > seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
> > It makes a great soundboard.
> > Check out the old LGO's by Gibson.
> > Sweet as can be.
> > Ra
No shortage of all-solid mahogany flattops, especially by Martin.
In archtop-land, the Heritage Eagle is all-solid mahogany and is a
very nice one-type-of-sound ("mellow & warm") jazz guitar.
One can also order the Eagle with a spruce top, which brightens up the
sound. Gibson recently started making a version of the L-4CES with a
spruce top and solid mahogany back.
Try to find a Heritage Eagle and play it to see if you like the feel
and the sound. Used, they are really inexpensive and are great value
for the money.
Gerry
<flo...@interlog.com> wrote:
> No shortage of all-solid mahogany flattops, especially by Martin.
> In archtop-land, the Heritage Eagle is all-solid mahogany and is a
> very nice one-type-of-sound ("mellow & warm") jazz guitar.
Many have mentioned flattops with mahogony tops. That seems to imply
that it is not frequently done on archtops. Would that be fair?
Bill
> them?
>
> #####
>
> "Ra" <use...@freetoys.com> schreef in bericht
> news:mZO7d.223230$%n4.1...@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
> > "Gerry" wrote
> >
> > > I never
> > > heard of a solid mahogany top. It's a very heavy and dense wood and
> > > seems unsuitable for anykind of soundboard.
> >
> >
> > It makes a great soundboard.
> > Check out the old LGO's by Gibson.
> > Sweet as can be.
> >
> >
> >
BG
Mike O'Malley
Personally i think this is mostly bushwa--the way a guitar sounds
depends mostly on construction, secondarily on the player. Wood is a
highly variable material and two boards cut from the same tree may
have dfferent resonant properties. My conclusion has been if it sounds
good it is good.
Spruce has been used in instrument tops for exaclty the same reason it
was used to build airplanes--high strength to weight ratio. Nobody
talked about the "tone" of Howard hughe's "spruce goose," the largest
prop plane ever built. There are much stronger woods that are heavier,
and lighter woods that are weaker, but it's the strength to weight
ratio that makes it good as a top wood. Maple is used a lot because
A: it's readily available in N Europe and the US, B: it's relatively
easy to work, and C: it tends to show up with dramatic figure. Once it
was established, people became convinced that maple had a "tone."
Ebony was used for fretboards because it was very hard but still
workable, and the plain black is dramatic. Mahogany is really easy to
work, and has a good strength to weight ratio, and at one time was
readily available AFTER Eurpean colonization of the tropics
anyway, that's my opinion
Ra
"Mike O'Malley" wrote
> Nobody talked about the "tone" of Howard hughe's "spruce goose," the largest
> prop plane ever built.
'Spruce Goose' was a phrase coined by the media,
simply because it rhymed.
His plane was constructed almost completely of Birch.
John Daux
news:87d03efb.04100...@posting.google.com:
Some comments below on spruce, this has been excerpted for
readability:
> hepkatre...@hotmail.com (Max Leggett) wrote in message
>
> Personally i think this is mostly bushwa.... Wood is a highly
> variable material and two boards cut from the same tree may
> have dfferent resonant properties.
Somewhat true, but old-growth spruce that has been split out of the
tree into wedges before being shaped is a much more uniform material
than, say, quartersawn maple.
> Spruce has been used in instrument tops for exaclty the same reason it
> was used to build airplanes--high strength to weight ratio. .....
> but it's the strength to weight ratio that makes it good as a top
> wood.
Only partly true; properly prepared spruce has a very uniform pattern
of soft growth / hard growth bands - the "grain" you see on the top.
The growth rings are almost exactly perpendicular to the plane of
movement of the top.
The wood doesn't just resist deflection, it springs back very nicely
after deflection. (I.e., it vibrates well.)
More uniform woods will behave more like an ideal resonating plate.
This means harmonics are more likely to be integer multiples of the
fundamentals, not "wolf" tones.
> Ebony was used for fretboards because it was very hard but still
> workable, and the plain black is dramatic.
And because it's hard, it (a) won't wear with as much with use and
(b) contributes to making the neck more stiff than a glued-on layer
of, say, pine. Stiff neck == good. More energy from the string
goes into the soundboard than into the neck whipping up and down.
> Mahogany is really easy to
> work, and has a good strength to weight ratio, and at one time was
> readily available AFTER Eurpean colonization of the tropics
And old-growth mahogany also has more uniform grain. It does
seem softer overall to me, but I don't have a Wood Handbook at
hand to quote the numbers.
The large open pores of mahogany may be part of why it is a
more "mellow" wood, less of the spring action than spruce. The
higer frequency sounds are more dampened.
> anyway, that's my opinion
Sure, and you might enjoy hanging out on rec.music.makers.builders
too. Some very fine luthiers there.
BTW, most of what I assert above comes from acoustics classes at
a certain large technical university, and may be a little stale.
I recall that with a classical guitar, you can come up with a
pretty good engineering rationale for almost any of the usual wood
choices, even for things like the linings. There's been 100s of
years of refinement done there, by some pretty smart people.
Nate Lamy
> In article <a9569fa4.04100...@posting.google.com>, Nate Lamy
> <flo...@interlog.com> wrote:
>
> > No shortage of all-solid mahogany flattops, especially by Martin.
> > In archtop-land, the Heritage Eagle is all-solid mahogany and is a
> > very nice one-type-of-sound ("mellow & warm") jazz guitar.
>
> Many have mentioned flattops with mahogony tops. That seems to imply
> that it is not frequently done on archtops. Would that be fair?
Quite fair. I think the Eagle is the only production archtop with a
carved mahogany top (but there are some builders who have used carved
mahogany backs).
- Nate