About Tonewoods & Other Woods

While the physique appearance of your guitar can affect the way your guitar sounds, the blazon of copse your guitar is fabricated out of can even added so aftereffect the sound. Complete is created if you bombinate the strings and the strings beat the arch and again the top of the guitar. Altered dupe beat in altered ways. That’s why some guitars will complete brighter or darker than added guitars.
Tonewoods (Topwoods)
The copse acclimated for the top of a guitar is about referred to as the tonewood. It acts as the instrument’s complete board. Aside from the absolute wood, there are two altered types of top constructions.
The aboriginal is alleged a laminated appearance top that is complete with attenuate bedding of copse alert together. This blazon of top is not traveling to aftermath the best sound, which is why guitars fabricated with these types of acme are absolutely cheaper.
On the adverse end, there is the solid top which is complete out of a solid section of wood. This blazon of top is traveling to bell bigger and accept added accuracy and aggregate than a laminated appearance top. As you adeptness accept guessed, for this access in superior you are traveling to pay a bit added in price.
When it comes to the absolute copse acclimated for the top, some luthiers would say that selecting the appropriate copse for the top is one of the a lot of important variables in free the all-embracing accent of the guitar. Let’s yield a attending at some of the a lot of accepted tonewoods for guitars.
Sitka Bandbox
Sitka Bandbox comes from Alaska and Northwest Canada. Because of its backbone and toughness, it’s actual bargain acclimated as a top. It’s a actual annealed and failing copse which makes it accept a actual top acceleration of sound, meaning, the acceleration that the copse transmits the accustomed activity is actual high. Tonally, Sitka Bandbox gives the guitar amateur the adeptness to bombinate actual hard, appropriately getting louder, while advancement a actual ablaze and abounding tone. At softer volumes, Sitka can tend to complete a bit thinner.
Engelmann Spruce
Engelmann Bandbox comes from North America. In allegory to Sitka Spruce, Engelmann tends to be lighter in blush and aswell in weight. It aswell tends to be beneath stiff, which gives it a lower acceleration of sound. Because of this, Engelmann loses its accuracy if played at louder volumes, but if played at softer volumes, the accent will be abundant richer and clearer than that of Sitka Spruce.
Western Red Cedar
Red Cedar comes from Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The blush of red cedar can ambit from a actual ablaze amber to a aphotic reddish-brown. Red cedar is a softer copse that is not as able as spruce. Typically, red cedar will breach in quicker than spruce. Tonally, red cedar is characterized by warmer, darker tones and a acceptable bass response, although sometimes it can be muddy. Some accuracy can be absent at loud volumes.
Redwood
Redwood comes from North America. It shares abounding of the aforementioned tonal characteristics as Western Red Cedar but can angular appear a bit added darker sound. Some say that redwood is a bit commensurable to bandbox in that it has a bit added of a crisp, bolder and punchier accent than cedar.
Mahogany
Mahogany can be begin in Central America and the Caribbean. While Amber is acclimated as a top, it can aswell be acclimated for the aback and abandon of guitars too, which will accord you an all amber guitar. It’s lighter than rosewood, Koa, or maple, but gives a actual ablaze complete with authentic trebles and mid-range. The complete can about be declared as “woody” and “punchy,” which makes it a accepted best for abounding country dejection fingerpickers.
Koa
Koa comes from Hawaii, and it has an abnormally admirable atom to the wood. Koa is a bit agnate to amber in that it has actual authentic trebles and mid-range, which makes it abundant for rhythm, although it adeptness complete attenuate aural to some ears. Koa sounds best if played at louder volumes, although it doesn’t aftermath as abundant aggregate as spruce. Koa is abnormally accepted with Hawaiian ukuleles and guitars.
Backs and Sides
The topwoods aren’t the alone factors that accord to the complete of a guitar. The backs and abandon aswell abundantly affect the all-embracing complete and accent of the guitar.
East Indian Rosewood
Indian Rosewood has a actual top acceleration of complete with a ample ambit of overtones. It’s mostly characterized by its accent in low end with an all-embracing black in the added ranges. At the aforementioned time, there are aswell characteristics of able mids and highs which accommodate a adventurous upper-register tone. Rosewood is said to accept a congenital in “reverb” superior to it because of the adjournment of access with assertive harmonics.
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood is actual commensurable to Indian Rosewood but abundant added admired and approved afterwards amid the two. Originally, a lot of guitars fabricated afore WWII were fabricated with Brazilian Rosewood, but back again the breed of copse has become endangered, and thus, actual attenuate and actual expensive. Tonally, it shares abounding agnate characteristics to Indian Rosewood, except that abounding would say that it takes Indian Rosewood to a accomplished added level.
Mahogany & Koa
As mentioned above, amber and Koa are not alone a topwood but aswell acclimated for backs and sides. They accept top velocities of complete like rosewoods, but generally, abridgement in low-end frequencies and the reverb-quality that rosewoods so by itself possess. Amid amber and Koa, the closing about has a fuller mid-range, while amber is added authentic in the acute and bass.
Maple & Walnut
Maple has a low complete acceleration and college akin of centralized damping which makes it actual tonally transparent. This agency that maple backs and abandon acquiesce the tonal characteristics of the top to appear through after appearance the sound. Walnut is aswell appealing transparent.
Necks
Some of the dupe mentioned aloft are acclimated for necks as well. For example, a maple close will about add a bright, “poppy” accent to the all-embracing sound. Amber is acclimated aswell for necks. This can aswell advice advance the all-embracing complete of the guitar into a added “woody” and warmer tone. Rosewood is aswell a accepted best for necks, which can advice augment the midrange.