One is swamp ash and the other is basswood and both had rosewood fingerboard. There are many reasons using multiple tonewoods can boost your instrument’s performance. You can see the divide down the middle of the instrument when it’s in the case. Color and variety alter from piece to piece, but all types of rosewood are highly attractive. The resulting wood appears like a sheet rather than a solid piece, and it’s ideal in a cheaper guitar with an attractive-looking natural grain surface. When it comes to building an acoustic guitar, there are many ways to arrange and utilize wood. The denser the wood, the less room the sound has to move around among the grain. Solid wood is another popular approach. This wood is especially amazing sounding on Hollow Drop Top guitars. There are spaces between wood grains, where the density of the wood (and amount of space between the grains) varies in different wood types. Various manufacturers typically favor a type of wood, but there are tons of different options available in both exotic and alternative kinds of wood. They have a great impact on the sound your guitar produces. A mahogany neck is very stable due to the density of the wood, which reduces the risk of warping over time. Using solid wood is more expensive. Swamp Ash wood is a lightweight low density wood used by luthiers.Typically, it is used by guitar builders to make Ash guitar body blanks.. Interestingly, Wikipedia lists green ash or red ash (fraxinus pennsylvanica) as the same specie. So Im planning on getting a G&L Tribute L-2500 sometime in the near future, and Im trying to decide on finishes. Dating back to the late 1950's, this is the wood found in more 3 single coil, double cut-away, 25 1/2" scale length guitars than any other. You can create a clean, transparent sound with single-coil pickups easily. For our Hollow T Classic style guitars, it produces a full, strong, thick yet articulate sound giving up just the smallest amount of mid focus, a guitar that has us in tone heaven every time we hear one. Both types of rosewood require what’s called “pore fill,” where the pores are filled before the lacquer is applied. The reason I did this was I liked the neck on the basswood model better which was set up with humbuckers which … Today, maple is common in electric guitar necks. The process works much the same way as if you played the guitar in a small room, then in a large room. The result is time-consuming and labor-intensive. So, you could say Pine falls somewhere between basswood and alder with a beautifully dimensional, musical voice all its own. It makes these guitars sound so clear and full that it almost has a solid body character to the sound but with the rich fullness of hollow chambers. Alder Basswood or Swamp Ash Discussion in 'Telecaster Discussion Forum' started by jackdc100, Sep 18, 2006. However, it’s much easier to finish and highly durable. Ash is a tonewood that comes in two main types: hard (northern) soft (southern) Some guitarists prefer a single piece of wood for both the neck or body of the guitar for purity sake, however. Ash is a tonewood that comes in two main types: The most popular option is hard ash due to the bright tone and high sustainability. It’s easy to: The softwood offers tight grains that often dampen and soften sharp hight tones, which can level out thin sounds like a knife-edged tremolo. Mahogany is a wood that became popular primarily being used on 24 3/4" scale length guitars since the 1950's. While guitar necks are traditionally made using maple, there are many types of woods found in this portion of your instrument. The rich appearance is dark and proven popular among guitarists. Colored fillers or lacquer is set inside the grain to create a smooth clearing surface. If you ever make it into a Lowe's, Menard's or Home Depot, they will typically have milled Poplar boards for sale. The swamp-ash sound is twangy, airy, and sweet. A type of black hardwood, wenge is stiff and strong. Richlite is more expensive to produce, but the results are much superior than any organic wood. Each plant, and each piece of wood, displays inconsistencies and imperfections in varying shapes and sizes. Korina is well renowned in the guitar industry as the tonewood of choice for the original Gibson Explorer and Flying-V guitars. Ash is one of the most common tonewoods for electric guitar bodies. Your choice of guitar tonewood is a subject of great discussion among guitarists, as different woods affect your sound in different ways. It’s very warm. However, mahogany is more common because it’s widely available in large quantities and available inside the United States. This is a very popular instrument with harder edged players and those seeking a bit more of a modern tone. What are the tonal differences on solid body guitars, between Alder, Ash, Poplar, Basswood, Mahogany and Maple? Well i'm getting ready to make a guitar and I was wondering what wood I should use. Ged is editor-in-chief and founder of Zing Instruments. Basswood is a common body tonewood because it’s inexpensive and ideal for a factory setting. ... Basswood (Tilia americana): However, maple offers better sustainability. Basswood vs Poplar? The resonance is dark and complex, and there are rich overtones you can’t find in other woods. With a thicker, more expensive piece of wood, you gain superior results. What it really has is the tighter bottom and fuller low mids of alder without losing some of those beautiful sparkling highs inherent in ash. This means you won’t find any deep, breathy sub-low tones. However, the price is often worth it. Pau Ferro; 7. Basswood (pronounced bass like the fish) ... but Pine has a more focused bandwidth than either of its Alder or Swamp Ash contemporaries. The solid wood also sounds better because it offers a uniform grain, thickness, and a more resonant tone with better vibration. Swamp Ash is a prized wood for many reasons. For this reason, an opaque paint color is usually chosen for a solid basswood body. Basswood tends to soften the high notes, on the other hand. However, ebony offers oilier pores, more brittle grains, and a stronger fundamental tone. It won’t wear out over time. Swamp Ash. A popular wood choice for necks and fretboards, maple is highly recognizable due to the grain patterns, moderate weight, and bright tone. The grain pattern takes on a swirl, where the larger rings and sections around the outside enhance the strength of the body. The wood drains quickly, making it very susceptible to splitting during the drying process. All Rights Reserved Registered Address – Dramatik, c/o Wesley Offices, 74 Silver Street, Bristol, BS48 2DS. HeHasTheJazzHands, Feb 9, 2019 #17. devastone likes this. It’s so similar to rosewood, in fact, that companies like Fender even started using it as a replacement for rosewood fretboards in their Mexican-made models. Many people agree that certain woods come with a brighter or fuller sound than other types, but it’s hard to say exactly why they sound different from each other. The differences include greater harmonic content with softer but still pronounced sparkling highs, rich low lows and a slightly softer pick (midrange) attack. The high overtones are similar to rosewood, but the resonation comes with more fundamental mids and low-mid ranges because of the multi-density stripes. A Strat® body will normally weigh under 5 lbs. Many of the 50's Fenders were made of Swamp Ash. However, soft ash offers a warmer feel. This article should serve as a useful resource in general, whether you’re about to buy a guitar or just like geeking out about this stuff. Ebenholz (Ebony) 6.3. This tonewood is durable, attractive, resonant, easy to work with, and relatively economical. Maple’s tone is highly reflective and bright, with more energy pushing toward the body wood.