Chris-Mason
Interesting read
What do you think of his view points.
Saddle and Nut
Why do we even need alternative wood species for musical instruments? That's a perfectly valid question, and the answer is that we don't. Rosewood, mahogany and maple have served us well for centuries , we know what to expect of them, and our customers have already come to accept them as trustworthy and will pay for them. So why look further?
First of all (and speaking from a steel string guitar perspective), let's discard the notion that some species of wood make good instruments and that others don't. The concept of tonewood is a hoax. Of the few things that we can do to a guitar and still call it a guitar, changing the wood it is made of will have the least impact upon the quality of the sound that it produces. The tonal difference between a mahogany guitar and a rosewood guitar is exactly the same as the difference between two mahogany guitars or two rosewood guitars. Can you tell what a guitar is made of while listening to an unfamiliar recording? No one I know claims they can. No one at the blind listening sessions I've attended could reliably distinguish between mahogany and rosewood guitars, or maple and koa guitars for that matter.
Guitars sound like guitars. No matter how poorly or bizarrely they are made, you'll never confuse the natural sound of an acoustic guitar with that of a banjo, a mandolin, a drum or a flute. Obviously, not all guitars sound alike, but even when we think we can distinguish a night-and-day difference, it won't be so extreme that one will sound like a guitar and another won't. We may have a strong preference for one or another, but they will all sound like guitars. If they didn't, they would be called something else.
The tone of a guitar lies more in the hands of the builder than in the materials from which it is constructed. With increased experience, the level of craftsmanship increases. As the quality of the luthier's instruments goes up, the tonal difference between the instruments goes down. There are not only fewer dogs, but it becomes more difficult to build one that stands noticeably above the others. I noted this phenomenon in my mountain dulcimers years ago, and more recently have seen it happen to my guitars.
Psychoacoustics plays such a large role in this matter that it's difficult to discuss tone objectively. ( I think that it's called psychoacoustics because trying to figure out stringed instruments will make you psycho.) We hear what we expect to hear, what we have been taught to hear, what we want to hear, and often what we hope to hear. Many luthiers and musicians alike spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars collecting information and recordings and they have come to have a stake in the sanctity of its rightness. They need the vast body of instrument mythology to be correct, and strongly oppose the possibility that it may be bogus. This makes it extremely difficult for a daring luthier to sell instruments that aren't made of standard varieties of wood.
So if the type of wood doesn't matter to the instrument, and if we can't get good money for instruments made of alternative wood, why bother with them?
I like them because I need a certain amount of variety in my life. Curiosity has often been a stronger task master than the buck, I guess. I've tried as many types of alternative woods as anyone I know, which is what led to my conclusions about tonewood. I also want my personal instruments to be as unique as possible, regardless of how others may judge them, and alternative wood is an easy way to produce a singular appearance.
Alternative species will eventually become more acceptable as standard species go the way of Brazilian rosewood.
Alternative wood can also be cheaper and more accessible than standard tonewood. This can especially be an important factor to beginning luthiers. If your favorite wood should become accepted by the industry, you'll notice an astonishing price increase as it is stocked by tonewood suppliers. Instrument-grade wood is the cream of the crop and should demand a premium, but lumberyard stock can be just as satisfying to work with, and without breaking your bank account.
Perhaps I should briefly describe my experiences with conventional wood species, just so you have a gauge for my opinions about the alternatives.
Mahogany is a lovely wood to work with. Old-timers maintain that the quality of mahogany isn't what it used to be, and I am forced to believe them. Supplies today vary widely in hardness and density. Some mahogany is stiffer and heavier than other samples. Some mahogany guitar sets seem almost fluffy and floppy by comparison. Most mahogany is plain, yet pleasing to look at. Sets demonstrating a ribbon figure ar prettier, but tend to ripple across the grain during bending, though the rippling can almost always be sanded out without compromising the guitar. Straight-grained mahogany can be predictably bent into a tight cutaway without breaking. Tool marks and sanding scratches are easily removed. Mahogany is a dream wood.
Indian rosewood is much harder, heavier, and stronger than mahogany. Guitar sets seldom show much figure, but we're all accustomed to looking at it that Indian rosewood just looks "right". Sanding this wood clean takes more effort than mahogany, but a good random orbital sander relieves most of the grief. Indian rosewood is extremely compliant. I once accidentally bent a side into a tight cutaway, having forgotten to plug in the heat blanket. iI was quite surprised when I removed the wood from the Fox bender and it sprang back halfway to straight. No other wood of my experience would have survived such a trial. If it weren't for the allergy I am developing toward rosewood, I would have nothing bad to say about it.
The most trying wood that I have used to any extent is Brazilian rosewood. The stuff loves to warp while it is sitting on the shelf, and, once installed in a bender, is capable of almost anything. Brazilian can be so squirrelly that an occasional side may have to be discarded, since trying to sand out the ripples would leave the wood paper thin. We might expect this from the dregs of Brazilian that are left today, but I bought wood thirty years ago that was just as bad. Once made into a guitar, Brazilian rosewood frequently checks and cracks for no apparent reason. If it wasn't for the incredible premium that the wood demands, I don't believe anyone wood use it today. The stuff is grossly overestimated.
The makers of other instruments are probably glad that not many flattop guitars are made of maple, which leaves the supply of good stuff for them. Maple sort of proves my point about tonewood. Quilted maple is soft and floppy. Bird's-eye maple is very hard and stiff. Flame maple can cover the whole gamut. Yet guitarists believe that all maple sounds the same, which goes against the rules they have set up for rosewood and mahogany. Go figure. Figured maple can put up a fight when bent and might ripple badly across the grain. It's also very abrasion-resistant, which makes it difficult to sand out scratches. Blond guitars can be hard to sell if they aren't shaped like a Gibson jumbo. Pretty maple can often by found at the lumberyard, which makes it a bargain guitar wood if you have the means to resaw it.
Before you start daydreaming about having all the cheap wood you want, remember that some tonewood companies will join backs and sand sets to usable thickness for you (for a fee, of course), thus saving you the cost of a large bandsaw and a thickness sander. All the tasty lumberyard alternatives you may process won't actually be so cheap until you've paid off this equipment.
Some species are easier to deal with than others. For luthiers, this is primarily a matter of bending the sides. Hand bending is the cheapest way to go, and learning the process with mahogany will make the process the most bearable. Some say they like to "communicate with the wood" this way, but I never felt the wood had anything to tell me. The acquisition of a heat blanket and the creation of some simple forms will go a long way in removing the stresses of bending both to the wood and the luthier. A thermostat for the blanket and a set of spring steel slats to support the wood are worthwhile accessories. If Venetian cutaways are on your to-do list, you'll want to add a Fox Bender to your equipment list.
Instruments can be designed to make bending easier. Dreadnaughts are the easiest to bend. Tight waists make life more difficult for the hand bender, but not for the blanket-equipped. Tight cutaways always present some risk, especially if the wood has prominent cross-grain figure. More on this later.
So, on to the alternatives. This list isn't meant to be comprehensive, it's just a collection of species I have made into instruments and my impressions of them. The fact that many of the illustrations feature Huss and Dalton isn't meant to be be an advertisement; H&D is simply where I've gained most of my experience with a few kinds of wood. Besides, I've come to think of them as my guitars. The bosses will understand. Some of the photos are of sanded but unfinished work, which seldom shows the wood to the best advantage. Sorry 'bout that.
Ash. Ash is considered by many to be the premier firewood, and not of much further use. Steambenders who make snowshoes or lacrosse sticks know better. Luthiers primarily use ash for electric guitar bodies, but the same bending qualities that the other trades admire make this wood wonderful for instrument sets. Ash is harder and stiffer than mahogany, sort of an open-grain maple. The pore structure is similar to oak; the pores are numerous and deep. It's about the color of cream when freshly cut, aging rapidly to light tan. Ash stains well and a contrasting pore filler added interest. Ash is pretty boring unless you are fond of Fender electrics, which mostly exhibit a sunburst or pickled finish when used with this wood. A rare sample of ash might have the most astonishing combination of swirls, curls, and flame. Finding quartered ash is just a matter of luck. More on unquartered wood later. The illustration shows unfinished ash used as a top wood. It's been my experience that hardwoods thinned to the same flexibility as a plate of softwood produce similar tone qualities, though very hard species will be dangerously thin by the time this point is reached.
Bob-Dubery
Keira WitherKay wrote:
so technology as long as we embrace it will take over and getting that 59 les paul tone will be as easy as flipping a switch ..........of course thats providing the guiotar companies fdon't do their best to sabortage this technogy....like the car companies did to the electric car ......................... cos it will eventually kill the guitar biz as we know it .except for collectors.......... but i feel more people buy guitars to actually play than to collect
The car industry didn't kill the electric car. Pure electric cars aren't very practical and also aren't really green - they just move the point at which you generate greenhouse gasses. So the car companies are looking at various hybrid technologies and energy recovery systems. The systems have to be small enough and efficient enough to be practical.
The real drivers, in both industries, is customer demand, and that depends at least partly functionality and price. Gibson, Fender and Martin are already selling guitars with sophisticated electronics. It'll be like cars (not just green technologies but things like ABS and airbags) - prices will get driven down as more manufacturers use the technology on more models.
I think that there's more of market in having modelling done at the amplifier or in stomp boxes because then you still chose the guitar, the bit that you physically interact with. So this might be difficult for acoustic players - and more so for those that don't want to have a pickup in a guitar - but there's Martin, and there's stompboxes that promise to make your Cort sound like a vintage Martin.
What Calkin is really pushing here is not woods. He's saying that the wood doesn't matter, the LUTHIER makes all the difference. Decode the message and he's saying "don't buy from a big company, come to a small-volume luthier like me, who will make the guitar with his own hands and who CAN make a difference. Don't buy a Taylor or a Martin or a Breedlove - come and speak to me."
