Mahogany bodied Strats - Anyone ? - GuitarTalk Community

Mahogany bodied Strats - Anyone ?

Attila

I have a Mahogany bodied strat in my sights, its a Vintage VP6 Natural part of their "Reissue" series ,

The Vintage VP6 Electric Guitar main features include:

~ Body: Mahogany
~ Neck: Hard Maple – Bolt On
~ Fingerboard: Rosewood
~ Scale: 25.5"/648mm
~ Frets: 22
~ Neck Inlays: Pearloid Dot

What is the conventional wisdom surrounding mahogany which is the traditional LP style wood used on longer scale guitars ? Is it a No-No among the purists

Ron Kirn :

The Body

Guys, wood is wood, and as I stated in the diatribe about necks, it doesn’t matter what wood you choose, a Strat is still going to sound Strat-like and a Tele will always sound like the Telecaster. Harrison’s Rosewood Tele sounded like a Tele, and in ’62 and ’63, Leo introduced Mahogany bodied Teles, Strats and a few other models. Nobody ever screams, “That’s a Mahogany Strat, I can hear it.” Nope, it still sounds like a Strat. http://www.ronkirn.com/body.htm

What sez you ..........

MikeM

I've not played one sadly..

However I do believe (Rather, from my experience with different bodies) it will make a difference. In the grand scheme of things, I think that the pickups will make more of a difference than the body. If it ends up sounding a bit too middy and dark, pull a couple of hundred turns off your pups ?

domhatch

definitely speaking under the correction tree here, but i wood (hehe, um, ok sorry) imagine the greatest impact would come from the density of the wood you choose? two different woods, same density, same body shape, guitar's gonna ring out pretty much the same?

i'm sure there are puh-lenty of other factors that come into play. but here's a nifty little table i found that may interest:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html
dh|

Chocklit_Thunda

Attila Barath wrote: I have a Mahogany bodied strat in my sights, its a Vintage VP6 Natural part of their "Reissue" series ,

The Vintage VP6 Electric Guitar main features include:

~ Body: Mahogany
~ Neck: Hard Maple – Bolt On
~ Fingerboard: Rosewood
~ Scale: 25.5"/648mm
~ Frets: 22
~ Neck Inlays: Pearloid Dot

What is the conventional wisdom surrounding mahogany which is the traditional LP style wood used on longer scale guitars ? Is it a No-No among the purists

Ron Kirn :

The Body

Guys, wood is wood, and as I stated in the diatribe about necks, it doesn’t matter what wood you choose, a Strat is still going to sound Strat-like and a Tele will always sound like the Telecaster. Harrison’s Rosewood Tele sounded like a Tele, and in ’62 and ’63, Leo introduced Mahogany bodied Teles, Strats and a few other models. Nobody ever screams, “That’s a Mahogany Strat, I can hear it.” Nope, it still sounds like a Strat. http://www.ronkirn.com/body.htm

What sez you ..........

Ron is right... Take out a Tele pickup and switch it for a broadcaster or humbucker and the Tele twang is gone. Wood will make a slight difference. Like the overtones and undertones will sound different but the main sound is generated by the pickup. A poplar Strat and and alder Strat and an ash Strat all sound very similar... The differences are negligible... You'll never listen to an album and go "ugh... That Strat is northern Ash...."

Mahogany will probably just give you a warmer Strat sound. Turn your treble down and boost your bass and mids a bit on a normal Strat and you're there ?
As for purists... Bah to hell with that mumbo jumbo... ?

I say go for it.

AlanRatcliffe

I've had a couple bodies (later upgraded to ash & alder) and played dozens of mahogany SuperStrats. In short, it does make a difference. The attack will stay the same, but the sustained part of the sound will be a bit warmer and softer. I had a mahogany bodied rear-routed partscaster for a while with three P90s - a great rocker (but ultimately not my kind of thing).

Of course, if you distort the hell out of everything you won't notice much of a difference- It's not night and day difference the way scale length is. But it's still there as a small part of the base tone of the guitar - like most things. Just about everything counts in some way towards the sum that is a good guitar...

And yeah - I'm one of those hair splitting types that claims there is a difference between ash and alder. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I've been through dozens of Strats, swapped bodies, necks, pickups and hardware until the cows came home. And home has always ended up being an ash body (and maple or pao ferro board). No, I couldn't pick out the difference on most recordings, but blindfold me and pass me a dozen different Strats and I'll be able to tell you which ones I like - and most of those will be ash.

Attila

Thanks Gents ....let me mull this one over a bit

kevjones

IMHO it depends on what style of music you are playing. Take a GTX can throw in three screeching single coils, feed it into a tube screamer, plug that into a Marshall on full crunch, plug your right hand into a wall socket and go Asian. NO ONE will be able to tell one wood from another.

guidothepimmp

Attila

One of my builds is a one piece mahogany strat style fiddle. The neck pup is very typically strat sounding. Great twang . You're welcome to give a whirl. Unfortunately the only other pup is a bridge bucker 8)

Reinhard

There is a clip of some guitar dealer playing a bunch of 60's strats. The mahogany one was my favourite. So many variables between guitars, it may not have been the mahogany that made it sound that could, but that guitar was awesome.

Found it:
=

Attila

Wow I see what you mean Reinhard, as you say there are many factors that could contribute....

Thanks for the offer Claudio will let you know ...

Kev ...you crazy mofo .... I play clean dude ....with a smidgen of drive .. :?

kevjones

I thought the last one was the best sounding Strat to me BUT if you listen to what he liked, I would suggest he is closer to a like for a Tele sound. Then of course there is the settings and the Amp.

kevjones

Attila Barath wrote: Wow I see what you mean Reinhard, as you say there are many factors that could contribute....

Thanks for the offer Claudio will let you know ...

Kev ...you crazy mofo .... I play clean dude ....with a smidgen of drive .. :?

? ? ?

There is no better sounding Gibson clean sound than a Gibson on clean and likewise no better sounding Fender on clean than a Fender on clean ha ha ha ha ha with a smidgen of Sus, OD and Dis ha ha ha ha . ? ?