Tone woods...??? (wooden spoon post)

Spyke · 2009-02-10T09:26:13+00:00

While my knowledge of tone woods and the like are functional at best, I thought I'd learn a little more by starting a bit of a debate, friendly of course. I understand the basics of resonant frequencies and can understand the benefits found in using a specific tone wood in hollow, semi-hollow and archtop guitars. Solid bodies though... I've just started reading a very interesting book which I'll review once finished and at one point they mention the Ampeg Dan Armstrong Plexi. A plexiglass / polycarb bodied guitar with interchangeable pickups. Their reasoning behind this is that the wood actually 'robs' the strings of some of their sound as the vibrations passed through the wood. By having a 'dead' body, the only contributing factor to the sound are the strings and pickups, thus leaving the electronics to do all the work and leaving the electric sound true. This made sense, not complete sense, but sense none the less. I now sit somewhere between believing that tone woods are all hype and that the quest for zero resonance is plausible, and that the wood really does make such a difference. I'm hoping to get some weighty arguments for and against. bzzzzzzzt - can 'o worms open. Fire away...

Bob-Dubery

Well here's a guitar made from non-traditional woods - oak with a pine top, with all wood recovered from whisky distilleries.

http://www.guitargal.com/cgi-bin/display.pl?db=db1&tp=tp2&show=138

This was not a one off. Fylde produce these on an on-going basis, and it's partly about finding alternative sources of wood. Go to http://www.fyldeguitars.com/guitars.html and click on "Single Malt Ariel" to get more details.

Wizard

Bought some Tung Oil today ...

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