ash strat n tele pickups

[mkat]

I also agree with Dave. I'm finding the same differences in my prototypes using a variety of wood and in different laminated designs (necks and bodies).

[automan]

How awesome is it that for all the talk of PAFs, P-90s, and strats... the three of us post bass builds

You guys do great work.

[David Schwab]

How awesome is it that for all the talk of PAFs, P-90s, and strats... the three of us post bass builds

You guys do great work.

I build mostly basses. But I plan on doing more guitars.

Here's my Tele-meets-LP style guitar.

[Vihar]

My experience is rosewoods are on the warm end, maple is brighter and ebony is a different kind of bright. Basically the harder the wood the brighter the tone.

Rosewood is harder than maple.

http://workshoppages.com/WS/Misc/Woo...ness-Chart.pdf

Janka Hardness Scale - for Hardwood Flooring

[David Schwab]

Rosewood is harder than maple.

http://workshoppages.com/WS/Misc/Woo...ness-Chart.pdf

Janka Hardness Scale - for Hardwood Flooring

Rosewood is very oily. That's the difference. It's the damping factor. There is also the dark wood light wood thing. Most light colored woods sound brighter than dark colored woods. Strange but true.

Ebony is harder than sugar maple and Indian rosewood too, and you can hear it. But the resonant frequency is higher than maple.

As Possum said, anyone who played a rosewood 'board and maple 'board Fender knows they sound different.

Ever play a solid rosewood Tele? They are much darker sounding than a regular alder or ash Tele. Real fat sounding guitars.. and heavy.

[mkat]

Same here, I mostly make basses but also make guitars.

[soundmasterg]

Rosewood is very oily. That's the difference. It's the damping factor. There is also the dark wood light wood thing. Most light colored woods sound brighter than dark colored woods. Strange but true.

Ebony is harder than sugar maple and Indian rosewood too, and you can hear it. But the resonant frequency is higher than maple.

As Possum said, anyone who played a rosewood 'board and maple 'board Fender knows they sound different.

Ever play a solid rosewood Tele? They are much darker sounding than a regular alder or ash Tele. Real fat sounding guitars.. and heavy.

I wonder why the one George Harrison used on the Let It Be album was so bright......

greg

[the great waldo]

Nice Curves, on the guitar too

Cheers

Andrew

Here is the last bass i built for a customer (my wife is holding it). He designed the body and decided the woods he wanted. I normally put a headstock veneer, but he asked me not to. He likes seeing the neck-through pieces from the front.

[JGundry]

My experience with making violins is that wood affects the tone of the instrument because of stiffness and mass. A neck has a primarily resonance along it's length. In an ideal world the nodal point for the neck would be at the nut. If the nodal point is not located there the instrument will not feel as good to the player as one with that does have them located there. Adding mass to the headstock with wood or more massive tuners will move the nodal point towards the body and removing mass, moves it away from the nut. With a violin you can change the frequency of the neck by scraping wood from the lower end of the fingerboard of by adding black modeling clay there. Little changes can have a huge effect on playability with a violin. Baroque violins have a ebony veneer over willow fingerboard rather than the solid ebony board of modern violins and play differently partly due to this difference.

With a solid body guitar I think mass and stiffness of the neck is even more important to tone and playability because the body of the guitar is solid and the neck is much larger in proportion to the body. Even with a metal truss rod neck thickness, fingerboard wood and tuners affect the feel and tone of the guitar.

It's not a guitar but here is some of my violin work.

[David Schwab]

That's a beautiful scroll.

You can really hear the effect of the neck and head on an electric bass, probably because the neck is so long and unsupported. A flexible neck or headstock can cause dead notes along the neck. For some of these basses, untralite tuners can cause the problem to worsen. They sell those fat head weights that clamp to the head to fix that.

I find making the neck very stiff by adding carbon graphite makes a nice even sounding bass.

Of course violins are very resonant instruments, unlike a solid body guitar. And not a lot of sustain on a note if you pluck it. It's all going into moving the sound board. A heavy violin probably wouldn't sound very sweet.

[David Schwab]

I wonder why the one George Harrison used on the Let It Be album was so bright......

greg

Well they are still Teles... but the one I played years ago had a very solid tone. This was back in the 70's and we were in a band doing a lot of heavy stuff like Black Sabbath and the first Kiss album. It had a real meaty tone compared to one of the other guy's blond ash Teles.

But you still get that nice thin Tele thing when you roll back the volume control.

George sounded like he had a lot of highs and not much lows dialed into the amp.