Official Luthiers Forum!

I have been studying up on guitar making and enjoy it very much...I have an LMI catalog that describes some of the qualities of different woods....Some of these descriptions are confusing to newbies like myself.....

Well balanced with great projection and strong lows and highs

Open quality with nice separation , clear trebles and good presence in mid range.

Great balance with a strong fundamental......

Can someone explain what they are talking about.....Thank you

Well balanced with great projection and strong lows and highs
Means in general this wood tonal characteristics are neither bass or treble dominate yet still has good volume projection

Open quality with nice separation
Means in general this wood rings well and sustains the ring the ring well

clear trebles and good presence in mid range.
Means in general this wood has bright, distinct treble response and yet has good clear mid tone response.

Great balance with a strong fundamental
Means in general this wood ring with clear and strong fundamental tones and is neither bass or treble dominate.

If you notice several of these statements are saying the same thing with different words. Keep in mind when reading a catalogue you are reading a sales brochure so you will get glowing generalization not detailed analysis of the woods characteristics.

So in short all these discriptiosn mean = they would really like to sell you some

Nicely bland across the strings and you can throw it a long way. Well suited to manic depressives.

The bass REALLY sucks!!


Splits easily but does so nicely with no raggedy edges. The bass sucks.


See the first description but this one has no overtones whatsoever ...

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Pieces of wood don't have those qualities. You can put your ear right next to a good piece of wood and listen, and not hear a thing.

Guitars that are strung up and being played by someone could have those qualities, though.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

MichealP realy gave some good advice , especialy the last line .... they realy do want to sell you some wood .... many factors go into the sound of a guitar ... what you can do though is go to the music store and try guitars with different woods and you MAY get an idea what they are talking about .... Jody

I post this from time to time and I got it from and Elderly catalog and I believe they got it from Martin. Hopefully it will be helpful to you.

Dave - you crack me up!

DF

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Howard is right on !!!!!
Every top- and back & side set have to be judged by it's own merits!!!!!!
All woods & trees differ in weight & stiffness-also woods from the same tree do the same!
A lot of the sound of a guitar comes from the player!!!
Bring on the e-mails !
There is no magic combo-only good planning and instrument making!
30 + years of doing this makes me wonder about all the flap about woods-
If you pay attention to the wood your working with -you will get a great guitar!



Mike

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Mike Collins

When it comes to wood, instead of listening to the sales pitch, you're better off going to your favorite guitar shop and playing guitars made out of different woods. If you're just getting started, try East Indian Rosewood, Mahogany (any variety, be it honduran, cuban, african, sapele or any of the other mahogany substitutes) and walnut. After you've made a few, then try the unusual stuff and tell us how it is!!

Here is a link to an article Ervin wrote on tonewoods
http://www.esomogyi.com/tonewoods.html

It's worth a read

David Oh

I thought this was a nice overview on the Breedlove site

http://www.breedloveguitars.com/instrum ... ewoods.php

I thought this was a nice overview on the Breedlove site

http://www.breedloveguitars.com/instrum ... ewoods.php

Breedlove says this:

"Bear Claw Sitka Spruce
This spruce has genetic attributes that produce a figuring suggestive of a bear clawing his way across the grain. Lateral figuring makes this wood the stiffest of our top woods. Highly sought after for its unique figuring. Very stiff and punchy. Good for heavy playing styles - retains clarity when pushed. Pacific Northwest tone wood."



Breedlove's specific batch of bearclaw may be THEIR stiffest wood but this statement as a generalization is utter crap......

I think the issue is not that various tone woods have certain qualities but that the verbal description of tone qualities is not standardized and two listeners will use very different words two describe the same tone and use the same words to describe tones that are quite different. There is no consensus on what any of these descriptions mean. There are a few generalizations like the term "deep" usually means that the tone has a strong bass component. But one person's deep might be another person's thuddy or even muddy.

This is a real problem for me. I'm trying to keep notes on the sound of my instruments and I can't come up with the words to describe what I'm hearing. When I do and then go back to that description later and listen to the same instrument, I often wonder what I was talking about.

Mike Collins said one ofhte most important things in here .. the PLAYER can control the sound of a guitar more than anything.

I saw Patty Griffin in concert playing her Gibson J-200 recently .... then her guitar played used it for a song where she only sang ... you would have NEVER guessed it was the same guitar if you were blindfolded ... she would be better suited for a guitar that speaks when lightly played, and J-200s aint the ticket for that .... then Brandi Carlisle plays a little Martin 00, and plays the heck out of it , to the point where its overdriving the PA .. she could make a J-200 talk ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"