It tends to be warm and full, but usually with a firmer low end, and more overall tightness. It is a very light and fairly soft wood, and it’s light in color, too, with minimal grain. To sum up, mahogany is one of the most useful and toneful woods in the luthier’s arsenal. All Rights Reserved. Mahogany is a fairly dense/hard wood and is relatively heavy and strong-ish. Often a player’s tonewood preferences are not based on experience but on what they have read or on a formula popularised by a big name guitar manufacturer. Please refresh the page and try again. A “hardwood” by definition, poplar is actually relatively soft when compared with a range of hardwoods. Thank you for signing up to GuitarPlayer. Mahogany is a tonewood that produces a punchy growl with excellent sustain, generally favoured for punchy rock music. To those who see mahogany as only good enough for lower-level instruments (and I suppose we have Mr. Martin to thank for that), I would send you to your record collection to see how many of the classic tones we have long enjoyed were produced by mahogany instruments. Note also that a player’s choice of an all-maple or maple/rosewood neck might come down to feel (or even appearance) as much as sound. Many guitar manufacturers as a substitute for alder are using this wood, as it is quite similar in tone. Highs are typically soft and not overly pronounced. Along with Mahogany, it’s been used for ages in the construction of electric guitars (and is much more common as necks and tops than bodies). BRAZILIAN MAHOGANY (HONDURAS) Traditionally used for solid body guitars back in the day, Brazilian/Honduran Mahogany is well rounded in tone with a warm feel. A very dense, hard wood, ebony makes for a fast attack from the instrument—all else being equal—and it offers a muscular, controlled bass, and snappy, sizzling highs. A popular upmarket pairing, the ebony fretboard contributes to a little more tightness, clarity, and definition, as compared to the mahogany/rosewood neck. Solid basswood bodies have a fat, but well-balanced tonality. Bodies (76) Fingerboards (9) Necks (18) Soundboards + Tops (1) … More often seen as a back and side pairing for acoustic guitars, full Mahogany guitars (soundboard, back and sides) aren’t uncommon however and can look very good. None possesses the sterling qualities of the better species of mahogany, whether true or genuine. – The CPX is a Jumbo bodied 12-string guitar with a solid spruce top, with mahogany back, neck and sides, plus a rosewood fretboard. But basswood is a good tonewood by any standards, and it has been used by many high-end makers with excellent results. 130,70 € Honduras Cedar 1 Piece Body Bass / Electric Guitar. On a well-made guitar, basswood can yield good dynamics and definition with enough grind to give the sound some oomph. Alder has a strong, clear, full-bodied sound, with beefy mids and excellent lows. Mahogany is the cornerstone tonewood of the fretted instrument world. Tonewoods on the back and sides of a guitar can act as an equalizer, boosting or scooping certain frequencies, or like a reverb unit that adds depth and sustain to the overall sound of the instrument. One notable exception was the Rosewood Telecaster that Fender produced sporadically between 1969 and 1972 and was played by George Harrison. African Mahogany electric guitar body wood, wide range of dimensions, world wide delivery, no minimum order! There is usually good depth to the sound, with full but not especially tight lows, and appealing if unpronounced highs. This more porous, open wood doesn’t quite have maple’s hardness, strength, or stability, however, and it isn’t suitable as a fretboard material. It is the genuine mahogany… but is it true? Let me count the ways: L‑00, D‑18, O‑22, J‑45, Les Paul Junior…. These are mostly hard, dense woods with distinctive grain patterns. This light-colored wood with a tightly packed grain doesn’t always carry dramatic figuring, but some examples can be spectacular, as most famously seen beneath the sunburst finish on the carved-maple tops of some Gibson Les Pauls from the late 1950s. Many of these travel under the handle “Philippine mahogany,” a non-specific term for several species of mahogany-like woods that are frequently seen in student-level guitars from overseas. But in those two similar words, genuine and true, lies a world of difference. Shop Tonewood By Instrument; Electric Guitar Bodies + Necks + Wood; Electric Guitar Bodies + Necks + Wood 106 items. … From a builder’s perspective, mahogany is a dream to work with. Woods such as purple heart, wenge, koa, bubinga, and muira piranga are used by custom guitar-makers, but don’t feature highly in mass-production guitars. New York, Used for both bodies and necks, maple is a dense, hard, and heavy wood, sourced mostly in the Northeast and Northwest United States and Canada. Aside from Swietenia there are several genera in the Meliaceae which produce timber suitable for musical instrument construction, among other uses. The type of wood of an acoustic instrument has a huge influence on tone, but what about electric guitars? Jescar Jumbo Guitar & Bass Fret Wire-57110 £ 10.70 – £ 21.92; Jescar Medium Guitar & Banjo Fret Wire-43080 £ 6.08 – £ 14.36; Jescar Medium Guitar & Banjo Fret Wire-47095 £ 8.09 – £ 13.05; Mahogany Green Brand Medium Guitar & Banjo Fret Wire-2.28mm £ 4.52 – £ 10.44; Les Paul ’59 Electric Guitar Plans – Scale 1:1 £ 9.56 The result is a guitar that delivers the notes we play, with fewer of the extra, overtone notes. Refine Results Categories. On the face of it, would you think there would be a difference between “genuine mahogany” and “true mahogany”? Something of a cross between ebony and rosewood tone-wise, pau ferro is a fairly hard, dense, tight-grained wood. Maple necks can impart a bright, poppy tone that can do much to reinforce the top end of a large-bodied guitar, while mahogany necks help push the overall palette into a warmer, more woody tonal range. Spruce and cedar—the two most common woods for the tops of acoustic guitars—will very rarely come into the picture regarding electric-guitar construction, although makers have occasionally offered semi-hollow electrics with thin spruce tops. Closeouts (4) Brand . Mahogany guitars have long been recognized by the world’s greatest guitarists as making some of the finest sounds around. This is the most popular laminated body type of all time. Mahogany is defined as a hardwood but it is perhaps better identified as a ‘soft’ hardwood. Maple might make a better fingerboard, but mahogany is one of the only hardwoods that makes a decent top wood, in addition to being ideal for necks, blocks, kerfed linings – just about every part of the guitar. Out of the weeds at last. Guitar Advice, Recent update | Acoustic Guitars, Article, Mahogany, Tonewoods, The Bourgeois Custom Sunburst OO Country Boy, A Testament to the Humble Power of Mahogany. Ribbon Mic Drum Overhead Shootout: Royer R121 vs. Coles 4038 vs. Shure KSM 313 vs. AEA R84, SDC Drum Overhead Shootout: Miktek C5 vs. Schoeps CMC6 vs. Neumann KM184 vs. Peluso P84. Whether in the form of a solid, one-piece neck with integral fretboard, or a neck with an added fretboard of a second type of wood (usually rosewood), maple is easily the most common type of neck wood used in solidbody guitars. © In simple terms, rosewood’s contribution to a maple neck smooths and “furs up” the solid-maple sound. Mahogany is used in the bodies, tops, necks, backs and sides of guitars and mandolins. Players of electric guitars with bolt-on necks have long been hip to the fact that neck and fretboard materials can have a significant bearing on tone. There’s a muscular midrange, but also a certain softness and breathiness. Slightly brownish in its natural, dried state, alder’s grain isn’t necessarily unattractive, but it usually isn’t particularly interesting, either. Adding a solid maple top to a solid mahogany back yields a guitar body that exhibits many of the best tonal properties of both woods. The swamp-ash sound is twangy, airy, and sweet. Rob is a multi-instrumentalist with decades of building and repairing under his belt, including extensive experience restoring vintage guitars. In my experience Mahogany is a very natural, woody sounding tonewood. Sharp chisels glide through with a crispy, satisfying crunch, a harbinger of the clear tones the finished instrument will produce. It also yields great clarity, definition, and sustain. As for the classics, the Gibson Les Paul Jr., Les Paul Special, and SG were made of solid mahogany (with mahogany necks), and countless makers have used the wood in both solid and semi-solid designs over the years. The species is known generically as limba—an African wood related to mahogany, but imported under the trade name Korina. It’s a fairly heavy and very dense wood and it’s widely used by all kinds of guitarists. Mahogany is typically considered a warm sounding timber and is most commonly associated with Gibson® guitars. What it lacks in dramatic visual appeal and breathless testimonial from wood-sniffers, it more than makes up for in suitability for instrument construction. It’s a fairly light hardwood with a fine grain that’s usually enhanced in the finishing process to appear as an attractive array of long, thin streaks. Used on its own, mahogany’s characteristic tone is warm and somewhat soft, but well balanced with good grind and bite. However, it also provides a thicker sounds. Ash is traditionally used for single-wood, slab-bodied guitars, but has sometimes been employed by more contemporary designers in multi-wood (or laminated) bodies—most commonly with a carved-maple top, or as the top of a semi-hollow or chambered guitar with a back made from a different wood. © Sound Pure LLC 2018. Many guitarists consider this a fuller-sounding tonewood … This highly prized tonewood is seen frequently in fretboards, and in the backs and sides of many quality flat-top acoustics, but rarely in solidbody electrics. Harvested in Africa and Central America, mahogany is a fairly dense, medium-to-heavy wood that yields a wide range of guitar-body weights, depending upon stock sources. You get mahogany’s smooth, appealing lows with good sustain, as well as the extra clarity, definition, and bite added by the dense maple cap. The properties of woods used in acoustic guitars will be tackled in another issue. It offers firm lows, pleasant highs, a slightly scooped midrange, and good sustain. So the sonic variables exist not only between woods, but, in subtler degrees, between different guitars made from the “same” wood—which is part of the magic in searching for your dream guitar amid ten of the same model hanging on the guitar store wall. Sap viability turns out to be very important in the tonal quality of your guitar wood and consequently your instrument. Fender (14) Mighty Mite (4) StewMac (21) WOODSTAX (67) Material. Dense and fairly heavy, with sonic characteristics similar to those of mahogany, walnut is occasionally used in electric-guitar bodies. Most archtop guitars have spruce tops, so let’s consider what a spruce-topped archtop can sound like when combined with maple or mahogany. Best known as the tonewood of Gibson’s radical Modernistic Series of the late 1950s—the flashy Flying V and Explorer—as well as more recent guitars that follow these templates, Korina is a warm, resonant, and balanced performer. Tonally, mahogany is less projective than spruce, producing a subdued response that is crisp and delicate with emphasis on the midrange. If aliens landed tomorrow and announced they were taking all the tonewoods back to their home planet, but were willing to leave us one species to carry on building with, what else could we cling to that would be usable for making virtually every part of a guitar? Good swamp ash is both light and resonant, and generally carries a broad grain that looks great under a translucent finish. 146,50 € 154,80 € Also, the mids tend to have a little more openness. It is said mahogany brings a big warm tone. What it lacks in dramatic visual appeal and breathless testimonial from wood-sniffers, it more than makes up for in suitability for instrument construction. Many guitar and bass bodies are made from Mahogany. 78,00 € Sapele Body 1 piece for Electric Guitar and Bass. Ash from the upper portions of the tree has also been used, as has harder northern ash. “But even still, two pieces of mahogany from different trees would sound different.” He encourages people to be open to a range of tonewoods when they shop for guitars. Mahogany yields what I call a fundamental, strong sound. White limba—as used by Gibson and Hamer—has a light appearance in its natural state, and black limba has a more pronounced grain. Read more about: Acoustic Guitars, Article, Mahogany, Tonewoods. Suspending that for the moment, let’s reserve “genuine” for our three Swietenia species and examine what’s left. Although well-balanced sonically, poplar bodies aren’t particularly resonant or sustaining, and they generally don’t seem to enhance any particular frequency range or overtones. Bear in mind that woods of the same species cut from different trees (or grown in different regions) will sound slightly different, and have different weights, different densities, and so on. Get the latest news, reviews and product advice straight to your inbox. How do I love thee, mahogany? Maple is also one of the most common ingredients of laminates used for semi-hollow electric-guitar bodies, where it contributes tightness and clarity. Used on its own, mahogany’s characteristic tone is warm and somewhat soft, but well balanced with good grind and bite. This is due both to its tonal response, (once again, very similar to Alder) as well as the fact that Basswood is much more readily available to the manufacturers in Asia. It is typically used under opaque finishes, but some examples can look good under darker translucent finishes. Figured Mahogany SWIETENIA MACROPHYLLA. Super bright, dense, and resonant, it’s easy to see why maple has been a favorite for years. There are 49 types of Mahogany, but many are practically extinct because of the wood’s popularity for furniture and musical instruments, and the types used today are not the same as the Mahogany used in guitars in the 1940s or 1950s. There are many timbers which bear a superficial resemblance to mahogany but are from unrelated or distantly related species. There is no doubt that there are many perceptions about the “tone” of certain woods and their effect on the way an electric guitar sounds. Furthermore, these components can be of single- or multi-wood construction. Many of the high upper partials, or overtones, are very subdued because of the internal dampening. These are collectively referred to as “True Mahogany.” Species commonly seen in the guitar world include khaya, sipo, and sapele (and I will spare you further latin), all of which can make beautiful, toneful instruments. Mahogany is the cornerstone tonewood of the fretted instrument world. It's commonly thought that you'll need a brighter top wood/fretboard to add a little bit of snap back into the tone for rock/metal. Isn’t all mahogany the same? It’s also used in single-wood bodies. The solid maple/mahogany body is characteristically rich, warm, and resonant. Maple is often used as an ingredient in a multi-wood body, where it is generally partnered with a second, lighter wood. Mahogany has a warm, mellow tone with good presence in the lower mids. Ebony also wears very well, and it doesn’t divot under years of finger-and-string pressure nearly as easily as rosewood does. Though difficult to bend, figured mahogany … For instance, the body and neck both contribute to the sound, and luthiers achieve certain tonal goals by carefully matching body and neck woods. From Robert Johnson’s L-1 and KG-14, to Woody Guthrie’s SJ, Bob Dylan’s 00-17 (mahogany top, no less), John and George’s J-160E pair, Bob Marley’s Les Paul Special, Norman Blake’s D-18… need I go on? Peter Frampton on Recovering His Les Paul Custom Years After It Went Down in a Deadly Plane Crash, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s "Let's Dance" 1964 Fender Vibroverb is Up for Sale, Gibson Expands Slash Collection with New “Victoria” Les Paul Standard Goldtop, Frank Brothers Guitar Company Puts a Fresh Spin on Retro Guitar Design With its Arcade Doublecut Electric, Boss, Sola Sound Team Up for New Waza Craft TB-2W Tone Bender Fuzz Pedal. Mahogany has a completely different weight and stiffness with a unique dampening factor. Time to stop thinking of tonewood as a hierarchy and check out some fantastic mahogany guitars! It's the luthiers' goal to combine the best of these elements to create the next masterpiece. Like ash, alder is most often used on its own as a body wood. It’s a medium-weight wood, although quality cuts of alder used for guitar bodies will often weigh less than denser cuts of ash. 104,30 € Alder Body 1 Piece Bass / Electric Guitar. The uniform pattern of mahogany, along with it’s density, compress midrange tones. It is now surfacing more and more as a body wood used in affordable, Asian-made electrics, and it displays a rather bland, characterless quality. Everything else being equal, it is generally recognized that mahogany and koa will produce a “warmer” sound in a guitar than the more brittle rosewoods can. Beautiful and rare (often quilted) variety of genuine mahogany occurs in a very small percentage of mahogany trees. The mahogany tonewood helps bring out the resonance and complex depth of a 12 string, while the spruce top helps keep a clarity that the tones don’t get muddled and lost with the volume of a jumbo body. The second most common guitar-neck wood after maple, mahogany is most often coupled with a solid mahogany or mahogany/maple-topped body. Mahogany gives a warm timbre with a lot of bottom end. 77,90 € Mahogany FSC 100% Body 1 piece Bass / Electric Guitar. As a cautionary note, many other wood species that get called mahogany are nothing of the sort. But what exactly is meant by the “best mahogany”? I have always been attracted to the woody, open sound of a mahogany guitar, and, until the recent acquisition of a rosewood McPherson, have largely owned and played only mahogany guitars. The long, straight grain of the best mahogany makes a neck that will stay straight for generations; the same qualities make it an absolute joy on the bending iron when destined for a back-and-sides set. Harvested in Africa and Central America, mahogany is a fairly dense, medium-to-heavy wood that yields a wide range of guitar-body weights, depending upon stock sources.