Is all of the good wood really gone?

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 16 Dec 2005 6:01 am

I remember reading quite some time ago that all of the best, old-growth tone woods for guitars had already been harvested and indeed, the Japanese had bought up a lot of it in the 70’s and were hoarding it for their own use. And yet, there now seems to be an endless supply of solidbody guitars with quilted maple, flamed maple, birdseye maple tops, even in the 300 – 400 dollar price range. There is also an endless supply of top-end acoustic AND electric guitars, all promised to be made with the best “tonewoods” in the world.

Is great wood really, like, NOT rare? I know that the Asian guitars are using “nato” and “agathis” and probably whatever else they can find in the back yard, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with these – I have a Korean DeArmond made out of “mahogany” and maple and an Indonesian Ibanez with an agathis body that both have quite enough tone to work with; the idea that a guitar HAS to use certain woods to sound “right” seems more-or-less blown to bits what with all the pickup mods and processing that you can do these days.

Ben Slaughter · Post by **Ben Slaughter** » 16 Dec 2005 9:26 am

I know some asian guitars are using wood like agathis and then putting a maple top on. I have a Cort, MGM from Korea that is a great player and a beautiful flame maple top on an agathis body.

I know that forestry techiniques have gotten a lot more efficient in the last 10 years. They can get more usable wood out of a tree than they used to.

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 16 Dec 2005 9:32 am

The instruments from the orient made of "mahogany"---well that is quite a misnomer in the world of instrument wood. The accepted standard for mahogony would be from Honduras or Cuba or other South American. The Mahogany you see in the Korean instruments is about as bad a grade of mahogany as you would ever see. It is used t for making shipping crates and such. Now it is advertised in guitars and I think it is very misleading. Try to find a Gibson guitar made in the USA out of this asian crap mahogany.

Wood is one of the greatest recycled things in nature. If you run low on a species, plant some and in 75-100 years, you have a whole new supply. A lot of beautiful figured maple was actually culled out by the furniture industry and burned to heat the factory because the figure makes it hard to run this type of wood through blade planers and shapers without tear out, thus ruining a leg or a table top. This wood is now being culled out at the sawmills and sold as speciality wood.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 16 Dec 2005 11:44 am

To put it quite simply, woods that sound good and woods that look good are two different animals. In solid body guitars and steels, we only worry about looks. The wood's usually too thick to think of it as having any substantial tonal properties (desirable resonances, as luthiers call it). Steel guitar and solid-body guitar builders pick something that "works well" (usually maple, or alder or ash for straight guitars) and that's about it. Appealing visual characteristics wood may have, such as "flaming", "quilting", interesting graining, or some birds-eyes, do absolutely nothing for the sound.

[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 16 December 2005 at 11:47 AM.]

Bob Smith · Post by **Bob Smith** » 16 Dec 2005 3:25 pm

I read somewhere ,that someone is raising up trees from the bottom of the St Lawrence seaway or somewhere up there. Supposed to be a load of old growth trees at the bottom of those canals up there.Pretty interesting I thought. bob

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 16 Dec 2005 7:16 pm

Bob, that lumber you're referring is logs that have been submerged in the bottom of Lake Superior for over 100 years. They're being reclaimed by the Superior Lumber Co., a business venture that was formed to salvage those logs, the likes of which are seldom seen today. The wood, due to it's fine grain and straightness, is far superior (no pun intended) to today's reforested lumber.

A rough-cut 2x4 you'd buy today is about 40% lighter, about half as strong, and about twice as likely to warp, as one made from virgin (slow-growth) timber.

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 16 Dec 2005 8:48 pm

Donny. Didn't Zum make some guitars with this wood?

Webb Kline · Post by **Webb Kline** » 16 Dec 2005 9:00 pm

Donny, you're right and wrong about that. THe reason that today's construction lumber is lighter and less durable is because so much of it is produced from 15 year plantation trees grown in the South and in Canada. A tree that young is about 80% sapwood which is the lightest, weakest part of a tree. Lumber from such trees really is junk compared to lumber sawn from mature tree.

Lumber sawn from mature trees is just as good as it ever was unless disease affects it like it is doing with Hemlock.

Fully submersed wood will last almost indefinitely although the water does alter its chemistry somewhat giving it a unique coloration. But, once kiln dried, it isn't going to have any other quality that can't be found from the same species harvested today as long as it is coming from a mature specimen.

Slower growing wood will obviously produce a tighter grain than fast growing trees do. Trees harvested in deep valleys and Northern sides of mountains typically are straighter and tighter grained and yield a higher percentage of clear (FAS) and No 1 grade lumber.

Ash is efficient for production guitars because the drying costs are much less due to the fact that Ash is only 40% moisture content on the stump compared with say Red Oak that runs around 100%. Ash isn't as tight grained generally as a lot of woods, as it usually grows pretty fast. But it's a very good wood for building.

As for curly, birdseye maple, etc, those grains are very dense. I'm not sure how it affects the sound. It could actually hinder resonance and sustain because of its erratic grain configurations. That would be an interesting study.

The idea however that they don't grow wood like they used to simply isn't true. It's just that the percentage of good wood is considerablly less because trees are harvested at a younger age, thus the sapwood and heartwood percentages are much higher. Additionally, forest harvesting practices today are utilizing as much as 100% of the tree. Modern veneering technology produces many times the amount of veneer as older methods.

But on a yield per acre study, the 2nd and 3rd growth forests grow quicker, so it is unlikely that the volume of good wood per acre is any less than it used to be.

The big wood manufacturers utilize marketing strategies that dictate to us what kind of wood we want. They like to gear up to produce one specie at a time and if there is a large base of a particular tree coming to maturity, suddenly it will become all the rage.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 16 Dec 2005 9:03 pm

I have no idea about the supply of the various woods. But the term "tone wood" is a real catchall that could mean anything. The main woods that seriously effect tone are the woods used for the soundboards or tops of acoustic instruments. These structures are analagous to a speaker or resonator. They have to be thin and light enough to vibrate freely, but rigid enough to withstand string tension and to push air. There is an inverse relationship between volume and sustain. At one end of this spectrum is a banjo head. It is a membrane. It is loud with very little sustain. An acoustic guitar top is a compromise. It balances volume and sustain. Obviously spruce, a softwood, has been found to be optimal for that. The sides and back of an acoustic guitar are like a speaker cabinet. They need to be dense and rigid enough not to resonate, so as to kick all the sound out the front of the instrument. Hardwoods have been found to be best for that. Some people like a thin back, so they can feel the vibrations as they play. But the vibrational energy that goes out the back is lost from the projection out front. Different materials in the back and sides reflect sound differently, and so have some effect on the tone projected out the front, but that is very subtle. Mostly those woods are selected for their appearance and hardness. The top and bracing are where most of the tone comes from, just as the cone or resonator has a bigger effect on tone than the cabinet material of a speaker enclosure.

A solid body instrument is a completely different animal. The magnetic pickups only receive vibrational energy from the metal strings, not from the body. Body resonance cannot add any volume to the electrical signal. Body resonance in fact drains vibrational energy from the strings and decreases sustain. Remember the inverse relationship between volume and sustain. Body vibration in a solid body instrument with magnetic pickups can reduce sustain, but the vibrational energy transferred to the body is lost as negligible acoustic sound (turn off the electricity and hear how faint it is), and is not transferred to the magnetic pickup, which can only react to vibrating metal, unless the pickup has become "microphonic," which is considered a serious flaw. But body resonance can affect the overtone pattern that reaches the pickup. Thus, it can mellow or brighten the tone. Also, a mushy soft body can simply deaden the tone and decrease sustain and volume, as can loose or complicated joints between the bridge or changer and the body, or between the neck and body of a regular guitar. So you want very dense and rigid materials for a solid body, like rock maple and ash. Highly configured grain patterns adversely affect solid body tone, because they make the body density inconsistent. So, boring uniform grain is preferred under mica or enamel finishes. Highly configured grain patterns in lacquer solid bodies are a compromise for appearance sake, but the loss is pretty subtle and easily tolerable. What we get from "tone woods" for either acoustic tops, sides and backs, or for solid bodies, is essentially an accident of nature, plus some curing and aging skills. Theoretically, synthetic composites and polymers could be intentionally designed to be superior. Whether anyone has actually accomplished that design goal is a matter of subjective opinion.

I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I’m just repeating what I’ve read.
[This message was edited by David Doggett on 16 December 2005 at 09:13 PM.]

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 16 Dec 2005 10:22 pm

Webb Said:

As for curly, birdseye maple, etc, those grains are very dense. I'm not sure how it affects the sound. It could actually hinder resonance and sustain because of its erratic grain configurations.

Mr. Franklin told me that exact thing one time when I was bugging him about a guitar he was going to build for me.

Carter has been building steels from the old growth woods. I'm sure John Fabian could weigh in with some actual first hand info.

Bob

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 17 Dec 2005 2:07 am

Dave--Regarding the vibration of a guitar being transfered to the pickup--

Plug in any guitar and put the volume at playing level.
Put your hand on the strings so they don't vibrate(or better yet take The strings off).
Tap on the guitar or pickup with your finger tip---Hear anything[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 17 December 2005 at 02:19 AM.]

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 17 Dec 2005 2:38 am

I know that some people get wanking away about how "There will never be another great violin!" because the particular tight-grained, old woods used by Stradivarius and Guarneri have all been used up. It seems to me that with all the heavy-duty research that's been done about violin tone, somebody could probably design a carbon fiber/graphite/fiberglass jobbie and bang 'em out by the thousands, but classical geeks tend to be such traditionalists.

I have noticed that my agathis soldbody Ibanez has a natural, "woody" tone that leans a good deal toward the sound of a hollow or semi-hollowbody made out of harder wood, so I wonder if much of the chatter must simply be about trying to duplicate the tone of the Les Pauls and Strats that people have gotten used to as having "great tone." I've read Pete Anderson and Eric Johnson go on about how important the thinness of the finish is on a solidbody, and I'm not sure why? WHAT "natural vibrations?" It seems to me as though there is a lot of mysticism and magical thinking going on in regards to electric guitar tone. Didn't Leo Fender design guitars the way he did because they would be cheap to produce, and could be made using the furniture-making machines available at the time?

Dave Boothroyd · Post by **Dave Boothroyd** » 17 Dec 2005 3:15 am

I was looking at a very pretty guitar that a student was playing last week. It was one of those Korean Superstrat types with a beautiful flamed top. Played well, good fittings & pickups, nice action.
The only thing is, it was a bit too flamed to be true.
A close look showed that the top, back and edge laminate was paper printed with a flamed wood pattern, then laquered over the top.
Just like a modern house door, it was probably made of fibreboard really.

James Morehead · Post by **James Morehead** » 17 Dec 2005 7:17 am

My son's best sounding tele is interesting. It has a flame maple top that is gorgeous, but it is a laser print, and is a Japanese model. Go Figure.

The best sounding acoustic tops that I have heard of are made from spruce---OLD GROWTH ALASKAN SITKA SPRUCE. The supply is dwindling. I hope Garth is smashing "cheap" guitars!

The old logs found in Lake Superior are said to be pristine, as the cold water temperature is perfect for preserving wood.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 17 Dec 2005 7:22 am

Mark, yes I have done the body tap test. On my Zum and Emmons p/p pedal steels with new Truetone pickups, with my volume pedal at normal playing level, there is a very, very faint tapping sound that is way below the volume of the string fundamentals and overtones. It can only be heard at all when the strings are held completely silent. If the strings are plucked normally, they are many times louder. I can't believe body resonance in a solid body guitar ADDS anything hearable to the fundamental or overtones of the strings while being played.

But body resonance can have a SUBTRACTIVE effect. Body resonance will drain off overtones. Thus a very thick, hard body with little or no resonance will have a bright, even shrill, sound, with the maximum overtones present (think of a Tele or a Fender Stringmaster). A thinner body with some resonance (or a softer body with no resonance) will drain off some overtones and some fundamental sustain, and make the tone more mellow, but with less sustain (think of a hollow body jazz electric). On pedal steels, the complicated changer joints between the string and the body drain off some vibrational energy, and that is one reason pedal steels sound different from lap steels (pickup windings are the other main reason).

So yes the tiny amount of body resonance in a solid body can alter the overtone patterns and sustain. But it is in a subtractive way, and it's very subtle. It is no where near the major factor that top vibrations are for an acoustic guitar. I don't think anyone but players can hear the small difference between various solid body shapes and materials. But anyone can hear the difference between a solid body, a hollow body electric, and an acoustic with a magnetic pickup, or an electric banjo.

But these are just my beliefs based on my experience. Most of the mythology of "resonance" in solid body guitars and steels seems to me a false carryover from our experience with acoustic instruments. Ed Packer's controlled sound tests on various guitars might shed a lot of light on this question.

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 17 Dec 2005 10:53 am

I don't pretend to know how the different woods affect the qualities of solid body instruments, but I do know this. Every year at the NAMM show, I see guitars in the $3-4000 range, and guitars in the $3-400 range, and I don't see a difference in quality that reflects the difference in price.

I currently own 10 Korean guitars. (3 Aslin Danes, 7 Ravens.) They all work just fine. In some cases I replaced the pickups. I defy ANYBODY to tell the difference in quality between the sounds these produce and the sounds yeilded by my more valuable vintage American guitars.

------------------
"Never underestimate the value of eccentrics and Lunatics" -Lional Luthor (Smallville)

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 17 Dec 2005 11:32 am

Mike-- I definitely agree with you there.
I just bought an Ibanez Artcore f-hole new for $230. The fit and finish are flawless. Much better than my 70's 335 Gibson which was jammed with putty and filler around the neck joint and all the inlays.
I don't have a lot to compare the sound with but I'm impressed and so are others who play it.
The thing I don't care for is having to turn a blind eye to the fact that we're exploiting the cheap labor to get these toys.

[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 17 December 2005 at 11:39 AM.]

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 17 Dec 2005 12:26 pm

Coupla comments---for years I have seen a trend in luthier catalogs toward synthetic materials, primarily because of the writing that has been on the wall for quite a while regarding the supply of responsibly harvested quality "tone" wood. Prejudice is clear and rampant about the primacy of wood and I am as guilty as anyone. But until I take and 'pass' a blindfold test I will keep reminding myself that the only reason I consider wood to be obviously the one true way is that, like, I mean, it is! Because! That's why.
In other words let's see what great innovators can do with ingenuity and motivation to A) create instruments just as good with nontraditional materials and B) maybe exceed the limitations of the old materials and create new standards (why not?). Conservatism in the name of old=good, new=bad is just dumb.

Didn't Hag have a song "Is The Good Wood Really Over For Good?"......."when a girl could still cook and steal wood'......

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 17 Dec 2005 11:25 pm

The thing about synthetic materials instead of wood is that they can be made to resonate was well as wood does.

Reece chose to make the millennium out of a synthetic material because he believes it is BETTER than wood.

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 18 Dec 2005 7:25 am

"Better than wood"
Blasphemy,Shocking!!!!

Actually he's probably right from a lot of standpoints.Although being able to resonate like wood may not be formost.
Carbon composite would appear to be more predictable than wood for manufacturing. Better strength to weight ratio and has a high-tech marketing appeal.
He may also subscribe to the theory above that the body material doesn't impact the tone of the guitar significantly.
I'm not a fan of adding to resource depletion but considering the quality of the wood from reforestation it might be a better choice.
It would be interesting to hear from Reece on this.(I suspect he has commented somewhere but I can't find it)

Webb Kline · Post by **Webb Kline** » 18 Dec 2005 7:58 am

Reforestation has nothing to do with the quality . The only thing that affects 2nd and 3rd growth forests is the premature harvesting of it by pulpwood and particle board manufacturers. A tree needs girth in order to have a significant percentage of heartwood. Here in PA, now that Proctor and Gamble have found alternatives to ravaging immature forests for their toilet paper, we will have a lot of furniture and instrument grade lumber for many years to come.

I am yet to see composite material that has offers me the asthetic inspiration that a nice piece of wood does.

My son says he plays drums better when he uses his hand-selected oriental carpet because the colors and patterns inspire him. I can't argue with the results. I believe that their is a lot of psychological advantage to playing an instrument that appeals to us. When listening to playback, my GFI sounds as good and in someinstances better to my ears than my ZB, but the old ZB is so nice to look at that it feels warmer and friendlier than the green GFI and I know that it inspires me more.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 18 Dec 2005 7:59 am

I don't think all the "good" wood is gone. But there are certain species which are bordering, if not completely, extinct. Brazilian rosewood is the best-known example in the guitar-making world.

As Webb says, what constitutes "good" wood depends on the application. For example, very tightly-grained German or Adirondack spruce has been considered the best tonewood for steel-strung acoustic guitar tops. There's some still around, but it's getting scarcer. For the backs, Brazilian rosewood is favored for its high density, and what little exists is insanely pricey. How much of this scarcity is due to the CITES treaty and how much is due to real scarcity is not so clear, to me at least.

Donny points out that new-growth wood is lighter and less sturdy. This is not always a disadvantage. Classic 50s Tele bodies are made of ash. The weight on these varies some, but generally the ones most people seem to like, and I agree, are made of lightweight swamp or skunk ash. Fender moved to other woods like alder in the 60s, but tried to bring back the ash look in the 70s and onward, culminating in the 52 reissue in 82. One of the main complaints about especially the 70s guitars was that the ash was often extremely heavy - a lot of people consider them "boat anchors" - I've owned several like that. In solid-body guitars, lightweight is often an advantage. If the only thing one cares about is sustain, well, perhaps heavier wood is better. But to me, if it sounds good, it is good.

Any type of engineering design is a matter of using materials that one has to best advantage. If, in fact, the "good" wood is going or gone, design techniques will need to compensate to give the best results with what is available. So I believe that the sky is not falling.

Mark Vinbury · Post by **Mark Vinbury** » 18 Dec 2005 8:53 am

Webb- I tend to disagree with you about the quality of reforested wood.
From what I can see in the second growth wood the quality, with respect to strength and suitability for instruments does not have to do with the heartwood vs sapwood ratio.
It is more the number of annular rings per inch.From what I have seen the reforrested trees are planted further apart and culled to allow maximum "girth" increase per year.This does not result in the tight grain so prized for violin tops etc

On the other hand I couldn't agree with you more about the endearing asthetic qualities of a wooden instrument.I love the GFI for the machine that it is but when I eventually get one I will have to cover it with some real wood.[This message was edited by Mark Vinbury on 18 December 2005 at 12:45 PM.]

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 18 Dec 2005 9:22 am

Well I had a question, and possibly some input but I had to read the whole thread to do it. Lots of information.

First of all the "Tap Test" isn't a very good one. You can have Isolated (in some cases such as Sierras, intentional) pickups that transmit little or no body noise, all the way to microlitic (microphonic?) pickups that pickup more than a desired amount of body noise. I've always liked Sho~Buds for the transmission of this noise. It makes them less than perfect for recording in my experience. You hear pedal noise you wouldn;t hear on a Sierra or maybe a Franklin.

I tried one time "isolating" my PUs on my PIII, and the result was a sterile sound much like other guitars with PU isolation, and I remounted them. My current Marrs Profess has extra springs under the PUs for improved sound transmission.

Now. Spruce was mentioned. Probably the overall numerical favorite of classical guitar makers for soundboards, Cedar being maybe second. Brazilian Rosewood, though I've found guitars like my old "Giannini" that had sides and backs made out of it were very clunky and toneless. I forget what my Federico Garcia's sides and back are made out of. Guess I could check. (After editing, I went up and looked to find the top of my old Giannini to be plywood, so that was probably where the "clunk" is from..)

Also I seem to remember reading that the Strads were made out of wood that had been submerged for a period so that the cell structure was somehow changed..

These "Swamp Ash" and "Agathis" woods, to me are another term for junk pulpwood like Poplar and Cottonwood. I don't know for sure, but I think it's a good guess.

The wood I'm interested in for maybe making an Ericaster™ is Cypress. Used for the front sides necks and back of flamenco guitars, I seem to remember it was light and brilliant in sound transmission.

Anybody try Cypress?

I hear a lot about it, but is there a particular tree called the "Morning" tree? Why is it so highly prized?

EJL

PS in editing. An Interesting Link for Classical Guitar Info that answered some of my questions [This message was edited by Eric West on 18 December 2005 at 09:51 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 18 Dec 2005 11:00 am

I'm not sure what the mounting method of a pickup has to do with tone. The only way a magnetic pickup can generate a signal is for metal to vibrate within the magnetic field of the magnets. A moving magnetic field generates a current in coiled wires the field passes through. So the only thing that can make sound through magnetic pickups is the guitar strings. How the pickup is mounted should have no affect on how the strings vibrate.

However, how the pickup, or anything else is attached to the soundboard or body could alter how the body resonates I guess. That could have a big effect on an acoustic top. It's hard to imagine much effect on a solid body instrument, unless the body was substantially altered in the process. Pedal steel pickups are usually mounted on springs, so the height can be adjusted. There is essentially no resonance passing between the body and the pickup (there is essentially no resonance anyway in a solid body).

But if you solidly attached the pickup to the body, how much difference could that make? Well, the strings are vibrating, and that generates most of the signal. If vibrations pass from the strings through the changer and nut into the body, and the pickup is attached solidly to the body, then the pickup could vibrate ever so slightly, while the strings are vibrating orders of magnitude more above the pickup. I suppose the faint pickup vibrations could interact with the string vibrations and somehow affect the signal. I mean, you can get a signal by either moving the strings, or moving the pickup in relation to the strings. But in a solid body instrument, those minute body and pickup vibrations have got to be many orders of magnitude less than the string vibrations. So I can't imagine what is going on that would make the mounting method of the pickup affect tone. But I'll take your word that something is going on.

Do a thought experiment. Attach a magnetic pickup to a solid block of wood. Without strings or other metal moving over the pickup, how are you going to get any signal out of it. Unless it has gone microphonic with loose wires inside that can move within the magnetic field, you should be able to bang on that piece of wood with hammer, or attach it to any kind of nonmetal vibrating device, and there will never be any signal from that pickup. If it were an acoustic pickup, that would be different. But it is a magnetic pickup.

I just think most of the lore about solidbody "resonance" and pickup mounting variations is mythology falsely carried over from acoustic instruments. In acoustic instruments, the top vibrates, moves air and makes sound, the same as a speaker cone. In a solidbody electric, the body moves no air and makes no sound. Turn of the electricity and see. All the sound comes from metal strings vibrating over the magnetic pickup. The signal generated is minute, inaudible. It has to be amplified many times by a preamp and then a power amp. Then the process is reversed, and the strong amplified signal going throught he speaker voice coil moves in relation to the large stationary magnet surrounding it, and drives the stiff speaker cone to move air. Exactly how does the solid wood body, or the method of attaching the pickup have any affect anywhere in that chain?