Anyone's seen Suhr's tone / wood descriptions ?

vegababy

Junior Member
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I was just on the Suhr site for the first time and found his descriptions of how which wood or combinations sound highly interesting.

For example he says that he doesn't build swamp ash bodies with rosewood fingerboards unless a customer would really absolutely want it. Didn't think that combination was not good  :icon_scratch:

Also he says that the 'holy grail' of tone is a basswood body with maple top....very interesting....

here's the link I@m talking about:

http://www.suhrguitars.com/wood.aspx
 
yeah there was a huge thread about the "sizzle" very recently... it's still going around here somewhere...
 
The only way I could translate too much 'sizzle' is maybe that a guitar becomes way too bright. I've played and seen lots of swamp ash / rosewood board guitars and never found them extremely overly super bright...strange...
 
The first sentence on that page is:

"The descriptions of tone are very subjective and can be misleading."

How appropos!
 
Oh, Let's NOOOTTTT restart the "sizzle" conversation all over!!
Vega, just go read that thread and you'll probably delete yer original post here.
 
tfarny said:
Oh, Let's NOOOTTTT restart the "sizzle" conversation all over!!
Vega, just go read that thread and you'll probably delete yer original post here.

Sorry, didn't mean to restart something that had been discussed in a different thread. Didn't see the other 'sizzle' topic before.

Having said that, I wasn't too surprised by the term 'sizzle'. I've seen far more exotic words describing tone. What I found more interesting was his holy grail choice and the statement about swamp ash and rosewood.

Anyway...Moderators feel free to close it down and apologies to anyone who was annoyed readind about it again...
 
GoDrex said:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=3058.0 - Sizzle!

Thanks for that ! I read it yesterday after you'd pointed out it existed. I just didn't think I needed to do a search for 'sizzle' before I posted my topic and my only intentions were that it might be interesting for some users here.

Seeing from how out of hand the other topic got I'll think twice before starting a topic ever again...
 
It's no problem. I don't think anyone would expect someone to do a search for that.
 
yep ... there sure were a lot of "FACTS" spouted off in that thread. funny, any truly reputable builder not caught up in the 'tonewood' marketing hype sizzle would NEVER claim to be a cookbook authority on which wood produces what sound - it's a scientific fact that due to the huge variation of properties even within a species (and then even within a specific board!) this cannot be done with any kind of certainty.

when you add in all of the other factors like electronics, hardware, and construction methods you soon find that the variables involved far exceed the capability for anyone to accurately make any kind of claims like are spouted off on many instrument websites ... even Warmoth is guilty of falling into this marketing hype trap

all the best,

R

p.s. the term "tonewood" is a specific term used in reference to acoustic instruments. it is not an industry term used when discussion solid/chambered body electric instruments. do you see an electric instrument maker spouting off about "tonewoods"? proof again that they're barfing marketing hype at you and playing on your ingorance (while also proving that they don't know what they're talking about)
 
Roy used to "sizzle" playing the ash Tele with rosewood board below, but think that had more to do with his fingers than the wood...

14042372.jpg


That SHOULD end the discussion, but probably won't....
 
depressing ... all of my RB albums are in storage at the moment. he truly was a genius

sad that we'll never hear new works of his unique 6-string blues voice :very_sad:

all the best,

R
 
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