Birch like mahogany?

[Bruno]

I remember reading somewhere that Mr. Tom Anderson realized the body of the sunburst strat Schecter of Mark Knopfler (played in Alchemy for Tunnel of love and Telegraph road) in birch wood, because at that time he had a mahogany woods that he not liked
Shortly: the birch wood has same (sound )spec. of mahogany.
It's all right  in your experience?

note:
the first schecter strat sunburst, stolen during the recording of Making Movies, had mahogany body with light maple top.

 

[Cagey]

I've never seen a guitar use that wood. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with some undesirable quality, such as instability. I know it's used quite a bit to make plywood which is used primarily in cabinet work. Many bass/guitar speaker cabinets are made of birch ply, for instance. There's a write-up on it here.

 

[m4rk0]

I have two,
a 70's Ibanez LP
and a 60's Silvertone Archtop.

Both have their very own Unique tone, a bit more open and a little brighter than Mahogany..
Also, for some reason I am starting to like plain woods more and more.. (don't worry, it's just a phase) so, I quite like these..
unfortunately I Can't find a pic of the archtop.. I'll make a new one soon.

 

[m4rk0]

oops, found some:

 

[line6man]

To my knowledge, Birch is of the Betulaceae family, as is Alder. Therefore, my best guess is that Birch would sound similar to Alder.

 

[Steve_Karl]

Is that like ... "Zombies don't like salt, I like salt, so I ain't no zombie" ?

 

[Bruno]

Syllogism...

 

[dmraco]

I love that aged hardware Schecter is using.  They are making some great looking guitars these days.

 

[Bruno]

I like the old Schecter (like the one above), the current ones ... no comment  :sad1:

OT
fFor experts: what about that neck?
A bird's eye of course, but 2A or what?
Sooner or LATER... a warmoth clone of knopfler  suburst schecter will be mine  :icon_thumright:

 

[SustainerPlayer]

To my knowledge, Birch is of the Betulaceae family, as is Alder. Therefore, my best guess is that Birch would sound similar to Alder.

The word "family" used as a taxonomic rank is often confused "meaningwise" (that's a word I just invented). The Family ranks above Species and Genus in the biological hierarchy. To put this another way ... Gallus gallus domesticus - the chicken belongs to the Phasianidae family of birds. But they do not all taste like chicken.  :toothy11:

 

[line6man]

To my knowledge, Birch is of the Betulaceae family, as is Alder. Therefore, my best guess is that Birch would sound similar to Alder.

The word "family" used as a taxonomic rank is often confused "meaningwise" (that's a word I just invented). The Family ranks above Species and Genus in the biological hierarchy. To put this another way ... Gallus gallus domesticus - the chicken belongs to the Phasianidae family of birds. But they do not all taste like chicken.  :toothy11:

I don't know how closely the two are related, but my guess is that they are similar, being of the same Family. You're more likely to sound like something in the same Family of woods than something of a different Family. (But on the other hand, perhaps another type of wood could more closely match the structure of a wood in a different classification. It's hard to say.)  Is there another tone wood that works further down the classification to match the Genus of Birch? I'm not all that knowledgeable on the scientific classification of most woods. :blob7:

 

[Cagey]

I'm not sure how much difference classification makes. If anyone could or be willing to make a body/neck out of an unusual wood, Warmoth would probably be the first to do it. So, why don't they use a particular species? To me, that opens up all kinds of questions on its own. If they can't see a point to it or know of problems with it, that's probably worth paying attention to. Unless, of course, you've got a pile of free wood you want to make into those parts and have the sawmill/tools to do it.

 

[Jeremiah]

I always thought the main reason why birch was generally used to make plywood is because the tree never grows very large, so it would be rare to get a single big piece of wood from it.

 

[Cagey]

I don't know what qualifies as "big". They use a lot of ebony on guitars, and those trees aren't much more than glorified bushes. I also remember on my grandmother's little farm she had a few birch trees that were easily 50-60 feet tall.

Stuff's nasty to play around, though. At least, the bark is. The sap is sorta like tar. In fact, if I remember my Boy Scout days correctly, it has the unusual property of being able to burn even when it's wet. So, if you need to start a fire in the rain, you would do well to find a birch tree and snag some bark off it for kindling. I think that's also the stuff that's a natural analgesic, like aspirin. Probably should check Wikipedia, though. I could be way off.

 

[dNA]

Having grown up in a forested area that was probably 75% birch trees, I will say that I've rarely ever seen birch trees with a trunk who's diameter is very wide. Certainly only seen like one ever that was big enough that you might get cuts of wood to make a guitar body.

Ebony is used in guitars a lot Cagey, but how often do you see guitars with an ebony body or ebony laminate top? And can you imagine what they'd cost?

 

[bagman67]

Ebony is used in guitars a lot Cagey, but how often do you see guitars with an ebony body or ebony laminate top? And can you imagine what they'd cost?

Ran across a pair of matching custom steel string acoustics (a dreadnought and an OM) at Sylvan Music in Santat Cruz about a month ago - construction was bearclaw-figured redwood top, macassar ebony back and sides.  They looked and played beautifully.  Cost:  about six grand apiece.  Obviously custom handmade acoustics are gonna be spendy, but the lumber musta had at least something to do with the price.

They're sold, but the photos are still at:
http://sylvanmusic.com/inventory.php?function=view&id=1795&search=Acoustic%20Guitars
http://sylvanmusic.com/inventory.php?function=view&id=1796&search=Acoustic%20Guitars

 

[reluctant-builder]

I've only encountered birch as a drummer. The conventional wisdom is that birch is "focused" and maple is "warmer" ... but I've never run across mahogany drums, so I don't know how it would compare tonally to birch, just that -- in the drumming world -- birch is usually considered a good wood for studio work with maple preferred for live. It's almost always a birch v. maple comparison, so I would think there are enough tonal similarities, and minute differences, to warrant the comparison.