Chambered vs Semi- Hollow Vs Solid

[Nicholasdaniel]

Main difference between these types of bodies and how do they affect the tone and style you would play for best sound?

 

[-CB-]

Cant comment directly on chambered, but solid vs thinline is a pretty big difference in tone - and the one place where the body makes a huge impact in tone, imho.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Chambered will sound closest to the Solid bodied guitars.  Warmoth's only hollow body is the Thinline, so if you're going towards an LP, Strat, or VIP build, hollow isn't even an option.

 

[Nicholasdaniel]

Would Chambered give it a warmer tone?
I'm thinking of building a strat and i want to know what kind of variance this would produce in tone

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Perhaps a bit warmer, but once again the differences aren't nearly as pronounced as true hollow and solid.  My chambered Tele has a Hard Ash body, and it sounds like a Tele.  I opted for chambered bodies for weight rather than tone.  Your neck wood choice will translate into a more pronounced brightness or warmth than the body.  That's the prevailing opinion of many forum members.  That doesn't really answer your question, but chambering is very close to the sound of the solid bodied guitars.  Warmoth does small, non-connected chambers as opposed to Gibson's big open chambers.

 

[-CB-]

technically, a thinline is not a hollow body....

 

[Patrick from Davis]

And the L5S is Chambered in the same manner as the Thinline.  The Les Paul I have is Chambered, in the Warmoth sense, not the traditional thinline sense, and it is a brighter guitar that the solid body Special that I have, or my buddies late 70's Les Paul.  But the Les Paul I have has lots of non stock features to it, so it would not be a totally fair comparison.  Still it resonates a lot, you can hear it much better than my other electrics when they are unamplified.
Patrick