Help me choose the body wood for my next build

[RU36]

Ok here is the deal.
For years I have played les paul's and mahogany body guitars.
My playing style is on the faster side with distortion.

The mahogany sound is great when your playing clean tone with reverb by yourself in your room, but for me it is two rounded off and doesn't speak fast enough or cut through the mix. Even with a maple neck and ebony fret board its still a bit to boomy and the neck pick up is out of control on the low end.

So my last warmoth build I went with basswood body, ebony fretboard and maple neck.
It cuts through the mix like a knife and is very accurate sounding. Mainly I think its the neck that gives it the great attack.
How ever the basswood does seem a little lacking on mid range tone.
It responds to everything your right hand does instantly but it just has this emptiness to it. Like the pick attack is there but the note itself is not as full as I would like it.

So that gives you an idea of what my taste is.

What I would like to hear is people experience with these woods.
Alder
Walnut
Koa
Their will be a quilted maple top on the body as well and once again I will be using a mple neck and ebony fretboard.
I just need help deciding on the body wood.

Thanks guys!

 

[m4rk0]

What bodyshape are you getting? an LP ?

Alder will be like Basswood...Alder is the chicken of tonewoods!
I don't know about KOA, but Walnut is noticeable brighter than other woods.

if you want to hear a difference in tone, try a hollow Korina Body!! although, a hollow body won't make that much of a difference on a carved top
If you want to hear a real difference, try us a wenge/ebony instead of a maple/ebony neck! it will feel better and faster too!

 

[Nando Vallart]

I think it's more about pickups than wood... Try a Bare Knuckle Painkiller, it's very tight...

 

[RU36]

OK so here is more details about my set up.
Body is a z body shape with a Tune-o-matic bridge and tail piece.
Picks ups will most likely be an Emg 81 in the bridge and 85 neck position.
However I am thinking of just doing two 85s but that will most likely be experimentation after the build.

 

[AutoBat]

EMG's sounding a little sterile, you say?

 

[Alfang]

I don't think your choice of body wood is gonna make one bit of diference in your sound, given your stated setup, so go with what looks good, Blk Korina maybe

 

[RU36]

EMG's sounding a little sterile, you say?

No I just think I am used to the real big bottom blurry sound and now maybe I have to get used to the cut-thru accurate sound a bit.
I defiantly like it better for playing metal type riffs.

 

[RU36]

I don't think your choice of body wood is gonna make one bit of diference in your sound, given your stated setup, so go with what looks good, Blk Korina maybe

Are you serious?
Are you one of those people who swear EMGs make every guitar sound the same?
That's about as accurate as saying every guitar with single coils sounds like a strat.
I have EMG's in several guitars and they all sound like a more Hi-Fidelity version of the same guitar.

Body and neck wood choice makes a big difference in the way the guitar sounds regardless of pick ups

 

[Alfang]

Dude, I am totaly serious. And read what you just wrote, you back me up. all your emg guitars are hi fidelity versions of the same guitar.

I was on your side, pick a body that looks good. we've had this discussion on here before, and theres a group of people to back me up

I have a guitar with EMG's    it sounds awesome, and it sounds the same in any guitar i put them in, and i have over 15 guitars.

and by the  way, all my strats with singles in them sound like strats, funny how that works, I have every pickup brand you can name, and guess what, each guitar sounds like the pups that are in them,

and when i move pups from one guitar to the next, the sound of the pups follows. 

I get that wood has its tonal character, I really do.  But most of your sound / tone comes from your pickups. and by most i mean allmost ALL.

Do you think a telecaster sounds like a Tele because of the shape of the body?  No . it's because people put traditional Tele pickups in a telecaster, if they put Gibson humbuckers in a tele, guess what, it sounds like Angus fricken young.

I was tryin to tell you to pick a body that looks good, but you gotta get an attitude, I don't care what you do. If you don't like it, don't post a thread asking for opinions

 

[Alfang]

I'll just add you to the growing list of people that don't like me, I don't care.

Despite my rough edges, I mostly come on here to help people, and learn from people,  I've learned a ton from some good people, and when I can, I try to share what I know as well.

you obviously read more into my post than what was intended, My bad, I tend to write short and to the point,

The point is, Black Korina Looks good

Even NonsenseTele said pickups are more important than wood, you didn't ask him how serious he was.

Your on the steep portion of a learning curve and we can help you if you open your mind

 

[RU36]

I have no dislike for you Alfang
I just find it hard to believe that you have ever experimented with pick ups and can say that the wood won't matter becuase I am using a certain pick up.

Based on my experience and experimenting the whole tone starts with the wood, then its filtered through the electronics. Its about a 50/50 in my book.
My set neck mahogany/maple top Les Paul sounds nothing like my set neck Schecter with MAPLE neck /mahogany body maple top, and I have the same exact Seymour Duncan pick ups in both. One is border line muddy and the other has alot more sparkle and snap to the note.
And I have several guitars that share the same pick up set up but different woods and they respond and sound very different to my ears.

Long story short, when you said "I don't think your choice of body wood is gonna make one bit of diference in your sound, given your stated setup".
That is just ridiculous to me.
I actually thought you were being sarcastic at first, but then I realized you actually believe that statement.

At any rate thanks for your opinion either way.

 

[tfarny]

Alfang is right as usual, and the majority of people on here who have built a bunch of guitars including me (about a dozen home-built guitars and a lot of pickup swapping) and the guys on here like skuttlefunk who are pro makers, will say exactly the same thing. Choose the body wood for looks and weight, mainly. I would say that sure, different individual bodies may contribute some of the sound, but you can't predict it with any regularity only by knowing the SPECIES of the wood. The weight of the particular piece is probably a better body wood variable to look at. Ken Warmoth (who, ah, probably knows his stufff!) had a quote on here a while back that worrying about the tone of body wood is basically a fool's errand.

 

[m4rk0]

everytime this comes up, I will bring this up:
I built (and help built) 3 guitars with exactly the same configuration, same pickups, same hardware... and I mean exactly the same hardware, (nut, bridge, tuners)

the only thing that changed was the body and neck woods each of them sounded completely different!! having said that, 2 of them had the same body woods, different necks, and they sounded just as different.
My conclusion: body may or may not make a difference. Neck wood makes a huge difference!  having said that, pickups make even more of a difference! (so do amps!)

 

[m4rk0]

I probably also should add that some people say that the only difference a hollow (=chambered) body makes, is weight. I actually noticed a huge difference in tone and resonance between a solid and chambered body.

but either way, always remember, tone is in the ear of the beholder!

 

[erogenousjones17]

My set neck mahogany/maple top Les Paul sounds nothing like my set neck Schecter with MAPLE neck /mahogany body maple top, and I have the same exact Seymour Duncan pick ups in both. One is border line muddy and the other has alot more sparkle and snap to the note.

Neck wood makes a huge difference. No argument there. But I think the tonal differences caused by different body woods are negligible (at the very least debateable), especially in a high-gain setting. What you're hearing through a setup with über-mega distortion isn't the wood; it's the electronics and amp.

That said, if you don't want another mahogany guitar, by all means, don't build another mahogany guitar. If you want something brighter, choose something from the brighter end of the tone spectrum. Someone suggested walnut; that's probably a very good choice.

 

[kboman]

I had a longish post to make hear but Marko and E-Jones have already said it all. Maple neck and walnut body sounds like just what you're after :icon_thumright:

 

[RU36]

My set neck mahogany/maple top Les Paul sounds nothing like my set neck Schecter with MAPLE neck /mahogany body maple top, and I have the same exact Seymour Duncan pick ups in both. One is border line muddy and the other has alot more sparkle and snap to the note.

Neck wood makes a huge difference. No argument there. But I think the tonal differences caused by different body woods are negligible (at the very least debateable), especially in a high-gain setting. What you're hearing through a setup with über-mega distortion isn't the wood; it's the electronics and amp.

That said, if you don't want another mahogany guitar, by all means, don't build another mahogany guitar. If you want something brighter, choose something from the brighter end of the tone spectrum. Someone suggested walnut; that's probably a very good choice.

I agree with you 80% on this.
Neck wood makes a night and day difference in the voicing and tone of the note.
However it seems to me the body wood makes a difference in the undertones and the way the low end responds.

I don't play with a super distorted sound becuase I dont like the way the dynamics all become squashed into fuzz city.
So the main difference I hear in body wood selection is the way the low end responds during palm muting rhythms.
In my experience with my mahogany body guitars there is a big resonant woof around 160hz.
On the basswood guitar I just built it is more like a stiff jab on the low end, thats what I like about it.
Its just super percussive, punchy ,clean and tight.

When I played the same riff on my other guitar which is configured the same except the body is mahogany, it sounds like a loose tuned floor tom.
Super resonate and boomy but in a loose way.
So I guess that experiment is what brought me to believe that body wood plays a factor, but at the same time A/B testing only two or three guitars is not exactly scientific proof of anything.

 

[RU36]

Thanks for all the input guys.
It really comes down to the fact that even two guitars built the same will sound different and play different.
Wood is such an organic thing that it can not be predicted, two pieces of body wood may sound different even if they are the same species.

SO this is what I did.
I ordered one basswood z body with a quilted maple top, and I ordered one walnut body with a quilted maple top.
I will try both of them and pick the winner.
Then with the one I dont like as much I will put a neck on it and and sell it to a friend for cheap to make back a little of the investment.
Either way I will have fun building both of them and now for the shitty part of the deal.........

Waiting for the UPS man to show up.

Thanks again for sharing your experience and insight.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Excellent. Can't decide? Build both! I love it.  :icon_thumright:

Remember to take lots and lots of pics when the man in brown shows up.