Looking for critique on wood plans, including large body

[orpeus]

Hi, newbie here. I am currently planning out my first custom guitar. After doing some research, I have some ideas for what I'm going to do, but I wanted to check my ideas with some people with actual experience first to get some constructive criticism. I will explain my reasoning so that if I am wrong about anything, someone can point out exactly where. As a side note, I am aware that some of these choices will produce minimal effects on average, but I'm looking to get every little bit of tone that I can.

Here is what I am aiming for as far as tone goes:

• Strong bass response. I have played a lot of guitars where, plugged-in or not, the low E sounds muted or muddy to me. I want deep, tight lows.
• Strong high-end response. I want notes all across the scale to have good definition, brightness, and clarity. I don't want the highest notes sounding like I've rolled the tone knob back.
• Limited midrange response. Heavy lower midrange sounds muddy to my ears; heavy upper midrange sounds harsh and piercing. I'm not looking for a really scooped-out 80s metal tone or anything, but I definitely don't want midrange frequencies to dominate.

The body wood that sounds most like what I am looking for is swamp ash. The swamp ash guitars that I have played have resonated well, with unusually good tone and loud volume when unplugged. Some collected quotes about it:

"It is very resonant across the whole frequency spectrum. It has clear bell-like highs, pronounced mids, and strong lows." -jemsite.com
"This wood delivers slightly less midrange with full low-end and nice singing highs." -carvinguitars.com
"It is a very musical wood offering a very nice balance of brightness and warmth with a lot of "pop"." -warmoth.com

For the neck, being long and thin (and thus not very suitable for resonating bass frequencies) and being most important to the sound of the initial attack, I want to go with something bright with good definition. Maple seems a good choice for the neck, with good brightness, attack and sustain. Ebony is said to be excellent for enhancing clarity and is another bright wood, so it seems a good choice for the fingerboard.

The problem so far is that we have a balanced body wood with a very bright neck. I want to have a full, balanced tone, so I need more low end. For this reason, I am thinking of getting a body blank and carving out an unusually large guitar body. Making an instrument larger is the oldest and most obvious way to increase its bass response. The typical drawback is supposed to be that a larger body can muddy up your tone. However in this case, both the body wood and neck woods are woods that are known for being good at retaining clarity and not getting muddy, so I think that they might be able to handle it and stay reasonably tight. As an added benefit of swamp ash, its unusual lightness will help counteract the size. (Although truth be told, I'd get an all-maple solidbody the size of an ES-335 if it would get me the best tone.)

Does this sound like a good plan for what I'm after? Affirmations, criticisms, corrections, and alternatives are all welcome.

Thanks!

orpeus

 

[pabloman]

80's metal was pretty midrangeyish. But anyway I thought ash was a more on the bright side kind of wood. Alder is supposed to be more or less neutral and balanced. Basswood back with a maple top and a maple neck will get you what you are looking for.

 

[orpeus]

80's metal was pretty midrangeyish.

Sorry, I was unclear. My memories of metal in the 80s are mostly from late 80s stuff like Megadeth, which is what I was trying to describe.

But anyway I thought ash was a more on the bright side kind of wood.

I think that you might be thinking of "northern ash" or "hard ash" (sometimes just called "ash"), which is a bright wood. Southern "swamp ash" is a different wood with an entirely different tone. Warmoth's description isn't terribly descriptive for this wood, but the other sites that I mentioned have more detailed summaries and are careful to draw a stronger distinction between the two woods.

Alder is supposed to be more or less neutral and balanced. Basswood back with a maple top and a maple neck will get you what you are looking for.

As to basswood:

"The softness of basswood means that sharp highs are dampened and smoothened. [...] The softness also fosters a weaker low end. [...] Deep, breathy sub-lows aren’t resonated in Basswood. The reduction in these outer frequencies leaves the mids pronounced in a hypothetical response curve. [...] Complex overtones are muted along with the highs leaving a strong fundamental tone." -jemsite.com

I know that the maple top would help with the high end, but that description is pretty much the exact opposite of everything I am looking for. In fact, in describing the tone that I was going for, I guess I almost could have said, "not basswood."  :icon_biggrin:

Alder, on the other hand, sounds more promising. I think that I'm still leaning towards swamp ash, but I'll have to take a second look at Alder.

Thanks!

Any other opinions?

orpeus

 

[pabloman]

Check what the Suhr website has to say about the basswood/maple combo. I would trust them more so than the jemsite. I have also played a basswood/maple guitar. Have you? I would just ramble some random shit that didn't have any merit just for the sake of posting. But good luck with your tone quest. seems like you have your mind made up. Use the ash then. :rock-on:

 

[jalane]

Hi, newbie here. I am currently planning out my first custom guitar. After doing some research, I have some ideas for what I'm going to do, but I wanted to check my ideas with some people with actual experience first to get some constructive criticism. I will explain my reasoning so that if I am wrong about anything, someone can point out exactly where. As a side note, I am aware that some of these choices will produce minimal effects on average, but I'm looking to get every little bit of tone that I can.

Here is what I am aiming for as far as tone goes:

• Strong bass response. I have played a lot of guitars where, plugged-in or not, the low E sounds muted or muddy to me. I want deep, tight lows.
• Strong high-end response. I want notes all across the scale to have good definition, brightness, and clarity. I don't want the highest notes sounding like I've rolled the tone knob back.
• Limited midrange response. Heavy lower midrange sounds muddy to my ears; heavy upper midrange sounds harsh and piercing. I'm not looking for a really scooped-out 80s metal tone or anything, but I definitely don't want midrange frequencies to dominate.

The body wood that sounds most like what I am looking for is swamp ash. The swamp ash guitars that I have played have resonated well, with unusually good tone and loud volume when unplugged. Some collected quotes about it:

"It is very resonant across the whole frequency spectrum. It has clear bell-like highs, pronounced mids, and strong lows." -jemsite.com
"This wood delivers slightly less midrange with full low-end and nice singing highs." -carvinguitars.com
"It is a very musical wood offering a very nice balance of brightness and warmth with a lot of "pop"." -warmoth.com

For the neck, being long and thin (and thus not very suitable for resonating bass frequencies) and being most important to the sound of the initial attack, I want to go with something bright with good definition. Maple seems a good choice for the neck, with good brightness, attack and sustain. Ebony is said to be excellent for enhancing clarity and is another bright wood, so it seems a good choice for the fingerboard.

The problem so far is that we have a balanced body wood with a very bright neck. I want to have a full, balanced tone, so I need more low end. For this reason, I am thinking of getting a body blank and carving out an unusually large guitar body. Making an instrument larger is the oldest and most obvious way to increase its bass response. The typical drawback is supposed to be that a larger body can muddy up your tone. However in this case, both the body wood and neck woods are woods that are known for being good at retaining clarity and not getting muddy, so I think that they might be able to handle it and stay reasonably tight. As an added benefit of swamp ash, its unusual lightness will help counteract the size. (Although truth be told, I'd get an all-maple solidbody the size of an ES-335 if it would get me the best tone.)

Does this sound like a good plan for what I'm after? Affirmations, criticisms, corrections, and alternatives are all welcome.

Thanks!

orpeus

Honestly, and i'm not trying to be a smartass or sound sarcastic or anything, but what you are describing is an EMG humbucker.  An EMG will make your Swamp Ash (or Walnut, or Mahogany, or even particle board for that matter) sound like it has tight lows, reduced mids, and pronounced highs.

 

[orpeus]

Check what the Suhr website has to say about the basswood/maple combo. I would trust them more so than the jemsite. I have also played a basswood/maple guitar. Have you?

Thanks for pointing me to the Suhr website. While they do mention basswood as being mid-heavy, they also speak very highly of the basswood/maple combo. I checked, and it looks like ESP has some common models that use that combination. I'll see if I can find one to try out at a local music store.

Thanks again!

orpeus

 

[orpeus]

[...]or even particle board for that matter[...]

Nice. Lightweight, cheap, and if you like smashing guitars on stage, you could get some really dramatic splintering!

I haven't really looked at EMG's pickup offerings for a long time. I'll have to do that.

There haven't been any remarks on the size yet. Does anyone have any experience with larger than normal solidbody guitars?

Thanks!
orpeus

 

[pabloman]

The splinters can be dangerous. Unless your cool enought o wear sunglasses when you play.

 

[JaySwear]

Check what the Suhr website has to say about the basswood/maple combo. I would trust them more so than the jemsite. I have also played a basswood/maple guitar. Have you?

Thanks for pointing me to the Suhr website. While they do mention basswood as being mid-heavy, they also speak very highly of the basswood/maple combo. I checked, and it looks like ESP has some common models that use that combination. I'll see if I can find one to try out at a local music store.

Thanks again!

orpeus

i've always been a big fan of basswood. i've owned a few ibanez RG's (maple necks, basswood bodies) and a USA peavey wolfgang (maple neck, basswood body) and they both sounded pretty much like what you described. they definitely have a mid range, but nothing that overrides the great highs and defined lows. i had a dimarzio super distortion in my peavey and it was a beautiful match!

NOW i have a nice lightweight swamp ash body that had a super distortion up until a few weeks ago. sounded great too! very similar to the basswood, but probably a bit more mid to low end range on it. also the highs were very defined with the super d. it's not a huge output pickup, but it seems to make the most of those lighter woods. great sounds!

i hate trying to describe sounds with words because "defined mid range" can mean anything. but i hope some of that helps!

EDIT: the only reason i pulled the super distortion in my swamp ash warmoth strat was because it didn't match well with the neck p-90. it's easier to move the humbucker than the p-90 since i don't have another p-90 guitar, and i really didn't use that guitar for heavy-ish stuff anyway. i love my 80's metal, so the super distortion might be headed to my new "hair-metal-o-caster" that i'm assembling.

 

[BigBeard]

A few thoughts:

Ever heard of an Equalizer?

Maybe you might wanna start listening to some better music?  Try listening to some Jazz or something, metal sucks.  Anybody can hide behind 5 flavors of distortion........

Sounds like you would be happy with a Squier Strat.....  I mean really the tone you are going for is all in the pedals....... save your gear money for some better distortion pedals.......... and a big ol Marshall amp