This thread seems to be the most recent so I'll add to it instead of starting a new one.
See the guitar in my avatar? That's a poplar Warmoth Strat body with a Warmoth candy tangerine finish. When I ordered that body, it wasn't because I couldn't afford alder. I was torn between alder, ash, and even considered the unthinkable taboo options of basswood or poplar. I lost sleep over it. I have owned Strats and Strat style guitars with bodies of alder, poplar, and hard ash. I've played Strats and the like in swamp ash. Some of the guitars were true Strats with 3 single coil pickups, some were S-S-H, and some were H-H. I've even owned a couple of basswood solid bodied guitars. My favorite Strat for tone and feel was a poplar Strat MIM. Call me crazy. So much has been said about poplar being inferior to alder. Other than appearance (which in itself is subjective) I have seen or heard no evidence of this. As someone in this thread indicated, poplar is not used for acoustic instruments. I'm not a luthier so I can only guess that it's either because of its softness, its greenish tint, or both. It seems that 95% of the opinions out there regarding tonewood don't take into account the difference between solid body and hollow/semi-hollow bodied guitars nor is the opinion based on anything more than what someone else has written. Who can blame people if that's all they have to go on. Yes, I read the comment that says not to describe poplar as a tonewood, but since it is a wood and it does have tonal characteristics I have (rightly or wrongly) lumped it into this general category. Someone on a
another site negatively referenced poplar in his description of basswood. Here is a quote: “A clearer, darker Basswood should produce more sound, while the yellowish lower grade seems to have more of the undesirable tonal qualities of Poplar.” This is the only mention of poplar on that webpage. He goes on to list many body woods, neck woods, body top woods, and fretboard woods, but nowhere does he explain what those undesirable tonal qualities of poplar are.
Anyway…. I made a conscious decision to use poplar as the body wood for this particular custom build. I’ve been playing this guitar for a year and a half to two years, and it sounds, plays, feels, and looks great. I’ve heard no negative comments regarding its tone. I use good amps, pickups, and all the other variables that affect tone. Someone I talked with today, who has an extensive knowledge of guitars, guitar history, guitar repair, and luthiery - someone whose guitar related advice I trust – found out that my guitar has a poplar body (only because I told him) and acted as if I had cheated death by surviving with a poplar guitar for this long. He’s played the thing before and never had anything but positive comments about it. He basically said (I’m paraphrasing here) I got lucky because poplar usually sucks and is not even fit for firewood much less as a guitar body. He even made some comment comparing it to cardboard. This bothers me. Did I get lucky? …. Or is all this anti-poplar talk some kind of misinformation campaign? What’s the deal? If I could go back in time before I placed my order from Warmoth, I would still choose poplar for this guitar. I might use a different wood in a different guitar, but that won’t have anything to do with all this vague negativity being carelessly coughed up by people who like to voice their misinformed opinions.
…… and to make a long story short….. oh, it’s too late for that. :sad1: I’m sorry. Thanks for reading if you did!
