Spruce top

Hopefully this is the right place for this question

I'm considering putting a spruce cap (instead of maple) on a swamp ash guitar that is being built. All things being equal, should I expect the sitka spruce cap to be brighter, darker, or about the same as the maple capped one?

I'm leaning towards a brighter blade style humbucker for this guitar and I'm afraid the guitar will be bright in the base case and may need a darker pickup.

Darker with a little slower response.

I would seriously doubt you will be able to discern any tonal difference.

I would seriously doubt you will be able to discern any tonal difference.

Pretty much what I was thinking, but the pickup guy was really pushing me away from the pickup I wanted towards another. Said bright wood, bright top, bright neck, bright pickup.

What I called asking about:
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=humbuckers&sub=contemporary&pickup=black_hawk

What he told me to buy after I told him about the guitar:
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=humbuckers&sub=vintage_hot&pickup=abraxas

I would seriously doubt you will be able to discern any tonal difference.

+1.

I would seriously doubt you will be able to discern any tonal difference.

+2. And good luck keeping it from getting dented inadvertently during construction.

IMO, I'd go with the guy's recommendation. Not because he says he's matching the pickup with the wood, but because he said the pickup you were going to pick was a bright one, and the pickup he recommends is closer to the lower end tone you're looking for. . If you're looking for more low end, choose the pickup that has the characteristic you want, regardless of the wood choice.
IMHO, matching the pickup with the tone you're looking for will be much more sucessful than worrying about what the wood is gonna bring to the party. Negligible at best, IMHO.

+2. And good luck keeping it from getting dented inadvertently during construction.

A dent on this top isn't going to hurt anything :) It's shipworm eaten spruce, I'm going to try it on a solid body guitar.

http://benedettoguitars.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ilteredo-full3.jpg

http://benedettoguitars.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ilteredo-full3.jpg

Whut Colt and everyone else said…..

what ya want is a guitar that sounds good…. to get to good, ya gotta wade through a lot of factors, of which what kinda surface is glued to the body is pretty far down the list..

and on top of all that.. if your guitar doesn't sound as "good" as ya want, and you can play "good" one "good" supplants the other "not so quite good".

Ron Kirn

As a physicist by training, my scientific skeptism certainly extends to guitars. The "not a hill of beans differene" was the answer I expected to get.

I like the way the pickups sound that I picked out, so I'll go with them. I tend to favor brighter sounding guitars anyhow.

One parting question though. If the guitar in final trim weighs in at 5-6 lbs, say compared to a 10lb les paul, and the clips online are in a 10 lb les paul, how should I expect it to compare? ....realizing that there are 1000 factors in how a guitar sounds.

The scale length, bridge setup, and neck size on that Les Paul will flavor the tone A LOT more than the weight of the guitar.

realizing that there are 1000 factors in how a guitar sounds.

1000??? what happened to the other billion? Did I doze off?

People worry too daymmm much about how their guitar sounds and about zero, as far as I can tell, about how THEY sound when they play it…

rk

A dent on this top isn't going to hurt anything :) It's shipworm eaten spruce, I'm going to try it on a solid body guitar.



Those worms are terrible at following f-hole templates. :mrgreen:

As a physicist by training, my scientific skeptism certainly extends to guitars. The "not a hill of beans differene" was the answer I expected to get
Close :smile:. A "resonant" solid body is one that sounds good to you, the player. What the audience hears is the pickups, amp, and your two hands. If I wanted the spruce on there, I'd put it there :wink:. One thing I'd suggest is to put a good hard poly on it unless dents don't bother you :smile:



One parting question though. If the guitar in final trim weighs in at 5-6 lbs, say compared to a 10lb les paul, and the clips online are in a 10 lb les paul, how should I expect it to compare? ....realizing that there are 1000 factors in how a guitar sounds.
I don't think the body weight will have much to do with it. If you like the sound of the pup the only thing likely to make much difference is whether they are bolted in the body or not.
Another consideration is style of music. My youngest son has been into metal for some years. One of his former bandmates special ordered a custom ESP, over 300$ for the pickups alone and god knows for the special trem he wanted. I gave my son (when he was younger) a First Act ME505 I picked up for 30$ and dropped an EMG humbucker in. This bandmate picked it up and plugged it into his board to make fun of it and was blown away. Now me, all I heard from both guitars was a sound resembling a train wreck with a room full of dying cats involved :lol:. No insult intended but either the mojo is there or it isn't, regardless of components , and you won't know until it's built :wink:


Dave

the worm eaten wood looks super cool, and i'd dig it on a tele....

but i don't ever want to meet a worm that can chew through wood

A few requests for other pictures. Other than the Benedetto this is where my search started. Sam at Cardinal gave me a few leads. He made this one out of worm eaten Cypress (not Spruce). I've been unable to find a similar board in Cypress, but have found Spruce.

These are the only 2 I've seen.

The "worm" is called a teredo. It's actually a mollusk. Nasty boogers, I would imagine they could do a number on flesh as well.

As far as the wood/pickup thing go, I appreciate everyones comments. My playing will dictate nearly 100% of what the guitar sounds like. I just want to make sure I don't end up with something so shrill that it can't be tamed with EQ.

http://www.cardinalinstruments.com/gallery2/d/481-4/IMG_1585.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=8235880942c3d59a08972f3 6beb665f4

People eat them round here. Gotta squeeze the mud out first. :shock: They're just long oysters in reality. Really muddy ones. Probably quite tasty if they are actually in a ship's timbers.

AHcHNoOyv5I

Nice to see another physicist in the house. Last December I built a guitar purely out of a single 2x4 (body, neck, and fretboard) and I don't think anyone could tell me that that is what it is made out of purely by listening to it. I did it as an experiment and it sounds like any other decent 2 humbucker guitar out there.

tonewood (n.) refer RogerC, March - May 2012