Best wood for a strat body - ash or alder?

[52Tele_lover]

how 'bout i put out that the placement of the pickups also play apart aswell as the type of pickups. Many electrical engineers i have spoken to about this have told me that.

[Mojotron]

I would say that I notice the tone contribution of the wood more if the pickups are weaker. Using Fender Fat 50's pickups in several kinds of bodies, I notice the extra high-end contribution of and Ash body - it's unmistakably there. I have also used Dimarzio Area '61 pickups in the same guitar and you would never guess that it was a 'Swamp' Ash body.

Pickups do make a big difference, but not the only difference. IMO, it depends on the strength of the pickups and these days the popular pickups are a bit more wound than before...

[stratomaster516]

Originally Posted by Ironwolf

"Strat tone" has almost nothing to do with wood; 80+ percent will be in the pickup/amplifier combination, another 10 percent or so in the strings and how the player attacks them. The balance is distributed throughout the hardware and body and neck materials. If you heard two Strats with the same hardware and amp but entirely different wood, both played by the same artist, I venture that you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

Thank you so much for saying that.. I think most people are so anal about the type of wood used on an ELECTRIC GUITAR!! for the right tone.. OMG like you said, its an amplified instrument, and 90% of the time it fed through a high gain amp, with compression, distortion, overdrive etc. I defy anyone to tell me the difference in the body wood tone wise. you would have to have almost inhuman. I doubt theres even any electronic gear, computers etc. that could tell the differences in the wave legnth tones generated from the resonance of different types of wooden bodies. **** man, Kramer was making their guitars out of plywood back in the 80's and they were some of the most popular guitars in the world back then. Im sure alot of people out there will disagree with me, but like you said man, the tone comes from the person who knows how to make the guitar speak and touch it just right. using their talents through bending, vibrato, etc. not everyone has an ear like Eric Johnson..lol

[Simon-43]

I would say Alder - But walnut is good too - Here is a recent walnut Strat that I made



- Walnut is one of the easiest to machine woods that I have found. It is expensive but is very asthetic ( Sounds wonderful - Warm too). Alder is also good - not quite as pretty but if you are spraying no worries. Although I like Ash it is very heavy and dose not machine as well as some other hardwoods ( in my humble opinion) the grain is easily raised too.

[Nick JD]

It's funny how the darker a wood gets the "warmer" the tone becomes.

Think about it a little. The "tonal" spectrum of tonewoods follows the colour spectrum almost perfectly.

The whiter it is the brighter it is. The darker it is the warmer it is.

People hear with their eyes.

[PHawley]

But then you get to ebony, and it has gone full circle back to bright!

[Nick JD]

Originally Posted by PHawley

But then you get to ebony, and it has gone full circle back to bright!

Heh heh!

[Blacque Jacque]

The nearest any of mine get to being a true Strat is an alder body, Gotoh hardtail with steel saddles, Charvel maple neck with rosewood board & EMG SV's.

To me, & others that have heard it, it sounds really Strat like, but it's SO subjective.

[guitar2005]

Originally Posted by Ironwolf

"Strat tone" has almost nothing to do with wood; 80+ percent will be in the pickup/amplifier combination, another 10 percent or so in the strings and how the player attacks them. The balance is distributed throughout the hardware and body and neck materials. If you heard two Strats with the same hardware and amp but entirely different wood, both played by the same artist, I venture that you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

Anytime someone mentions percentages when describing tone, they loose credibility to me.

The player and the way the strings are played has a HUGE influence on tone.

The basics are there with the guitar but just try changing slightly your pick i.e. hitting the strings with the pick parralel to the string then try at a 20 degree angle. The difference in tone is night and day.

[guitar2005]

Originally Posted by Mojotron

I would say that I notice the tone contribution of the wood more if the pickups are weaker. Using Fender Fat 50's pickups in several kinds of bodies, I notice the extra high-end contribution of and Ash body - it's unmistakably there. I have also used Dimarzio Area '61 pickups in the same guitar and you would never guess that it was a 'Swamp' Ash body.

Pickups do make a big difference, but not the only difference. IMO, it depends on the strength of the pickups and these days the popular pickups are a bit more wound than before...

Totally agree on this one.

Higher output pickups tend to mask the natural tone of the guitar.

In terms of wood, there are differences. I've tried Alder and Ash for strats and the ash is definitely brighter with less overtones it seems. Alder seems to be a bit more balanced but I wish it gave me a little more mids.
The actual piece of wood can make a difference too. Between Ash and Alder, I think that I prefer Alder, but it really depends the build quality, pickups, the actual piece of wood etc... There is no "Better" wood. It really about personal preference.

I recently built a Mahogany with Maple top tele and I absolutely love the tone. The pickups are Van Zandt True Vintage and I have to say that it has become my favorite guitar. The end result was totally unexpected.

This is what it sounds like:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11447722

[Cinicvs]

pine!!! is my next project, the telepatchster

[Olgabowl]

The Cedarcaster...
A one-piece body in Western Red Cedar, 30 grains-per-inch, dead-on quarter....

[spook777]

I think Fender continues to some of the tone-woods due to historical purposes. When you have guitarist and collectors hunting for specific guitars and people trying to relive their glory days, manufacturers will supply towards demand. Fender built guitars out of alder and ash because it was around during the time as a cheap wood. Poplar and basswood are decent replacement tonewoods, but don't have a "vintage" vibe to them.

As for what wood is better, here is my take...tone is a midrange value in a small spectrum and you can hear tonal differences just like you can hear slight movement in moving the midrange values on a graphic EQ. I noticed the hardness value of the wood will promote brightness (upper spectrum) rather than color of the wood. Choosing wood to use for guitars is based on structual integrity, weight, workability, and figure/appearance. In terms of alder/ash, alder is heavier, has less open pores but lumber can be riddled with knots, and it's relatively cheap per board/foot. Swamp ash is lighter, has more open pores so requires filling, the grain is pretty straight with minimal knots, but is more expensive. Ash is more interesting to look at compared to alder as the grain is contrasting to the wore wood.

So...tele players rave about swamp ash because 1) it looks nice 2) its very lightweight 3) it's reminiscent of yester-years tone (or at least they were told it was) and 4) likely their hearing is starting to go so hearing those nice high frequencies in the brighter wood is a bonus... :)

[Rufus]

Wood choice matters only if you are concerned about grain appearance, weight, wood hardness or historical accuracy... not sound or tone or whatever you want to call it.

Other than that, a normal human being without Super hearing cannot discern the difference sonically between ash, alder, mahogany or anything else in an amplified electric guitar, so its much ado about nothing.

For those that say they can tell the difference, tell ya what...

take a true scientific blind listening test on 10 different electric guitars and successfully identify body wood construction 8 out of 10 times...then we'll talk.

[stratomaster516]

Originally Posted by guitar2005

Anytime someone mentions percentages when describing tone, they loose credibility to me.

The player and the way the strings are played has a HUGE influence on tone.

The basics are there with the guitar but just try changing slightly your pick i.e. hitting the strings with the pick parralel to the string then try at a 20 degree angle. The difference in tone is night and day.

Im so with you man...yeah it also drives me nuts when I hear explaination after explanation of toneal variations based on wood types, grain, etc. etc. like you said its the player who has total control over the tone. like I said in an earlier post, Kramer and a couple of other companies back in the 80's were making their bodies out of plywood for cryin out loud. buy the time you run that through a high gain amp with effects, compression, overdrive etc. your beautiful maple cap, or your whatever exotic wood body your using, isnt contributing to your tone. your pick attack, and style are makin it happen. any good player can make any guitar sound like a million bucks..

[zpfled]

This thread is awesome. The difference in "tone" between TDPRI and MyLesPaul is amazing. This conversation would take a much different course over there.

[guitar2005]

Originally Posted by stratomaster516

Im so with you man...yeah it also drives me nuts when I hear explaination after explanation of toneal variations based on wood types, grain, etc. etc. like you said its the player who has total control over the tone. like I said in an earlier post, Kramer and a couple of other companies back in the 80's were making their bodies out of plywood for cryin out loud. buy the time you run that through a high gain amp with effects, compression, overdrive etc. your beautiful maple cap, or your whatever exotic wood body your using, isnt contributing to your tone. your pick attack, and style are makin it happen. any good player can make any guitar sound like a million bucks..

EMGs in plywood won't sound much different than EMGs in anything else, because they're so high output.

A lower output pickup will let the actual tone of the guitar come through more.

I saying that, there are some exceptions. My Korina Jem with DiMarzio Super Distortions sounds comepletely different than my Godin LGX with the same pickups.

Guitar woods and construction do make a difference in the end but its not as much as some people would like to believe.

[Blacque Jacque]

Originally Posted by guitar2005

EMGs in plywood won't sound much different than EMGs in anything else, because they're so high output.

Really ? Damn, I better send all mine back then, because they all sound different & most of them aren't high output

So often that statement is borne out of ignorance or from people who have only put an EMG81 in a Tele & wondered why it doesn't sound like a Tele any more

[otterhound]

Free wood is the best followed by cheap and inexpensive .

[Fred_Garvin]

I have to agree with most of you that the single biggest thing is electronics. Forget for a minute that the amp & effects forge most of the tones you hear and consider a clean sound.

Think of the solo in "Another Brick in the Wall pt 2". Nice clean tone, Gilmour's a strat guy, maybe alder, maybe ash. Except it's not. It's a Les Paul. With single coil p-90's through the clean setting on a rockman DI'ed into the console.

Did any of you think it wasn't a strat? Could any of you tell it was a mahogany goldtop with nitro lacquer? That the scale length was not 25 1/2"? I bet not.

Barring a great deal of distortion & effects, I can easily hear the difference between single coils & humbuckers. Wood types, scale lengths, finishes, capacitors, pickup rings, knob tips, string gauges, fretboard wood, color of the musician's underpants, not so much.

I'm not saying these things don't have an impact, especially taken as a sum. Just that the pickup is the biggest single factor.