Best Tonewoods For Acoustic Guitars

The bass and or treble frequencies are not overly dominant.

Best tonewoods for acoustic guitars.

Brittle loss of clarity on the verge of distorting. Special thanks to builder john mayes for the information and images below. As a result less dense timbers generally produce a more balanced sound but sacrifice some responsiveness as a result. And yet all the same benefits.

Articulate clear. Rosewood is a very popular wood for guitars and has been used a lot traditionally too. Adirondack spruce picea rubens this was the choice wood used on pre war martins. Airy spacious not overly compressed.

As a guitar top dense mahogany has a solid punchy tone with low overtone content and good high end response. Oregon wild wood is the luthiers source for fine tone wood from the pacific nw. Smooth lacking harshness even response. It s prized for its rich golden coloring curly figuring and agreeable sound.

Also known as red spruce this wood offers a wonderful tone. But basswood is a good tonewood by any standards and it has been used by many high end makers with excellent results. Falling between rosewood and mahogany is koa a tonewood martin first used on guitars in 1917 as a craze for all things hawaiian swept across america. Punchy powerful but controlled.

Because it was logged so heavily the use of it was slowed drastically. What makes an acoustic guitar sound the way it does. The tonewoodamp is a revolutionary device that uses an acoustic guitar s own body and soundhole to create a range of enhancement effects. Woody deep rich lacking metallic sounding overtones.

It is a very light and fairly soft wood and it s light in color too with minimal grain. Koa is native to hawaii and is used commonly on ukuleles but less so on guitars. There s nothing else like it the first and only the tonewoodamp is a must have device for any acoustic guitar player. Affordable and abundant basswood is particularly associated with mid level or budget guitars.

Very different to maple rosewood has a high response rate. Western red cedar for example is often used by guitarists who play with the fingers. Mahogany back and sides often emphasize bass and treble with more overtone coloration and a woody sound as opposed to the more metallic sound of say rosewood back and sides. Guitars intended for fingerpicking are best when the tone is well balanced e g.