Best Tonewoods For Acoustic Guitars

Oregon wild wood is the luthiers source for fine tone wood from the pacific nw.

Best tonewoods for acoustic guitars.

But basswood is a good tonewood by any standards and it has been used by many high end makers with excellent results. Adirondack spruce picea rubens this was the choice wood used on pre war martins. Very different to maple rosewood has a high response rate. Also known as red spruce this wood offers a wonderful tone.

Koa is native to hawaii and is used commonly on ukuleles but less so on guitars. It has great mid range like mahogany but also expands well into the high end tones and low end tones producing deep bass notes and bright treble notes. Because it was logged so heavily the use of it was slowed drastically. It s prized for its rich golden coloring curly figuring and agreeable sound.

Articulate clear. There s nothing else like it the first and only the tonewoodamp is a must have device for any acoustic guitar player. And yet all the same benefits. The bass and or treble frequencies are not overly dominant.

What makes an acoustic guitar sound the way it does. Punchy powerful but controlled. Rosewood is a very popular wood for guitars and has been used a lot traditionally too. Airy spacious not overly compressed.

It is a very light and fairly soft wood and it s light in color too with minimal grain. 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. 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. The tonewoodamp is a revolutionary device that uses an acoustic guitar s own body and soundhole to create a range of enhancement effects.

As a guitar top dense mahogany has a solid punchy tone with low overtone content and good high end response. We offer a great selection of tonewood for instrument builders including red adirondack spruce carpathian spruce figured maple and other domestic woods new offerings acoustic back side sets. Guitars intended for fingerpicking are best when the tone is well balanced e g. Smooth lacking harshness even response.

Brittle loss of clarity on the verge of distorting. Affordable and abundant basswood is particularly associated with mid level or budget guitars. The tonewoods we offer is sourced in ecologically friendly ways including forest and urban salvage commercial fruit and nut grove salvage recycling and re purposing. Special thanks to builder john mayes for the information and images below.