Hi all -

Newbie here (first post). I've begun the quest to build my own Strat and have some decisions to make. My first one is choice of wood for the body. Can you folks advise me on the tonal differences between Alder & Ash ? Is one absolutely better than the other or is it just a personal choice ? Would the same apply if I was building a Tele (which I also hope to do some day) ?

In past guitars I haven't paid much attention to this because I've simply based my decisions on how the guitar felt & sounded. I'd like to educate myself on the details now.

Appreciate your help !

Ash has a brighter tone than Alder and a beautiful grain. This makes for great-looking sunbursts.

Because of its hardness and elasticity, Ash produces a bright dynamic sound.

Swamp Ash is often preferred to normal Ash as it offers the same hardness and dynamic response but is much lighter. Ash or Swamp Ash is often used by Fender for the Stratocaster, though they also use Alder which is a softer wood. Used on early to mid 50’s bolt-on neck guitars, Ash has a more pronounced grain pattern that is very attractive and works great with transparent finishes.

Tonally, Ash has a full bottom end with a clear extended top end. The mids are more “scooped” than Alder. It also has more attack, bite and snap compared to Alder. Fender and other guitar-making companies are very particular in selecting Ash for tonal and weight factors. It looks great with transparent and Mary Kaye finishes and it's a great option for a 3-single coil guitar. If you’re opting for a humbucker in the bridge, Alder is a better choice.

Alder has a warmer, mellower tone, it is common on Fender designs with a full robust midrange and good harmonic content to remain clear. The attack is smooth but crisp. It also takes just about any finish color well.

I think the main difference is it is far less funny to hold up your guitar and yell "Kiss my alder".

_________________
Marriage is like playing cards...

At first all you want are Hearts and Diamonds.

But in the end, all you really want is a Club and a Spade.

No difference in sound. The body could be made out of plastic and you would not be able to tell by just using your ears. It's an electric guitar, it does not use the wood to produce sound like an acoustic guitar does. Some people will swear up and down that some sound "warmer" or "brighter", but to me I think that is all in their heads.

You will get the tone you want from your pickups, amp, effects, and practice. Don't worry about the body wood too much. Or do, it's up to you.

From the many sites and threads on this subject I've read through I've figured out that this is a "religious war". You'll get many different opinions on which wood is best and also many opinions concerning whether or not it makes ANY difference whatsoever.

To me, it mainly comes down on the type of finish you'll have in the end.
For a solid color finish it seems that it won't matter. If you have a nicely grained wood, you may want a clear finish.

But I'm sure someone will knock down my logic.



-T

_________________
-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Wrong, Ryan...if the body material didn't effect tone, there'd be a lot of particle board or styrofoam guitars out there.

Here's the deal. The type of wood affects how the strings vibrate. The pickups use the vibrating strings to generate a weak current, very faithfully capturing the unique way in which the strings were vibrating.

If you don't think that much subtle information can be expressed in the vibrating of a string, consider the vibrating diaphragm in a microphone. Even a cheap microphone will capture the difference between Robert Plant and Steve Tyler, etc.

I'm sure there's overhype and misinformation out there about how various woods effect tone, but I can assure you my ears easily pick up the differences between alder and Mahogany, to say the least. Or for that matter, hollow body electrics vs. solid.

Educate yourself.

No1 there are plenty of guitars made from man made substances. That don't sound any different to Ash, Alder or Mahogany.






Acrylic for example. Used by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood.
There are plenty of guitars made from carbon composites.

The reason Styrofoam isn't used much is because it isn't strong enough. There was a Canadian builder who had swappable upper and lower bouts made from Styrofoam. The core of that guitar was timber encased in Styrofoam.
There have been plenty of laminate/particleboard guitars over the years too. It was only the early 90's that budget brands stopped using the stuff.

The engine of your electric guitar is it's pickups. It's not a acoustic guitar that relies on a soundbox to amplify it's sound. It doesnt need to resonate. All it needs is for the string to vibrate. There's no difference in sound between bodywoods when you amplify a electric guitar. All the amplifier sees is the signal from the pickup.

Think about it. Your low E string vibrates at 82.4hz. That is it vibrates 82.4 times per second. Now some suppose that bodywood vibration adds to that, that would make the note sharp wouldn't it? Ok suppose it doesn't add to the frequency but added in some other way. You'd get underlying notes making the thing out of tune or a horribly distorted note. The simple fact is the note causes the wood to vibrate, not the wood causing the string to vibrate.

Why do acoustic guitar builders go tapping timber before they decide if their going to use it? I strongly doubt that by tapping the wood they can somehow hear the way a guitar string will sound through it. I prefer to believe they can in some way assess how the wood will vibrate to amplify the strings rather than add to the notes.

It's a visual difference, thats all.

_________________
No no and no

You're throwing around some strong opinions with your obvious lack of ANY knowledge at all. The wood the body is made out of has ZERO affect on how the string vibrates, ZERO. You would have to a complete idiot to think this, congratulations. But thank you for instructing me to educate myself, your wealth of ultimate knowledge is outstanding and I hope one day to be able to know as much about guitars as you.

Also, great argument about microphones and people singing into them, with your argument you've demonstrated your complete idiocy in multiple subjects while talking about one.

Clown.

in a way everyones point here is valid. yes your body wood makes a huge difference in the sound of the guitar. however much of the impact of the wood itself in modern instruments is minimal due to the use of non-cellulose or plastic based finishes, which eliminates much of the tone generated by the wood when vibrating. this is because the wood no longer can breath, thus the tone generated in the body when sound travels through it is muted by the plastic lacquer and then takes on the plastic's tonal properties. Now there are alternative materials out there that sound just as good as modern instruments, but we are now basing this sound off of the plastic lacquer over the guitar not the wood; so comparably the alternative material instrument's sounds good for it does not have a heavy lacquer finish over it. i am not taking any sides of the debate of if wood really makes a difference, i am just relaying the truth.

and as for the choice of ash to alder chromeface said it perfectly. personally i choose ash because i love to look at the grain.

p.s. excuse the all the missed capitals and bad grammar.

The wood stopped breathing when the tree was cut down. If it was still breathing it would sprout leaves and branches. That is just nonsense made up to sell a particular finish. Even a senior Fender Masterbuilder said as much on the FDP forum.

Also if you ever take a look at Fullerplast, the substance used to seal dead wood. You'd see just how nothing could breathe through the stuff. Be it maple, alder, ash, you, I or a iron lung.

How does wood affect a electrical signal? It would block it, is the only answer I can think of.

_________________
No no and no

these threads always get heated.

here's the thing, tonewoods do have some effect on the overtones generated when string vibrates. They can deaden or mute certain frequencies, wood doesn't add to the overtones, it only subtracts. But this effect is minuscule when considered as part of an amplifies electric instrument.

You can definitely hear the difference between woods of vastly different character like mahogany or ash. The difference between ash, alder and poplar is very very minute. in fact i will say that in my experience i have found guitars both made of alder that sound less alike than one of those guitars sounds like one I have in poplar. There is so much overlap in their sound.

The thing about finishes affecting tone is pretty much hogwash. polyester and polyurethane get a bad rap because among early adopters of those finishes were a bunch of super cheap poorly built budget off-brand guitars. they sucked hard, and since the finish was different than the high end Fenders and Gibby's it was given some of the blame for the poor guitars. but consider this, Jimi (since his death anniversary has just passed, so he is a great example,) he mostly used stock Strats, just flipped over and restrung to play lefty, but pretty much right out of the box. his tone is much much loved, and one of the exemplars of the Strat line. Now consider the mid to late 60's Strats he would have used.

Dipped in yellow dye, then sealed with Fullerplast (the oft maligned substance,) coloured with an acrylic lacquer, then cleared with either a different acrylic lacquer. i guess his tone was terrible because he played an Alder Strat with a polyester sealer, and acrylic lacquers.

The fact of the matter is almost no one (personally i would drop the almost, but i suppose there may be a one in 6 billion person with that kind of sonic acuity.)can tell if your Strat is alder,ash or poplar just by listening, the difference is further muddied when you consider the vast array of different amplification, and effects. Rotating the tone knobs on your guitar and amp will yield a bigger difference than changing your body or paint.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

The grain of ash is far more pleasing to the eye than alder and I have found that guitars with ash bodies-black ash especially-sustain a lot longer. I too am of the opinion that the resonating properties of the wood do impact on the overall tone of the guitar. Some woods vibrate a lot more freely than others so much so that in many guitars you can feel the solid body vibrate when the strings are hit this must affect the overall tone of the guitar as one would expect that a wood with little or no resonant properties wouldn't sound near as full or sustain as long as one that vibrated freely.I had a black ash 78 Strat that weighed over 10 lbs but sustained longer than any other guitar I've ever played and I attribute that to the properties of the black ash.

_________________
'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I am throwing my hat in with everything 12bar said and agreeing with most of what Nikki posted as well. With reference to breathing; I think the intent of that word is in taking on and giving off moisture in humid to arid conditions. Keep them in a place a human being can live comfortably without sweating, or freezing and that guitar, once set up properly will keep it's playability until it's moved someplace else.

I don't agree that a quick jaunt to a friend's house would throw your guitar out of whack as some believe. Wood simply doesn't inspire/expire moisture that rapidly. Take truss rod adjustments for example: when you make a very small adjustment, the change is easily notcable as string buzz is eliminated, but make a large adjustment, and the wood will "coast" as it continues to relax into it's new orientation. Therefore, the smaller adjustments are more favorable even if it takes several tweaks to get to the right set of the neck.

Woods can and do impart tonal variety because of their denisity. A hard, dense wood such as maple will certainly be shrill in conjunction with pickups calibrated for mahogany. Add in maple neck and fretboards to an all maple body, and almost nobody can stand that tone, let alone hold it up for a set or a whole gig!

In contrast, a light, open-grained wood like white limba or basswood, will need some help with boosted frequencies on the pickups. The obvious exception is active pickups, which you can bolt to a counter top and still get a good sound. The SD Blackouts, IMO, are the ideal because you do get some tonal influence from the wood of the guitar.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. YMMV.

Cheers!

_________________
60th Anniversary AD Strat, Deluxe Nashville Tele, Player's P Bass. Mesa/Boogie Mk IV combo, Marshall JCM800, 1960A cab, Genz Benz El Diablo 60, Genz 2x12" cab, too many neat little practice amps and kit projects!

Ok when someone can clearly explain to me how a bit of wood caused to vibrate by a vibrating string will affect the same string thats acting upon it, I'll buy it.
Bare in mind you will have likely created perpetual motion.

Also quantify the amount of difference made to the strings arc and how that has altered the response of the pickup. Also explain how affecting the arc of the strings vibration hasn't distorted or detuned the note played.

Then I'll believe it, a little bit.

_________________
No no and no

I always find these debates amusing.

There are way too many variables for the wood the body is made of to make that much of a difference in tone.

_________________
Chet Feathers

Authorized TonePros Dealer
Authorized WD Music Products Dealer
F/A Official Southpaw Compliance Certification Tester http://faamps.com/

http://www.facebook.com/cafeathers


I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.