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Post by stratpurist on Dec 4, 2014 14:06:36 GMT -6
I am building myself a partscaster for Christmas - trust me, I have been good ... mostly. Anyway bought the neck off ebay and am in a quandry over the body. Looking at swamp ash or poplar w/ a flamed maple cap. The solid poplar bodies make me nervous - from what I have read, there is too much variability in these while the swamp is more predictable as far as density and resonance. that maple cap is awful pretty, if you're into that sort of thing. Any thoughts on poplar strat bodies?
I have temporarily scrapped the active pickup concept and am going for cheap set of alnico V. I have an alembic preamp which works really well and I will have the battery compartment in place when I decide to upgrade to active elx. Will keep you posted on this.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2014 17:11:50 GMT -6
Well, it seems it always gets down to the wood sooner or later... For me at this stage of building, I have now built a lot of guitars out of all kinds of woods and combinations of woods. I have built bolt on neck guitar as well as set necks, and neck though... For me and I am only speaking from my experience. That most solid body guitars do not have that big of a change in sound or tone as far as wood goes. But there are some woods that seen to produce longer sustain than others.
Case in point is the neck through Guitar I built for a customer called the "Rose" It is made from rose wood with maple stripes. That guitar sustains longer than any guitar I have ever built or have seen. I like poplar a lot. It is easy to carve and to paint (if needed) It has a good balance to it and it won't kill your shoulder.
Swamp ash to me is just OK... I say that because I have had a lot of bad experiences with swamp ash... It for the most part, if you are getting real swamp ash is supper lite. supper lite will cause you to have what is known as neck dive. (the neck being heaver that the body) Some people find they have to put in some counter wait to help balance things out. Swamp ash does have some cool grain. Swamp Ash is harder to carve as well as Ash. Ash to me is just too heavy.
For me I would go with Poplar over ash any day. But that again is me. The guitars I have built out of poplar sound and play just as good as any guitar I have built.
But I know also if you are like me and you are going on "You Tube" you will see all kinds of bad info on "tone woods"
I have found if you want a great sounding guitar, it's not the wood that makes a great sounding guitar. It's the pickups, pots, tone caps, the kind of string, and so on that make a great sounding guitar. That is about 10% of it. the rest is in the player.
Here is a story that just happened to me the other day.
there are these two guys that came over to my shop. I have this guitar that they both wanted to play. So I let them play the guitar through one of my tube amps. Now please under stand it was the same guitar, Same amp, same settings. One guy played, and the guitar sounded awesome, the other guy played and it sounded not so good. Showed me that the sound/tone of guitar was not in the guitar but the player.
So I feel too many people get too caught up in what wood does or does or does not sound or tone off well. My cigar box guitars blow people away when they hear them played.
It really comes down to what people like. But you can't go wrong is spending the money in the Hardware and electronics. I would have John make you some killer pickups...My Cherry and maple LP is just Awesome! I can't stop playing her!
EB
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Post by GuitarAttack Forum on Dec 4, 2014 18:12:32 GMT -6
Thanks for the plug, Eddie.
I, too, really like poplar. It is a great sounding wood.
John
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Post by dnic on Dec 4, 2014 22:24:05 GMT -6
I have used all kinds of woods. Oddly enough I have not used swamp ash although I really the look of an blonde Tele. I have used a lot of poplar, pretty much every painted guitar has poplar. One was all poplar including the thru neck. It's a very stable wood and as much as you can contribute tone to wood it sounds great. I have been very tempted to do a clear finish on poplar as well, prolly will the next time I use it.
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