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This isn’t just clickbait, these differences are easily apparent even to me with my less-than-discerning ears. As a person who often plays fingerstyle with a light touch, I now know that I should choose a cedar top, or at least a sitka spruce top.
And now I wonder, what about our amazing native New Zealand wood called “kauri”? If you got a chance to check out the latest video I posted, you may remember my wife hugging a huge tree, and that was a kauri tree. A couple of hundred years ago, much of New Zealand was covered in kauri forests, but now very few are left. We are really lucky to have some of them on our 100 acre property (but it’s illegal to cut down a kauri in NZ). They are as tall as redwoods, very straight, and produce a light but strong timber which was perfect for the masts and spars of square rigged sailing ships. I suspect a kauri guitar top would sound similar to a cedar top, or maybe halfway between cedar and spruce. It’s just food for thought, and maybe a reason to go out and buy a new guitar.Sunjamr Steve
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Steve
I can’t speak for kauri wood – seems like it would be a rare instance to find a guitar made from one as it would have to come from a tree downed by nature…but would that be legal? Hard to say…..
A tonewood that some builders are beginning to use – Taylor, in particular – is Australian Blackwood, sometimes called Tasmanian Blackwood. I’ve not played a guitar made from Blackwood but the examples that I’ve seen on YT and the reviews that I’ve read points to this wood being one of best wood for high end makers. In the last video that I posted, the builder does a tap test on a piece of Blackwood and it’s evident that it has a real depth to its tonality
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Strangely enough, just near our farm is a pine plantation (yes, California pines), and the original owner decided to plant a few blackwoods. Now he has abandoned them since, according to him, they have insufficient value in the timber market. But now the NZ government doesn’t like them, because they produce seeds and spread rampantly. Some of them have started appearing on our property, spread by birds, I guess. Tasmania has a climate very similar to New Zealand, being at the same lattitude. I’ve seen another species of tree from Tasmania called purple wood wattle (a relative of blackwood) that has totally purple wood. Incidentally, that’s where Justin Sandercoe comes from.
Sunjamr Steve
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For a small body guitar I love the sound and looks of the Koa. It seems like a nice compromise on warmth, articulation and dynamic range.
I love to see the acoustic guys chasing tone like the electric guys obsessing over pick ups, amps, tone wood, solid body vs. semi and fingerboard material. Fuel for the G.A.S.
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Interesting post Steve, I had watched it before. The problem listening to Paul Davids play, is that he makes them all sound so good. He seemed to be playing to the wood’s strengths and as such minimised the differences.
I got the impression that all the guitars had Koa back and sides. If I ignored those fantastic colours and graining, purely on sound, I would choose Sitka then Cedar for their tonal quality and brightness.Richard
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Years ago I saw a doco on a famous Spanish classical guitar maker, and those guys were only using spruce tops. Guitar tops are made in two halves, joined along the center line. The Spanish dudes first cured the spruce tops for several years, stored in stacks with air spaces in between. Then they separated the top pieces into male and female. The male half was used for the bass strings side, and the female half for the treble stings side. So when you look at their guitars, or probably any good classical guitar, the top halves are not mirror images.
Looking at my 8 acoustic guitars, ALL of them just have the two halves as mirror images. In other words, they cut a piece of wood in half and flipped one piece over to make a mirror image 2-part top. How are yours made?
Sunjamr Steve
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that’s interesting! I actualy thought the top is always made of one slice of the tree and then cut in two halves. Therefore top and bottom were always exact mirror images. Now I looked a bit closer at my Yamaha FSX5 and while I can’t be 100% sure, it indeed looks like the top was made from two different parts of the tree (or even different trees). The lower side is also darker, but that could be just the finishing.
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That’s a very good video but was surprised there was no mahogany on there. I have a Taylor 214ce-k that I have had for about 5 years now. It’s a good guitar for sure but not earth shattering. The thing that kind of baffles me but I am no guitar expert is that the K means Koa of course but the Koa is layered back and sides. The top is solid spruce. Reading Taylors description of the instrument they describe how the Koa affects the tone but I thought the back and sides really did not affect the tone much, the top did?
Anyway, just me being curious.
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I guess Mahogany wasn’t included because it’s generally used for back and sides and not tops. I can definitely tell the difference in tone between a guitar with rosewood back and sides as opposed to mahogany.
I generally notice the mahogany woods have a less bright tone with a slightly more throaty sound. Often suited well to acoustic blues.Richard
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