Sound and Species by Patrick Hufschmid

Many big guitar-manufacturing companies rather enjoy the establishing of myths about wood – the creating of an erroneous romantic legend.

Why is it that you consider the tone of your instrument is ‘warm’ or ‘bright’?

The Specific modulus is the property of a material (in this case, wood) and consists of the elastic modulus per mass density. It is also known as the stiffness to weight ratio or specific stiffness.

I frequently read comments on the Internet, which really make no sense what so ever, such as (a few exemples)

- Mahogany - ‘sounds warm and muddy’. -A maple top will also brighten the sound... -if you want huge tone I would try laminating the maple on the neck with mahagony for example -I think Walnut would likely be brighter than what you'd be looking for, so it'd be between mahogany and koa. - Maple - ‘sounds bright and snappy’. - Walnut - ‘sounds almost like Maple but with more mids....’ -Do you have any guitars with a walnut top? The ebony would probably sound brighter than walnut, but it's the same basic idea.

And further more, some "serious" pickup companies who claim for exemple that a specific model works best with "mahogany" or "maple"

WRONG – pure misconception and I’ll explain why.

The 3 woods (Mahogany, Maple and Walnut) are terms covering a multitude of varieties of the same generic wood family, thus giving us many hundreds of differing stiffness to weight ratios within the same family name group.

The exemple of "mahogany": "Mahogany" may refer to the largest group of all Meliaceae, the fifteen related species of Swietenia, Khaya and Entandrophragma. The guitar industry tries to make things simple. The consumer imagines he buys a great piece of kit because big companies claim ‘Mahogany sounds warm’.

The truth is that generally, the customer has little or no idea what they are buying.

When you read ‘Mahogany body and neck' - these are generalities that can cover and mask many things: some inexpensive substitute, a poorer species OR an endangered specie!

Some very famous companies proudly claim that they are using Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) on their instruments. This is one endangered specie about to disappear, the usage and exportation of which is illegal. They may claim it's from an old private stock purchased before today’s restrictions. This may be so. However, should your instrument be examined by specialised Customs & Excise, it will be seized and confiscated.

The old belief that ‘great woods are no longer available’ is utterly WRONG.

Luckily, there are many wonderful species, also those that were hitherto untried or little known, which have very high ‘Q’. In many cases they are even more gorgeous then most of the endangered species. As a guitar maker I am proud to say that I do not ever use imperiled species.

Here are examples of woods falling beneath the umbrella of the one generic term ‘Walnut’. The over-simplification, ‘Walnut sounds bright with more mids…’ just means nothing at all.

– Franquette Walnut, – Claro Walnut, – Bostian Walnut, – Argentine Walnut, – Brazilian Walnut, – California Walnut, – Hinds Walnut, – Nuevo Leon Walnut, – West Indies Walnut, – Arizona Walnut, – Texas Walnut (also known as Little Walnut), – Mexican Walnut, – Andean Walnut, – Juglans nigra L. (also known as Black Walnut), – Peruvian Walnut, – Juglans soratensis Manning, – Guatemalan Walnut, – Venezuela Walnut, – Japanese Walnut

All these different species share a completely different stiffness to weight ratio.

It is hardly surprising therefore, that so many people report polar opposites in their experience of ‘Walnut’.

The same applies to all woods. One of the best examples of this is Maple. How many times do you read, ‘Add a maple top to add more brightness.’ Which Maple?

They all vary. Soft Maple is typically used by the Jazz guitar community to produce warm sounding instruments and Birdseye Maple (Sugar Maple – hard maple) would be completely different because of its higher degree of stiffness. Next time you buy a ‘Mahogany’ guitar with a ‘Maple’ neck, you can ask to the dealer to specify exactly what he means.