The grade of Koa and the effect on the sound

Rusty, if you'd like to buy me a chunk of ebony big enough to build a Strat, I'll do it! I'll supply the basswood... Or would a Tele be OK? Much easier to build...
 
That YouTube comparison is thoroughly bogus. It proves nothing except that the author has an opinion. While it may be possible to use an audio spectrum analyzer and other lab-quality equipment, fixtures and instrumentation to compare two instruments, it would take a much more rigorous approach to produce reproducible, scientifically valid work.
 
FFT analysis based on direct or derived impulse response testing is the best "scientific" method for doing that kind of testing. That's what we used at D-TAR in analyzing acoustic guitars to develop DSP "signature" algorithms for our "Mama Bear" acoustic guitar modeling preamp. The thing is that none of this is a simple EQ curve as can be gotten with either a graphic or parametric equalizer. It involves a great deal of time domain information and thus transforms as different frequencies (or call them harmonics if you like) are bounced around in the wood and are released as acoustic waves and also reflect back into the strings through the bridge and the neck via nut and frets.

The easiest way to understand that the vibration signature of the wood is different for different instruments is to take a magnetic pickup...any you choose...which is sensitive to string vibrations rather than wood and air, and first put it on an acoustic guitar and then move it over to a solid body guitar. That is the extreme, but everything between is different, too.
 
Interesting. I watched the video. Its kind of cheap vs cheap. I am acoustic dedicated these days, guitar and ukulele but... i do keep a cheap Squier bullet Strat that comes out 1 or 2 times a year. I see no point in having anything 'better'. I did have the good stuff before so for the hell of it i'll post my experience.

Early days.. dream guitar... Les Paul. Epiphone then Gibson. Scratch them off as no modding was done.

Then i discovered Pink Floyd and the strat! I got a sage green mexican strat before the huge number of variants came out. I played it for years then fancied a 57/62 AVRI. I bought all the parts required to mod it into the guitar i wanted... the 57/62 which was in UK money over 1K. I ordered from all over the globe so i got the best prices. The end result was good but something was missing. Traded it. At point of trade as in in store i A/B'd it against many strats. It was better than the cheap stuff but even a USA standard beat it... Far cry from a 57/62. Can't remember what i left with but i know i miss that guitar STOCK and should have left it that way and kept it. Lost interest after doing all the work and losing.

Many many strats passed through my hands then i gave up and was an acoustic guitar only guy for several years.

I then picked up a Squier strat and decided to make it into an 'American standard'. I got a loaded pickguard, changed the bridge and nut... etc etc. it sounded good but still a little dead, no resonance to the notes and it still had the cheap sound?? Yeah i should have learned.

I gave up on that malarky and got a actual USA standard. It was heaven. Maybe there is fairy dust sprinkled on them as they end production but they sound amazing. I took it with me when we visited relatives, staying for 2 weeks with a Orange micro crush amp. I think its 2W (still have it) it STILL sounded amazing.

I can be very easily pleased or insanely fussy. I have had Martin acoustic guitars which have fell short of expectations. I have had Yamaha acoustic guitars which i couldn't put down. Solid wood ukulele's which have sounded meh and laminate yup laminate ukulele's which pleased me no end. I started with ukulele's 3 years ago for only months before selling and trading for an acoustic guitar which i still have. Only returning very recently. I'm sticking with them this time the bug had bitten harder this time. I am a real hobbyist and easily sidetracked. :p

If its cheap but sounds good i'm happy. If its expensive and falls short its gone.. even just a little short. These days the market is saturated its hard to pin down something that ticks all the boxes. Too much choice. Also at least with ukulele's its hard to get a shop with a good range. It's all mail order and pot luck, forums helping a bit, youtube too. But i'm rambling as a multiple forum user for many years i have never seen a thread starting with a difference in opinion ending in, "so were all agreed then?". :D
 
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Rusty, if you'd like to buy me a chunk of ebony big enough to build a Strat, I'll do it! I'll supply the basswood... Or would a Tele be OK? Much easier to build...

Being an acoustic guy, except for some lap steel and pedal steel, I have no horse in this race. I was hoping one of the dissenters would pony up the wood. :) That's one reason I chose ebony for the denser wood, extremes in density and cost. If you make it a Tele, after the tests you can put in a Parsons string bender for a little extra router fun with hard wood.
 
I didn't expect this thread (of patterned Koa as a ukulele tonewood) to become a heated stew of arguments about electric guitar, esp it is my first post on this forum. There are already some very good answers to my questions, so I am going to close this thread (well I just found out about this function) in a day or two, before things get worse. If you have any final say about the replies please post it within today.
 
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Well, I'm sorry that your thread turned out the way it did. All I did was make a passing comment, with no reference to any specific people, and a certain person who is known for this type of behaviour jumped in with his usual insulting and arrogant comments and name-dropping. Of course, when all his pals turn up to [phrase removed by moderator], that kinda gets forgotten.



I'd be very interested to find out what a solid chunk of figured Tassie Blackwood would cost, purely for the purposes of having a 6 string solid body electric built. One good thing about solid electrics, you can use anything, the type of wood makes exactly 0% difference to the sound.

I am sadly amused by Big Kahuna's utterly incorrect assessment of what goes into a good electric guitar. That is ignorance at it's height.

To the tone deaf there is no difference among woods or anything else that guitars, basses, or ukes are made from.

I rest my case.
 
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Niq, please chill out a little.

To all:

Although we are pretty tolerant of cursing, it is possible, if one tries hard, to abuse that tolerance. Please don't.

Also, it is against the rules to insult your fellow members, and it is against the rules to be a jerk.
 
For what it's worth (probably nothing), while I know from experience that the choice of woods makes a huge difference to acoustic instruments, I believe it makes minimal difference with electric guitars. Not zero difference, but much less difference than pickups, electrics and amplifier.

At the end of the day, plug the same axe into two different amps and you soon realise that that acoustic ring you heard when you played it before you plugged it in means almost nothing.

Similar arguments have raged for years about set neck vs bolt-on. Well, my bolt on electrics perform as well as the glued neck axes I've had, and my bolt-on Taylor acoustic sustains beautifully.

It's very hard to make declarations of fact as perceptions vary and some people will believe what they want to regardless of what scientific instruments may measure.
 
For what it's worth (probably nothing), while I know from experience that the choice of woods makes a huge difference to acoustic instruments, I believe it makes minimal difference with electric guitars. Not zero difference, but much less difference than pickups, electrics and amplifier.

At the end of the day, plug the same axe into two different amps and you soon realise that that acoustic ring you heard when you played it before you plugged it in means almost nothing.

Similar arguments have raged for years about set neck vs bolt-on. Well, my bolt on electrics perform as well as the glued neck axes I've had, and my bolt-on Taylor acoustic sustains beautifully.

It's very hard to make declarations of fact as perceptions vary and some people will believe what they want to regardless of what scientific instruments may measure.

It's funny you should say this, considering Brian May's Red Special was mentioned earlier.

The wood it's made from was an old fireplace mantle. But the electronics is like something I've never heard of, and was something he and his dad concocted as they went along in the build. I don't know if any of this means anything, but I thought I'd throw it in for good measure. :)
 
It's funny you should say this, considering Brian May's Red Special was mentioned earlier.

The wood it's made from was an old fireplace mantle. But the electronics is like something I've never heard of, and was something he and his dad concocted as they went along in the build. I don't know if any of this means anything, but I thought I'd throw it in for good measure. :)

Mr May's whole rig is unusual. A bunch of AC30s, treble boost, light strings and a coin for a pick. Combine that with his ability and style... It's not surprising that he has a very recognisable sound. :)
 
Mr May's whole rig is unusual. A bunch of AC30s, treble boost, light strings and a coin for a pick. Combine that with his ability and style... It's not surprising that he has a very recognisable sound. :)

And not to mention his doctorate in astrophysics. ;)
 
Blessed are the peacemakers. I unfortunately have succumbed to the UAS disease. I am looking at one of two curly koa ukes. They sound right to my ears. They are both beautiful in their grain and construction. One is laminated koa top the other may be solid top, IDK -yet. I live in a cold climate with winter coming on. Any comments that may ease my dilemma? - I will only buy one of them wiseguy.
 
Blessed are the peacemakers. I unfortunately have succumbed to the UAS disease. I am looking at one of two curly koa ukes. They sound right to my ears. They are both beautiful in their grain and construction. One is laminated koa top the other may be solid top, IDK -yet. I live in a cold climate with winter coming on. Any comments that may ease my dilemma? - I will only buy one of them wiseguy.

I live in a cold climate........Canada.......and it is very dry in the winter time, below 15% humidity. I just keep my ukes in their cases with a sound hole humidifier when they are not being played.

Buy the one you love the sound and look of the most, easy peasy.
 
So let me get this straight. Some of your folks believe that all Strats with the same electronics sound the same, right? Ditto Les Pauls, right? No difference between, say, a mahogany bodied Strat and an alder one, or an all mahogany Les Paul custom and one of the Norlin era ones with a maple cap on a mahogany body, right? For the sake of argument, let's say you had all these guitars with sequentially made Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups...single coils in the different Strats, humbuckers in the Les Pauls. Is this a firmly held belief?

How about the difference between a guitar or electric bass with a mahogany or maple neck vs. a carbon fiber neck?

Do you think that adding carbon fiber to a neck changes the sound of the instrument?

And upon what experience or evidence do you base your beliefs?
 
So let me get this straight. Some of your folks believe that all Strats with the same electronics sound the same, right? Ditto Les Pauls, right? No difference between, say, a mahogany bodied Strat and an alder one, or an all mahogany Les Paul custom and one of the Norlin era ones with a maple cap on a mahogany body, right? For the sake of argument, let's say you had all these guitars with sequentially made Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups...single coils in the different Strats, humbuckers in the Les Pauls. Is this a firmly held belief?

How about the difference between a guitar or electric bass with a mahogany or maple neck vs. a carbon fiber neck?

Do you think that adding carbon fiber to a neck changes the sound of the instrument?

And upon what experience or evidence do you base your beliefs?

Heck, I don' know. I just thought it was cool that the Red Special was made out of the wood from a fireplace mantle, and that Brian May had a doctorate in astrophysics. ;)
 
Blessed are the peacemakers. I unfortunately have succumbed to the UAS disease. I am looking at one of two curly koa ukes. They sound right to my ears. They are both beautiful in their grain and construction. One is laminated koa top the other may be solid top, IDK -yet. I live in a cold climate with winter coming on. Any comments that may ease my dilemma? - I will only buy one of them wiseguy.

I will leave the solid body argument for the sake of the OP and move on having added my little input.

I would go with the solid top and humidify. With laminate the sound will bounce off and reflect the internal wood. The outer veneer could be any wood.

Case in point, The Kala mahogany laminate series mahogany veneer and... They have a more expensive exotic mahogany series which sounds the same.
 
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