Tonal Woods in Uke Production

I received this in an ad from Kala Music Company. Pretty cool.

Mahogany - medium to heavy, soft warm balance, midrange shines.

Cedar - warm controlled volume, darker tones, less crisp than spruce.

Rosewood - very bright, fully balanced, accentuated highs and deep lows, among most tonal woods in the world.

Koa - sweet, mellow, and warm, beautiful wood grain patterns, high end articulation with balanced midrange.

Spruce - crisp consistent note articulation, lots of bass response, great for aggressive and dynamic strumming.

Ovangkol - similar qualities to rosewood, pronounced midrange, well rounded to all styles of playing.

Of course, these are all generalizations. As we've seen and heard before, individual trees of the same species can sound different. I thought this might help folks picking out their first solid wood or solid wood top uke.
A lot of woods aren't mentioned here, like maple, oak, paduck, walnut and more.
Does anyone know the tonal qualities of other woods?

Thanks for that. It's a good summary to remember when buying or commissioning a Uke.

There's a huge list here: http://tonewooddatasource.weebly.com/species--attributes.html

wayfarer75 said:

There's a huge list here: http://tonewooddatasource.weebly.com/species--attributes.html

Click to expand...

Very cool Laura! Many thanks! Now I have something to read at work!

Maple, spritely, bubbly but not to the point of precociousness, heavenly overtones uplifting yet not pedantic.

Frankly these are good, some that I have read really are no help.
Thanks!

"Mango provides a warm yet bright tone, similar to walnut."

seattle said:

Maple, spritely, bubbly but not to the point of precociousness, heavenly overtones uplifting yet not pedantic.

Click to expand...

This also applies to some bottles of Prosecco.

The SeymourDuncan site has some good descriptions:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/different-woods-different-tones

Woods make a difference but as with most things coming from manufacturers it's a little muddy as far as accuracy.

You don't see spruce as a back material because it's more easily damaged. It's not because it wouldn't work. If it's light and strong then it would reflect the sound back even better.

There are some instruments that are brighter or warmer than other instruments but I don't really think it's as graduated as manufacturers make it out to be. There are many woods that could be used depending on local availability.

Some are on the brighter side and some are on the warmer side and that's about as much as one can accurately say in my opinion.

Here's some more wood p***. Not necessarily all tone woods, but very interesting.

http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/