the best short film on tonewoods you'll ever see

Thanks!
Well done, even if he doesn’t use rosewoods....
Ron

Thanks Jon.
I just love wood!! - if it's made into a lovely instrument all the better.
I used to visit a shop in the Rocks in Sydney when I was a lad. It had all hand-crafted wooden things; loved the smell, loved the feel, loved that this beautiful, natural material was made into functional designs that could be handed down the generations.
I would always give the Huon pine bowls a lingering sniff - it will always be the smell of Tassie to me.
Any other wood fetishists out there? Come on - you're in a safe place....

Great video. Thanks!
I am guessing, since you are in Oregon that you might have some opinions on using redwood for soundboards...

Excellent and concise video ~

Aaron is a great guy, he cares about the environment, like the best luthiers do. He sounds like he knows a lot about woods, and doesn't need to use exotic woods like a lot of luthiers do.
I've met him twice, and he's very polite, very talented, and I'd trust him to build me an uke or banjouke, if I needed another.
I'll admit, my favorite place to see wood, is in the tree.
But I'm not ashamed to own a Cocobolo Ukulele, because a new one is planted for each one that's used.
The last uke I sold was maple and spruce, I wanted it cause fiddles are built from those woods, but like I said, I sold it.
I think most rosewoods are highly overrated in ukulele construction, at least I thought so until I heard cocobolo played.
We have two koa wood (Kamaka) ukes here, but the only reason we have them is because they were given to me.
Thanks for the video, Mountain Goat.

Nickie said:

I think most rosewoods are highly overrated in ukulele construction, at least I thought so until I heard cocobolo played.

Click to expand...

Wait, does that mean you think cocobolo is overrated, even though you own a cocobolo uke?


Rosewood seems to be more prized in guitar making. But I tend to prefer mahogany to rosewood. One exception is Mainland. Their cedar/rosewood produces a much better sound than their mahogany versions. I don't know if it's the cedar, which is usually more mellow to me, but playing their cedar/rosewood makes their mahogany ukuleles sound subdued, almost muffled. This is after comparing half a dozen Mainlands in different sizes. I don't think I've tried their mango models, but I was a bit surprised at how different the Mainlands sounded.

Because there's that moment about two minutes in, when Aaron says that in the bigger picture, regardless what wood he uses, it will still sound like a Beansprout. I've found this to describe my experience: the builder of the ukulele will determine the range of sound characteristics more than anything else. And within that narrowed range, the different tonewoods create different sounds.

That said, I tend to be partial to spruce, koa, and myrtle. I do wish he had talked a little more about the kinds of sound they produce, as subjective as that is. There's still plenty of tonewoods I've had little to no experience with that I'm curious about. Like Port Orford cedar or walnut or cherry. Having never owned or played a cherry instrument, I'd be a bit reluctant to commission one without getting to try it first.

Rosewood, as a hard wood, performs its function well on the back and sides to reflect the sound back to the top. Another equally hard (or harder wood) should perform well on the back and sides. Depends on what you want it to look like.

"Many different types of wood are used to make ukuleles - mahogany, ebony, mango, cedar. Moreover, various instrument elements, such as the neck, fingerboard and body, bridge, and some decorative elements, can be combined with different types of wood. Somehow I managed to find a documentary about making a ukulele on putlocker. It was interesting to learn a lot of new things. It turned out that the upper deck sets the basis of the sound of the ukulele – this is the part of the instrument that almost directly contacts the strings and transmits their string vibrations."

Thanks so much for this video, I learned a lot! Now, to go and look at some of your Ukes!!!

I had Aaron (Beansprout Instruments) build me a tenor ukulele last year and I received it in December. I went back and forth on the woods but finally decided to go with one of his standard combinations, Port Orford Cedar top (softwood) and Walnut back and sides (hardwood). Neither is what you would call a visually-spectacular wood and the instrument is devoid of any extraneous bling, but oh boy, the sound! It's all about the builder and the attention to design and construction detail.