a take on tonewoods back & sides

First of all love this site. I live in NY state and make my ukes and others out of the wood that the ice storms seem to supply me with every year.
Mostly cherry, walnut, sycamore and ash. My sister lives in OR so i have also used myrtle. Thinking about my next build in the spring I came across this article about alternative woods. What i have posted is edited but there is a link to the whole. Let me know what you all think.

The Heretic's Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods, by John Calkin
( He speaking of backs and sides )

First of all (and speaking from a steel string guitar perspective), let's discard the notion that some species of wood make good instruments and that others don't. The concept of tone wood is a hoax. Of the few things that we can do to a guitar and still call it a guitar, changing the wood it is made of will have the least impact upon the quality of the sound that it produces. The tonal difference between a mahogany guitar and a rosewood guitar is exactly the same as the difference between two mahogany guitars or two rosewood guitars. Can you tell what a guitar is made of while listening to an unfamiliar recording? No one I know claims they can. No one at the blind listening sessions I've attended could reliably distinguish between mahogany and rosewood guitars, or maple and koa guitars for that matter.
The tone of a guitar lies more in the hands of the builder than in the materials from which it is constructed. With increased experience, the level of craftsmanship increases. As the quality of the luthier's instruments goes up, the tonal difference between the instruments goes down. There are not only fewer dogs, but it becomes more difficult to build one that stands noticeably above the others. I noted this phenomenon in my mountain dulcimers years ago, and more recently have seen it happen to my guitars.
All this wood has taught me a lot. I don't believe that unquartered wood is a handicap. I don't think the species of wood contributes to the tone of a guitar. I don't concern myself with tap tones or tap tuning. I believe that good work and experience is everything. None of this will sway a mind that is already drenched in traditional guitar mythology, but so be it. Most of those folks never made an instrument.
Psychoacoustics plays such a large role in this matter that it's difficult to discuss tone objectively. ( I think that it's called psychoacoustics because trying to figure out stringed instruments will make you psycho.) We hear what we expect to hear, what we have been taught to hear, what we want to hear, and often what we hope to hear. Many luthiers and musicians alike spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars collecting information and recordings and they have come to have a stake in the sanctity of its rightness. They need the vast body of instrument mythology to be correct, and strongly oppose the possibility that it may be bogus. This makes it extremely difficult for a daring luthier to sell instruments that aren't made of standard varieties of wood.

John Calkin is a contributing editor to American Lutherie, the official publication of the Guild of American Luthiers (GAL). A professional luthier since 1980, he has made over 300 instruments. He began working for Huss & Dalton in 1995 building guitar bodies, and, has made 1400 bodies as of 03/05. More on John may be found at his website JCalkinGuitars.com; he may be reached via e-mail at jcalkin@velocitus.net. For more information on the Guild of American Luthiers, visit their website

the entire article can be found at www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm where he gives an in-depth profile on alternative woods
The Heretic's Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods, by John Calkin

Also, as a side note, in “ Guitarmaking, tradition and technology” which guitar player calls “the finest book on making guitars ever produced” they say this about finishes
“ ...the guitar finish has rarely, if ever, been claimed to have a profound effect on the instruments sound......the guitar maker usually designs without regard to the finish, and then simply seeks to apply as little as possible”.
I'm not saying this is gospel...just food for thought by some heavy hitters

I think he's right. I also play the clarinet and saxophone. If you go on the clarinet forums you'll find endless discussion of woods, wood vs. plastic, plastic v. metal. Scientific studies of the acoustics of clarinets show that the material the clarinet is made out of is 100% irrelevant to the sound. What is relevant is the precision of the construction, the size of the bore, the taper of the bore, the smoothness of the bore, the neck, the mouthpiece and the player. Someone did a dissertation on the acoustics of a clarinet with an in depth scientific analysis and scientific measurements. It doesn't matter as far as common wisdom goes. The overpowering belief held by clarinet players is that the type and quality of the wood is a major factor in the sound of the instrument. There are also many people who believe the world was made in six days and dinosaurs walked with humans.

Just about anyone who builds has read John Calkin's writing, he's a good guy.

I think he's wrong though, about all wood sounding the same. Most builders at it for any time develop "their tone" and their guitars (or what-ever) end up having "their tone". But there are differences when I build a Mahogany guitar compared to my rosewood guitar.

He is right however, about folks who don't build, wanting to "steer" the sound of a guitar in their head by the choice of wood, thinking they can pre-determine the tone, based on wood choice.

I do find it funny though, that people who dislike a belief different from their own, manage to inject their dislike into any discussion, no matter how far off topic.

Gee, John looks like a happy guy....

I recently played two late 1940's Martin Drednaughts in Telluride. One Brazilian RW ($12, 000), the other Mahogany ($9,000) which had an incredibly bad home painted on refinish. The Mahog sounded better then the Brazilian Dread. That wasn't just my opinion either. Sometimes best isn't best. blahblahblah.

I like his comments on Psychoacoustics- we hear what we expect to hear- I would add that some builders/customers hear what we WANT to hear. It is also a marketing/selling factor- most people who pay alot for something will not see/hear problems with it assuming that, in the case of an instrument, that that is what such an instrument sounds like, not seeing the dodgy mitering, plastic binding, slightly misaligned back and the bridge off the center line, or in the wrong place by 1/8" in the case of Martin for a period in the 60'-70 (i forget the years- story is a disgruntled worker on being fired changed one of the bridge jigs and no one noticed for half a decade! Just what i heard- perhaps Rick or someone in the know could chime in on that one)

Another selling aspect to using new/different woods (or any design feature), connected to Psychoacoustics is the educational aspect. Most people don't want to have something that is different from their friends or the retail person doesn't know about the wood. I made a great sounding instrument out of Ovangkol, but the bugger took ages to sell. Ovangkol sounds like Indian RW but is a funny colour with a funny name. Shame. I'm just to lazy to educate dumb people to actually listen.
Still when I can get Indian RW at $45 a guitar set, why would I use something that costs double/triple/quadruple that, sounds the same, is a strange colour, and needs an explanation etcetcetc?

Tops on the other hand...

As for back and sides. I agree with John 100%. Pick the species based on availability, sustainability, color pallet, workability, weight, and price. And I defy anyone to pick the difference in tone in a blind test and tell me what wood it is in one of my instruments.

Tops on the other hand...like Beau alludes. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

This is part of a debate that has been around since before Torres. Some are of the opinion that the sides and back contribute greatly to the sound production and others think not. Some extoll the virtues of particular woods and others say it makes no difference. I am more in John's camp but not completely. As Rick Turner correctly points out, everything matters and everything is related. I believe that the side and back material does contribute to the overall tonal quality of the instrument in a small way. It is a fact, that in recording studios, maple and mahogany bodied instruments have less feedback issues than rosewood. The big problem is I can make two identical instruments out of identical materials, and invariably they will sound slightly different.

Brad

thanks as always for any and all input. I did not post this because i agree
one way or the other. I was looking on the net for some exotic...read pricey...magic wood, and before i put down my hard earned money i thought i'd ask here, people who have done WAY more builds than i will do i my lifetime.
So again thanks for ALL input.

That article should be a sticky in uke talk. In here I'd say it's mostly preaching to the choir.

"And I defy anyone to pick the difference in tone in a blind test and tell me what wood it is in one of my instruments. "

Hehe, actually I agree with Allen, it is difficult to identify the wood in a blind test..... but I always thought that is the wrong approach.

The question should be, can you tell the difference between tonewoods in a blind test and which one you prefer.

Terence

Strings have a lot to do with how an instrument sounds as well. I can't for the life of me hear the difference between different woods on similarly built guitars or mountain dulcimers, what I mostly hear is this strong "steel strings" tonal quality that they have and how well the instruments were built. On ukuleles however, I can definitely hear the difference between similar models with the same strings but made of say spruce and maple vs. mahogany, and I could hear it even back when I had no preconceptions about how they're supposed to sound. Also, I think we all agree that replacing say Aquila strings with say Worth strings on a solid wood(/top) instrument makes it sound very noticeably different.

OK - I guess I have to say this at least once a quarter - GUITARS ARE NOT UKULELE... Calkin's informative article is great. However it concerns GUITARS and as a said GUITARS ARE NOT UKULELE. There are no real answers to this above personal preference. I like koa, I like cherry and spruce, I like mahogany...

Pete Howlett said:

GUITARS ARE NOT UKULELE...

Click to expand...

No truer words spoken

The tread is not about instrument genres, it is about alternative choices to popular woods.

I totally agree with the article.....when I'm using free wood scored from various sources
I totally disagree with the article.....when I just paid big $$$ for a beautiful set of wood

I would say guitars and ukes are not entirely the same. Most, at least many, principles are, OTOH. A guitar builder who can't build a decent uke doesn't know how to apply those principles well enough.

The top is the beef in the stew, but the sides, back, neck, fingerboard, and bridge are all other ingredients that are important as well. You've got to have the carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, and spices!

Going with harder, high resonant Q woods like rosewood for back and sides helps with sustain and a kind of reverberant quality of the decay. Softer woods can help define a note a little better. The great "for instance" with this in the guitar world was Clarence White who preferred the shorter note duration from his D-18 for the fast fiddle tune lead flatpicking over the longer deeper rumble that his D-28 produced for backup with the Kentucky Colonels.

I do know that when I want to make a uke that sounds more like a great guitar (and that is indeed one of my aims with a lot of what we build here...for better or worse, it's what I personally like), I go with Western red cedar, redwood, or spruce for the tops and something rosewood-like for back and sides.

And I've found that I prefer re-entrant tuning on our California sycamore-topped ukes. There's something about the damping quality of the wood that suits the higher frequency range...it's that very clear definition of each note with fairly fast decay, but nice frequency response.

Don't forget how important the neck, fingerboard, and bridge are to tone. I like mahogany with some carbon fiber for necks; I like ebony for the fingerboard, though rosewood or DymondWood are great, too; and I'm kind of drifting back to rosewood for bridges after making a lot of ebony bridged ukes.

For me, these woody opinions are not super strong preferences; this is not black and white; but these choices do establish a tonal base line from which to work. Sure, we can make good sounding ukes out of a wide variety of woods, but I do like to know where I'm starting.

Frankly, this is an area where I trust great players more than most luthiers when it comes to opinions re. wood and tone. Another "for instance"...I've found that electric guitar and bass players are much hipper to the tonal contribution of neck and fingerboard woods than are most acoustic players. Why? Because they've had more choices for a long time...thanks in part to Leo Fender having used maple for fingerboards and then all the aftermarket Fender compatible necks being on the market in a huge variety of wood combinations.

And the whole "you can't tell what guitar (bass, uke, clarinet, violin, whatever)" argument is full of holes. A lot of it is NOT about whether someone can tell the difference 10 or 20 feet away or double blind tested; it's about how the instrument responds in the hands and against the body of the player. It's about that very important and direct feedback loop between musician and instrument. What does this one inspire in you? What kind of response does it have to what kind of finger attack? Where's the sweet spot in the dynamic range? You have to be as much a musician as a luthier to know this stuff. It's one of the reasons why I have been putting so much time into playing ukes and guitars. I not only love doing it, but I also think it's vital to my credibility and sensitivity as a luthier. I want to be able to identify those subtle factors that make the difference between a good instrument and a great one.

Obviously, I'm with Rick on this one.

(And if I ever used smileys this would be where I put one to explain a certain self-irony. Great post Rick.)

Thanks Rick, a lot of great points..

You guys have been pretty kind about my article. I've taken a lot of heat from it over the years, but you don't print something like that and expect to get off easy. The magazine article was better than the internet posts, if only for all the pix.

I listed Honduras rosewood as being special, and that I didn't like it. It has a crystalline quality, promotes huge volume, along with the reverberant quality Rick mentioned. I've quite come to enjoy this over the years, and I would add Brazilian rosewood, Madagascar rosewood, Amazon rosewood, cocobolo, and African blackwood to the same list. There are likely others I haven't tried yet. However, you don't automatically get these qualities just because you build with these woods. Nuance means a lot in lutherie.

As Rick also alludes, a discussion of tone doesn't mean much if the instruments aren't in the hands of players who know how to pull it out of the instruments. I've met only a couple guitarists who seemed to be naturals at this. I've met a lot more guitarists with highly developed chops who make any acoustic guitar sound mediocre. A lot of times they started on electrics and then made the switch, but even on electrics each personal touch means a lot. When the switch is made to open back banjos the difference in touch really jumps out at you. You can pass a banjo around a room of players and a blindfolded listeners might never believe it was the same instrument.

I came to UU hoping to learn about ukes. I get pretty tired of hearing they aren't like guitars. Who would expect them to be? I agree with the quote below, though.

<I would say guitars and ukes are not entirely the same. Most, at least many, principles are, OTOH. A guitar builder who can't build a decent uke doesn't know how to apply those principles well enough. >

The most astounding ears for identifying woods belong to Laurence Juber.

When I was working on the early prototypes of the Mama Bear acoustic modeling preamp with D-TAR, Laurence came in to do what couldn't even be called "Beta testing"...it was Alpha... We were using a bread-boarded analog and digital circuit through a computer, and we had algorithms based on recording a bunch of really great guitars using a process that identified and could sort of reproduce the tonal characteristics imparted upon a string signal by the top, back, sides, and air chamber of any desired guitar. L.J. came in with his Martin with (as I recall) one of our undersaddle pickups in it. We first did the correction algorithm that neutralized the pickup itself and then went through several of the "target" guitar models to see what LJ thought. He correctly identified different guitar body sizes, and then at one point he said, "I'm hearing cedar over koa..." I grabbed our notebook to ID the guitar, and come to find out, it was a cedar over koa Ed Claxton guitar...imposed on a spruce over rosewood guitar with a pickup in it. That utterly blew my mind, and made me a true believer that some people have hearing acuity way beyond most humans. I know how to listen really well; I don't have LJ's ears, though...

I 100% agree with John's list of woods above as being all in that Brazilian rosewood tonal spectrum with Honduras being the most extreme (generally speaking) that I know of. The resonant Q of Honduras rosewood is very, very high; that's why it's the #1 choice for high end concert marimbas. The stuff rings like a bell. It's also incredibly stable if slow grown and quartersawn, and those reasons it's what I chose for the guitar I built for Henry Kaiser to take to Antarctica. I matched the Honduras with an Engelmann top for that guitar, loaded the neck with carbon fiber; topped the back braces also with carbon fiber, and put in flying buttress braces. The guitar came back playing exactly like it did when it left California after enduring minus 60 F. and humidity levels in the single digits.