Talk:Tonewood

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All good intentions of the author aside, it is very clear the author's central focus is North american acoustic guitars, still, it uses north american electric guitars as examples for the sound qualities of each tonewood. The world is bigger than america, and there are more instruments in the world than only guitars. What works good on guitars might not work good on oboes for instance. Both can be made of wood, so by definition that is tonewood. I propose a leaner article titled tonewood, and to rename this one guitar tonewood. It still contains a lot of non-neutral points of view, as the interpretation of tonal qualities by ear is never an exact science maybe it should even

The author's bigger problem is that none of his assertions are sourced. Buster 22:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Also be mentioned that the shape of the soundhole and internal volume of an instument determine much of its tonal qualities, maybe even more that the type of wood used in it's construction.

(I just added a couple of corrections to the first discussion article)

Avyfain 23:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I more would like to see this discussion extend to the bass guitar, for some characteristics might be so on a guitar, and not so on the bass (due to different frequencies, body thicknesses, and stringtension etc...)


I have edited this page with content specific to acoustic guitars and removed the reference to electric guitars within the acoustic guitar section. I have also expanded on the species of tonewoods that fall under the catergory of East Indian rosewood and mahogany. Pakhanuk 09:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is it that there is a load of stuff about Martin in the Brazilian rosewood section? just seems odd, lots of luthiers will use brazilian rose wood if you are willing to pay —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.245.114 (talk) 17:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] unreliable article

Why is it that the greatest tone wood in all history, that used by Stadivarius (and others of his stature), only given the briefest, passing mention in this article? RichardJ Christie 09:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, you've probably also noticed that the article is almost completely guitar-centric; not surprising, given the dodgy provenance of most Wikipedia articles (i.e., some guy interested in some subject to the exclusion of all else). That's why, I guess. +ILike2BeAnonymous 09:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Partly true, yes. We need a professional luthiers to contribute to this article, and not just guitar luthiers, mind you. Ariedartin JECJY Talk 14:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstly I'd like to address guitars as they seem to occupy most of this strange article. Tonewood on an acoustic guitar is, almost by definition, the timber used in the soundboard. Torres demonstrated 150 years ago that the back and sides have overwhelmingly less influence on tone and projection. Timber for neck, back and sides is chosen primarily for structural and aesthetic reasons, in general the harder and more sonically reflective the back and sides are, the better. Therefore most of the timbers listed in this article under "acoustic guitar" and "back and sides" have NO place in this article at all. I do not deny each structural timber (back, sides, neck) lends, to a point, differing sonic signatures toward an instrument's sound, but this does NOT qualify them to be defined as tonewoods. Nor, imo, can timbers used for solid body electric guitars be rightly defined as tonewoods. These timbers were initially chosen 60 years ago by Fender and Gibson etc for structural, weight, aesthetic, cost and supply reasons. The sheer diversity of timbers used for solid body instruments and back and sides of acoustic guitars provides ample evidence for this observation.

Historically the greatest tonewood has been the now scarce European Spruce and similar species. It is found in the finest instruments of the violin family, the soundboards of the great pianos, and, incidentally, in many of the finest guitars. Sitka and Engelmann Spruce are fine new-world substitutes and the luthiers of the Ramirez family of Madrid (specifically Jose Ramirez III) demonstrated the excellent qualities of western red cedar.

And what about woodwind? I'd be hesitant to include ebony and close substitutes as tone woods. They are used because they don't vibrate or colour the sound, they are dense, reasonably stable and reflective. The very same reasons they and similar timbers are used for fingerboards etc.

I'd delete 90% of this article. RichardJ Christie (talk) 10:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit: Well, not necessarily delete, but perhaps put most material into a new article not named tonewood. 121.72.32.80 (talk) 12:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Why not delete it? The author seems to feel it's ok to create an article that adheres to none of the wiki standards so he can ruminate on personal opinions of acoustic tonewoods. Without a single reference cited I can conclude that the article is probably completely inaccurate. Why should I think otherwise? Buster (talk) 20:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Being as this is a very guitar centered page, can we create a section for electric guitars? tis just pointless an confusing having them in the acoustic guitar back and sides section, or if they are going to stay there (for some strange reason) can we atleast give mahogany a mention as a tone wood for electric guitars, cause it is one of the most popular choices of electric guitar wood. Also the Red Spruce mention needs a clean up. Many vintage guitars had red spruce tops, not just martins, and also it contradicts itself saying "Adirondack has been unavailable since the mid-1940s" then saying that people are still using it. The former need rewording to something like "Adirondack spruce has been extremely scarce" or something similar just to stop the contradiction. I also think that saying BRW looks almost the same as IRW is a fallacy. saying it looks like cocobolo is okay, but not IRW. a better explaination is needed.

also, maybe making 3 sub catagories (Top wood, back and sides, and top back and side woods). being as koa and mahogany are only really used as top woods if the back and sides are also of said wood, (i realise i have made my point poorly here, i am sorry, i cant think of a way to word it correctly) instead of 2, or atleast mentioning the fact that the koa and mahogany chose for the top has to have very different properties to the back and side wood

then maybe even making these catagories sub catagries. give a brief description of the desirable properties of back and side woods, then going through rosewoods, maples, cypresses and mahoganies. then going through different species of these woods, showing how the properties change. same can done for top woods: spruce and cypress. then on both, the more common woods that do not fit into these categories can be briefly explained. This would allow a more casual browser to go however deep into the information. i think at the end of this article, if the reader ever goes into a guitarshop they should be able to identify what woods are being used where on the guitar, and why.

ofcourse, it would be great if we could to this for ever wodden instrument, but that is beyond anything i know. just my 2pence worth(86.20.244.54 (talk) 15:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC))