WOOD LIBRARY

The pickups, bridge, and other variables greatly affect your overall tone, but lets not forget about a crucial one…WOOD!

ALDER – a great tone wood for bodies since it is fairly lightweight, takes transparent finishes well, and is tonally well balanced in the upper mids without being too bright.

ASH – Though it is heavier than Swamp Ash, it is the ideal body wood, in our opinion, for heavier styles of music. The upper mids are more pronounced in Ash vs. Swamp Ash, and the bass response truly blooms with clarity and resonance.

EBONY (Macassar) – our go-to for a darker hued fingerboard wood. We do not stain our ebony, so you will see rich streaks of brown and black in our Ebony fingerboards. It is also very bright, but Macassar in general is more subdued than other Ebony woods.

KORINA (also known as White Limba) – a great middle ground body wood for someone who prefers the richness of Mahogany but wants something a bit brighter tonally and lighter in weight.

MAHOGANY – a very popular tone wood for bodies due to the warm/rich overtones and smooth lower mid character. It takes stains and translucent finishes well, but also looks great natural. The weight can range depending on it being Pacific Mahogany or African Mahogany (African being heavier).

MAPLE – the go-to wood for guitar necks due to its hardness and how readily available it is.  It is also a great compliment, due to its brightness, to a body wood that has a lower mid character with a pronounced bass response, giving a balanced overall tone.

PURPLEHEART (also known as AMARANTH) – the pretty purple wood we’ve all come to love. Beyond the pretty hue is an extremely stable tone wood for necks and fingerboards.  It is technically a “harder” wood than Maple, when looking at the Janka Hardness scale.

ROASTED MAPLE – we’ve been roasting our own Maple for over two years now, and we find it to be one of the best tone woods for neck and fingerboards. Roasting the Maple pulls out almost all of the moisture in the wood, leaving the Maple more stable and almost impervious to humidity and temperature fluctuations. Some have done vibrational testing on Roasted Maple and have found it to have a warmer and clearer attack than regular Maple.

WENGE – a well balanced tone wood for necks and fingerboards.  It is very hard and is stable when built into a multi-laminate neck, plus it has beautiful brown and black streaks.