From the October 2016 issue of Acoustic Guitar | BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

There was a fourth dimension when guitars sported a limited range of tonewoods, when steel-string players paid niggling mind to their distinctions, other than financial considerations. A guitarist affluent with cash might opt for an instrument with a spruce meridian and rosewood back and sides, while one with lesser means would go for patently mahogany back and sides, and a thespian with even less cash, or a beginner, might cull an unadorned all-mahogany instrument.

Only as the steel-string guitar has evolved, luthiers and players alike take get more attuned to the sonic characteristics inherent to dissimilar tonewoods. On the other paw, supplies of premium tonewoods have been diminishing due to increased demand, land evolution, and poor forest management. That's led to the use of sustainable woods for more than than a decade, Martin Guitar, for case, has offered models congenital with wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In response to this unfortunate, simply anticipated, situation, merely partly out of pure experimentation, builders as well have sought culling tonewoods, or, in some instances, they've used such synthetics as carbon fiber. The San Francisco-based Blackbird Guitars, for example, has even created a highly resonant, proprietary institute-based synthetic chosen Ekoa.

Indeed, tonewood options are expansive. Major acoustic guitar companies, like Taylor Guitars and Martin & Co., now offer dozens of standard tonewood choices—solid woods, laminates, and synthetics—while a major supplier similar Luthiers Mercantile International carries scores of options, including increasingly popular thermally cured soundboards.

In that location are many variables to consider.

"Differences betwixt forest can be as mysterious and circuitous as differences between people," Maine luthier and AG contributor Dana Conservative has written in this mag. "Even within a species, no 2 pieces of wood are exactly akin. Ecology conditions, genetics, the historic period of the tree, annular growth patterns, grain orientation, curing atmospheric condition, and so on all have an outcome on the tonal properties in a slice of wood. In addition, tonewoods reply differently in the hands of different makers. They can also take on dissimilar characteristics when used in different models of guitars—fifty-fifty those built by the same maker.

"Whether a particular forest sounds skillful or bad depends partially upon who's doing the listening. And then any effort to sort out distinctions between tonewoods tin only be offered from a relatively subjective betoken of view."

This presents an interesting conundrum for the acoustic guitarist—what are the perfect woods for your sound? If you find yourself in this position, this tonewood primer should help steer y'all in the right direction to realize your musical vision. Of grade, y'all'll want to play, and listen to, every bit many dissimilar options as possible before choosing your dream guitar.

Glossary of Terms

Primal vs. Overtones A fundamental tone is the initial sound heard when you choice or pluck a note (and which decays at varying rates depending on the sustain); the overtones are circuitous harmonic layers that can brand the note swell later the primal is initiated. "The fundamental is the root frequency every bit a tone generator would make it," luthier Bruce Sexauer wrote on the Acoustic Guitar Forum. "And then the key of A440 is exactly 440 cycles per second. Overtones [are] the harmonic sequence above the fundamental. The first is the harmonic 5th, so the octave, and then things become complicated. The college [you] get upwards the series, the looser the straight relationship with the key."

Harmonic Content A piece of woods is capable of producing a key tone and an array of harmonics (which include overtones). Tapping a slice of wood reveals, not simply the velocity of sound,
but too harmonic content, clarity of tone, and high-, depression-, and mid-bias.

Sustain Natural reverberation that results in a lasting, ringing tone.

Torrefaction A procedure in which the soundboard is thermally cured in an oxygen-free environment to modify the cellular construction of the woods in a style that replicates an anile tone.

Velocity of Sound The speed at which a fabric transmits received energy. Lively materials—those with a high velocity of sound, or depression internal damping—best facilitate the transmission of vibrational energy (sound waves oscillating from the bridge). To examination velocity of sound, a luthier volition hold a piece of woods at a nodal point and tap information technology to listen for the response.

acoustic guitar tonewood swatches: sitka spruce, engelmann spruce, lutz spruce, adirondack spruce, red cedar

The All-Important Soundboard

The top or soundboard, as the proper name suggests, bears more influence on the fashion a guitar sounds than any other component, though the dorsum also is a fundamental component. "In general terms, the height seems to affect the guitar'south responsiveness, the quickness of its assault, its sustain, some of its overtone coloration, and the strength and quality of each note'south primal tone," Bourgeois notes. "Nigh luthiers, but non all, believe that the wood chosen for the top is the single overriding variable that determines the quality of tone of a finished musical instrument."

Bandbox is the most common tonewood for the steel-string soundboard (there are a one-half dozen species in the Northern Hemisphere). Sitka, which grows in coastal rainforests in the Pacific Northwest, is used most often, though such manufacturers every bit Taylor Guitars have introduced Lutz spruce, a hybrid of Sitka and white spruce that reportedly has some of same tonal characteristics of Adirondack spruce.

Sitka Spruce

Arguably the most common tonewood, Sitka is a well-rounded tonewood, 1 suited for many styles of playing. It's known for its tight grain pattern and its high stiffness and relative lightness, translating to a broad dynamic range that stands up well when strummed heartily. At the same time, it's as well quite responsive to fingerpicking, though a light touch may issue in a thin sound. Sitka tends to have stronger fundamentals than overtones, and this ways that information technology can sound not quite as robust when played with the lightest touch. "Sitka is the most consistently bachelor, good-quality spruce there is, and that'due south why nosotros use information technology equally stock on the majority of our guitars," says Dick Boak, director of the museum and archives at Martin & Co.

Examples: Taylor 914; Breedlove Pursuit; Martin GPCPA5

Engelmann Bandbox

Engelmann spruce, which also grows in western North America, is a common alternative to Sitka. Because it is in lesser supply than Sitka, Engelmann often costs more. Information technology'south a lighter and less potent diverseness than Sitka, and information technology has stronger overtones and weaker fundamentals. An Engelmann top typically has less headroom than ane made from Sitka, and its audio can suffer a little when played loudly. "Engelmann is a practiced choice for players who want a more than complex sound when playing softly," says Conservative, adding that European bandbox shares characteristics with Engelmann, just has more headroom, making it platonic for players with a stronger attack.

Examples: Yamaha CG122MS Classical; Collings OM2HE

Lutz Spruce

When Taylor Guitar redesigned its popular 700 serial this summer, the visitor turned to Lutz spruce, a natural hybrid of Sitka and white spruce that provides a college volume ceiling. Taylor is no stranger to Lutz; the world's largest acoustic-guitar manufacturer introduced this tonewood into its lineup in January with the revoiced 500 series. Co-ordinate to Pacific Rim Tonewoods, it grows naturally in a relatively small area in Central British Columbia and the Alaskan panhandle. The supplier hails Lutz spruce for its "hybrid vigor."

Examples: Taylor 712ce; Halcyon NL-00

Adirondack Spruce

Adirondack, or Eastern red spruce, named subsequently its ruddy coloring, grows in the Adirondack Mountains and in the cool forests of the Northeast. It is the king of spruces. Prior to World War II, it was the soundboard tonewood of choice for Martin and other makers. But over-harvesting of this woods led to its being all but phased out for use in guitars in the years after the war. For the virtually part, Adirondack spruce can exist found on select high-finish instruments. Information technology'southward a relatively heavy and stiff forest, having strong fundamentals, simply a greater overtone content than Sitka, and it tends to be the loudest and liveliest of spruces as well.

"Adirondack can be extremely wide-grained—as few as four grains per inch—and not every bit pretty as other spruces," Boak says. "Only information technology has the uncanny ability to add together complexity
to the tone."

A spruce soundboard on a new guitar tin accept a fleck of an edge to its tone, and many players like the way it starts to open up with playing time—something to take into account when auditioning any make new bandbox-topped musical instrument. Al Petteway, the master fingerstylist based in the Asheville, North Carolina area, says, "I'm not certain how much it has to do with the pinnacle aging and how much information technology has to do with the vibrations loosening it upward. I've played vintage guitars that still sounded stiff because they were left in the instance and never played and I've played guitars that are less than a year quondam that sounded awesome."

Examples: Gibson Hummingbird Vintage; Martin CEO-7; Blueridge BR-163A Superlative Craftsman Series

Western Ruby-red Cedar

Though it's used more commonly for the soundboards of classical guitars, reddish cedar, growing in western Due north America, tin brand a peachy steel-string soundboard. This wood tends to have a honeyed colour and is known for its sonically analogous nighttime and lush tone, and also for beingness generally less bass-y and projective than spruce. For these reasons, a cedar-topped guitar is a good choice for a fingerpicker (information technology's common on classical nylon-string guitars), simply non necessarily a strummer with a heavy attack.

Examples: Taylor 714; Cordoba C9 Luthier Series; Seagull Guitars Coastline S12

Mahogany & Koa

Hardwoods like koa, native to Hawaii, and mahogany, a Key and South American species, are sometimes used for soundboards, normally with backs and sides of the aforementioned material. These forest are low in overtones and sound very directly, with impressive mids. The combination of a mahogany soundboard with a back and sides of the same woods is midrange-rich and punchy and works especially well for country-blues fingerpicking.

Examples: Martin D-15M; Breedlove Pursuit Concert Koa

Maple

Maple is occasionally used for soundboards, but more often for backs and sides, due to its flatness of audio and for its relative shortness of decay—an attribute that happens to make the wood more resistant to feedback in amplified situations than rosewood or mahogany. Not all builders find maple to exist a suitable superlative fabric, though. "I wouldn't typically recommend maple as soundboard tonewood," says Andy Powers, Taylor Guitars' master luthier. "One of its atypical characteristics is that information technology's virtually perfectly transparent—information technology doesn't sound like anything, which isn't usually how you want a top to respond."

Examples: Fender T-Saucepan 400 CE; Rayco Squareneck Resonator

Fretboards & Bridges

Key vs. Overtones
Players of electrical guitars with bolt-on necks take long been hip to the fact that neck and fretboard materials can have a significant bearing on tone. Maple necks can impart a bright, poppy tone that tin practise much to reinforce the tiptop end of a large-bodied guitar, while mahogany necks help push the overall palette into a warmer, more woody tonal range.

Fretboard materials also exert an influence on overall tone, although they probably act more than as icing on the block than every bit a layer of the cake itself. Brazilian rosewood fretboards and their denser rainforest counterparts add sparkle and band, and Indian rosewood fretboards can aid fatten up the midrange. Wenge, a dense, dark-colored African hardwood unrelated to the rosewoods, has tonal properties remarkably similar to those of Brazilian rosewood.

Ebony, the traditional fingerboard textile found on violins, classical guitars, and high-finish steel strings, has the lowest velocity of sound of all the wood ordinarily used in lutherie and has definite damping characteristics. This may not exist much of a problem for large-bodied guitars fabricated of red spruce or Brazilian rosewood, but it may be something to consider when designing smaller guitars, particularly those using some of the less resonant woods for tops and backs.

Bridge materials, like fretboards, cannot make or break an instrument, only they serve to enhance or edit the tonal contributions of other materials found on the guitar. The forest discussed above­—ebony, Brazilian rosewood, and Indian rosewood—contribute similar tonal qualities when they are used as bridge materials as when they are used for fretboards.

It is of import to remember that wood, when considered generically, can be responsible only for sure aspects of the tone of any guitar. Every bit of import are the design of the guitar, the skill of the maker, and the quality of the individual pieces of forest from which the guitar is made. Species selection can, however, be a determining factor in the creation of a very special guitar or a guitar designed for a specific purpose.

 —Dana Conservative
Excerpted from the 1994 Acoustic Guitar commodity "Tapping Tonewoods."

acoustic guitar tonewood swatches: Mahogany, Koa, Maple, Rosewood, Sapele

The Back & Sides

The back and sides contribute far less than the soundboard to a guitar'south sound, but their limerick is nonetheless of import.

Rosewoods

Rosewood, which takes the name from its characteristic floral odour, is an ideal tonewood for backs and sides. "Rosewood is dense and heavy compared to other woods—almost so heavy that it sinks in water," Boak says. "And it produces extremely warm and resonant tones."

In no small part due to its use in archetype Martin guitars, Brazilian rosewood has long been considered the Holy Grail. Native to southeastern Brazil'due south Atlantic Woods, this precious tonewood, also used for centuries in high-end furniture, became difficult to source in dimensions large enough for guitar-making in the last half of the 20th century. Because of this, in 1969, Martin started using Indian rosewood instead of Brazilian.

While Brazilian rosewood has been offered in fancy instruments since then, both by guitar companies and independent luthiers, it has become even trickier to obtain. In 1992, it was added to the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) treaty, and so, in 2008, to the federal Lacey Human activity, which made it impossible to import Brazilian rosewood without a labyrinth of permits and paperwork. (Under those U.Due south. and international statutes, documentation is required to travel with a Brazilian rosewood guitar.)

Nonetheless, some U.Southward. guitar makers have Brazilian rosewood that pre-dates the ban and information technology'southward notwithstanding used on costly reissue and bazaar guitars. What makes Brazilian rosewood so appealing is its corking beauty—its deep, variegated coloring and its spider-web figuring. But more important are its brilliant overtones, deep resonance, and impressive sustain, its penetrating basses and crystalline trebles. "Brazilian rosewood is so rich and ring-y, and it has such a big range of workability, that no matter how it's used it yields pleasing musical results," Bourgeois says.

East Indian rosewood—sometimes referred to but as Indian rosewood—is native to the tropical monsoon forests of southeast India and is much easier to source than its Brazilian counterpart. That'due south why it'south used in the vast majority of new rosewood guitars. Indian rosewood is a versatile tonewood, equally good for flatpicking and fingerpicking, with scooped mids, a deep depression-end, and brilliant loftier finish. Its sparkling sound makes it a cracking substitute for Brazilian rosewood. "Indian rosewood has a lot of the same characteristics of Brazilian rosewood—but just a footling less of everything," Bourgeois says.

Some less common alternatives to Brazilian rosewood, which share some of that prized tonewood'southward winning qualities, include Honduran, Guatemalan, and Republic of madagascar rosewood, too as cocobolo, granadillo, ovangkol, wenge, and ziricote, amongst others. "Honduran is my personal favorite," Boak says. "The tree doesn't grow very large, and it's hard to notice supplies sufficient for a two-piece back. Martin really used to cut Honduran rosewood logs for Musser, a premier maker of marimbas. The wood rings like nothing else when it's hit with the right type of mallet, and whenever we use it on a custom guitar, the results are quite extraordinary."

While rosewoods might sound amazing, a guitar made from this species, with its circuitous overtones and sustain, can present headaches for a recording engineer. An musical instrument whose sonic spectrum is cluttered is more difficult to tape than one with a comparably straight sound. So, in the studio, mahogany backs and sides can be preferable to rosewood.

Examples: Taylor 416-R; Gibson J-45; Martin D-16RGT

Mahogany

Honduran mahogany, (also chosen Republic of honduras mahogany, large-leafage mahogany, or simply mahogany) has a warm and woody audio, loftier in midrange content, that's dissimilar to rosewood. It'south characterized by a relative loftier velocity of audio and stiff primal content, though it lacks rosewood's brilliant ringing overtones, making it a adept choice for a histrion who wants a clear, directly sound, and for recording in full general. "Mahogany is quite light compared to rosewood, and sonically, with its airy crispness, information technology's kind of the reverse of rosewood," Boak says.

While mahogany is much easier to source than Brazilian rosewood, information technology'south even so an endangered species, due largely to illegal logging. And and then guitar makers have sought sustainable alternatives. An inexpensive selection like sapele, for instance, which is sometimes called Africa mahogany, behaves a lot like Honduran, just adds a little treble shimmer. Khaya, another mahogany substitute, is also known for its brightness.

Examples: Martin 000-15M; Guild M-twenty

Sapele

Comparable to mahogany with consistent, balanced tone, this African tonewood is sometimes seen every bit the poor-human being's mahogany (Martin sometimes offers information technology as a substitute on the company'south pop 000-15M model)—it is slightly denser than mahogany and produces a brighter tone. But overall, sapele is known for warm resonance and adept projection.

Examples: Martin DRS-i; Taylor 'Baby Taylor'

Ovankol

This African relative of rosewood shares many of its tonal properties, and it is sometimes known as African rosewood. Its color ranges from yellow to reddish brown to darker gray with black stripes, resulting in an attractive grain with an bonny flame. Information technology has the aforementioned bass and treble as rosewood, but a bit more mid-range.

Examples: Taylor 410

Koa

Falling between rosewood and mahogany is koa—a tonewood Martin first used on guitars in 1917, as a craze for all things Hawaiian swept across America. Koa is native to Hawaii and is used normally on ukuleles, but less so on guitars. It'southward prized for its rich golden coloring, curly figuring, and amusing sound. "In my estimation koa splits the difference nicely between rosewood and mahogany," Boak says. "Information technology exhibits some of the warmth of rosewood and some of the breath of mahogany."

Examples: Taylor K24ce Koa ES2 Grand Auditorium; Dean Exotica Koa

Maple

An excellent North American tonewood for back and sides is maple, Eastern hard-rock and Western large-leaf maple being the virtually commonly used types. A couple of years ago, Taylor Guitars expanded its employ of maple on backs and sides, and has undertaken an active maple reforestation program. Maple is celebrated both for its range of figuring patterns—from curly or flamed to quilt to birdesye, which add beauty to an musical instrument—and for its transparency of sound, which reflects the sound of the height but doesn't so much colour information technology. Maple can be loud and projective. "I've endemic three guitars with flamed maple dorsum and sides," says Petteway. "They were all awesome. I've always felt maple is a great-sounding wood. After all, it'due south what's been used on stringed orchestral instruments for centuries."

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Examples: Gibson J-200; Taylor 616

Walnut

Historically, walnut hasn't seen widespread use among guitar makers, but there are notable exceptions, like certain Epiphone archtops from the 1930s. It's used increasingly in modernistic guitars, though. Claro walnut can have a striking figuring that lends eye processed to a fine guitar. Walnut behaves similarly to maple, though it has its detractors. "To my ear, walnut has a warm and very dark tone—sometimes likewise dark. I'm not really fond of walnut, although information technology sometimes pleasantly surprises me," Boak says.

Examples: Larrivee Fifty-03 Walnut Acoustic Guitar; Gibson 2022 SJ-100 Walnut Colossal

Cocobolo

With its spice-similar odor and far-ranging coloration (with deep, black grain), this Central American relative of rosewood is known as the "pianoforte of tonewoods," since it produces a vivid, sparkling tone that accentuates the treble. Regarded as one of the world'southward finest tropical woods, cocobolo grew increasingly popular after the 1912 opening of the Panama Canal made its transport easier.

Examples: Martin Custom Shop 000-14; Luna Vista Wolf Grand Auditorium

Acoustic guitar tonewood swatches: Walnut, cocobolo, ovankol, ebony, wenge

Culling Wood & Synthetics

Tradition casts such a strong spell in the guitar world, especially among high-end instruments, that information technology is hard for a "new wood" to gain any sort of status recognition. "Adventurous luthiers do observe and use exciting new woods, but rarely are the woods feasible options for manufacturers because, even if they are sustainably harvested and non-threatened, they are scarce, or the trees are rarely large enough for guitar plates, or they crave additional care during the building procedure," says Chris Herrod, LMI's sales manager, on culling tonewoods.

"Frankly," he says, "the outlook for exotic, especially tropical, wood sources grows more than and more bleak every year and nosotros are non seeing a newcomer sally that will make full in for fading species and heroically salvage the day. The future, in my opinion, volition non rest on new woods defining the value of a guitar so much equally a fresh appreciation of tonal nuance and ability—forth with an increased capacity to communicate effectively about it—and for the artistry and execution of fine woodworking and ornamentation on the guitar."

With that in mind, the door will be opened for acceptance of four-slice tops and backs, less ornate woods, laminates, and composite materials (Nomex or honeycombed tops, other non-wood materials) and for tempered ("cooked") and otherwise treated woods—even in loftier-end, heirloom-quality guitars.

Examples: Rainsong Blackness Ice Series; Kevin Michael Touring Carbon Fiber; Martin 000X1AE; Blackbird El Capitan

Laminates: To Layer or Not to Layer

A layered or laminated tonewood is one in which several thin sheets of wood are glued together to form a cloth that's inexpensive and durable to work with. Layered tonewoods sound less circuitous than their solid-wood counterparts and are more often than not reserved for budget and import guitars, with the exception of high-quality electrical guitars, like those in Gibson's classic ES (Electric Spanish) series.

The main benefit of buying a guitar with layered tonewoods is that information technology will have an attractive price—and frequently visually pleasing outer layers on those woods. And then there's the green matter: by definition, laminates help guitar makers brand the most efficient use of precious materials from the wood.

The to the lowest degree expensive guitars have bodies made entirely from laminated tonewoods, but many proficient-quality, affordable options pair solid soundboards with layered backs and sides. Given how much more a soundboard impacts a guitar's sound and performance than do its back and sides, this is a very good compromise.

Examples: Taylor GS Mini; Martin LX 'Piffling Martin'

Salvaged & Sustainable Old-Growth Tonewoods

As supplies of archetype tonewoods like spruce, rosewood, and mahogany are being threatened, luthiers and guitar companies look to sustainable alternatives such as salvaged forest. All of the Sitka spruce used in soundboards by Bedell Guitars, for example, comes from trees that have fallen or are dead in Alaskan forests.

As for harvesting tonewoods sustainably, Taylor Guitars has taken important steps in this management. For its 600 series, the company uses North American maple, grown in healthy forests with adept stewardship, ensuring that information technology will be bachelor for generations to come. This maple is supplied by Pacific Rim Tonewoods, a company with thoughtful practices when information technology comes to sourcing and preparing forest for musical instruments. The company also is planting its own maple forests, every bit well as stands of koa on the Hawaiian islands.

In a more ambitious development, in 2022 Taylor bought an ebony manufactory in Cameroon, Africa, and is at present the world'southward biggest legal producer of that wood, used almost oft for fingerboards and bridges. The ebony marketplace has long been plagued with irresponsible and wasteful forestry, compounded by corruption, and Taylor is working to operate cleanly in a mode that ensures ebony's survival.

Sinker wood—logs that long ago cruel to the bottoms of rivers or lakes when being transported for milling purposes—is another source that precludes the harvesting of new tress. Huss & Dalton, for example, has built guitars using old-growth mahogany discovered in the river bottoms of Belize and removed in an environmentally sensitive manner.

"If yous like wood with a story, and so it doesn't get any ameliorate than this material," writes Mark Dalton. "This is material from the bottom of Belizean rivers. Belize used to exist a British colony. The British exported a lot of mahogany from Belize throughout history and during the 19th century they used the rivers of Belize equally their principal source of transportation. Occasionally the denser mahogany logs would sink! These logs for over 100 years had been lost and forgotten, until at present. All the logs were salvaged using environmentally sound practices using small boats and pulleys to remove these logs off the lesser of the rivers. The logs were cut in Belize using local labor. Hence this is a very eco-friendly product. The material was kiln-dried in Belize, just has been re-stickered to give the piles air flow to allow them to air dry out even more. Due to the age of these logs, all this material would accept been onetime-growth timber. The colour is excellent and the grain is tight. Some of the material is even figured. Plus the material has a very interesting natural edge. The texture has been sculpted by the river and is very pleasing to the eye."

Slabs of tonewood from an ancient mahogany trunk known iconically as The Tree are among the most coveted tonewoods—even Slash of Guns Northward' Roses had a custom acoustic built from The Tree. But that'southward non even the near impressive salvaged tonewood: Before this yr, Santa Cruz Guitars exhibited at the Winter NAMM Prove a one-of-a-kind H13 model fashioned from a set of viii,000-yr-former oak boards cut from a body institute in a Czech sandpit and a fallen 3,000-year-old Sitka spruce tree salvaged from the melting Arctic permafrost. A unique guitar built of wood from the dawn of civilization (featured in the June 2022 consequence of AG).

Guitars Don't Live By Tonewood Alone

More than than merely the species of forest will have a big influence on how a guitar sounds. The fashion information technology's cut, for instance, will bear upon both its workability for a guitar maker and its sonic performance. Quarter-sawn lumber—in which the forest is sawed at a radial angle into four quarters—is optimal for tops, every bit it lends stiffness. "A quarter-sawn top is stiffer [than a obviously-sawn one]," Chris Herrod, sales manager at Luthiers Mercantile International, explains. "Great stiffness gives the forest greater resonance, all other things being equal, and allows the luthier greater leeway to alter the tone and response of the peak by changing the thickness."

It's also important to think that a guitar's design has more than influence on its audio than the tonewoods used to build it. Though rosewood, for instance, more often than not has a stronger bass response than mahogany, a mahogany dreadnought can easily accept a more impressive lesser end than, say, a rosewood parlor guitar. A couple of other variables that impact a guitar's sound are its setup—an instrument with overly depression action tends to accept an bloodless tone fifty-fifty if information technology's made from the most optimally resonant tonewoods—and even its scale length. "A long scale length will normally accentuate the trebles, for example," Herrod says.

Go along in mind, too, that the sonic functioning of a particular tonewood depends non only on the wood, only also the build of the instrument. A finely made plywood guitar, for example, will likely audio superior and exist more resonant than a poorly built rosewood guitar—merely every bit the finest guitar fabricated from premium Adirondack spruce and Brazilian rosewood will just sound as good as the guitarist playing it.

Greg Cahill and Dana Bourgeois contributed to this commodity.

Acoustic Guitar magazine October 2022 Cover

This commodity originally appeared in theOct 2016 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.

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