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Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
I've got enough bits of wood in the workshop that if I pick a few up and thunk 'em they make different sounds. That doesn't necessarily mean that guitars made from those bits of wood will make a different sound when the strings are strummed - you're not imparting nearly as much energy to the bit of wood any more, almost all of it is contained in the strings, so the impact of the timber will be much less than the impact of different string factors (eg nylon vs steel, scale length, tension, rigidity of the bridge and so on).
I am not saying that different timbers will not sound different, I am saying that I've yet to see any comparison that excluded all other factors so that valid conclusions could be made. The one Octatonic's mentioned sounds like it may have useful data and conclusions.
I agree string is the most important factor in any of this though.
Did you ever get around to using that macasser ebony neck blank? Its at the extreme end of the neck wood spectrum, it might change your mind
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If the wood really was a huge factor (and I'm not suggesting you said it was - I saw your next line) then we wouldn't recognise the sound of a guitar as a thing shared by LPs and SGs and Teles and Strats - they'd sound as different as do a harp and a lute. Fundamentally pretty much all electric guitars sound like electric guitars, and I don't mean that in a circular way. You wouldn't mistake an electric guitar (barring the real oddities) for a harp or a trombone or an accordian.
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Similarly you've got far more experience with this than I have, so even if I disagree on some things it's not that I think you're wrong. And I'm wary of backing myself into a ridiculous corner - far too easy to do that on the inferweb.
As an aside, I think it'd probably be sensible to pull all the hardware off a couple of my builds and cut them up for firewood. As they are they're not quite good enough, but they're taking up space that means I'm loathe to finish anything else. I'm only going to get better at building these if I actually build more...
But balsa does work. The Yamaha A.I.R bodies were a balsa like wood capped front and back with a couple of mm of maple and the bridge mounted from the back.
Yes. They still sounded like a guitar, but they had a noticeable hollow tone, almost thin. Perfectly usable though, and great for people with back trouble
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"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
+1
Also if everyone is prone to confirmation bias, doesn't that mean octatonic is too? Pretty much the Bulverism fallacy, really. Plus being biased doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong- I'm biased against anyone who thinks the sun revolves around the earth, for example.
Don't forget about the nocebo effect.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
That said, my Talman (which remains my favourite guitar I've ever played) is essentially moulded MDF. And still sounds like a guitar.
I'm not keen on recently cleaned fretboards because they feel a bit sticky.
I have said before that I think it comes down to the builders approach. You can factor wood choice out of it by focusing strongly on all the other factors.
I often remember the guitar projects that didn't work, and in almost all cases I can put it down to the wood choice. Its usually where I have been using a questionable wood, overly heavy sapelli or English ash both spring to mind as I built fairly high spec guitars with both that sounded pretty unusual in different ways. The English ash junior with wenge neck and BKP90 could out spank a Tele, but was acoustically pretty quiet. The heavy sapelli just sounded totally dull in every way
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Same frets and all other varables I'd probably struggle to tell them apart feel-wise tbh
I remember I really liked the kokobolo board in my old Suhr GG modern with whatever frets those were.