Crappy wood???

[Dolebludger]

I read this a lot about Epis here. Yet, my MIC '56 Epi LP goldtop lives in my music room along with a 49 year old SG LP, a couple of Carvins (which are great guitars) and a few others. And what do I find myself playing most (both there and at gigs)? My Epi. And the reason is the great resonance and tone transmission of the wood.

Like all too many Epis, it came needing some work, but it was obvious that the wood was contributing to tone about as much as wood can. A fret level, a couple of pups, a new bridge, and some electrical mods later, it sings.

Yet I read that some (or many) here have bought Epis with crappy wood, and I don't think anybody is lying. So I wonder if some models are more likely to have bad wood than others. And I also wonder if anybody else feels that their Epi has good musical wood.

[Mookakian]

I think there is a few contributing factors here

*players preference to sound
*grain in wood(knotted wood is more dense) differs
*age of wood
*craftsmanship

I love Epiphones, never owned a gibson but played quite a few and i like the gibson(but thats just me) found the Epi's a little more thin/hollow sounding in general. But im an aspiring muso, the time it takes to work harder and earn enough for a few gibsons, i could have spent sweating over scales and finger techniques wich is where true tone control lies

[codycarli]

ive owned alot of epis over the years and i can say when it come to the custom, the standards and the explorers i have never had a problem when it come to tone. you just have to get rid of the stockos and put new pickups in.

[Dolebludger]

I know what you mean about the primary importance of practice, and I've played a lot of Gibsons and even own one. Before I owned the '61 I had a real '56 LP goldtop P90, and with a few corrections I mentioned, the Epi is just plain better sounding than the 56 Gibson was. (Should have kept that one $$).
Gibsons don't need those "corrections". And my favorite brand used to be Carvin (they don't need corrections either). But wood and construction that isn't musical quality isn't going to sound good, no matter how many "corrections" you make. But I've been playing guitar (or playing at it) for so many years that I can detect good or bad musical wood without even plugging the guitar in. I sat down and played the Epi unplugged when it came and could tell it had good wood -- along with needing a few corrections that could be made. After I got the Epi, I ordered a Dean that caught my eye. I returned it the next day due to "crappy wood" from a musical standpoint.

I hope I didn't get the only Epi with good wood!

[Mookakian]

Hmm, you've given me somethin to think about. do you suppose it may just be old epi's, i get the feelin standards of wood tests in the newer guitars is slowly being lowered like the testing for a good tube has become somewhat pitiful compared to the old war days.

Im goin to test a bunch of epi's when i go to syd next week.

[Dolebludger]

Could be, but I bought my Epi in August, '09.

[dane999]

I have a china 2006 LP and it sounds and plays REALLY good. Ok not as good as my Greco LP, but i think that is 90% due to pups. When i bought it, I picked one out off the wall but the shop manager said 'Na, try this one' and brought one out from the back storeroom. Big difference, so I bought it. Very firm neck, too. There must be quite a variation between one to the next. They seem to be to the extremes; either really good or really crap.

[dennistruckdriver]

Truthfully, it's probably built of the same 'crappy' wood, but you got one of the infrequent 'good' ones. The ones that came off the assembly line right before and after may or not be 'good' ones or 'crappy' ones.
Enjoy your good fortune.

[chivitajm]

i think people define crappy wood as cheap or bad looking wood but that probably has nothing to do with tone. The "good wood" just means it looks nicer and might come from a more rare tree but that doesnt mean it would sound better, it might sound different but better is an opinion. finer wood will just last you longer but you might prefer the sound of "crappy wood". thats what i think

[Dolebludger]

I see. "crappy wood" can mean crappy LOOKING wood rather than crappy musical wood. I am saved from an appearance problem, as my guitar's top is gold sparkle finish, and the rest is so dark I can't really tell much about the graining. And I'd assumed that a buyer wouldn't buy (or would return) a crappy looking guitar as wood appearance.

My local luthier like to experiment building guitars using woods not usually associated with guitar building. He has gotten some unusual and musically usable sounds out of most of them.

[Grand Pappy]

I picked up a Epi '56 LP ebony reissue when they were being discontunued for cheap.
I bought it sight unseen from M.F. with the express intention to mod the shit out of it.
The first thing I wanted to do was install a pair of P-90's out of a '76 Gibson LP Deluxe that I had sitting in my gear box for years.
I had to dig/gouge/chisel out the bridge pup route in the Epi to make the Gibson P-90 fit, heightwise. The body wood under the cap(?)wood is kind of cheesy. Not as dense, or hard as a Gibson's body wood. That being said, after the electronic mods done to my '56 Epi, she sounds freaking amazing. It is the one guitar that I own that gets the most respect & requests for me to play by people that really don't know a thing about guitars.
Even the singer and Bass player in my band like the tone and sound of the Epi LP over any of my Gibson's, Fenders and PRS. Go figure!

[Dolebludger]

Your example proves that mere "hardness" or "density" of wood do not guarantee good tone. Some guitars have alder (sp?) bodies, and that is a pretty light wood -- but they sound good. A luthier friend of mine built a guitar using a lot of silver maple. Unlike other maple, silver maple is a very light weight wood without much strength. So much so that I don't know how he did it. But I played it and it sounded great.

Beneath the cap, you were probably dealing with mahogany. the hard, dense old growth mahogany has become scarce, so your Epi probably had the softer, less dense new growth mahogany. But some of this can still be good musical wood. In the Caribbean, I saw a trunk of old mahogany just laying beside the road that looked like it had been there for a century. How I would have liked to have brought that back with me. But it must have weighed a ton.

[-=[Shifty]=-]

I wonder, if more dense wood is considered "good", why do the Gibson Historics get the lightest mahogany?

[Dolebludger]

It is because they use old growth mahogany (to the extent they can get it) and this wood is dryer than more common new growth mahogany, hence less weight. Yet it has great sound conductivity. Density and weight are not the same things.

[-=[Shifty]=-]

Originally Posted by Dolebludger

It is because they use old growth mahogany (to the extent they can get it) and this wood is dryer than more common new growth mahogany, hence less weight. Yet it has great sound conductivity. Density and weight are not the same things.

Ok...I always though the denser, the heavier. I didn't even consider moisture.

[Dolebludger]

Ok, see I have a horticulture degree from Okla. State Univ. (really). You can think of the microscopic make-up of wood as composed of microscopic hollow balls (cells) all bunched up together in a wood sample. In a young tree, all of the hollow spaces are filled with liquid sap. As a tree becomes aged, only the outside wood on the trunk has sap in these hollow places. The parts of the trunk more toward the center have dry hollow spaces. Since the liquid sap adds weight, a cubic inch of wood with cells filed with sap will be heavier than a cubic inch of wood with cells that are dry inside. But the dry wood will be lighter than the sap filled wood, because the sap adds to the weight. But the density remains the same, because density means the number of cells per cubic inch and the thickness of the cell walls.

Pretty complex stuff. But what it means to us musicians is that the aged, dry old growth wood in a guitar will be lighter than sap filled new growth wood will be in an identical guitar. Tone wise, and with identical settings, the old growth guitar should be brighter, and the new growth guitar will have a "darker" tone. As density remains the same, such things as sustain should remain the same. Both will be good tones if the wood is dense as described above -- just a little different with identical settings. The controls on a pro-grade amp should be able to make these two guitars sound almost identical. The only deficit with the new growth guitar is you have a heavier guitar hanging around your neck.

That is why I like my '56 LP godltop P 90 so much. It (as a less expensive guitar) almost certainly is made of new growth mahogany, and thus has a darker tone than if it were made of old growth wood. But (IMO) in a P90 equipped guitar this is a "plus", as many P 90 guitars sound too "Strat like" to me, and mine does not. In direct contrast, my real '61 SG LP Standard probably was built in the day when old growth mahogany was used on guitars in that price range ($350 in 1961). Yet (IMO) the brightness of the wood fights the darkness of the original PAFs, and can produce some tones that are less than desirable.

[chuckedup]

crappy wood- schwag, bunk... good wood- cronic, fire... hehe!!

sorry i'm s-tone-d.. god that shyte was/is weak.........laters,chuck

[Mookakian]

So is it the denser the wood (more cells per cubic inch) the easier vibrations can travel through the guitar, more sustain?

Dolebludger, that is some of the most direct, understandable stuff ive ever read on wood.Thankyou

[-=[Shifty]=-]

Thanks, Dolebludger. That was a great explanation.

[dennistruckdriver]

Originally Posted by chuckedup

....sorry i'm s-tone-d....

If you're stoned, don't post; we don't need it.

[Dolebludger]

All else being equal, the "denser" the wood the better the tone and sustain. However, construction of the guitar has a great effect on these things. Good dense wood can't transmit string vibrations if it is not put together securely, as a unit. Also, the tone produced by higher or lower density wood can be a matter of personal taste. Good, hard maple, set neck guitars produce a good sustaining tone, but it may be a little too brittle for some, unless proper amp adjustments are made. That's because this wood is very dense. Mahogany is generally less dense than hard maple, and thus produces a tone that perhaps the majority of solid body player prefer. The tone is more "full" than maple, yet mahogany is still dense enough for good sustain. Without going into all possible woods, I'll go to the other end of the spectrum. Balsa wood has very, very little density, and is very light in weight -- whether new or old growth. A guitar built of balsa would be the ultimate "tone sucker" and would probably break on tuning as balsa has no strength.

So wood density plays a part, but only one part, in getting a good guitar tone.

[chuckedup]

Originally Posted by dennistruckdriver

If you're stoned, don't post; we don't need it.

it was a joke.. a really really weak arss play on words..
huh huh!! he said wood.. shut up Bevis.. he was talking about tone s(tone)d
didnt mean to offend your sensabilities. ....laters,chuck