Body
Alder
Alder
Alder is used extensively for bodies because of its lighter weight
and its full sound. Its closed grain makes this wood easy to finish.
Alder's natural color is a light tan with little or no distinct grain
lines. It looks good with a sunburst or solid color finish. The tone is
reputed to be the most balanced with equal doses of lows, mids and
highs.
Neck
Maple
Maple is a traditional neck wood. Dense, hard and strong, offering a
great sustain and stability. The tone is bright. Maple has a uniform
grain, it's strong and stable, and it has less reaction from
environmental changes than other hardwoods. Its' tone is highly
reflective, and focuses more energy onto the body wood.
Fretboard
Maple
Maple is an extremely popular wood for necks and fretboards.
Recognizable because of its bright tone, grain patterns, and moderate
weight. It's tonal characteristics include good sustain with plenty of
bite. It is about as dense as hard Ash, but it is much easier to finish.
Very durable. When used on a fretboard, Maple produces tremendous
amounts of higher overtones and its tight, almost filtered away bass
favors harmonics and variations in pick attack.
Pau Ferro
Pau Ferro is well known as a fretboard wood on electric guitars and
basses. It is much like Indian Rosewood with dark, straight, vertical
lines except that gold, beige, and brown substitute for the dark browns,
greys, and purples found in Indian Rosewood. While the wood is light
and strong, it is rather soft and easily worked. It is tight grained
closed pore hardwood with excellent clarity on the "chunk" tones when
gain, especially when teamed with an Alder body. In overdrive mode it
has a fatter low end and more pronounced sparkle when compared to Maple.
It adds excellent definition to the notes, especially when using
overdriven tones. Strong in lower mids, and bass, scooped mids.
Rosewood
Rosewood
The most common fretboard. The sound is richer than Maple because of the
stray overtones absorbed into oily pores (Rosewood is a naturally oily
wood). Rosewood is one of the heaviest woods currently employed in
guitar making. The sound is very warm, however, the high end sounds are
dampened. Indian Rosewood is a very hard and dense wood with great
clarity and articulation in tone. Very smooth feeling. Color varies a
great deal from piece to piece, all being attractive.