How Wood Affects Tone - Ask Zac 48

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac
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today we are going to talk about body
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and neck woods and how they are tone
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influencers
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so this is going to be fun you know i
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did a hardware
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video and now we're going to talk about
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wood
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the show it's what keeps it going
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all right so let's talk about
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wood and tone so
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just to preface this I'm I'm just going
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to stick to
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you know vintage fender woods I'm not
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going to go into exotics I'm not going
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to
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go into pal ferro or bubinga or anything
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like that or ebony
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i have nothing against those but I'm
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going to stick to alder and ash
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and maple and rosewood maybe talk a
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little bit about basswood
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and and uh and pine
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so here we go all right
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so we're going to start with this
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and i need to thank dan strain Daniel
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Castro guitars for
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letting me borrow some next raw necks
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and bodies
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so for this video so thank you Dan
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all right so this is swamp ash
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swamp ash is from the south it is
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lighter weight
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northern ash is heavy it's really dense
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and it's really bright and that's all
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I'm going to say about northern
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ash other than it was used by fender in
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the 70s
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and yeah it's heavy
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it's heavy and bright so this is swamp
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ash
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from the south and it absorbed a lot of
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water
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and the cells got big and then when it
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dried out
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uh it's lighter weight so
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this is kind of the it was the standard
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fender wood in the beginning it was used
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on both teles and strats
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then the strat started using alder
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in late 55-56
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and the swamp ash you know continued to
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be
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the uh you know the the standard telly
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wood
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again because the standard uh you know
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the the standard color
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was blonde and so ash was always used
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with blonde so it was kind of the
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standard color for a tele so most teles
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that you see out there
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old ones are swamp ash
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so swamp ash is easy to identify
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because of its grain so it has a
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it has a lot of grain and it's open and
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because of the open grain
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uh they have to use a uh pour filler
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on there you know before they start
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putting finish on it
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and uh yeah you can see
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what looks this does have a layer of uh
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it has a sealer on here it doesn't have
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a full on finish obviously but then you
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can see here
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where it has no finish on it
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[Music]
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so how does this influence your tone
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well
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swamp ash is not a bright wood but what
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it
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does it has a liveliness
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it is very dynamic and it has kind of a
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quick
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attack it has kind of a poppiness to it
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and some people will take that as
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as brightness but it's not necessarily a
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bright
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wood i think it's more of the attack
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that you're hearing and uh yeah
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and uh it's it's a great wood and it
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never gets accused of being dead
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sounding
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so that's swamp ash okay
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here's the other wood this is alder
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alder is pretty pretty easy to identify
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because it's
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lack of you know grain it's not open
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and it looks like cardboard yeah
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so again this has a sealer on it but you
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can see here
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where it has no finish and it just kind
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of it looks like cardboard
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you know it has it has some grain to it
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but fender started using this
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because it didn't have to be grain
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filled so didn't didn't need the por
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the pore filler so this was a a little
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easier on production you know you were
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able to skip a step didn't have to do
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the uh the pour filling
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so alder influences the tone
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in that it has a bit more mid-range
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it's also more compressed and it's
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smoother sounding
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so uh yeah it doesn't have the quick
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attack
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that swamp ash does and so this ends up
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you know kind of giving a smoother sound
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with more mid-range
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so yeah so that's alder
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uh i will mention pine because it is
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kind of a vintage
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uh fender wood pine is similar to swamp
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ash in some ways tonally
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uh the big the biggest thing with that
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is pine is very soft wood
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and so you can easily tell something's
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pine because you mean you don't want to
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do it in the finish but
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you can easily put your fingernail into
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the wood because again it's
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it's soft and it will relic and get beat
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up quite
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quickly with a pine body
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basswood ends up looking
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more like alder but with almost no grain
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to it at all and it again has that kind
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of
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uh sometimes and it will be a little
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whiter
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or lighter in uh in color than
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alder but uh yeah if
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usually if you have a sunburst finish in
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basswood usually there will be almost no
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grain
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at all so there you have it
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all right now let's go to neck woods
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start with the classic so this is the
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one piece maple neck
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this has no finish on it at all so this
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is raw maple you can see how
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white it is um
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it just has the you know the piece of
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walnut here to
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you know put the truss rod in
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maple it gets accused of being bright
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but i don't really think it's bright i
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think what you're hearing is the
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hardness
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of the maple contributes to a quick
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attack
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and so it has a quick attack but it has
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a good amount of fundamental note
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and then it has a good amount of
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harmonic content where the notes you
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know kind of bloom really well
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uh it's uh it's a great
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neck wood and uh yeah works well
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then you have of course you know fender
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in
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5859 they uh they shifted over
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to a uh a rose a separate rosewood
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fretboard and it started off
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being slab like this then of course it
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went to a
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you know a veneer and then it went to a
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thinner veneer you know by
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by 63. so
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uh how is this different than
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than the uh how is that different than
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this
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well i think
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sometimes we hear with our eyes and so
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there is
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aspect where people think rosewood
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sounds
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warmer i think what they're hearing is
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the difference in attack
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i think this this wood it
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feels different to your hand and i think
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sometimes you you're hearing
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the feel rosewood what it i can say it
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absolutely does is having two pieces of
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wood
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changes the stiffness of the neck and
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that tends to
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accentuate that fundamental
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and have less of the harmonic you know
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kind of bloom
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thing going on uh
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yeah and i think the the lack of
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hardness
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you know that the rosewood is a little
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softer than the maple
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i think that uh that does you know
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contribute to
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uh to the to the sound and and maybe
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make it a little a little softer
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sounding
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a little less of that uh attack so
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then you have a third variation
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um which would be you know maple cap
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neck so you can see this one has
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no uh you know stripe on the back
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and these have all that hardness from
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the maple
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and they have kind of that quick attack
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and
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and kind of accentuating the uh
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the fundamental of the note um
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also while i got this one out I'll say
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uh
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you know this is an interesting
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wood combination right here because the
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this is not a vintage one but
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it's a copy of a vintage one and down to
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the fact that has an older body
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well alder with a maple neck is kind of
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an unusual combination
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because you know ash was the standard
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you know wood that was used you know
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because it was used on all the blonde
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finishes and you had to pay more to get
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a custom finish so the
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the custom color so only custom colors
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got older
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and so of course the paisley is an alder
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body
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the tele customs you know whether it was
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sunburst or red or whatever color a tele
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custom was those are all older
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and then of course if you had a solid
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color you know custom color finish
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so and of course there's very few of
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those that were made in the 50s
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so yeah so this is a maple cap neck
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one of the really interesting
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combinations is a full-on maple neck
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with an older body not a maple cap but a
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solid
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one-piece maple neck with an alder body
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and that's the combination that James
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burton
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had on his 69 paisley that he used so
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you kind of get more of that mid-range
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thing and you have you know kind of the
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the attack and
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and everything in the the bloom of the
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of the maple neck
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you're gonna have to pardon me i start
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you know sounding like some kind of wine
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kind of sewer here but it's it's hard
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here when we're
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talking tone uh another one would be a
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Reggie young Reggie young played a 69
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tele custom which again has an older
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body and a solid maple neck
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and that certainly contributes to a
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warmer more compressed
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you know smoother tone so yeah
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then let's see this is kind of your
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classic
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you know combination this is a dano
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caster but it's got swamp ash body
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one piece maple neck uh you know then of
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course you have the other contributors
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of flat pole pickup and brass saddles
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you know you can see and you can even
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see through the blonde finish you can
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tell that that's ash
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this is my jv tele
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and this is alder and so if you look
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here
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you can see the grain you know it
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doesn't have the pronounced grain that
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ash does
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but it has you know you can see grain
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there if this was basswood like on some
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of the later 80s and 90s
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Japanese tele customs you know this just
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kind of looks like generic wood with no
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grain to it
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so but this this is alder so you can
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see some finish there a nice little ding
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there
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and this is my 67 tele
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and uh you know this is of course a
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maple cap neck
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with a swamp ash body and it's a
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you know good it's a little under seven
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and a half pounds
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and this is this is my best telly of the
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bunch i mean
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they're all different and they all have
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their own strengths but if you know if i
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only had one
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tally it'd be this one here's some
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finishes worn away
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and you can see that that's definitely
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swamp ash
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so you can see where even some of the
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grain filler has come out and it's open
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there because that's what it looks like
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it i mean the grain is very
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very open on ash so
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so this with an ash body and a maple cap
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neck
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you get a very dynamic a very
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quick attack and uh and you get a lot of
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fundamental
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and it's a very you know cool kind of
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assertive guitar and then of course you
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know you add the
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the steel saddles and the staggered pole
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bridge pickup
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and uh yeah i don't i don't know that
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it's it's twangy but it's it's
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ringy and it uh it it has a lot of uh
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has it has some cool qualities to it
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so all right well that's kind of
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today's episode i hope you've enjoyed it
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we'll do another episode
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at some point where i talk about uh you
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know pickups and then talk about you
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know caps and pots and stuff like that
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but uh yeah we've done hardware now
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we've done
13:39
body and neck wood and uh and we'll keep
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on having fun in our tonal
13:44
journey and talking about these tonal
13:46
influencers
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alright i hope you all have a great week
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I'll see you next time