The neck has some great figure but WOW!! it's very bright. I have a piezo in it and have moved it all over the inside of the box and even put down a piece of duct tape under it to sort of cushion it. Any ideas?
I used red oak on previous builds with great results so I'm curious if some pieces of wood really make that big a difference.
Thanks for any input!
Replies
wow that is some good looking wood. i cant find a straight piece of maple at my local menards. im lucky to find oak that is suitable for necks. i know that different wood produces different tones, but i always thought that was in regards to the body. is it bright in a bad way? changing amp settings dont help? how about nonamped tone?
do you have another gitty made with same construction techniques and box with oak for the neck? try em side by side. results should be interesting.
Try different acoustic strings till you find some that help tame the brightness, classical strings might be an option. Also finger picking or using felt or leather picks instead of plastic will change the tone.
Yes, the wood makes a tonal difference.
Hard maple is quite bright, due to its extremely tight grain and small cell size, and is often used in Fender Tele bodies and necks for that bright twangy country sound. Fender Strats can sound either bright or gritty depending if they have maple or rosewood fretboards. Acoustics built with Brazilian or Indian rosewood are deep, booming, yet balanced sounding, with great note articulation; high end Taylor's, Martins and others use rosewood. Mahogany bodies and necks are warm sounding, somewhere between rosewood and maple. Other tone woods have similar characteristics.
Piezo's are a right bugger, basically they need a hell of a lot of shielding. A piece of thick tape is not enough. What most people on here will tell you to do is put it in a bottle top filled with hot glue so you have at least an 1/8 inch of glue on all sides. It'll still be loud like that. I gave up using piezos as I could never get them sounding how I wanted, saying that a lot of people on here have them sounding really good. The best I had mine sounding was when I layered about 10 strips of duct tape over the thing before sticking it to the box. Hope that helps.
P.s, that neck looks fantastic. yet to do a neck with maple as it's hard to get hold of in this country for a cheap enough price. Good job!