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I'm building a Telecaster via Warmoth, Musikraft, Parklane, or whatever else will fit the bill. It is going to be used for only clean playing in the neck position (I may not even route a bridge pickup position) for thunky (not sparkly/ultra-clear) type jazz/cleans. I don't mind spending a bit and while I have my own opinions of what I would pick I want to hear what you all think about good tonewoods for a solid body guitar built for this purpose. I'm open to full solid body, chambered, x core wood with y lam top wood, whatever you think as I will only be having one solid body style guitar for electric playing for a while.
Essentially, what do you think is a good combination of tone woods for a solid body built for jazz playing? The only wood I can think of that I am certain of is Ebony for the fretboard, anything else I'm not decided on yet.
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02-20-2023 12:30 PM
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I have had good results with body woods of Ash, Adler and Mahogany with a Maple cap. I did not like the one solid body guitar I had with an all Mahogany body. For neck woods, both maple and Mahogany have given me good results.
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The warmoth vids are really cool to watch. They do tone compression type vids. Watching them really removed my doubts about wood not having a profound impact. There also a vid from a master luthier with a link in a thread here, that was interesting and informative.
Wood discussion with Michael Greenfield
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Another vote for mahogany body, chambered, with a maple top. Mahogany neck. FWIW, Bare Knuckles Stormy Monday pickups. That’ll the Tele style 7 string I had built for me by a now retired builder in Wisconsin, 27 years ago. The pickups took me a while to find. The body’s heavy but a GruvGear strap solved that.
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There are lots of options here. Recommend you check out some jazz players using solid bodies and try to figure which tonewood and construction sounds closer to what you have in mind.
Genil Castro - what a lovely player, massively under-appreciated
Kurt Rosenwinkel on LP Custom
Julian Lage on a Tele
Tim Lerch another Tele fan
Ulf Wakenius and his famous cheap LP knock-off
Will Brahm on a G&L Strat
Last but not least Pat Martino on his signature Benedetto which is kind of a lighter chambered LP
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Maple.
All Maple.
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I recently built a tele clone out of hundred year old douglas fir but I put a pair of P90's in it. I greatly prefer this guitar over my chambered mahogany bodied tele clone with standard single coils for playing jazz. The neck pup is nice and warm and jazzy I actually wished that I woul have put the P90's in the pretty guitar
Originally Posted by chris32895
I happen to believe that the sound of an electric guitar is all in the pickups. And even tho I don't use it very often it is nice to have the bright sound of the bridge pup
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Victor Baker is now using a chambered wide grain spruce core instead of the mahogany in earlier builds.. It apparently gives a more semi-hollow tone .. Here's a Originally Posted by chris32895
VBTele with humbucker And another with Victor Playing : You could also give Roger Borys Jazz solids a look, carved spruce top, maple back Jazz Solid — Borys Guitars. A Montreal builder makes these Feathercasters Wood ass'y includes cedar, mahogany, spruce and maple ....They're flying off the shelves, I've yet to try one.
SLast edited by SOLR; 02-20-2023 at 09:46 PM.
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Joh Lang made his Lancaster guitars from 35,000 year-old swamp kauri, here in New Zealand.
Fender recently made a swamp kauri Jaguar. Watch this film (from 16:52) and marvel at how the luthier pronounces 'kauri'. Ponder how Fender could have obtained the timber legally, given our export restrictions.
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The most mellow sounding solid body guitar I ever played was an all Mahogany Gibson Les Paul Custom triple pickup.
Man, that was such a great axe! The only problem was its weight. At 12 lbs it was not suitable for standing (or sitting) playing for more than an hour.
So my #1 vote is for Mahogany.
My second vote would be Korina aka Limba. This African wood is similar to Mahogany in many ways, and can be very beautiful.
I own three Korina solid bodies, a Heritage H-150, and two GL's (one is for sale on this site). Like Mahogany, some Korina can be very heavy, so buyer beware.
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Solid alder. Roasted maple neck with rosewood fingerboard or roasted maple fingerboard, 24 3/4". Wilde L280TN pickup.
Or
Semi-hollowed mahogany with maple cap. Same neck. Gibson Classic 57 pickup.
Or
One of each.
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So, what's the big deal - stick a P-90 in the neck position of your pretty tele. You'll still have the traditional tele bridge sound... It looks like you have plenty of room to work, and P-90s come in all sorts of form factors these days. Originally Posted by Freeman Keller
Last edited by Hammertone; 02-21-2023 at 04:59 AM.
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Or go one step farther and bury the P90: Originally Posted by Hammertone
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Perhaps of interest for the Op
Just stumbled on this home built Tele , that got plek'ed after the initial build.
S
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Actually what I should have done was installed both P90's in the mahogany guitar and both single coils in the barn wood one. It would be a fair amount of work to try to switch thm now , not to mention the possibility of damage Originally Posted by Hammertone
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I've had good experience with several woods for solidbody jazz guitars. Standard maple necks are great. If you like ebony then go with that. I think swamp ash is my favorite body wood. It sounds real clean with not too much grainy mids. After that I like basswood, which is middy, but it's nice and breathy with some upper mid chime. After that is standard alder. I don't really care for mahog as it's too grainy for me. Oh yeah, the all maple comment is good. Maple is cool too because it's really solid and makes the attack feel really cool and immediate. Not too bright or anything.
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After a lifetime of playing, I can't tell one wood from another.
I can tell one guitar from another, but I have no idea if, or how much, the difference is due to the woods.
For example, I played the L5S for some years. It was a pretty bright guitar. Maple/Ebony. But it also had a stop tailpiece and the neck pu is not under the node on that guitar. Some say that's why it never caught on. I think they preserved the pointy end of the L5 fingerboard and to do that sacrificed the optimal p/u position. Although, I wonder why it's optimal if you're not playing open strings anyway. Body is also smaller. Neck heft makes sonic difference, but I would have no idea how to assess it. Other factors (wild cards) would include p/u type, strings, scale length, neck joint type (which some say makes a big difference) and probably things I'm forgetting.
If I had two guitars which were identical in every other respect but wood, then I could tell what was what. But, without that, I have no idea.
How do you even form an opinion?
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^ The reason I know all that is before I quit guitar, I was on a swimming pool warmoth hardtail strat tear where I used them for everything including jazz. So I could more or less isolate the variable. I also used the bodies and necks unfinished so it accentuated the effect.
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not many parts suppliers do that… i used pine for mine with a Fender Licensed neck and a Gibson 57 humbucker…. The lightweight pine makes it a bit neck heavy but I am a sucker for the low weight , kind of like a thinline Originally Posted by chris32895
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02-22-2023, 05:32 PM #21Julizhm Guest
Where is moderator?? It is important. Thank.
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Bridge pickups aren't necessary for jazz guitars. If you want more stuff to mess around with besides 1 neck pickup, you can put 2 neck pickups either parallel or series, or you can put a middle pickup maybe if you're a bluezman and need spikier sounds.
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Nice! Hipshot bridge/tp? Originally Posted by fws6
Here’s my jazz Tele with mahogany body and set neck, maple cap, Hipshot & Alumitones. It was designed by Chris Forshage and very well made at a contract CNC mill in China. Matt Raines sells these and Chris makes essentially the same guitar in his shop for about twice the price. I suspect that his are much more refined, but mine’s pretty fine and I only have about $1k in it with the Hipshot and Lace pickups. I only want & need the neck pickup, but it was made with 2 HBs. It has a fine jazz tone, and the bridge pickup does add versatility for blues, funk, etc. I’ve always liked mahogany for SBs. If I decide to upgrade at some point, I’ll have Chris make me one with only a neck pickup.
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nah a $10 chinese bridge Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
but must say it is just perfect. Not spending 125 on a Hipshot for this. All the parts (except the neck) on the guitar were cheap, home made, or traded against something else in my parts box, so the whole project guitar came at $500 iirc
I actually made 2 identical ones and sold one at cost to forum member Rio , but I dont see him around anymore
yours undoubtedly looks better than mine
the reason parts manufacturers wont do one pickup guitars —> they make the bodies using CNC machines, and secure the slab of wood in the machine with 2 wood screws. The 2 pickup cavities then are necessary to ged rid of the screw holes. Making a one pickup body youd need one off handwork from a luthier
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Mine came with a cheap Chinese bridge. I replaced it because I was breaking E1 strings below the saddle so frequently that I couldn’t get 3 gigs out a string. When I took it apart, I discovered that the metal was so easily scraped away that the thinnest strings were digging into it. The E1 was breaking right where it bent over the baseplate as it emerged. Originally Posted by fws6
I smoothed and rounded the rims of the holes so I could get through a week without having to change a broken string on stage, and I ordered the Hipshot. I would’ve gotten a black one, but they were out of stock at SportHiTech (a good source of quality parts and they’re here in PA). They had one gold one that they sold me for the cost of a black one, and so far the gold is holding up well. Even better, I haven’t broken a string on it in the 2 years+ since I added the Hipshot.
The Alumitones are so light that they probably weigh less than the wood that was removed for the neck pickup. So I’m happy having a pair, except for the cost of the second one. I’d hoped that this would be a $700 beater I could gig with for years. But it ended up being a $1k+ project. I also had to add a pair of Sperzels with oversized posts and holes to accommodate the heavy 6th & 7th strings I use. I was told it would come with a big 7th, but it did not. Fortunately, the design is fine and the woodwork is excellent.
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anyone selling an ibanez pm120?
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