Walnut body guitars - What the sonic appeal?

[West LA Jazz]

Thank you, This is the only video I have of that guitar. It does have a walnut top and in this case was made intentionally a little bright, by 3 factors, the F-holes were not cut into the top, the top and back are a little thicker and the pickups are moved back towards the bridge slightly.

NICE!! Do you have a sales outlet in SoCal for folks to check out your line?

[Grez]

I have a few instruments floating around on demos and in a store in SoCal, The Beatnik Bandito in Santa Ana. They have a bass and a redwood solid body hanging. There is also a 17" maple archtop that is out on demo at the moment but will likely go back to the Bandito. The best bet is to contact me directly to see what I have where at any moment and how that fits with what you're interested in. [email protected]

[West LA Jazz]

I have a few instruments floating around on demos and in a store in SoCal, The Beatnik Bandito in Santa Ana. They have a bass and a redwood solid body hanging. There is also a 17" maple archtop that is out on demo at the moment but will likely go back to the Bandito. The best bet is to contact me directly to see what I have where at any moment and how that fits with what you're interested in. [email protected]

Will do.

PS: I used to hang out in recording studios back in NYC. The engineers talked about Apogee like the holy grail.

[Greywolf]

I've used Claro and Black Walnut for years. Regarding hardness .. Hard Maple has a Janka Hardness Scale value of 1,450, Claro is 1,130 lbf (5,030 N) , and my 25 years of building echoes that .. between Mahogany and Maple in hardness and tone Mahogany has a Janka Hardness of 800 (lbf).

My latest aquisistion is a Walnut/Mahogany combo with a brazilian fretboard .

[iim7V7IM7]

Walnut, like Maple is not a hardwood with homogeneous physical and acoustic properties. There are four species of walnut commonly used in guitar making:

Bastogne Walnut
Black Walnut
Claro Walnut
English Walnut

While their is some overlap in properties, Bastogne is the rarest (a hybrid of Claro & English). Like Hard Maple is to Soft Maples, is denser wood. There is much overlap in properties between Black, Claro and English Walnut in density and stiffness, but English is a harder wood on average. In terms of figure, Bastogne, Claro and English present beautiful curl. Black tends to be the most plain in terms of figure.

I own a flattop with Claro Walnut back and sides. Walnut, like Maple’s is a fairly neutral and balanced sounding tonewood in terms of what it adds and subtracts to the sound of a guitar. It has moderate density, hardness, stiffness with moderate/high damping.

[NSJ]

Here’s the walnut sides and back for what is going to be my first phosphor bronze steel string acoustic guitar (I don’t count archtops in this category: I don’t own a flat top, dreadnought, or gypsy guitar) . It’s going to be a very special guitar, an 8 string version of a classical Brahms guitar: with fanned frets and a cello end pin. it will have the the Low A of the v Eps 7 string and the high A of the Lenny Breau 7 string

The guitar is being made by Erich Solomon, out of New Hampshire. I think it’s going to be GREAT. Not many people really know about Solomon guitars, but Hammertone does. As did Roger, when he posted here.

Looking forward to this!

[garybaldy]

Could this be walnut? Its my Favino.

[iim7V7IM7]

Erich Solomon makes great guitars (congrats).

[Greywolf]

a little clip of one of my walnut guitars .. not it's not me playing .

[DawgBone]

My wife has a Gibson J-45 Studio with walnut back and sides. It's a very good sounding little guitar, shallower than a standard J-45, with a nice neck that fills the hand about perfectly. It hasn't even opened up yet tone wise as it is just a few years old but still makes some nice fingerpicking sounds. I think in 10-20 years it will really come into it's own. Walnut definitely can sound great in a guitar. I'm not so sure what the sonic appeal is vs other woods I think it's more of what is affordable and available for manufacturers to source right now. Mahogany has gotten kind of pricey so I'm just guessing walnut is slightly more reasonable unless we are talking about figured woods?