Why is Mahoganey not desireable for a Superstrat?

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Chubtone":9yp7kckn said:
I don't like a mahogany body with a bolt on maple neck. Lots of other [eople do though. They sound so scooped to me and can have overwhelming highs. Good lows, yes but very unbalanced IMO. I think the only person who ever agreed with me was John Suhr who used to say on the Woods section of his website that he didn't like that combo. So finally someone else agreed with me.

Which is why I was wondering about the SUhr Modern Satin which is a Mahoganey body. It's an African Mahoganey and they say it's very light. I wonder if he found a batch that he liked?

I have a Drop Top now which is Alder body with a maple top. I also like the basswood body and maple top.
 
How about mahogany with Koa top and a maple neck and fingerboard? How is this wood combo?
 
I banged together a Strat and it turned out that the body was African Mahogany with a very thin top veneer of some sort and I had a Maple neck and a PAF sort of pickup laying around.

My other Strats are Fender Alder and Hard Ash and I've also got a Swamp Ash Mighty Mite partscaster.

My impression of the African Mahogany/Maple neck/PAF Strat was that it tended to sound like my SG but maybe had a bit more low end and had some Strat like thing to it as well and it was very interesting and not what I was expecting.
 
danyeo":25ekl169 said:
Chubtone":25ekl169 said:
I don't like a mahogany body with a bolt on maple neck. Lots of other [eople do though. They sound so scooped to me and can have overwhelming highs. Good lows, yes but very unbalanced IMO. I think the only person who ever agreed with me was John Suhr who used to say on the Woods section of his website that he didn't like that combo. So finally someone else agreed with me.

Which is why I was wondering about the SUhr Modern Satin which is a Mahoganey body. It's an African Mahoganey and they say it's very light. I wonder if he found a batch that he liked?

I have a Drop Top now which is Alder body with a maple top. I also like the basswood body and maple top.


Last weekend I got another Suhr.

Basswood, maple top, maple neck. http://www.humbuckermusic.com/suhr-pro-m8-spalted-maple-tobacco-burst.html
Just a perfectly built awesome sounding guitar. I played a bunch before walking out with one.

Had my eyes on this one for how Cool it looked.

http://www.humbuckermusic.com/suhr-pro-m1-root-beer-drip.html
Solid alder with maple neck, PF finger board.

My old faithful Standard Custom is basswood maple cap too.

They just have a crunchy goodness. Even the alder with PF had a little less of that higher crunchy mid goodness.

The difference was minor but I thought I could dial it in to be what I wanted, but it did not. The right guitar could be perfect sounding and the other was almost perfect. Of course with my amps and cabs it would be a little,different, right? It was not that different at home.

The guitar has it or does not IMO. I dial in most amps how I like, but the guitar has to have it or not. For 500 more you can get a Modern itch the word combination you want.
 
I have a TMZ mahog natural w/ maple neck/board. I have a BKP Holy Diver in the bridge and a Performance big brass block on the floyd. I love it, but it is very heavy. I havent weighed it on a scale but when you pick it up you can just feel how dense and heavy it is. In my case this is good b/c it doesnt nose dive which I hate. The maple neck is light compared to the body weight so it feels very comfortabe to me. Great thread.
 
My caparisons dellingers are the best sounding/playing Guitars I've ever owned
Mahogany body Maple neck ebony fingerboard
I think They're are awesome for rock and metal Music
 
While it's not a bolt-on, I have an Ibanez RGT320 neck-through mahogany body w/maple top, 5-pc maple/walnut neck, looks like a dark and dense rosewood fretboard, locking trem. It has a DiMarzio AT-1 in the bridge, Liquifire in the neck. It has a thick midrange but not in a bad way, surprisingly brighter high end but not tinny, and the AT-1 adds some upper mids and tightens up the bass. Overall I find the sound is thick and more aggressive through a reasonably wide spectrum, warm yet edgy for distorted harder rock/metal and lead work; cleans are full with a bit of sparkle. I'm used to a Duncan JB so my ear is tuned to more upper mids with this combo, yet I never find any freq. range overpowering. This guitar is no light weight but it's not quite as heavy as other mahogany bodied guitars I've tried in the past like some LPs.

Comparing my Ibanez J Custom bolt-on with alder body/maple top, maple/walnut neck (this neck is predominantly maple), rosewood fretboard, locking trem, this guitar sounds more balanced and even throughout the low mids to highs, a bit scooped because of the stock Custom 5 bridge pickup, and has this snarl to it. It's not as agressive in the mids as the mahogany RGT, but it is hard to compare with the different pickups in both guitars. This guitar and stock pickup combo is great for smoother 80s metal tones, though its rhythm tones tend to not stand out as much in a mix (and I play through V30s).

My most verstaile sounding guitar is the neck-through ESP LTD Elite Horizon-III with alder wings, maple top, 3-pc. maple neck, ebony fretboard, Floyd Rose. It has a Jazz neck and JB bridge pups. It came stock with the Custom 5 but for some reason all I was getting was a thick mid range with no highs, so I swapped it out for an old 90s JB and got my upper mids and high end back. Not quite as thick sounding as my mahogany RGT but not as "thin" as the alder JC. Not lacking for leads or rhythms. This guitar is fairly light weight due to its smaller body.

I have an older Brian Moore mahogany bolt-on that's really light weight and supposedly comes with a JB bridge though I've never confirmed it. It's a fixed bridge with thicker strings I occasionally use for alternate tunings. This thing sounds totally bad ass when tuned lower, very thick and juicy (lower) mids.

Maybe it's the pickups in mahogany super strats that's a big factor. I tend towards JB flavored pups it seems, AT-1, and even my Peavey HP has custom pups supposedly wound to JB-like specs (A5 mag @ 16.4 kohm). They have that upper mid push, they don't work for some people but seems to work for me though.

I also tend to have guitars with maple tops, there seems to be more sizzle in the sound that I like.

Having said all that, I'm tuned to E-standard and my rig is more on the modern side: Rhodes Colossus through V30s, i.e. it's not in the Marshall vein of amps, so YMMV greatly.
 
bulletproof_funk":2kn6lo7p said:
While it's not a bolt-on, I have an Ibanez RGT320 neck-through mahogany body w/maple top, 5-pc maple/walnut neck, looks like a dark and dense rosewood fretboard, locking trem. It has a DiMarzio AT-1 in the bridge, Liquifire in the neck. It has a thick midrange but not in a bad way, surprisingly brighter high end but not tinny, and the AT-1 adds some upper mids and tightens up the bass. Overall I find the sound is thick and more aggressive through a reasonably wide spectrum, warm yet edgy for distorted harder rock/metal and lead work; cleans are full with a bit of sparkle. I'm used to a Duncan JB so my ear is tuned to more upper mids with this combo, yet I never find any freq. range overpowering. This guitar is no light weight but it's not quite as heavy as other mahogany bodied guitars I've tried in the past like some LPs.

Comparing my Ibanez J Custom bolt-on with alder body/maple top, maple/walnut neck (this neck is predominantly maple), rosewood fretboard, locking trem, this guitar sounds more balanced and even throughout the low mids to highs, a bit scooped because of the stock Custom 5 bridge pickup, and has this snarl to it. It's not as agressive in the mids as the mahogany RGT, but it is hard to compare with the different pickups in both guitars. This guitar and stock pickup combo is great for smoother 80s metal tones, though its rhythm tones tend to not stand out as much in a mix (and I play through V30s).

My most verstaile sounding guitar is the neck-through ESP LTD Elite Horizon-III with alder wings, maple top, 3-pc. maple neck, ebony fretboard, Floyd Rose. It has a Jazz neck and JB bridge pups. It came stock with the Custom 5 but for some reason all I was getting was a thick mid range with no highs, so I swapped it out for an old 90s JB and got my upper mids and high end back. Not quite as thick sounding as my mahogany RGT but not as "thin" as the alder JC. Not lacking for leads or rhythms. This guitar is fairly light weight due to its smaller body.

I have an older Brian Moore mahogany bolt-on that's really light weight and supposedly comes with a JB bridge though I've never confirmed it. It's a fixed bridge with thicker strings I occasionally use for alternate tunings. This thing sounds totally bad ass when tuned lower, very thick and juicy (lower) mids.

Maybe it's the pickups in mahogany super strats that's a big factor. I tend towards JB flavored pups it seems, AT-1, and even my Peavey HP has custom pups supposedly wound to JB-like specs (A5 mag @ 16.4 kohm). They have that upper mid push, they don't work for some people but seems to work for me though.

I also tend to have guitars with maple tops, there seems to be more sizzle in the sound that I like.

Having said all that, I'm tuned to E-standard and my rig is more on the modern side: Rhodes Colossus through V30s, i.e. it's not in the Marshall vein of amps, so YMMV greatly.

I love the JB in my Alder super strat I should really try it in my music zoo as i think all it needs is just a little more in the upper-midrange
 
All of my Suhr Moderns are mahogany body mahogany neck. No complaints here.
 
RG955TT":1n8fu60a said:
sah5150":1n8fu60a said:
Chubtone":1n8fu60a said:
I don't like a mahogany body with a bolt on maple neck. Lots of other [eople do though. They sound so scooped to me and can have overwhelming highs. Good lows, yes but very unbalanced IMO. I think the only person who ever agreed with me was John Suhr who used to say on the Woods section of his website that he didn't like that combo. So finally someone else agreed with me.
I agree. I've never heard a mahogany body super strat with a bolt on maple neck sound good to me. I have, however, heard plenty of mahogany body/maple top/mahogany neck/rosewood fretboard bolt on super strats sound really good...

Steve

Yup,my favorite of my Suhrs is mahogany body and neck, maple top and rosewood board. Has this mid smarl that nothing else has including alder body maple neck Suhr std. Have the same exact guitar with basswood and maple cap, maple neck rosewood board and it doesn't sing or chunk like the Mahogany one.


Yep what he said ^^^^

My Suhr Modern with mahogany neck and body, maple cap and rosewood board was killer, it could grunt and snarl really well but cleaned up beautifully too.
 
I own the following configurations:

Mahogany body with no cap/maple neck/ebony fingerboard (Caparison Dellinger)
Mahogany body with maple cap/maple neck/ebony fingerboard (Custom build - Lowell)
Mahogany body with maple cap/mahogany neck/ebony fingerboard (USA Dean Hardtail)

The solid mahogany body without the cap produces an *unparalled* open roar that none of my other guitars can duplicate, however I find that the sustain of the guitar is weaker than the guitars with the maple caps. This guitar was also fussier with pickups.... it now has a MCP Warcry and that is that magic behind the sound of the guitar now.

A maple cap compresses the roar of the mahogany somewhat but also adds sustain.

Both types of sounds are great and I have a use for each. The solid mahogany guitar *nails* the Accept "balls to the wall" tone through my Atomica... it's very open and grindy and lot's of tight chunk on the lowend. I just can't get that open grind using the mahogany/maple cap combo at all.

Pickups are key to making the solid mahogany guitar work well IMHO....
 
I've had a bunch of Hamer shredder style guitars that had the Mahogany body Maple neck combo and this combo also confuses me. I had two seck neck Hamer Chaparalls that sounded completely different from one another. These guitars were identical. One had a smooth but piano like tone, the other was snappy with a fast attack. The snappy guitar was also lighter. Now I wonder if one was Honduran mahogany and the lighter one African mahogany...

I also have a Jackson PC-1 which is an African Mahogany body, Quilted Maple veneer, and Maple neck. I love how this guitar feels and plays, but have been around the block a few times with pickups. The sustainer is gone so that isnt effecting the tone. Any higher gain pickup turns to mush in this guitar. Ultimately, I found the DiMarzio 36th ann PAF fits it very well. I play this one a lot and it's one of my main live guitars. I dont think this one is mid heavy. Maybe lower mid heavy, with a rolled off upper high end. The low end is soft so it needs a tight pickup to pull it together.

When I decided to build a Warmoth I remembered John Suhr saying he didnt care for the mahogany/maple combo so I took that into consideration and built a Mahogany/Mahogany/Ebony strat. So this guitar has lots of mids to upper mids with a fast attack. The DiMarzio AT-1 adds some lowend to the guitar in a great way.

So I'd say mass produced guitars will mostly sound similar (According to what woods they're made of) with a few that just dont seem to fit the mold tone wise. If you find one that feels and plays great it might be worth experimenting with pickups.
Also, smaller builders like Suhr and Anderson can pay more attention to all the stages of building a batch of guitars. If one doesnt sound right I'd imagine it gets cut in half. The end result is a much more consistent product
 
One of my all time favorite guitars was Mahogany. The Kramer Nightswan. To me it had a ripping tone and played great.
 
Mailman1971":1f234d9w said:
One of my all time favorite guitars was Mahogany. The Kramer Nightswan. To me it had a ripping tone and played great.

If I remember correctly weren't the Nightswans 24.75" scale? Great guitars and I think the scale length helped...
 
Both Mahogany with bolt on Maple or Mahogany necks. Not scooped.

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I have a J Custom (mahogany body with maple bent top; maple neck and rosewood board). It is definitely not bright/harsh or mid scooped. It's a dark, smooth guitar. Great sustain.
 
No doubt the Maple topped Mahogany body guitars deliver the tone.
But the original posting was about why no love for a straight mahogany body,without a MAPLE TOP.
 
I just got a JR tele. Not a superstrat but mahogany body with maple neck. It has EMGs currently. I want passives but I have read a lot of different viewpoints regarding this wood combo. The 60 sounds great as a neck pickup but the 81 is thin as all get out. This thread is definitely relevant to my interests.
 
mahogany topped with maple work well for me on super strats...it is my favorite tone wood. I have one LP that is all mahogany (LPB-7) and two other mahogany with maple caps

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I don't see any negative affects really between set neck and bolt on...just the usual difference in bold on tone.
 
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