Tonewood, a guitars main ingredient is one of the hardest thing to discuss. I’ll try to keep it simple and brief. Here is the long and short of it. With acoustic guitars, jazz guitars, (true hollow bodies) and semi hollow body guitars, tonewood matters. With solid body guitars, electronics matter much more. That’s it in a nut shell. But this is only the beginning. That is why guitarists have multiple guitars. With multiple types of “tonewood.” If you plan on building your own guitar then you will need wood.
Okay, with an electric guitar, by the time you pump it through your pedal board and through an amplifier and find that wonderful distorted dissonant reverby tone (which you will most likely forever chase) (There are many good articles on it.) the tonewood tone, in a sense, is gone. Of course you don’t want a piece of balsa wood housing your electronics, therefore I suggest alder wood as a minimalist. However, electronics kind of steal the show when it comes to solid body guitars.
Acoustic guitars and or hollow body style guitars which can or cannot be played though an amplifier make a world of difference. Cost is also a factor when it comes to acoustic types of tonewood. Keep in mind this is just about tonewood. It is not about neck shape/profiles, body shape, electronics, etc. So don’t get your panties in a bunch.
Now, this can go on forever. But, I don’t have forever so… we’ll stick to acoustic guitars and their tonewood types for now.
Top wood / Sound board
- Spruce. The most common for tops.
- Engelmann Spruce
- Red Spruce
- Sitka Spruce
- Mahogany
- Tropical Mahogany
- Cedar
The list goes on a bit, but you don’t need much more than that depending on playing style. Top wood / sound board for a classical guitarist may be very important.
Back & Sides
Depending on weather they are solid wood (more expensive guitars) or a Veneer, the back & sides of guitars range in almost whatever wood we have on the planet. Except Oak. That is too dense a wood. Mostly for furniture. But a luthier can tell you all about this.
There are also exotic woods like Koa to Tropical Mahogany.
The most common woods will be.
- Maple
- Rosewood
- Sapele
- Mahogany
