adirondack spruce for fingerstyleadirondack spruce for fingerstyle

How much runnout is present if any? Walnut behaves similarly to maple, though it has its detractors. For example, as I write this, the website for Maurys Music is offering Martin D-18s that are identical except for the Adirondack vs. Sitka spruce tops. hide glue? They only use it for Japan only releases and they had used it on the great L50 series and the FG500, 1500, and 2000. Are you familiar with the concept of headroom when it comes to guitars? Red spruce was preferred by wood-frame airplane builders early in the 20th Century and also found extensive use for piano soundboards even earlier. AdButler.ads.push({handler: function(opt){ AdButler.register(168183, 208206, [300,600], 'placement_208206_'+opt.place, opt); }, opt: { place: plc208206++, keywords: abkw, domain: 'servedbyadbutler.com', click:'CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER' }}); if (!window.AdButler){(function(){var s = document.createElement("script"); s.async = true; s.type = "text/javascript";s.src = 'https://servedbyadbutler.com/app.js';var n = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; n.parentNode.insertBefore(s, n);}());} var AdButler = AdButler || {}; AdButler.ads = AdButler.ads || []; Again thank you for your knowledge on both Sitka Spruce and Adirondack Spruce. Not all builders find maple to be a suitable top material, though. Our $125-$300 tops compare with those in pre-war Martin D-28s, the $300-$400 tops with the D-45 model. In my estimation koa splits the difference nicely between rosewood and mahogany, Boak says. Oh shit I forgot about the scale length and box volume and soundboard SHAPE. If you like wood with a story, then it doesnt get any better than this material, writes Mark Dalton. var abkw = window.abkw || ''; Were THEY cut from split billets? Adi can also be wonderful for fingerstyle instruments. Honduran mahogany, (also called Honduras mahogany, big-leaf mahogany, or simply mahogany) has a warm and woody sound, high in midrange content, thats dissimilar to rosewood. Adirondack spruce (Picea rubens) grows in Eastern Canada and the northeast U.S. Huss & Dalton 00 Cocobolo and Adirondack Spruce Sunburst Custom Still, I know lots of old folkies that believe Adirondack is the best and will pay handsomely for it. Examples: Taylor 416-R; Gibson J-45; Martin D-16RGT. When it comes to guitar tops, these are the most notable differences between Sitka and Adirondack spruce: Sitka spruce is known for its tight grain. 617 190. Adirondack Spruce top with VTS aging the guitar sounds like its been played for 80 years. ADIRONDACK SPRUCE OR RED SPRUCE? Produces big, rich bass and extra-long sustain. The luthier is certainly more important than the tonewood. All Sizes: $20-$100 Guitar Bracewood (Random widths and lengths): $10-$20 /lb. Thanks! While a common enough tree, few red spruces are of guitar-top size or quality. Native to southeastern Brazils Atlantic Forest, this precious tonewood, also used for centuries in high-end furniture, became difficult to source in dimensions large enough for guitar-making in the last half of the 20th century. Tops with one-side defects or near-misses in this price range are otherwise equal to $125-$300 tops. Sides and back, rosewood seems to bring out the bassier aspects, mahogany the brighter. FROM BIPLANES TO MARTIN GUITARS: Adirondack, or Red Spruce, is an extremely strong, stiff wood with the highest cross-sectional strength and across-the-grain stiffness of all the spruces. I did take both guitars to my luthier Geoff Vella. Fundamental vs. Overtones Players of electric guitars with bolt-on necks have long been hip to the fact that neck and fretboard materials can have a significant bearing on tone. According to Pacific Rim Tonewoods, it grows naturally in a relatively small area in Central British Columbia and the Alaskan panhandle. Sitka spruce (Picea sithensis) grows abundantly from California to Alaska and is in fact the official state tree of Alaska. Other specifications include: Adirondack has lots of headroom and can be pushed very hard, but is a very stiff wood meaning played gently it may not yield the sound you are looking for. Examples: Larrivee L-03 Walnut Acoustic Guitar; Gibson 2016 SJ-100 Walnut Jumbo. More than 40 species of spruce tree grow in the wild. Knowing how to play in a bluegrass jam can make you more confident heading into your first jam, so here's a primer on bluegrass jam etiquette. Bourgeois - Eddie's Guitars Not a totally accurate/fair comparison though, considering they're shaped differently, and have other construction differences. Excellent Grade: Range from open-grain white tops to fine-grain but with significant color streaking. Lately i heard an expert saying that some guitars with Adirondack tops need to be played for a while before they start to deliver after they were untouched for a couple of days. Adirondack can be extremely wide-grainedas few as four grains per inchand not as pretty as other spruces, Boak says. Watchers: 1 About This Listing Cathedral Grand Fingerstyle Model Features Avante-garde box shape with massive interior volume. The color is excellent and the grain is tight. Aliphatic resin? Only the D-42 and D-45 models seem to uniformly have had very fine looking tops. How large is the soundhole? By Very comfortable hold for its size. I think only the better players can actually hear the differences right off the hop. This maple is supplied by Pacific Rim Tonewoods, a company with thoughtful practices when it comes to sourcing and preparing woods for musical instruments. As supplies of classic tonewoods like spruce, rosewood, and mahogany are being threatened, luthiers and guitar companies look to sustainable alternatives such as salvaged woods. Adirondack delivers a stiff, loud, lightweight top with powerful fundamental tone and excellent projection. Produces big, rich bass and extra-long sustain. Was the wood cut from split billets or just milled from quartered billets? What species is THAT? The company also is planting its own maple forests, as well as stands of koa on the Hawaiian islands. The trees are too small to cut into thick quartered blocks like Sitka or Englemann. Sitka spruce tops tend to lay bare the fundamental notes that youre playing on the strings. Cathedral Grand Fingerstyle Model Features Avante-garde box shape with massive interior volume. Some less common alternatives to Brazilian rosewood, which share some of that prized tonewoods winning qualities, include Honduran, Guatemalan, and Madagascar rosewood, as well as cocobolo, granadillo, ovangkol, wenge, and ziricote, among others. Even if I have to take a Chainsaw in the woods in the Poconos!). Some with nice grain counts but areas of darker grain. Guitars sound better with age, because the fibers within the wood take time to develop their flex as the guitar is played and the string vibrations are transferred to the soundboard. Guitar Bracewood (Random widths and lengths):$10-$20/lb. JOINING RED SPRUCE TOPS: We draw a guitar pattern on each high-grade top based on a careful examination of all four surfaces of each set. Adirondack would work best for your heavy hand, red spruce has a great dynamic range and lot's of "overhead". Quarter-sawn lumberin which the wood is sawed at a radial angle into four quartersis optimal for tops, as it lends stiffness. How tall are they? Geoff@vellarepair.com in Landing, NJ. Sitka and Englemann are much larger trees and yield tops more free of problems, so pattern positioning is usually not critical. Kevin Ryan Cathedral Grand Fingerstyle - Adirondack Spruce - Reverb The way its cut, for instance, will affect both its workability for a guitar maker and its sonic performance. In over twenty years of prospectiong for log sources, we have determined that red spruce from the higher elevations of the northern Appalachians consistently has the stiffness and resonance our customers expect. Maple can be loud and projective. : Adirondack Spruce is red spruce (picea rubens), but not all red spruce could be properly called Adirondack. Though its used more commonly for the soundboards of classical guitars, red cedar, growing in western North America, can make a great steel-string soundboard. Heritage Goose Series - Boucher Guitars Sinker woodlogs that long ago fell to the bottoms of rivers or lakes when being transported for milling purposesis another source that precludes the harvesting of new tress. Really nicely written. Strong tap, very similar to claro walnut. Can I say, if I use the dreadnought for fingerpicking, I better choose an Engelman spruce dreadnought? Your email address will not be published. Sitka compresses more than Adirondack, so its volume eventually tops out no matter how hard you pick. It features an aged tone Adirondack Spruce soundboard and comes with a variety of options, such as a cutaway or a pickup. Alternative Tonewoods - Luthiers Mercantile International, Inc. The Tonewood Reserve Elite Single 0 is the perfect body shape for songwriters, fingerstyle players, or anyone who wants a great tone in a compact and beautiful package. The texture has been sculpted by the river and is very pleasing to the eye.. The years have opened it up perfectly. Today I was down at the local guitar store and was giving a few nice acoustic guitars a try and was noticing a difference in wood tones with respect to top wood. Others will have other defintions and from thier playing style they will be right also. At Reverb, your safety and security is our priority. The small body of the OMC makes it lightweight and resonant, while the Spanish cedar back and sides, in combination with the 000 body and Adirondack spruce top, create strong midrange tones and articulation without sacrificing low-end. Its incomparable playability and versatility will make it the ideal guitar to satisfy your most ambitious aspirations. Combined with the Adirondack spruce top, this Martin is loaded with a deep bass response and a powerful projection that belie its comfortable 000 body . Lutz spruce is closer to Adirondack spruce than Sitka. . This is an amazing guitar and is a finger style players dream! What's the bracing pattern? It is important to remember that wood, when considered generically, can be responsible only for certain aspects of the tone of any guitar. What's the bracing pattern? Indeed, tonewood options are expansive. Have you ever heard of something like this or is that rather a myth? And one day, youll walk into a shop to choose a guitar, and a guitar will end up choosing you instead. The wood rings like nothing else when its hit with the right type of mallet, and whenever we use it on a custom guitar, the results are quite extraordinary.. Wait a minute..was this a classical guitar or a steel string guitar we're talking about? var abkw = window.abkw || ''; The sound of the old instruments constructed of Adirondack, as well as the results achieved by present-day makers, tend to support that belief. Simple Returns, Secure Transactions, Human Support. Was the tree from a high altitude forrest with minimal rain competing with other trees over a long time with uniform growth or did that same species tree come from a tree farm? 2022 Halland OM-H, Indian Rosewood/Adirondack Spruce - Dream Guitars Honduran is my personal favorite, Boak says. All that said it really depends on the builders ability to use the wood. As far as the Dovetail construction on both guitars 0-18 is by hand and 000-16 Streetmaster Dovetail is done by CNC machine which drastically reduce the cost of the guitar. The British exported a lot of mahogany from Belize throughout history and during the 19th century they used the rivers of Belize as their main source of transportation. Usually this refers to amplifiers, and how loud you can crank them before the sound begins to distort. The legendary pre-WWII Martin guitars had tops and bracing of Red Spruce as did the famous Lloyd Loar F-5 mandolin. Think of Sitka as warm and fuzzy. The Heritage Goose is the perfect guitar for your Fingerstyle projects! I wouldnt typically recommend maple as soundboard tonewood, says Andy Powers, Taylor Guitars master luthier. In 1992, it was added to the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) treaty, and then, in 2008, to the federal Lacey Act, which made it impossible to import Brazilian rosewood without a labyrinth of permits and paperwork. My hope is that by reading this piece, you understand a little bit more about what youre getting into with either tonewood, and that will help you make the choice about what youre going to like. Brazilian rosewood is so rich and ring-y, and it has such a big range of workability, that no matter how its used it yields pleasing musical results, Bourgeois says. They vary greatly in appearance and characteristics. Thanks for this. This article originally appeared in theOctober2016 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. Solid wood acoustic guitars seldom sound their best when they are young. This African relative of rosewood shares many of its tonal properties, and it is sometimes known as African rosewood. Sitka is warmer for strumming, Engelman is stiffer, "Punchier" for fingerpicking, Adirondack is a combination of the 2. Wait a minutewe haven't even gotten into what kind of finish is on that soundboardnitro,poly,shellac,oil?.What kind of glue is used for the center seam and braces? Sitka vs. Adirondack Tops. It looks like the Engelman but softer like the Sitka. Some people prefer the sound of Adirondack tops. Spruce is the most common tonewood for the steel-string soundboard (there are a half dozen species in the Northern Hemisphere). In a way, its like tasting wines. The combination of a mahogany soundboard with a back and sides of the same woods is midrange-rich and punchy and works especially well for country-blues fingerpicking. But overall, sapele is known for warm resonance and good projection. Guitar players often just call it "Adi," which is short for Adirondack. Martin OMC Fingerstyle 1 Adirondack Spanish Cedar 2005 Even within a species, no two pieces of wood are exactly alike. Sitka, which grows in coastal rainforests in the Pacific Northwest, is used most often, though such manufacturers as Taylor Guitars have introduced Lutz spruce, a hybrid of Sitka and white spruce that reportedly has some of same tonal characteristics of Adirondack spruce. My solid-Sitka-spruce-topped Yamaha FG730S (dread) is louder and brighter sounding than my solid-Engleman-spruce-topped Yamaha LS-6 (OM/000). Guitar tops can be made from many different tonewoods, but the guitars most associated with bluegrass flatpicking have spruce tops. Its known for its tight grain pattern and its high stiffness and relative lightness, translating to a broad dynamic range that stands up well when strummed heartily. Sitka is the most consistently available, good-quality spruce there is, and thats why we use it as stock on the majority of our guitars, says Dick Boak, director of the museum and archives at Martin & Co. Maybe even decades. At the same time, its also quite responsive to fingerpicking, though a light touch may result in a thin sound. Thats not always the case with Sitka. Micarta? (Of course if it's Brazilian rosewood we might have to just chuck everything else out the window because that's the wood Jesus' guitar was made from.) Khaya, another mahogany substitute, is also known for its brightness. Unlike Sitka, it seldom shows bearclaw figure and the medullar rays are more muted, as in Englemann, European or White Spruce. Lots of headroom and the ability to cut right past Billy Banjo. Adirondack vs. Alpine/German/Italian Spruce for OM or AdButler.ads.push({handler: function(opt){ AdButler.register(168183, 208206, [300,600], 'placement_208206_'+opt.place, opt); }, opt: { place: plc208206++, keywords: abkw, domain: 'servedbyadbutler.com', click:'CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER' }});if (!window.AdButler){(function(){var s = document.createElement("script"); s.async = true; s.type = "text/javascript";s.src = 'https://servedbyadbutler.com/app.js';var n = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; n.parentNode.insertBefore(s, n);}());} var AdButler = AdButler || {}; AdButler.ads = AdButler.ads || []; The guitars with Adirondack had a noticable difference in tone and to my ears . Historically, walnut hasnt seen widespread use among guitar makers, but there are notable exceptions, like certain Epiphone archtops from the 1930s. And then theres the green thing: by definition, laminates help guitar makers make the most efficient use of precious materials from the forest. Its used increasingly in modern guitars, though. Examples: Martin DRS-1; Taylor Baby Taylor. var plc208209 = window.plc208209 || 0; These are all generalizations that do not take into account the fact that a skilled luthier can build a guitar with any of the spruce species and get the results that are desired. Inquire for higher grades. This was explained by C.F.Martin in Nazareth, PA. Ebony, the traditional fingerboard material found on violins, classical guitars, and high-end steel strings, has the lowest velocity of sound of all the woods commonly used in lutherie and has definite damping characteristics. How is it braced? This makes grading more subjective. Because it is in lesser supply than Sitka, Engelmann often costs more. A guitar with an Adirondack spruce top will carry a bigger price tag than the same guitar with a Sitka spruce top. An Engelmann top typically has less headroom than one made from Sitka, and its sound can suffer a little when played loudly. How were they shaped? Congratulations your list of variables rivals your supply of Asian avatar babes. Maury, I need to amend my comment above, I was completely wrong! Artist Grade: Even but more open-grain, 10-14 grains per inch, may havevery slight color or minor amount of dark grain. That leaves you in a tough spot if youre trying to decide on a guitar. This is a common phenomenon that I and several other players I have known have experienced with adi topped guitars. Examples: Taylor 914; Breedlove Pursuit; Martin GPCPA5. There are way many more factors that are probably more significant than the taxonomy species of spruce used. The OM Vintage is available in a . AdButler.ads.push({handler: function(opt){ AdButler.register(168183, 208209, [300,250], 'placement_208209_'+opt.place, opt); }, opt: { place: plc208209++, keywords: abkw, domain: 'servedbyadbutler.com', click:'CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER' }}); if (!window.AdButler){(function(){var s = document.createElement("script"); s.async = true; s.type = "text/javascript";s.src = 'https://servedbyadbutler.com/app.js';var n = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; n.parentNode.insertBefore(s, n);}());} var AdButler = AdButler || {}; AdButler.ads = AdButler.ads || []; Its characterized by a relative high velocity of sound and strong fundamental content, though it lacks rosewoods brilliant ringing overtones, making it a good choice for a player who wants a clear, direct sound, and for recording in general. Though they sound great, the D-18s in particular often used very coarse looking soundboards. We understand the draw of a town where it's easy to find people to pick with. It addresses directly something that Im thinking about right now. The main benefit of buying a guitar with layered tonewoods is that it will have an attractive priceand often visually pleasing outer layers on those woods. Some with nice grain counts but areas of darker grain. Sounds great played softly, and has lots of headroom. This is an outstanding review and comparison. Tsalam (Mayan Walnut), Lysiloma spp. Sounds like Cedar but much tougher. Sitka and Adirondack spruce are among the largest species of spruce. The supplier hails Lutz spruce for its hybrid vigor.. Suited for fingerstyle, single note lead, Celtic ballads, open and drop tunings, lush open chords, and singer/songwriters. What species? Model Number: RP-342; Model Name: But it has the uncanny ability to add complexityto the tone., A spruce soundboard on a new guitar can have a bit of an edge to its tone, and many players like the way it starts to open up with playing timesomething to take into account when auditioning any brand new spruce-topped instrument. Quartering usually good but may not be perfect. Ive recently acquired a new Martin d18 with forward shifted scalloped bracing , sounds awesome for a new guitar, Ive own a Collings HD2A which took several years to open up but wow!, thinking about buying a D18 with an adi top, Thanks. (Under those U.S. and international statutes, documentation is required to travel with a Brazilian rosewood guitar.). Strike a G chord and youll hear a G, D, B. Origin of top wood can be the big lie. Some players call this velocity of sound. From our observations and customer feedback, we believe our Adirondack tops equal or surpass any that have been produced in modern times and probably at any time.