Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

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IMOCD
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Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by IMOCD »

......so a few months ago I purchased a 2011 LP 60's Tribute. All in all a very nicely put together gat that even holds tune! I'm a huge p90 fan and love how versatile they are. However, this guitar can sound kinda congested in the mids even after eq'ing; (I know this is inherent in p90's).

Yesterday, for shits and giggles, I thought I would dust off my Vox SSC33 (great guitars BTW), that is also running P90's (far from flash Wilkinson ceramic p90's) as the original coax pups went south a long time ago. The taper on the pots have always bugged me in this guitar, so as I had nothing else to do, I replaced them with some CTS audio taper I had kicking around.

I must admit I was quite stunned at the difference in tone between the Vox and the LP. Whereas the LP's sound is more 'dense and thicker', the Vox was twangy and snappy with what seemed like a much wider frequency response. The Vox, I believe, is an alder cap over an ash body(??) and I think the reason for this extra zing. Nothing new here I guess we all know how different woods effect tone.
Long story short, I think I have come to prefer non-mahogany guitars. Sure, there is arguably no competition from a sustain perspective, but from a tone perspective, is it a one trick pony?
My bandmate plays a gorgeous midtown custom that is a solid lump of mahogany and although this thing will sustain for days, I can't say it imparts much other tonal personality TBH....

Do I have cloth ears; what am I missing or how much of this comes down to the difference between alnico v's ceramic magnets?

I'm actually thinking of moving on the LP, having the Vox as my main p90 axe and tracking down a Strat to fill the void ( See WTB thread!!)

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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by Jay »

Do us a favour please.... put the Wilkinson pups into the Tribute and then tell us what you hear. It would pay if you could record a before and after so we all can chip in with our superior hearing.
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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by IMOCD »

Jay wrote:Do us a favour please.... put the Wilkinson pups into the Tribute and then tell us what you hear. It would pay if you could record a before and after so we all can chip in with our superior hearing.
Good idea, but I am not overly keen on subjecting the gibby to my soldering skills (or lack of....sigh....I try and try but it always looks like s**t!!)

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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by Slowy »

Jay wrote:.... put the Wilkinson pups into the Tribute and then tell us what you hear.
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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by willow13 »

Personally I prefer a lot of woods over mahogany. No wood is a one trick pony as all trees are different and all cuts of the tree are different
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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by jeremyb »

I never thought wood could impart tone until I had an american hard ash body and it made things trebley as hell!! And then a paulownia body that made an instrument very loud acoustically... whheeeee rabbit hole.... I dunno, play with EMGs and a ton of gain and then it won't matter what you use!
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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by GrantB »

Mahogany - like anything, tone is the sum of all parts. As others have stated, swap pickups, then report findings.
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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by Bg »

Mahogany is my favourite wood. Still have a mahogany bodied strat and I like it!
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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by Voxshall »

I sort of know what you mean. For me I am more likely to plug a Les Paul straight into a cranked amp and just use that one tone and also tend to use the clean tones less with a Les Paul, but a strat just seems so versatile with so many effects and different tonal colours and I love all the different clean tones and in between tones and cranked out madness tones, it's definitely more of a blank canvas because it's easier to thicken up your tone by using effects or the tone knob than it is to thin that core tone down.

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Re: Is mahogany a 'one trick' tonewood.

Post by willow13 »

Voxshall wrote:I sort of know what you mean. For me I am more likely to plug a Les Paul straight into a cranked amp and just use that one tone and also tend to use the clean tones less with a Les Paul, but a strat just seems so versatile with so many effects and different tonal colours and I love all the different clean tones and in between tones and cranked out madness tones, it's definitely more of a blank canvas because it's easier to thicken up your tone by using effects or the tone knob than it is to thin that core tone down.
to be fair most les pauls have a big maple cap which is probably the bigger contributor to the classic LP/cranked marshall (generally) tone than the mahogany ..... imo :mrgreen:
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