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Posted by: AudunESP Oct 16 2008, 07:31 PM

I have a guitar with this wood. Its actually a really great guitar, perfect playability in my opinion, good tones, though a little weak sound becouse of cheap pickups, which i am going to shift with Bare knuckle pickups, not sure which though.
The question is, beside of just beeing a rather crappy wood, what sound characteristic does this wood give compared to other woods like mahogny, alder or basswood? would be great if anyone knew this. Thanx:)

Posted by: MickeM Oct 16 2008, 08:02 PM

I don't know a whole lot but I'll share the little I've learned

- Cheap wood to buy
- Cheap wood to work
Meaning it's low cost to buy and it's easy to work with, like basswood is.
- Light

Tonality towards adler, i.e. bright. While basswood has excellent mids and is popular among shredders I don't think Agathis has that.

Wherther it's good or bad for guitarmaking I think is more up to what the luthier is able to do with it.
But probably if there was a choise to pick between Adler and Agathis I'd probably go for adler spite it's harder.
And between Basswood and Agathis I'd pick Basswood, equally soft and east to work with but knowing Basswood has great mids I'd feel saver with that.

Isn't LTD's made from Agathis, and ESP's? I could be wrong.

Posted by: Jose Mena Oct 16 2008, 08:42 PM

There is much debate about wood and tone, Alder and Ash are mostly used by fender and considered to be the traditional fender sound. Mahogany is the choice of gibson, it supposedly gives you more sustain. But there are so many other factors, that it is really hard to judge a guitar by the wood of the body, the neck plays an important role.

In general softwoods give you more bass and hard wood give you more brightness, but then again my Mahogany guitars sound darker than my Alder and Agathis guitars, so consider everything else, the neck wood, and of course the pickups.

If it is not plywood, as some of the lower end squier guitars, and it is real wood, you can have a decent sounding guitar.

Posted by: ChrisVdS Oct 16 2008, 08:49 PM

QUOTE (AudunESP @ Oct 16 2008, 08:31 PM)