Cedar (Soundboards)
Cedar is known for being a responsive wood that produces a clear, focused, and woody sound. It suits fingerstyle players with a light touch and works exceptionally well on small bodied guitars, creating an impressively big and bright sound with excellent sustain. Cedar ranges in color from light brown to reddish brown, to medium dark brown.
Englemann Spruce (Soundboards)
Englemann Spruce is known for being warm, responsive, and sensitive, and for producing a beautiful and rich tone with brilliant harmonic overtones. It has good bass, good projection, less midrange brightness than other spruces, and is recommended for fingerstyle and less aggressive flatpicking. It is also known for it’s uniform grain consistency and beautiful ivory-like sheen.
Carpathian Spruce (Soundboards)
Carpathian Spruce comes from the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe. Although having a tighter grain structure, it is often compared to Red Spruce. It has a bright, glassy tone and is nearly white in color.
German Spruce (Soundboards)
German Spruce is a sought-after topwood for it's ideal stiffness and weight. It falls somewhere in the tonal range between Red Spruce and Engelmann Spruce, while the color is darker, similar to Cedar.
Red Spruce (also known as Adirondack Spruce)(Soundboards)
Red Spruce, sometimes referred to as the “Holy Grail,” is a legendary and traditional topwood known for its stiffness and high strength-to-weight ratio. Because of this, the tonal qualities are rich in complex overtones, focused, and balanced with a punchy bass. Red Spruce suits flatpick guitarists and heavy-handed players well. It is similar to Engelmann in color (ivory sheen), but with a tendency to have wider, darker grain lines.
Redwood
Redwood is comparable to cedar, but differs in being more reddish in color with “silking” (medullary rays). It is known for its responsiveness, brilliant sound, and rich bass. Like cedar, Redwood also suits fingerstyle guitar players.
Mahogany (Backs & Sides)
Mahogany is a popular traditional tonewood known for its mid-range character. The mid-range frequencies stack up to produce harmonic overtones that contribute to a “crisp,” “defined,” and “focused” sound. Historically, this tonewood has suited a broad range of musical styles and is popular with heavy-handed dreadnaught players and small-bodied fingerpickers alike.
Sapele (Backs & Sides)
Sapele is in the Mahogany family, and is very similar to Mahogany in appearance and tone. While not all Sapele is figured, it can often have strong quilting and create great effect and makes a visually striking guitar. The tone is very similar to Mahogany, but can have pleasing, noticeable differences in overtones.
Indian Rosewood (Backs & Sides)
Indian Rosewood is a common substitute for Brazilian, and is comparable to Brazilian for a tone that projects, has complex overtones, a strong bass, and balanced sound. Although it is a good tonal substitute for Brazilian, it differs in appearance as a basically dark brown wood with highlights that may be purple, gray, or red. It is know for straight, even grain lines and lack of black line figuring.
Granadillo (Backs & Sides)
This South American wood is comparable to Indian Rosewood, although it has a slightly wavy figure and may feature striking sapwood centers. Long used for classical guitar construction, it has a bright and responsive sound and suits steel string guitars wonderfully.
Cocobolo (Backs & Sides)
Cocobolo is a beautiful Mexican Rosewood known for its fine black line figure, unique orange highlights, and intricate swirly patterns. It has a strong bass response with strong mids and highs that serve to reinforce overtones generated by the top, contributing to a fatness of tone on the upper registers.
African Blackwood (Backs & Sides) African Blackwood is one of the most exotic and striking tonewoods on the market. Being the densest member of the Rosewood family, it is known for having all the tonal characteristics of Brazilian, with an elegant flat black or very dark purple color.
Ziricote (Backs & Sides)
Ziricote is a strikingly beautiful, very dense tonewood, whose appearance and tone are often compared to Brazilian Rosewood. The figure is similar to that of the most sought-after Brazilian, but with shades of grays and olive greens with black rather than reds with black.
Brazilian Rosewood (Backs & Sides)
Brazilian Rosewood is a very highly sought-after tonewood that has been a favorite of players and builders alike for its legendary tonal qualities and natural beauty. Favored for its volume, power, and abundant overtones, it is the rosewood by which all others are compared.
Maple (Backs & Sides)
Maple is noted for its brightness of tone and high diversity of figure. Being a domestic wood, it is commonly used in the stringed instrument family. It ranges from no figure to many examples of dramatic flamed and quilted patterns that appear three dimensional under finish. The figuring lends itself beautifully to a sunburst back and sides.
Koa (Backs & Sides)
Koa is a stunning Hawaiian native hardwood. Highly prized for its range of figure, its tone embodies a combination of Mahogany and Rosewood qualities. Although mostly used for back and sides, it's an effective and striking alternative topwood.