Testing 3 Types of Guitar Wood In a Professional Recording Studio 

The editing and sketch animations in this video were awesome!

I do believe that the size, thickness, etc of each of the wood samples plays a huge part in the accuracy of a test like this... I did a bit of experimenting with tuning of marimbas (rosewood) and all things there being the same, it was indeed the dimensions of the samples that made all the difference. It would be interesting if, at some point, you had three more closely matched samples of different top woods, do repeat this test. I wouldn't give up on the Sitka, because once it's been sized, planed and braced it will be a whole different animal I bet. The other two samples sure did have lovely overtones and sustain though.. I think the very nature of these kinds of tests is that they are inconclusive, but still very interesting and fun. Keep up the great work and cool content!

My two scents worth: The short glimpse I got in your video of the Sitka spruce you used tells me it was from a relatively fast growth, well nourished and protected tree. The range of musical quality for Sitka spruce is quite large depending on several factors. The value goes up for musical quality when the tree is subject to prolonged difficulty while growing. The best sounding Sitka spruce comes from larger size (old and older) trees that grow at higher elevations, on north slopes or naturally shaded areas, rocky ground, subject to high winds, and little rainfall. Harvesting the tree during mid winter helps. Felling the tree also can make a huge difference in the total yield of good material; the best yield comes from helicopter felling, where the tree never falls at all. The next best felling is by taking sections from the top down, and letting them down by rope. Shocking the timber during felling by dropping the whole tree can over stress the fibers and cause shearing which dull the tone. Proper curing time and methods add value as well. The grain angle to the face of the instrument is one good way to tune the total frequency response. A slight gradation of grain angle will provide the widest frequency resonance; vertical for higher frequencies, and slightly angled for mid frequencies, and a bit more laid over for the lower frequencies. Placement of the grain angles in the face will 'tune' your instrument, all other factors being equal (thickness, finish, structural components, etc.) Of course, these are subjective generalities in a highly specific and relative dance that makes creativity fun.

To my ear, the Smokey Mountain Spruce had the nicest sound by far. It was very warm, rich, and resonant. I would love to hear the guitar made from that piece of Spruce!

I'd be very interested to see these put into a full spectogram, very cool to see this

Cool video. Violin maker here. Tapping and recording one single mode on each piece of spruce tells only one story. There is a relation between the weight, density and speed of sound through the material. The stiffness of each piece of spruce is also effected by how much runout each piece has on strength. The rabbit hole is deep.

Trusting your senses is always the best way to measure tonal differences. Great video Daisy and Hugo 🎶🎵🎸

Just watched this Video, the tone of the wood is created by the stiffness, size, and mass. the wood will then absorb certain frequencys this is the dampening effect, leaving the sound you hear. The only way to compair the woods is to size them all the same, then the effect of the wood resonance and dampening will come through. The resonance of the wood is determined by the youg's modulus, length, width, thickness and mass. Hope this helps.

This is only the second video of yours that I’ve watched and I’m hooked. The wood history, awesome content.

Hi Daisy, after watching a few of your fascinating videos, I decided to build my own instrument, I decided to make a ukulele as I though this would be an easier instrument as a first attempt, Incidentally, I always though that the ukulele was of Hawaiian origin, but after a bit of research it turns out its originally from the island of Madeira (Portugal) and was call a Machete, this was the perfect choice as my parents were both born in Madeira. The project has turned out way better than I ever expected and now I am learning to play it. Thank you for teaching me all the tricks of your trade.

I used Smokey mountains spruce with some Oregon state Myrtle wood back and sides and it sounded pretty good. Didn't play it for 3 years and came back to it and it had an amazing voice after it aged. Really ballsy bluesy fat tone. It's my favorite guitar atm.

What I noticed the most wasnt the tonal difference so much (all though each was very much different). It was the sustain the moon spruce produced vs the others. It rang for days. Of coarse hearing it over a computer with headphones on cant compare to in person. Nice comparison and I loved the background stories of each.

I love this experiment. I’d love for you to mill all three tops to exactly the same dimensions and then do the experiment again. I think you’d get a truer result. Just my 2 cents ( or 2 pence).

Great fun. It would be interesting to attach an audio driver to each board and play guitar sounds through it. Could compare recording to finished guitar and potentially develop a useful tone predictor and rating system, even suggesting what guitar style it would work best in, etc. A useful ear training tool too if it proved practical.

Hi Daisy, I stumbled across your video’s recently and must say, it’s a breath of fresh air to see such a fine young lady involved and so passionate in our dying trade. I just felt the need to comment on this video as many of your viewers were commenting on pitch. There are many characteristics to look for when selecting plate blanks, but as you know, frequency drops dramatically when thicknessing plates. For the past 15 years, I have been tap tuning my plates and braces to notes in A440 using a 1969 mechanical Peterson strobe tuner. Modern tuners wont work due to the time it takes the signal to travel through a digital circuit and the lack of sustain of a tapped piece of wood. Since using this method, my guitars have become more consistent. The only luthier I’m aware of that used this method commercially, was Lloyd Loar, who built Gibson’s M5 mandolins in the 1930’s. Most of them now are locked away in vaults. Many believe the magic of his mandolins where due to the tap tuning at the time being in C 256, and the instruments tuned to todays concert pitch of A 440. I also enjoyed your video on your then boyfriends guitar. Don’t put yourself down (as a non repairer). You did more than a satisfactory job and you know how to build them, but unfortunately, in this low price mass produced world, I think you will find to sustain a healthy living in this game, you will need to take on repair work. 90% of my work now is repair work referred by local guitar shops. If your nervous about it, acquire some old scrapper’s to practice on. Teddy Woodford in Canada has a great collection of video’s on youtube on his repair work. A top bloke with a great sense of humour. You will learn a lot from him. I wish you well on your endeavors, and hope you stay passionate. As I always say, you keep learning until the day you die. John Walker, Johker Guitars.

The resonance from each board was beautiful .. the Smokey had a very pleasing musical ring, as did the moon. I too would be curious to see a spectrograph. Good work, Thank you.

That Smokey Spruce sounds like a marimba. It’s super resonant.

1. The dimensions have to be all the same to compare. If you change any dimension you will change the tap tone sound. 2. You should hold it at about 21.4 % of the length - to test the longitudinal. Changing where you hold it damps various nodes and will change the sound. Even with all three at the same measurement and held the same, the comparative sound does not tell you which will sound the best. It will give some indication about stiffness and how thin you can make that top. To really calculate what the tap tone means you need the size of the piece (length, width and thickness) the mass and then you need to know what frequency that tap tone is producing. You could do this with an oscilloscope, a computer program like Visual Analyzer - or you could play notes on a key board until you find the matching note or use a chromatic tuner. Then of course you need to have built many instruments and recorded the specs on the top ( and preferably the back, braces, neck etc.) so that you have a target that you know works well.

You know; once in a blue moon I get a 'wild hare' to comment on one of these RU-vid videos, and this was one that got me. Mostly because of my background (I went to a US trade school to become a luthier, worked as a cabinetmaker in the USA, then lost my mind and went back to university, acquired an advanced degree in physics, and, to my regret, a diagnosis of an incurable brain disease immediately upon graduation). And yes, I may be an old guy, but I'm not immune to a 'cute' female either (which has already been commented on numerous times on this video, I see). I happen to be one who has an IMMENSE amount of 'theories' to call upon from all these sources, but I doubt you'll be one who needs them, other than to point you, Ms. Tempest, to Paul Seller's blogs and videos, and mainly to his main channel (available relatively cheaply over the internet) which is absolutely INVALUABLE for general woodworking, and luthiery is, at the end of the day, simply woodworking. Although, it IS a bit difficult to imagine that you haven't come across the man's name before, either. Just in case, here it is.

Would be interesting to then have the three made into guitars where everything else was done the same and see what difference they made then. It's one thing comparing the tap sound, another the guitar sound.

Thanks Daisy! I wonder how the plates would sound if they were planed down to the same thickness. But I trust your judgement that it isn't just the difference in thickness what we are hearing.

Alright, I'm only 4 minutes in, and I can already tell that this channel is going to be one of those very few that I check obsessively for new content. The story of that Smoky Mountain spruce tree! Just so amazingly well illustrated and explained! It's obvious that you know what you're doing, but with humility, and a genuine love of the subject matter. I absolutely love this kind of background information, especially when presented so insanely well! Back to the video...

Thank you, Daisy, for this interesting and enlightening piece. I also really want to record with Hugo. He seems like a really fun guy to be in the studio with!

I used to pretty much dismiss the idea that species of spruce give that much of a radical change to tone, but here lately I found myself with three guitars of very close spec and setup. All three from the same maker, and three different tops. One is Adirondack, one is Torrified Sitka and the other is a VERY tight grained Engleman. All three have the same bone nut and saddle, bone pins and my same standard bridge pins… They guitars are the same body shape and scale length as well. The Adirondack top hands down has the cleanest note definition and most refined top end while the equally great Torrified top of Sitka has a much warmer rounded off sound with a lot of bass. The Engleman top sounds like I have a compressor engaged somewhere. Every note sustains and “blooms” as if it’s being compressed in a studio setting. Very unique guitars that do very different things when I play them.

Very interesting video. Thanks for doing this and cheers to Hugo for sharing his studio and helping you out.

Awww. You two are adorable together. 🥰 Fun experiment. It would be super interesting to do a formal test, but even the informal one is great. The Smokey had a clarity and smoothness to the tone that reminds me of my vintage Rogers bass drum (mahogany). My heart wants to hear Leo Kotke play a 12-string made from that. The Moon seemed to have an extended spectrum from REALLY low to glassy highs. I feel like it would make for a spectacular guitar for live performance. It has so much crispness to the harmonics; I think it would sound crystal clear and not get muddled by the rest of the band, but have more than enough warmth and low end to still sound like an acoustic guitar through a system.

What a great video, thanks for the time and effort, - Cheers from Canada

Can we see more of Hugo? Love this video, and all your others, but I wish we had more sound samples with him.

hi there in my 52 years as a cabinet maker and the last 30 years as classic guitar maker in Holland, the slow growth wood is stronger and tighter, the tighter the rings the more tone you get. love your work and passion for what you do 👌👍

I built two identical guitars both soundboard tops from the same board but bracing on one was X and the other was V and the difference was so far apart it was amazing they looked identical but sounded completely different.

Hello Daisy, This was quite interesting…but in my opinion, to truly hear the differences in tone between the three Spruce soundboards, it would be necessary to dimension all samples to the same specifications…length, width and thickness. Just my humble opinion. -joel

Some years ago I visited the workshop of a luthier that has made one of my guitars. He had an interesting device that enabled me to hear the various sounds each type of wood made when it vibrated. The device was quite simple. A hammer was released from a fixed point so that it alway hit the wood that was tested with the same force. Thin sticks of various wood were attached to device and the gave a unique sound that could clearly be heard when hit by the tiny hammer. It gave you an idea with regards to the tone quality of each material. You only mention spruce but there are so many other materials that are used in guitar making. Rosewood, mahogany,cherry and Koa to mention a few. The use of some of these materials are now strictly regulated like Brazilian rosewood but East Indian rosewood are still quite common. The luthier I mentioned earlier made a small series of telecaster like guitars all in different wood but otherwise identical. I think he even used the same pickups for the test. There you could clearly hear how different the sound were even on electric guitars. The sound test confirmed how different the resonance of each type of wood made to the tone. More that 100 years ago there was a violin maker here in Norway that made some unique sounding violins. A rumor started spreading that he soaked the violins in human blood and that there were some dark magic involved. This resulted that most of the violins were burned by their owners. The truth was that he made the violins from trees that had grown next to waterfalls and that this made the wood ionized.

I’ve worked with sound boards. From your three samples, the Moon Spruce rang with an beautiful tone like a sound board should. The two others to my ears fell flat.

Hey Daisy, love your vids. Thought I'd weigh in here. "Tap Tone" Is a sonic velocity curve. Attack, release, sustain and decay. The "Q" is the peak, ping, or "fundamental". Damping sounds like a sock. When selecting tone wood for project I pay less attention to the hype and more to the sonic properties of each piece. Bossa Nova & Jazz = Fast attack, medium release, long sustain, complex decay. Flamenco & Bluegrass = Fast attack, quick release, medium sustain, clean decay.

The best way to make a fair comparison would be to make sure all the specimens are the same thickness. Thicker pieces, like the Smokey Mountain wood, will have a higher-pitched tap tone; whereas the thinner the wood is, the lower the pitch will be. To try to deduce the actual response differences, like bass response, will be more accurate if the woods are exactly dimensioned, for consistency. That said, some specimens will immediately jump out at you, when they are truly superior. It's like you just can't hit a wrong note on those pieces; you don't have to search around for the node that you pinch it at. Sorting through a tall stack, it's always fun to find a set that rings like a temple bell, and knocks you back on your heels. Excellent video, as usual, Daisy. I'm a fan for life.

The difference in the three woods is quite striking, much more variation than i would have thought . the first two woods sounded great with one being much more bassy. The third spruce sounded somewhat dead to me. very interesting .

It's a very nice experiment and a pleasure to watch. I would say that in order to be able to attribute sonic differences to different kinds of wood, you need to go "ceteris paribus" (all else equal) in your research setup. Different thickness means different sound. Different size also means different sound. Potentially these boards were cut in a different angle towards the grain and growth rings and that will change sound too. Then these boards will behave differently when you hold them at different points relative to their shape and size. If you want to make conclusive statements about the difference, all boards need to be the same thickness and size, grabbed/hung from the same coordinate at the same clamping force and then you need to tap the exact same coordinate. To have statistically meaningful samples, you may need over 20 samples from different trees (per genus) and multiply that for different locations in the tree that the piece is taken from. As to judging tone, we can divide humankind roughly into two categories: people that are inclined to focus on higher pitch versus people that focus on the lower pitch. A minority focuses consciously on both. What makes sound, instruments, interesting is their over and undertones. When I play a central on a piano (no pedal) then that note is helped by the upper ~2 octaves where strings have no damper and through harmonic resonance, these can provide a layer or character. When I floor the sustain pedal and hit the same note, I get harmonic resonance from the lower octaves and this makes the central A (440Hz) warmer and louder, with the addition of "warmth" by the lower octaves. Altogether this results in complex wave-shapes where the 440Hz is the dominant, having been hit directly. If we transpose this to a violin, then we see much less of the harmonic string resonance, but we do see amplification and coloration from the violin's box that adds to the lower octaves, as well as from the bridge that adds color to the higher octaves. If you listen to human voices then you'll notice that one soprano has an extremely pure voice that immediately sounds bad when out of tune, when another soprano has more under and over tones. More complexity (layers, harmonic tones) can make more interesting. This is where some famous instruments get their reputation from: they add a balanced, well structured mix of harmonic under and over tones to what the player plays. To go back to the video, the first sample was warm and might add more undertones, the second - that you called "bassy" - to my ear had more overtones, but still offered undertones. The third was really a problem. (Order of the first comparative test section that was non-blind.) The summary is that we want real good warmth in a guitar that enables to relay deeper emotions. Without knowing what remains from this when bound and strung into a guitar body, I would argue that the first panel of wood had this quality. And it should relay higher frequencies without distortion. Warmer high-pitched coloration is OK, distortion is not. It seemed like the second panel had this quality - in my perception it was thin on the bass side. In a violin, the bridge has an important sonic role, not so much in the guitar, I guess. Therefor in a guitar it is all about the body and its interactions. Ideally, I would hope to find both the first and second panel qualities at the same time in one instrument in a balanced layering. And this is what historical instruments may do extremely well - the ones with price tags far exceeding 10K.

the nerdier the better! Ship builders back in the day were just as nerdy as violin makers. Trees grown in valleys, north sides of a slope, old growth, all effect the sound. i’m looking in my timber framing book that has a lot of quantified properties of several species and i’m seeing a lot of similarities in sugar and black maple (two hard maples) and sweet and yellow birch. birch has an interlocked grain like elm though. Beech is similar also to maple, with a compression parallel to the grain a little higher. beech doesn’t have that cross grain, but i wonder how it takes stain. anyways…great video!

This is the first time I've seen tap tone test really explained! Great video!!!

I'm so glad appreciate all the information u give us I no nothing about wood I'm just a guitar player and music teacher so I do appreciate everything you take time to explain. Thank you

Excellent and sometimes funny presentation sister. Love from the Philippines ❤

Cedar vs Spruce would be an interesting comparison, I chose a cedar top Breedlove over a spruce top Faith guitar based on sound (I'd like to think) not on sales pitch.

you had me when you said you stole wood from the stash :) Subscribed

Enjoyed this a lot. I learned a lot.

Adirondack red spruce is the same specie as alpine spruce, also called bosnian spruce, picea alba. They give similar results.

As a "Forester", (a person with a degree in forest science), and an acoustic guitar player of many years, there are many variables that must be taken into account in testing tones of selected instrument quality wood. If you are talking about the Genus Picea or Spruce, there are at least 35 species in the world with some variations. There are 8 major species in the US. The most important variable I think, is the number of growth rings per inch. The tighter the better! Different species have different qualities. Time of year the tree is harvested, nutrient/soil quality.......... Spruce is the strongest/lightest wood of the Pinaceae (Pine) Family and that is why Spruce is primarily used. I could now get into the other woods used but all that would be information overload. The bottom line: what sounds best to your ear, sounds best! TT

The Moon Spruce lit up my brain immediately.

Great video. Would really like to see Daisy at the Martin or Gibson Montana factory commenting on their wood supply.

john and teds gnarly adventure ? this knowledge was known in the 1700 century, when stradivarius made the plates for his violins. tap tuning was one of the keys to the over all making of the plates or soundboard. he choose wood just above the treeline= a tighter grain. TEXAS A and M, has done a lot of research on how he made those violins. and maybe also the aging process of time help cure the wood for a great sounding instrument.

That piece of Smokey Mountain spruce was fantastic.

I would suggest the the samples need to be the same dimensions and also consider mass so thickness accordingly. I have Sitka Spruce that rings like a bell

@11:30 I was really hoping you two would settle on the classic term "rubbish". Thanks for the interesting experiment!

Really interesting study. Enjoyed!

Beautiful bell tone from that Smokey Spruce. I didn’t expect it to ring so much. I expected the Sitka to ring more than it did so that was a surprise as well. Neat video. Thanks!!

If you calculate the differences in the sample pieces using the cube rule of stiffness the Smoky is 3.8 times stiffer than the Moon and 4.16 times stiffer than the Sitka. It would be a cool test to bring the Smoky into the same range of thickness. Great video!

The thing I've been trying to go for as I get into this hobby is estimating the decay rate. You can actually see this decay in your daw. It's also not necessarily appropriate to hold the piece of wood at the exact same spot. If wood was isotropic (i.e. same all the way through) then it would be fine to do this. But because it has grain, it is going to have different speeds of sound depending on what direction it's traveling in the wood, so different wood in principle should have slightly different grip points for the same shape. So, to do this experiment again I'd mark the edge and tap and listen for the decay. I found some hardware store quartersawn cedar for making a lyre that has a 5 second decay... cannnnoooot wait to hear the sound. Ordered some gut strings of varying gauge, calculated some relative frequencies assuming the same density.

Smoky had an open hollow sound to it Be interesting to have guitars made with a tighter sounding board and one with this hollow sound to hear the difference it makes to the sound when on finished guitar

Try as I may to deny it, I'm a wood snob. Yes, most Sitka is rather uninspiring...most... but not all. There's a wood supplier in Alaska (Alaska Specialty Woods) that uncovered a 3200 year-old Sitka. It was eventually dubbed "Ancient Sitka" once it became available as soundboard sets. Before I forget, the color of the wood (prior to polishing) is a combination of blue, brown, and green drab hues. A finished top still retains some blues and greens, but the brown becomes a bit more pronounced. The Story: ANCIENT SITKA (AS) - The tree started growing around 1100BC, and then aprox 250 years later [850BC] during a SE Alaska Storm, a mountain landslide brought the tree down and buried it under 20 feet of rock and mud. The tree became saturated with the mineral water of the mountains numerous seeps. I have a small parlor guitar with an AS top, paired with Pheasant Wood B&S (from Hawaii with similar tonal characteristics as Koa) and a Pernambuco bridge (the ultimate tone wood in my opinion, but tragically orange colored). I won't lie, the combination of blue, orange, and well... I guess I'd call it "pheasant shades", isn't the most attractive combination. The most noticeable tonal characteristic of this Sitka is it has a much more pronounced bass resonance than a typical Sitka top. People have called this guitar a "Frankenstein" and questioned why I paired these woods. It wasn't random: Ancient Sitka for bass response, Pheasantwood for brightness and immediacy, and Pernambuco for it's balance and overall musical qualities. I should have mentioned earlier, I collect tone woods but haven't attempted a build yet. The guitar above was commissioned with Lichty guitars. I have a larger set I'm holding for a future build, most likely a OOO but it's large enough for a Dread too. I don't want this to get any longer, so I'll end by mentioning my favorite combo is old-growth Redwood (especially Lucky Strike) paired with BRW back and sides.... and resist expounding on why (beyond the obvious reasons).

Wildly unscientific and hugely entertaining comparison! 😃😃

Interesting. My D-18 has a Sitka top and I love it.

Daisy this was really interesting, I’m trying to organise my thoughts on how to best approach the tonewood discussion for electric guitar (without being annihilated in my comments section!) and this was very helpful.

That was fascinating, thank you.

Very cool video. It would be interesting to press a mechanical exciter against them and play some guitar music through it, and see how each of them responds!

Absolutely loved this one ! Often wondered how the different densities affected the tones. Keep the videos coming, love the annimations. Hope you're having a great day.

I never knew it was possible to nerd out so much over wood, super interesting!

I just love to watch you two talk nerdy woodworm stuff. ❤

I’d be most interested to hear the woods once you’ve used them to make a guitar! Perhaps we can look forward to a follow up video?

Quite interesting. The Sitka sounded dead so hopefully you were holding it at a node point, if not that would explain it's "deadness". Would not choose that one at all. BUT, the other two were quite interesting. I live in North Carolina in the smokies tho that did not influence what I heard. The Smokie wood sounded wonderful. Nice low end ring. Would be interesting to hear a comparison of the guitars that come out of the three. The Moon wood had a lovely higher ring which is why you heard it best when you were taping. Our ears hear best between 1k-3k probably because that is the range of the human voice that gives each of us a unique character. The voice of course starts around 200 to 400 hz, but that is not where the character lives. But here's why it would be interesting to hear the guitars that come from these. Tho I liked the Smokey one the best in a ring test, the Moon may well make the best recording guitar. And while it certainly depends on the function of the guitar in a given arrangement, ie, solo guitar or rhythm guitar in context with other instruments, generally speaking I record my guitars with light strings and a very light touch of boost somewhere around 4k, again depending on the situation. Why? It helps them be heard better in a thick mix since there is a lot of competition in the 500 hz region give or take a couple of hundred when there are several instruments and voices. That's where the "mud" lives lol!. So the Moon might well be the winner once all is said and done for guitars made to record in a mix, ie rhythm. The Smokie might fair better for someone who is just accompanying themselves with a guitar, or just recording a guitar performance solo so to speak. Of course, if you could keep that low end and enhance/balance out some hi's via bracing etc., that would be a guitar to die for! But I would love to hear them compared once again when you build the instruments from them. Also, the thickness of the Smokie would indeed create a lower tone as would the thinner Moon create a higher pitch. Of course, density also plays a part as well. So many factors. But I really did enjoy the video! I'm a new sub and have already watched all your vids. Anxiously awaiting the next vid! Your personality and humor not to mention your love for your craft is going to explode your channel. Stay wide eyed and ready to learn and you will go far at whatever you do. I'm 77 and still learning. Maybe one day I'll decide what I want to do when I grow up lol!

Yes, with lots of experience you can judge a piece based on how thick and heavy and long and wide it feels! But dimensions are so critical. The reason is the physics of stiffness, which is directly proportional to the third power of height (in this case plate thickness) and inversely proportional to the third power of length. I have a couple of pieces of spruce that I use to demonstrate how this works. They're broken from the same piece of pallet wood. One piece is ever so slightly shorter and thicker. The tap note is exactly a octave higher for this piece than the other. My mom could hear it and find the notes on the piano. All things being equal, dimensions and density, the stiffer board will give a higher note. Overtones and sustain and all those things are a matter of judgement lacking sophisticated equipment, but they have a role. Generally, mass helps sustain, but requires more input energy. Young's modulus figures are averages. So there is Redwood which is stiffer than Western Red-Cedar which is stiffer than Englemann Spruce which is stiffer than Sitka, which is stiffer than European etc. but normally the stiffness (MOE, E, Young's modulus) is the reverse order.

What I heard from the room mic during the tap-test was much better and more resonant than what I heard from the playback of the Neumann mic recording. #1 was very resonant, long-sustain, with more mid and high overtones than #2 which was very bass-centered, long sustained with fewer octave overtones, and #3, also bass-y with less sustain and fewer octave overtones. During the playback from the Neumann recording, #2 and 3 both sounded like bass-thuds with no sustain, where #1 sounded pretty true to what I heard on the room-mic during the test.

Tone woods make a huge difference for acoustic instruments because the body is the pickup generating the sound. For electrics, as long as your geometry is good, you can mount a neck, bridge and pickups on a 2X4.

Fascinating variation between the different timber samples. I wouldn't have expected such a difference, particularly between related species. Something that I (as a non-musician) don't have a feel for - how much of that resonance will remain in the finished instrument, once all the bracing etc. has been applied? Are they particularly good tone woods because they impart such a strong resonance? Or is it because that strong resonance makes it easier to filter out through construction?

Really enjoyable video! I was truly surprised by the tone of the Moon Spruce!

watched your viedeos and liked them and what you are doing! very good!

I build banjos as well as guitars. Occasionally I'll hold up two or three bronze tone rings and sound them to hear the difference. There is a difference, but I have no evidence for how it plays out in terms instrument sound. Each metal casting has a different formula, just as each piece of sound wood does. My latest experience involved a piece of torrified (artificially aged) spruce, replacing a crappy old top on a 70's Martin and the result was... Nothing. No improvement at all, but no worse, either. As an experiment once, I made a top out of cedar shake shingles. The result was surprisingly good. I think it has more to do with the feel of the wood, but then that's just me. Great channel, new subscriber, and thanks!

Western Red-cedar is prized for classical guitars even though it's stiffness isn't so good. But it has better stiffness across the grain than the spruces do. This is easily noted by bending different samples. Even good stiff spruce (longitudinally) will bend pretty readily side to side. Redwood also has good side to side stiffness (I think). All this matters more to the classical maker who is dealing with a soundboard that works more as a unified plate (I think?). The Martin X braced design is so optimal for steel string that it's hard to come up with any improvements. There are all kinds of vibrational modes going on, but this is true for classical too. Anyway, fun to geek on wood and luthiers magic.

Fascinating! Thank you for the insight.

Interesting exercise. If I wanted more definitive results I'd suggest multiple samples of each of the species, same dimensions, standardize suspension point - laying samples across thin cords/string/bungee? at the nodal points a la marimba bars, and perhaps mechanizing the percussion. super ball mallet rigged to swing the same arc each time. Once recorded a spectrum analyzer that translates frequencies into colors and amplitudes could be fun. Just some ideas. I like the blind test listening for sure... sort of like wine tasting without seeing the bottle... and equally subjective I'd wager. ;~) Keep up the interesting work!

Very cool. I wish this could end with another wood species comparison, this time with finished guitars 🙏

Hi, Miss D, that was fascinating. Thank you, for sharing that.

So many factors at play… not to mention the age and moisture content… and we could go on endlessly. But I must say… I’m not entirely convinced tapping the wood and using that tone can translate directly to how well it makes strings, who have their own tones do better or worse at getting clearly,Loudly and accurately to one’s ears. Thank you for the video!

More taps on different parts of the wood pieces would be nice if you ever do that again. Let us hear the full spectrum it covers, all the harmonies it can give you. That’s what makes a guitar sound rich and balanced after all.

Did you do the math to work out the nodal point of each slab to know where to hold? It seemed a little close to the end. In any case, the tonal difference was impressive. I liked the total harmonic palette of the Smokey Mtn. Since you have the recordings, it would be cool to compare the spectrograms in another video.

Definitely the moon spruce spoke to me

The red sruce piece had a much higher pitch resonant frequency than the other two when Daisy tapped them, and it sounded the most resonant to me, but that may be just because it's a higher frquency. But, in the blind test it didn't sound that way to me, so I need to listen to all the tests again

Liked and subscribed. Fastenating hearing the music in a piece of wood.

Thanks for a scientific (-ish) test, there’s so much subjective stuff out there about tone woods, it’s awesome to learn about actual differences.

For me, I favored the first one.

I'd love a guitar made out of that Smokey Spruce as it sounded so rich and warm to my ears. The Moon spruce sounded great too and the Sitka sounded quite 'lifeless' and dull by comparison. I'm sure that Sitka is used primarily because its relatively cheap and a lot more abundant than old growth from some specific region that gives 'unique' growth patterns not found in commercially grown trees. I'm sure that Sitka, if found in the 'right' place, could be a 'special' piece of wood for instruments, but out of these 3, it was certainly not at the same 'level' to my ears. If I had the choice, I'd pick the Smokey for my guitar based on that test...

This was SO Cool. Very Interesting. Thankyou.

interesting! ...BUT consider it's a difference if a peace of wood has a very nice knocking characteristics concerning its actual resonance with it's actual dimensions - and how well it can transmit a players wide tone spectrum, each different tone about equally loud and pretty, after been optimised in thickness and balanced out with the rest of the instruments parts ...I think that can sometimes be the same thing, but mostly will differ a bit. So if you have such great choice like the one in this video, each of the peaces has some own kind of maximum you could gain with it, if your intuition and experience helps to sort it in properly alongside the means that make the best of it. In this light possibly a peace of wood with a very strong pronunciation in only a small spectrum may make a very narrow band instrument if one doesn't counter this overdoing. Sometimes perhaps on purpose. If I was a luthier, I'd perhaps prefer the second one recorded, because it was still lively, but with a wider, deeper spectrum obviously going even far below the E-String, which possibly easier reproduces different tones above its resonance more evenly and still loud. The possible results may be similar to the following: My girlfriend wanted to buy a violin: the first favourite was from Vienna from the 18th century an was a very impressive, open and overtone rich sounding one with the tendency of a very open vocal. Perfect for classics I'd say. The second favourite was an English one from the early 19th century wich was very pronounced in the mid ranges, a more closed vocal, showing a lot of pressure in a lively, bright, but not to high pitched midrange, the base tones of the lower strings only on average volume - my profession is amplifiers, I'd called it simply "presence", it sang like a children's voice. Not so sweet as the other one, but very intimate and pushing through, able to tell context - perfect for the folk band she's in. That's what I'd think the first peace of spruce in your recording could be like, if it is on top of an instrument. The two violins were so totally different and both so nice, it was too hard to decide. As she was able to, she took them both. What I'd expect of the first two peaces of spruce in the video: they will become such contradicting types of instruments - possibly a very nice, complementary duet. The third one may be inferior, but not overall necessarily. I'd expect that instrument to become less loud, never to play a solo role in an ensemble, but possibly it becomes very good for practicing. As I look at the other comments: the next one describes methods more scientific to sort things out. That's really good, especially it's a way to avoid big mistakes. And helps to always build something really acceptable. But in my opinion it will only support the way to something very superior, can never fully replace crafts(wo)manship and intuition. Yes, one should deal with both attempts - experience will join them and speed up ones expertise.

I know that what you look for in an acoustic guitar is different from what you would seek in classical instrument tonewoods, but have you ever heard of Val di Fiemme spruce? That's the wood Stradivari and all the Cremona luthiers used for violins and guitars.

We didn't expect the Spanish Armada!

I live across the mountains from the Smokies. Lotsa spruce in mountains here and definitely some peaks with higher elevations. Hmmm. May have to go for a hike and see what I find in old growth. Oh yeah I play guitar also.

I would sugest milling all samples to the same thickness to achieve a truer comparison. Of course a thicker stock will produce a heavier and deeper tone that a thinner piece. Loved the sketches !

It's hard not to bring preconceptions. I'd pick the same things you guys did, but I've played and owned lots. Wonderful sounds in cheap and expensive guitars really depend on the situation. A really resonant guitar can sound cluttered when played fast and hard, and that "plain" sounding guitar may fit a recording or a song better. Listen to Boots of Spanish Leather, or Don't Think Twice on the original Dylan recordings. The guitar "sounds dead" but enhances these "hollow" arrangements just fine or "perfect", if you like. There's lots of kinds of great guitar sounds, just like there are a lots of great router bits.

In order for this to be a useful test, all the woods should be the identical dimensions and thickness. Otherwise, they will each ring and sustain at different pitches and lengths. The longest sustain, I would think, would be the most sought after quality as it shows the woods ability to conduct and transmit sound. The more dead the sustain, the less conductive the wood. You should be able to see this sustain in the computer wave patterns as to how long the waves continued and compare them to each. That said, to my ear the first one (Smokies Red Spruce) seemed to have the longest sustain.

Amazing! Loved it

Fantastic video! I’m curious about the pitch of the moonspruce vs Smokey spruce. Mass can have a big difference on pitch. Larger mass = lower pitch. But then greater stiffness = higher pitch. I have to rewatch it and see the sizes again!! Anyway, super interesting - thanks for sharing!

This was really illuminating. After the Smokey Mountain the others sounded like ceiling board. And as a layperson I'd assume the thicker smaller piece would resonate less? So if it was the same dimensions the differences would be more pronounced? I'd also like to see the spectrographs. Maybe if the files were dropped into iZotope RX or something similar.