Tonewood

Tonewood is fundamental to building guitars. Oregon Wild Wood currently offers over 2,500 tonewood sets. The tonewood you select will determine the cost, sound, weight playability and appearance of your guitar. Some of the finest tonewood comes from the US Pacific NW. When selecting tonewood, don't settle for anything but the best.

Click on the photos below to see over 2,500 tonewood sets currently available.

Why is a Tonewood a Tonewood rather than a fence post?

Resonant qualities determine whether a piece of tonewood can be used as instrument tonewood or for furniture, or construction materials or.....

Resonance is the ability of a tonewood material to carry vibration - specifically the vibrations created by a musical instrument.  Resonance is the ability to convert and project those vibrations into a loud and sustained sound in your tonewood choice.

Tonewood has varying qualities that will lend to a "voicing" of your instrument.  Voicing means that some of the tonewood will support and project a base note better than another tonewood, and even others will project mid-range and upper range notes.

Assessing tonal qualities is often done by simply tapping the tonewood and listening to the resulting sound of the wood.  It takes years of practice and is very subjective in nature.  At Oregon Wild Wood, we pride ourselves on the ability to bring you only the finest guitar tonewood for your next instrument.  The best way to determine what tonewoods work well together is to take your best guess  and then assemble an instrument to see how it sounds.  With our years of experience, we'd be happy to give you some guidance on choosing your next tonewood combination.

We consider certain tonewoods to be most ideal because they cover the tonal range without bright or dull spots - an even projection of sounds leads to better harmonics within the tonewood instrument.

Tonewood qualities are subject to changes in tonal values by moisture content, dimensionalization, and sap viability - the most surprising tonewood quality is related to sap viability.

Sap viability turns out to be very important in the tonal quality of your instrument.  It was always believed that old-aged tonewood was the best.  It sounded better brand new out of the box because the sap has hardened and crystallized.  Tonewood with sap which is still in a fluid form is not as bright in tone to start with but continuous play of the tonewood instrument will result in a finer sounding instrument.  The reason is that sap will tend to move as the instrument is played (readjust) realigning itself to be most conducive to the resonant qualities of the tonewood instrument.

Many of us have noticed that a guitar that has been stored without play doesn't sound quite as good initially when brought out of storage, but with play, it comes back into its own.  This is because the sap has rearranged to a more ideal pattern within the tonewood.  It's like if you put sand on a flat drum top, you'll see the sand move when you tap the top - it goes where the wave forms.  Sound is a wave form - the wave vibrations will arrange the sap so that they are most ideally transmitted.  So, the more you play your tonewood instrument the sap will be distributed to it's ideal position within the tonewood - following the sound wave - and the better your guitar will sound.

As a final thought about sap - don't store your guitar in a case.  Set it next to the speaker and play your favorite music to it.  We've found that Rock & Roll is better for the tonewood of your guitar (just kidding).  A tone generator will do the same job - but isn't as much fun.  Once a guitar has been created from finest tonewood, all you'll want to do is send pure tones through it - your job is to play it often and with heart.

So, the bottom line about tonewood is:  the better the resonance of your tonewood, the better the projection and sustain will be resulting in fantastic overall tonal qualities - all due to your choice of the finest tonewood from OregonWildWood.com

Oregon Wild Wood offers the following tonewood for guitars:

  • Tonewood for solid body guitars
  • Tonewood for hollow body guitars
  • Tonewood for acoustic guitar back & side sets
  • Tonewood for bass guitar top sets
  • Tonewood for acoustic guitar back and sides
  • Tonewood for guitar soundboards
  • Tonewood for beginners
  • Tonewood for master luthiers

At Oregon Wild Wood, our mission is to improve the sound (and beauty and playability) of your next guitar!