Solid Maple Body Questions

[Lotza_Noize]

I know many of you may have asked this question but I'm going to ask it here anyways.

My second Project Ibanez RG body is going to be made out of Western Maple.

I'm going to put 2 EMG 7 string pickups in it.

Neck will be made of Maple as well and an ebony fretboard.

Questions are:

1. Do you think this would be a good idea to make the body out of Maple?

2. I know that maple is bright. What do you think the tone would be with these 7 string EMG's?

3. Sound I am looking for is for rhythm and solos. An all-in-one 7 string (Low-B ) guitar.

Thanks in advance for your advice and opinions.

[Martinedwards]

1. Do you think this would be a good idea to make the body out of Maple?

why not? if it's what you have, then go for it!! it smells nice, looks nice and is stable.

2. I know that maple is bright. What do you think the tone would be with these 7 string EMG's?

sorry, not a clue. I'm pretty sceptical about massive tone charactaristis in electric woods. the pups, amp & FX do far more!!

[Lotza_Noize]

Let me clarify some more on why I was leaning toward an all maple body.

Well as you can read, it's going to be a 7-string with a low-b with 2 EMG pups. I just did not want the sound to get that "muddy" sound at all when you hit that Low-B. Ya know what I'm talking about.

So with that being said.

What do you think now? Should I stick with an all Western Maple body?

[digi2t]

Have to agree with Martinedwards, recently completed a maple V, with a graphite neck (rosewood fretboard) to boot. I thought it would be super bright. I used the electronics out of my basswood V just to see if there would be a difference, but it was absolutely minimal to nil. Actually, tweaking the top 3 EQ bands and closing my eyes put me back into the basswood and maple neck zone. The only real difference was the weight. Got a wider strap. Problem solved. I say go for it. You can adjust the root tone by playing with different caps. Besides, FWIW, I love maple .

Cheers

[Southpa]

Yeah, go for it! I made a tele a few years ago with a 1-piece maple body. Your main concern is choosing the right pickups to get your sound. And you can modify with different capacitor values to see (or hear) whats right for you. I used a SD Hotstack (stacked HB) in the neck and Vintage 54 in the bridge. I also wired the two pickups in series/parallel for the middle switch position. I'm very happy with the results. But I couldn't tell you what results your EMG's would produce, just try it and find out.

[Rick500]

My next one is going to be a 7-string V, maple neck, maple body, ebony fretboard. It's gonna be heavy I think, but other than that, I'm not worried.

[Lotza_Noize]

Great! I was a little concerned there for a moment. Moment gone.

Y'all give great advice. I really do appreciate everyones opinions. Thanks a bunch!

Keep on rockin'

[Strandberg Guitarworks]

I definitely don't want to rain on your parade, but I would make it a maple top and put something like honduras mahogany, cedar or swamp ash in the body. You could make the top portion quite thick if you want...

I just don't have very good experiences of all maple. The sound level when played acoustic is almost zero and it tends to be dull sounding. But again, that is just my experience. There are stunning pieces of maple out there and I am seriously contemplating a quite thick carved bookmatched tiger maple top on my next build (after finding out that lacewood wasn't great for carving with bookmatching).

[Kenny]

wood has a minimal effect on the body

if you dont want a muddy sound i would do fanned frets.

im currently just mapped a 7 string fanned fretboard, 27-25 inch scale lengths measured on the taper.

i designed it to be similar to a floyd rose feeling system

[zyonsdream]

BCR has made several all maple body/board/neck guitars and the ones I've heard sounded great. You can always tweak tone with caps, pots and pickups. The weight of the guitar is the only issue. All maple can be a tone of weight, especially for an RG Ibanez shape.

[fryovanni]

He is talking about Western Maple, Not Eastern Rock, Silver, Red or what have you. Western is much lighter weight (actually pretty darn close to Mahogany). JUst thought I would mention that.

Peace,Rich

[DC Ross]

I have an ESP MHB400 (baritone - tuned B to B ) that has a maple body and EMGs. It's very light weight and doesn't sound muddy or bright. I'm also of the belief that body woods and shape play very insignificant parts in the sound of electrics.

Edited January 28, 2008 by DC Ross

[RestorationAD]

If I am not mistaken George Lynch had several Maple bodied strats over the years.... His first tiger stripe was supposed to be a Mighty Might Maple Body. The Kamikaze is Maple. I would say that predicting the sound is going to be tough as every electric guitar I have built is a sum of the parts with most of the control in the electronics. I recently rebuilt my Model 5 and ditched the original Jackson active pickups for a very old Seymour Duncan SH-6 and I can tell you that guitar is a different animal now.

[brewu22]

EMG pickups= I wouldn't worry about the wood so much. I know a guy that made a strat copy out of the maple you talked about and it sounded good, single coil pickups and all. If it ends up too bright or too muddy, thats what EQ is for.

[Lotza_Noize]

wood has a minimal effect on the body

if you dont want a muddy sound i would do fanned frets.

im currently just mapped a 7 string fanned fretboard, 27-25 inch scale lengths measured on the taper.

i designed it to be similar to a floyd rose feeling system

Oooo Really? Nice! Share? IM me. THX

[aidlook]

Gibson L6S's are all maple and sound great imo.

[MzI]

With all maple and EMGs you should get a nice clear tone. Going with the western itll reduce the brightness a touch. I have a ESP Explorer solid eastern maple neck and body with EMGs and can say its still one of my best sounding guitars I have. You can always cut the Highs down on the eq, you just cant add them.

[TemjinStrife]

EMGs tend to "take over" the sound of the body woods to some extent, although you will hear a bit of a difference between say a maple neck bolted to an alder body vs. a mahogany thru-neck. I wouldn't worry too much about tone... I have an all-maple Spirit Steinberger "broom handle" guitar equipped with a Duncan JB that has great bite and snarl with a very Les Paul-ish character as well.

[Ateekay]

I have no experience building guitars, and I am sure all of you have a lot more knowledge on the subject. However to say wood has virtually no effect in over all tone is ludicris imo.

I sold guitars at sam ash with 5600 square feet of sales space for the better part of a year. I probably played a dozen different guitars every day through a dozen different amps and effects setups. Just the difference between hard ash and swamp ash is huge. Granted every individual peice of wood even from the same species has its own characteristics, but you can definitely get a generalized sense of common differences. You could have a dead peice of swamp ash or an amazing peice. But swamp ash in general is going to tend have its own common trend in tonal variances than say maple. lol.

[Ateekay]

Man I had two windows up. One with todays threads and one with the search function. I got them confused. Totally didn't mean to bump this old ass thread up lol.