Does anyone have any experience with guitars made out of sycamore? There seem to be quite a lot of guitars using sycamore these days - Ibanez Artcore, Tokai LPs, and so on. Just wondering how it compares to (eg) swamp ash, maple, mahogany, and so on with regard to resonance, density, tone, etc... 
Sycamore Wood...
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Sep 12, 2008 5:27 p.m. Catdaddy1967:
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Sep 12, 2008 5:52 p.m. Bear:
This site might help you with the insight you seek (CLICK HERE)
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Sep 12, 2008 5:56 p.m. JazzBoxJunky:
I assume the guitars you saw used laminate or veneer, but here's my experience with solid Sycamore.
English Sycamore looks alot like Euro Maple, I have used it, and it seems to me to work very nice. It seemed to me to be a bit softer with a bit more internal damping to the tap tone. This wood is quite different than American Sycamore, which is a different species.
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Sep 12, 2008 6:26 p.m. Catdaddy1967:
Thanks - Bear, I'm not quite sure I subscribe to what the website says... One of my two Strats is North American Ash, the other is Swamp Ash. The swamp ash sounds brighter through an amp than the other one - everything else about these guitars is the same...
JazzBoxJunky, I'm guessing that they use sycamore as a maple substitute then? The Artcore body is made out of sycamore, and I'm sure that some of the Tokais I've seen have used a sycamore cap, although I might be mistaken there...
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Sep 12, 2008 6:39 p.m. JazzBoxJunky:
English Sycamore is from the Maple family. It is strikingly similar to flame Euro maple. Violin builders use it for the backs sometimes, but like I said, in my experience it is a softer warmer sound than what you think of when you think of Maple.
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Sep 12, 2008 10:10 p.m. dubkitty:
a friend has a cedar-top sycamore-bodied acoustic. it sounds really nice, particularly since it's an inexpensive guitar (>$300 US). in an acoustic guitar, i'd describe the sound as being somewhere between maple and mahogany....not as bright as maple, but not as tonally neutral as mahogany. if that makes any sense at all.
i've been seeing sycamore showing up more as a body wood in low- and mid-grade acoustics...i was not aware that it was being used in electrics as well.
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Sep 12, 2008 10:14 p.m. wenzel:
Sycamore wood is in my flamenco guitar. One of them I should say, it sounds awesome. The flamenco I'm referring to also has a cypress top. It's a very bright wood from my understanding.
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Sep 13, 2008 3:15 a.m. Shuggie101:
Interesting link Bear. The guy seems a bit absolutist, and I can't say I'm in complete agreement with his arguments regarding tone. Fascinating read about the working characteristics of 'tone timbers' though.
To my ears timbers sound different on electrics as well as acoustics. He says that all guitars sound like guitars, which is certainly true. But by that logic a Telecaster isn't substantially different from a Gretsch 6120, and a VW Bug is more or less the same as a Ferrari Boxer.
Then again, he does build bodies for Huss & Dalton, and their guitars are pretty amazing. So what do I know?
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Sep 13, 2008 4:48 a.m. Catdaddy1967:
Shuggie101 said: To my ears timbers sound different on electrics as well as acoustics
That's my opinion as well. (And I like the VW/Ferrari analogy!) He doesn't actually say it as no effect on amplified tone whatsoever, but that it affects tone the least of all the available factors, which I don't quite 'get'. I mean, we can all imagine what a Les Paul made of marble would sound like compared to a mahogany-bodied equivalent. The difference makes sense as well - the more a body resonates, the more the strings will 'ring' at different frequencies, which is what the pickups will detect... And if that weren't the case, why exactly did Les Paul want to stick a maple cap on top of a mahogany body in the first place?
JazzBoxJunky said: in my experience it is a softer warmer sound than what you think of when you think of Maple
dubkitty said: i'd describe the sound as being somewhere between maple and mahogany....not as bright as maple, but not as tonally neutral as mahogany
Thanks guys (and everyone that replied too!) - that was what I was looking for! Glad that we're all agreed that woods used in electrics DO make a difference! Lol!
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Sep 13, 2008 11:25 a.m. Shuggie101:
Hi Catdaddy
I got so preoccupied with Bear's link that I forgot to respond to your original question.
I have a friend who's a pro acoustic guitar maker called Dave King. Like a lot of UK luthiers he likes to use indigenous timbers like yew and sycamore. I once saw one of his parlors with a flamey sycamore neck and it had me fooled that it was maple. I remember Dave saying that English sycamore is related to maple and that it sounds more or less the same.
http://www.daveking-acoustics.co.uk/fs_guitars.htm
I have tried a top of the line Tokai Love Rock with a sycamore top, and it sounded just like a very decent Les Paul.
However there is a school of thought that the maple/sycamore top is there to dampen the resonance of the mahogany rather than add anything of its own.
Having compared countless all mahogany Gibson's like LP Juniors and SGs against LP Standards, I'd be inclined to agree with that assessment.
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Sep 13, 2008 11:28 a.m. seadevil:
Of course, the maple cap on a Les Paul would mean a lot less grain-filling compared to mahogany. That might be a factor.
I've played LP's that seemed to be made of marble. I'm not sure a marble one would sound that different.
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Sep 13, 2008 12:52 p.m. dubkitty:
However there is a school of thought that the maple/sycamore top is there to dampen the resonance of the mahogany rather than add anything of its own.
that's an interesting idea. i have an all-mahogany Epiphone Les Paul Custom which has endless sustain and is very resonant. you can tell when certain strings are in tune because the other strings will resonate on the overtones...it's almost as if it were talking to itself. it's a very different sound from a maple-top LP. of course, it weighs a ton, but that's part of the job description for a Les Paul.
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Sep 13, 2008 3:41 p.m. Shuggie101:
"it weighs a ton, but that's part of the job description for a Les Paul."
I've been lucky enough to play a few '50s ones, and with respect, that ain't necessarily so
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Sep 13, 2008 6:53 p.m. Catdaddy1967:
Shuggie101 said: I've been lucky enough to play a few '50s ones, and with respect, that ain't necessarily so
It still happens with modern ones too - I had a Les Paul Classic with the 60's neck, which was fairly light, and it did sing nicely enough. I also had a Standard from the mid-90's which was a lot heavier, but had a fat 50's neck. That had a great tone too (presumably because of the neck), but wasn't that easy to play.
I've also noticed that the 2008 Standards now have chambered bodies...
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Sep 13, 2008 7:04 p.m. Mark Synchro:
Catdaddy1967 said: I've also noticed that the 2008 Standards now have chambered bodies...
I picked one up the other day and it still seemed heavy to me. It might have been a fluke, an unusually dense piece of wood, but it was a lot heavier than my Duo Jet. -
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Sep 13, 2008 7:22 p.m. Catdaddy1967:
You sure it was the chambered one? The Gibson website lists a 'Standard' and an '08 Standard'... The two I've picked up were much lighter than normal, and for once the finish on both was half decent...
