Conference napalm::guitar

    Well, it's impossible to really say what it will sound like just from
    the wood, as other things play into that significantly as well.  Also,
    there are different grades of hardness in maple that will have some
    effect.  But generally speaking, hard maple is fairly dense and heavy,
    and a guitar made from this will give have good sustain with lots of
    brightness in the tone and a fast attack to the notes.  Soft maple
    is significantly lighter, still bright but with a warmer sound and
    a bit less agressive attack.
    
    Pedullas are the only all maple production instruments I'm familiar
    with and I've only tried their basses.  These are usually soft maple.
    The ones I've tried were suprisingly lightweight for an all maple
    instrument; they have a nice, rich, warm sound, very even across all
    the ranges, and you can get a nice edge out of them if you dig in.
    
    Hope this helps
    
    /rick

    B.C. Rich also made all maple axes, and I think Carvin offers them as
    well. Gibson offered an all-maple Les Paul at one point as a limited
    production model. 
    
    						Brian
    
    

    I know someone with an Ibanez or Charvel (I forget) all maple guitar,
    but I think it's a limited edition also.
    Paul

    sounds like hard to get one witj all maple ha.....
    
    Thanks alot for all the replies.
    
    
    Kham

    I used to have a '79 Carvin DC-something that was all maple.  Pretty
    nice guitar, actually.  The body was a symmetrical double cutaway --
    sort of like an LP Jr.  I've seen these show up used now and then
    for $200 - $250.
    
    Jim

   I had a Hohner P-bass clone that I bought new in ~77 which was all maple.
   Heavy as a m-f, but one hell of a nice playing and sounding bass.  Wish I
   had never sold it.

   -- Sam
   

    
    Well, the question was about guitars, but my Rick bass was solid maple,
    and my Peavey 5-string is as well.  Maybe it's more common in basses?
    
    

    Brazilian rosewood, with a German spruce top.

    Oh... you're talking about those plug-in appliances ... never mind -

    RE: .6 & .7 I have a Peavey bass that's solid OAK. Now that's MF heavy!
    Paul
    

    re 9. Wow!!  Now you can use that one as a bloody coffee table... 
    I have a Guild electric with Hard curly maple. I'll never get rid of
    this one!! Since I've bought it I have not had to do anything with it
    but play it. Talk about solid attack and nice fast comfortable
    neck..and with an EMG on it....well I don't have to say anymore...Then
    of course, I have a Rich Bitch #6 which is all one-piece maple. This
    one isn't is heavy as the guild but it gives a warmer sound...
    
                                                         stig

    I'm sure I've seen pictures of blonde wood bodied strats - isn't that
    maple ?
    
    I was talking to a luthier a while back who works as a repair man in a
    store here. he showed me some guitars that he's made - absolutely
    superb craftsmanship, with lovely burred wood bodies (solid electrics).
    
    He said quiet firmly "To a large extend you can forget what pickups are
    on an electric, it's the wood that makes the tone"
    
    Comments ?

    My past (and current) Les Pauls, SG's, and ES335's have all had stock
    PAF pickups and they ALL had different tones.  The wood is different
    but don't forget, the AMOUNT of wood is different, too.....
    
    Interesting, the tone of my LP Deluxe (mini-humbuckers) is very similar
    to an old LP std (PAF's) I had.....
    
    steev

    My Strat (deluxe plus) has a natural finish and the body is ash.
    
    No comment on how that might affect the sound though. 
    
    Bob

>    He said quiet firmly "To a large extend you can forget what pickups are
>    on an electric, it's the wood that makes the tone"
 
    I don't know, on the guitars I've had that I changed the pickups, a
    different pickup made a big difference.  Certain other things will
    probably make more of a change, like where the pickup is placed along
    the strings, the scale length of the guitar, that sort of thing.  Some
    people even say that how you affix the pickup to the guitar will make a
    difference (hung by springs, or screwed into the body).  I guess all
    I'm saying is that there are a *lot* of variables that come into play.
    
    Greg

    I interpret the remark a little more as "if the tone isn't in the wood,
    you're not going to put it there with pickups".  Granted, changing
    pickups can make a difference, but generally I find I can't make
    what I think is a poor or mediocre axe sound really great with pickups. 
    Conversely, it's hard to make a good axe sound bad by changing pickups
    too.

My take on this is that the qualtiy of the sound is the product of the quality
of many components.


Q     = Q     x Q        x Q         x Q           etc.
 tone    wood    pickups    hardware    strings  


If the wood is no good, then the tone won't be good.  In fact, for the tone
to be good, *ALL* of the components must be good.

Jim

    re .11 
    
    	I used to own a 1973 Fender Strat which had a natural finish.
    I always thought the body was maple, but I later found out it was
    ash. Apparently, Fender never made Strat bodies out of maple.
    
    	In the 1970's Fender made natural-finished Strats, Precision
    basses, and Jazz basses, with maple fingerboards. I'm pretty sure
    the bodies on the entire line were ash.
    
    	Mark
    
    
     

    I had a Tele Thinline with ash body and maple neck.
    
    The Jag is made of mystery wood...
    
    Carl

    They used alder a lot.

    The new Telecaster Thinline's have walnut bodies. I think at least
    some of the originals had walnut bodies as well.
    
    Mark

My thinline has an ash body, natural finish, fairly pretty.

dbii