REFERENCE
Tonewood & specification database
12 tonewoods and 7 guitar types, side by side. Sort any column, filter by type, density, tone, origin, price or body shape, expand a row for the full note, or compare up to three entries at once.
Body shapes
A body shape sets how much top there is to brace and how much air there is to move. Pick one to filter the table to the woods that suit it.
Dreadnought
Steel-string acoustic
OM / Orchestra
Steel-string acoustic
Jumbo
Steel-string acoustic
Classical
Nylon-string acoustic
Parlour
Steel-string or nylon acoustic
Archtop
Carved-top acoustic or electric
Solid-body electric
Electric
Woods and guitar types
Density decides how much the panel weighs for a given stiffness; tone is what the builder does with that. Every figure here is a typical value.
| Note | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sitka spruce | Wood / material | 0.4 | Loud, articulate, strong bass | Pacific Northwest, North America | Moderate | The default steel-string top: the best stiffness-to-weight of the common soundboards.… | ||
Sitka spruceSitka is the stiffest and heaviest of the common spruces, which makes it the safe choice for a guitar that will be played hard. It is loud and clean with a strong bass, and it improves noticeably over the first year of playing. Look for straight, even grain with 8 to 20 lines per inch and no run-out.
| ||||||||
| Engelmann spruce | Wood / material | 0.35 | Warm, responsive, complex | Rocky Mountains, North America | Moderate | Lighter and more responsive than Sitka; rewards a light touch and gives up sooner.… | ||
Engelmann spruceEngelmann is lighter than Sitka for the same stiffness, so it responds to a gentler attack and produces a warmer, more complex voice. It gives up earlier when driven hard, which is why flatpickers usually prefer Sitka or Adirondack.
| ||||||||
| Adirondack spruce | Wood / material | 0.42 | Powerful, clear, high headroom | Eastern North America | High | The stiffest common top wood; resists being driven past its limit.… | ||
Adirondack spruceAdirondack (red) spruce is stiffer than Sitka with a wider grain and a powerful, clear voice. It has the highest headroom of the spruces — it does not compress when played hard — which makes it the traditional choice for a flatpicked dreadnought.
| ||||||||
| Western red cedar | Wood / material | 0.35 | Warm, immediate, full | Pacific Northwest, North America | Moderate | Opens fast and plays warm, but dents easily and gives up under a hard attack.… | ||
Western red cedarCedar reaches its best sound in weeks rather than the year spruce needs. It is slightly less stiff than spruce for the same weight and is normally thicknessed a little heavier. The result is a warm, responsive instrument that flatters a light player, with less headroom when driven.
| ||||||||
| Honduran mahogany | Wood / material | 0.58 | Dry, focused, strong fundamental | Central and South America | Moderate | The working back wood: dry and punchy, records cleanly, very stable.… | ||
Honduran mahoganyMahogany gives a guitar a dry, fundamental-heavy voice with fast decay. Where rosewood adds a wash of overtones, mahogany stays out of the way, which is why it is the standard for recording. It is stable, forgiving to bend and easy to work.
| ||||||||
| Sapele | Wood / material | 0.64 | Bright, punchy, mahogany-adjacent | West and Central Africa | Moderate | The usual modern mahogany substitute: harder, slightly brighter, widely available.… | ||
SapeleSapele is harder and denser than genuine mahogany and slightly brighter as a result. Its interlocked grain makes it more prone to tear-out when planed, so it is usually scraped rather than sanded. It is the practical choice where Honduran mahogany is restricted or expensive.
| ||||||||
| East Indian rosewood | Wood / material | 0.83 | Deep bass, complex overtones, long sustain | India and Sri Lanka | High | The classic spruce-top partner: big bass, rich overtones, long sustain.… | ||
East Indian rosewoodRosewood is denser and harder than mahogany, pushing the instrument toward a deep, reverberant bass with rich overtones. It is oily, which helps stability but means gluing surfaces must be wiped with solvent first. Indian rosewood is the practical, plentiful choice; Brazilian is the traditional one and heavily restricted.
| ||||||||
| Brazilian rosewood | Wood / material | 0.87 | Wide, glassy, very complex | Brazil | Very high | The traditional premium rosewood: glassy and complex, heavily trade-restricted.… | ||
Brazilian rosewoodBrazilian rosewood has the widest tonal spread of the rosewoods — glassy, complex and resonant — and the highest price by a wide margin. It is listed under CITES and moving an instrument made from it across a border requires documentation. Check the rules before you buy or ship.
| ||||||||
| Hard maple | Wood / material | 0.7 | Bright, snappy, strong upper mids | North America | Moderate | The electric-neck default: stiff, stable and bright.… | ||
Hard mapleHard maple is stiff, dimensionally stable and bright-sounding, which makes it the standard electric guitar neck. It is heavy, so acoustic builders usually prefer mahogany. Quarter-sawn stock is essential — flat-sawn maple moves across the width and takes the fretboard with it.
| ||||||||
| Gaboon ebony | Wood / material | 1.15 | Crisp, defined attack | West Africa | High | Hardest common fretboard wood: slick, stable, wears slowly.… | ||
Gaboon ebonyEbony is the hardest and densest common fretboard wood. It wears slowly, feels slick and adds a crisp attack to the note. It is heavy and can be brittle at the edges, and it needs a well-seasoned neck beneath it. It is oily, so wipe before gluing.
| ||||||||
| Pau ferro | Wood / material | 0.9 | Warm, rosewood-like | South America | Moderate | The practical ebony and rosewood substitute: warm, hard and unrestricted.… | ||
Pau ferroPau ferro sits between rosewood and ebony in density and tone. It is warm and hard-wearing, works cleanly and is not subject to the trade restrictions that make rosewood and ebony awkward. It has become the default fretboard on many production instruments.
| ||||||||
| Koa | Wood / material | 0.6 | Warm midrange, balanced, slightly compressed | Hawaii, United States | Very high | Warm and balanced, with a figure that sells the instrument on its own.… | ||
KoaKoa sits between mahogany and rosewood tonally: warm in the midrange, balanced and slightly compressed in the bass. Its figure is the reason most people choose it, but the tone stands up. Highly figured stock tears easily and needs care when planed.
| ||||||||
| Dreadnought | Guitar type | — | Big bass, loud, strong strumming | United States, from 1916 | — | The big-bodied standard: loud, bass-heavy and built for strumming.… | ||
DreadnoughtThe dreadnought has a wide, deep body and a long scale, which produces a loud, bass-heavy sound that carries in an ensemble. It is less comfortable to hold than a smaller body and less balanced for fingerstyle, but nothing else moves as much air.
| ||||||||
| OM / Orchestra | Guitar type | — | Balanced, articulate, even across strings | United States, from 1929 | — | The balanced all-rounder: even response, comfortable, records cleanly.… | ||
OM / OrchestraThe OM is smaller than a dreadnought with a narrower waist and a balanced response across all six strings. It is the most versatile acoustic body shape: comfortable to play, even in tone, and easy to record without equalisation.
| ||||||||
| Jumbo | Guitar type | — | Huge low end, wide dynamic range | United States, from the 1930s | — | The largest common acoustic: enormous low end and dynamic range.… | ||
JumboA jumbo is bigger than a dreadnought with a rounder lower bout, giving it an even larger low end and a wide dynamic range. The larger top needs more bracing to stay stable, so the builder has to balance stiffness against weight carefully.
| ||||||||
| Classical | Guitar type | — | Warm, round, quick decay | Spain, from the 19th century | — | Nylon-strung and lightly built: warm, round and quiet compared with steel.… | ||
ClassicalThe classical guitar is built lightly and braced with a fan pattern, because nylon strings put far less tension on the top than steel. The result is a warm, round voice with quicker decay and less volume. Most are finished in French polish to keep the top light.
| ||||||||
| Parlour | Guitar type | — | Focused, mid-forward, intimate | Europe and the United States, 19th century | — | Small-bodied and mid-forward: an intimate fingerstyle instrument.… | ||
ParlourA parlour guitar is smaller than an OM, often with twelve frets clear of the body. The smaller top produces a focused, mid-forward sound that suits fingerstyle and blues playing rather than strumming. Many are lightly braced and respond to a soft touch.
| ||||||||
| Archtop | Guitar type | — | Punchy, midrange-forward, quick decay | United States, from the 1920s | — | A carved, arched top with f-holes: punchy and mid-forward, made for jazz.… | ||
ArchtopAn archtop has a carved, arched top and back with f-holes rather than a flat top and a round soundhole. The arch and the f-holes give a punchy, mid-forward sound with quick decay that cuts through an amplified ensemble without feeding back.
| ||||||||
| Solid-body electric | Guitar type | — | Depends on pickups and scale; body wood colours it | United States, from 1950 | — | No soundbox: the pickups, the scale and the fretwork dominate the sound.… | ||
Solid-body electricA solid-body electric has no resonant box, so the body wood colours the sound far less than the pickups, the scale length and the electronics. What matters most to the player is the neck: its profile, its fretwork and its setup.
| ||||||||