Tone woods
Alder
Alder has a strong, clear, full-bodied sound, with beefy mids and excellent lows. Its highs sizzle slightly, but are rarely harsh, and it offers a decent amount of sustain. Slightly brownish in its natural, dried state, alder’s grain isn’t necessarily unattractive, but it usually isn’t particularly interesting either. It is typically used under opaque finishes, but some examples can look good under darker translucent finishes. Like ash, alder is most often used on its own as a body wood.
Rosewood
This wood has a beautiful rich variety of brown and purple colors. It makes a warm rich sounding guitar with great resonance and volume. Indian rosewood has become the general substitute for Brazilian rosewood. This wood is pretty rare and expensive. Rosewood is a very hard wood (harder than Maple) and its porous nature gives it a warmer tone in general. A Rosewood neck will give great sustain while also smoothing out the highs. A lot of the time with greater sustain comes a brighter top end. Rosewood, however, mutes the high frequency overtones, producing a strong fundamental that still has the complexities of mid and low mid overtones.
Swamp Ash
Good swamp ash is both light and resonant, and generally carries a broad grain that looks great under a translucent finish. The swamp-ash sound is twangy, airy, and sweet. It offers firm lows, pleasant highs, a slightly scooped mid-range, and good sustain.
Mahogany
Mahogany is arguably the warmest tone wood. the most commonly used hardwood because it's relatively economical, durable, attractive, easy to work with and resonant. Mahogany lends more of a parlor kind of tone to the guitar. i.e. it's twangier but not as brilliant. It's not as big sounding either, but contains a distinct character. Good for warmer, darker guitar tones. The downside of this thick, rounded, sustaining tone is that the extremely pronounced lower-mids can sometimes result in a flubby bass response, so pickup choice is crucial in mahogany guitars.
Maple
Hugely popular wood for necks and fretboards. Easily identifiable because of its bright tone, characteristic grain patterns and moderate weight. Its tonal characteristics include good sustain with plenty of bite. It is about as dense as hard ash, but is much easier to finish due to its tight grain, very durable. Hard Maple is tough on factory tools so it's generally used for slimmer guitars. It really shouts with bright highs and strong upper mid-range. Dense, hard and strong, offering great sustain and stability. The tone is bright. The most common electric guitar neck wood. Maple has a uniform grain, it's strong and stable.
Korina (Limba)
Korina is a warm, resonant, and balanced performer. It also yields great clarity, definition, and sustain. The species is known generically as limba. White limba has a light appearance in its natural state, and black limba has a more pronounced grain. It tends to be warm and full, but usually with a firmer low end, and more overall tightness.
Walnut
Like Koa, walnut's density and stiffness yield bright treble notes, but with a more present mid-range. The bass tones initially produce a woody character that will grow richer with time and extended play. Black Walnut is a little less dense than Mahogany, but is just as stiff as Indian Rosewood. Black Walnut produces excellent balance, with tonal characteristics that fall between Mahogany and Rosewood. The trebles have a unique earthy tone which records very distinctly. With its rich brown color and occasional streaks, Black Walnut has a "stripy" appearance and finishes beautifully.
Ebony
Bright attack, great sustain, and excellent durability compared to rosewood, Ebony has a crisp attack with the density of Maple, but with more brittle grains, oilier pores, and a stronger fundamental tone than Maple. It has a tremendous amount of percussive overtones in the pick attack, that mute out shortly thereafter to foster great, long, sustain. Ebony sounds great on a guitar with a long neck, it's more percussive, as long as you don't have a real hard wood body like solid Maple or solid Bubinga it makes for a great tonal combination.
Koa
Koa comes from Hawaii, which automatically means that it is in short supply. It comes in a variety of rich golden colors, from light to dark, and often with very strong grain markings, which look stunning. Koa makes a very balanced sounding guitar, with much of the warmth of rosewood and much of the brightness of Mahogany. The highs don't jump out like glass breaking. They are more omnipresent. And they are more in the upper mid-range than the highs .Tone is somewhere between Mahogany and Maple with a little sweeter top end.
Wenge
A black hard wood, stiff and very strong with chocolate brown stripes. Very hard, coarser textured wood with open grain, this wood makes awesome bass necks with strong mid-range tones and warm lows. Combine it with an ebony fretboard for more brightness. Used primarily as neck shafts but can also be used as a coarse fretboard. This wood is usually played raw, no finish required. Wenge trims some high overtones like Rosewood does, while resonating more fundamental mids and low mids due to its multi-density "stripes" combing away a little more of the mid and low mid overtones.
Poplar
A “hardwood” by definition, poplar is actually relatively soft when compared with a range of hardwoods. Although well-balanced sonically, poplar bodies aren’t particularly resonant or sustaining, and they generally don’t seem to enhance any particular frequency range or overtones.
Pau Ferro
Something of a cross between ebony and rosewood tone-wise, pau ferro is a fairly hard, dense, tight-grained wood. It offers excellent clarity and definition, but has more complex highs than maple, with chunky lows, muscular lower-mids, and an airy, open mid-range.
Sapele
Sapele is a highly sustainable West African tonewood that’s often confused with the West African wood Khaya. Sapele is much harder and stiffer than the Mahoganies. Tonally, it has many similarities to Mahogany, with crisp strong fundamentals, and a little extra treble zing.
Bog Oak
Bog Oak is another wood with a low velocity of sound and a high degree of internal damping. It’s stiffer than almost all the other tonewoods, and also very dense yet porous. This gives it a “bright” sound across the tonal spectrum, with strong fundamentals, and a rapid note decay.
Bubinga
Bubinga has reddish and bronze-like colors, with a tone similar to Indian rosewood. It is a bit denser than rosewood, which may contribute to its great sustain and clarity. Provides sustain and note separation with warm even tones, bright midrange, and a sparkle across the entire spectrum.
ZebraWood
Zebrawood gets its name from the contrasting light and dark striping it has. When used in an electric guitar body, its tone is similar to maple. It has a nice full sound with darker overtones. When finished, it can have a really impressive appearance.
Lacewood
Lacewood has a unique pattern which gives its name. The tone is similar to Alder, but when finished the lace pattern really shows well. The tone does not have a lot of overtones, has a nice treble response, and clarity between chords.
Padauk
Padauk is a bright orange color that will brown as it oxidizes. It is a waxy wood with an open grain. Its tone is similar to maple with a slightly bright tone. It is harder and heavier than Indian Rosewood and works well as a back and sides for an acoustic guitar. Padauk has been said to be a promising replacement for generic Rosewood.
Purple Heart
Purple Heart is a fabulous tonewood with some of the best characteristics for a world class tonewood. It is very dense and projects marvelously. Perfect basses and lively trebles. High sustain and projection. It is in the same league as African Blackwood, Lapacho and Brazilian rosewood without the drawbacks of Brazilian rosewood that is a high maintenance wood. As a tonewood, Purpleheart provides a warm bass, bright mid-range and clear trebles.
Ziricote
Ziricote has a more rosewood-ish tone, although it is not a member of the dalbergia family. It has excellent low dampening qualities similar to most rosewoods with a clean resonant reverb-ery characteristic. Zircote pairs well with almost any top to bring a wide tonal variety to the builders pallet.
Ovangkol
Ovangkol echoes East Indian rosewood in many ways, while being more sustainable. It, too, has a compelling visual beauty, with natural black highlights streaking through complex, interwoven brown figures. And it sounds like it looks, sharing the wide tonal spectrum of rosewood, with its deep bass and articulate treble, but with added mid-range fullness.
Monkey Pod
The heartwood of Monkeypod varies from golden to dark brown with dark streaks occasionally found. The sapwood is yellow-white and distinct from heartwood. Wild grain patterns and curl can be found in some logs. Wood vessels can contain shiny deposits. The heartwood has a naturally high luster. The tone of Monkeypod falls between Mahogany and Walnut- it has more clarity than Walnut but provides more fundamental than Mahogany.
Primavera
Primavera has creamy golden white colors with darker variegated lines randomly running through the wood and sometimes you'll also find ribboned figure. The tone and volume of Primavera is excellent, with a perfect balance of bass and treble. The density is almost the same as Hawaiian Koa. Deep bass, lively mids and exceptionally clear trebles.
Cocobolo
A dense, stiff tropical hardwood from Mexico, cocobolo produces a fairly bright overall tone emphasized by sparkling treble notes. Sonically it resembles koa but resonates a little deeper on the low end. The tone is fast, responsive, and articulate.
Mulberry
Black Mulberry is used in round-bodied stringed instruments in Iran and appears very attractive, darker and more figured than the red found in the US. Strong, durable, very yellow with a creamy yellow to brownish heartwood. Darkens with age and is very hard. The late growth in mulberry is full of open pores, much like ash, whereas the late growth in osage orange is solid.
Blackwood
African blackwood is denser and harder than either ebony or Brazilian rosewood. It is perhaps the ultimate wood for power, clarity, punch, and harmonic complexity. It has a tight, but robust sound, powerful and crisp, a dark bell-like overtone with a slow response. Tonally, it is not as deep as Brazilian rosewood, and not as tight as mahogany.
Elm
Elm is a very underrated wood. Sounds like maple, but warmer in the highs. This is an amazing tone wood and looks incredible. Elm wood is tight-grained and generally comes in an ash-gray or brown color. The beauty of this wood is its discernible oblong ridges within the wood pattern itself.
Myrtlewood
Myrtlewood, is a rare evergreen, an exotic hardwood, that grows in a very limited range along the Pacific Coast, from extreme northern California through southern Oregon. Tonally it has similarities to Maple, clear and bright with nice projection though a bit more rounded and less sharp, but it is much easier to bend than Maple. Its tonal response has much clarity and sustain, often compared to Mahogany and Koa. Myrtle is a crisp wood of medium density. ...It would probably sound closer to Koa, with many equating it to Walnut or a particularly stiff piece of mahogany. A good all-around tonewood. Sweet, clear trebles with a good thump in the bass. Not overly complex overtone structure, but enough to have nuance. Usually has good punch.
Bocote
Tonewise, it compares with Rosewood, warm, powerful, with good volume and sustain. Very similar to African Blackwood too. Terrific tap tone and a very wide palette of mid-ranges that make it one of the best tonewoods. The looks are also quite spectacular with all shades of yellow, orange and dark brown. Construction wise, it is far more stable than Brazilian rosewood because unlike the Brazilian species, it never fissures. This wood is officially classified as either extinct, endangered, rare or vulnerable within its natural habitat in Costa Rica.