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Swamp Ash or Paulownia, can you hear the difference?
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- Опубліковано 8 жов 2021
- It is no secret that Swamp-Ash is getting scarce. Right now the availability is low and the prices have gone up significantly. More over Swamp ash that is available tends to be heavier then we would like for guitar building. So we have been looking for an alternative. We found Paulownia to be a good candidate. But how would it compare to Swamp-Ash?
To find out we have build two almost identical Kauffmann '56 T guitars. One of Swamp-Ash and one of Paulownia. In this short video we play them side by side so you can be the judge. See if you hear the difference!
Paulownia: the unsung hero of guitar wood. Thanks for this, Kauffmann.
They both sound great!
Personally I liked the paulownia wood better. Sounded more crisp and bright. But the wood is so soft it would need a durable finish. You can dent it with your thumb or finger nails.
Pawlonia is second only to balsa as the lightest wood, but is the strongest wood per weight. It’s not likely to crack or split. Good for soundboards of stringed instruments. So it’s a good choice to replace swamp ash for less money. But ideally look for eight rings per inch. Some trees have only one ring per year, and they sell for very little per board foot. $1 vs. $8 for the good stuff.
Swamp Ash = All frequencies ! Sweet Tone , Bass , Mid and Highs
Ash has more low mids. Paulownia has wider frequency range.
The SA has stronger lows and smoother upper-mids, but another piece of either wood might sound different. Could come down to how the grain patterns in each piece absorb vibration. I mean, Paulownia is probably softer. Why wouldn't it absorb more upper-mids?
I like the paulownia better for the less harshness. I'll bet it weighs half as much as the ash too.
I like ash more
I really think active pickups are the best route to go w/Paulownia bodies Passive pickups can sometimes sound too resonant in Paulownia for my tastes personally. But when you have a more powerful pickup that isn't just hotter, wow!
It sounds like the resonance is suddenly cycling faster than with passive pickups, & because of this you get a less airy tone, that has more punch & roundness. More chime too. They really compliment this wood & I strongly suggest at least researching the sound before doing your own build.
Any difference can be made up in pickup winding, pole stagger, and magnet type. My favorite guitar right now is a Paulownia body, with a 60s style 2 piece roasted maple neck. I currently have a broadcaster bridge and alnico II neck. If I wanted a little more mids in my twang I'd get a 60s staggered bridge pickup. I love the tone, and the guitar hardly weighs over 5 lbs.
I have a Paulownia Strat w/a roasted maple Fender neck, & while I loved it when I had all kinds of different passive pup setups, the drastic (& to my ears far more pleasing) effect I got from active pickups blew me away. I play a lot of different styles & have a half dozen Strats, so I mix & match pickups a lot. I do a lot of both hands on the fretboard stuff, & I needed more bandwidth than what I was getting from my single coil setups, so I went with a coil-split Seymour Duncan Lil' 59 in the neck & it was sublime. I noticed something about the tone immediately when it was humbucking; it wasn't overly warm, like most HB's in a Strat neck tend to be & it was really snappy, more like a P90.
A couple weeks passed & I'd been thinking about how different the tone was, & how the "airy" elements I'd gotten from that body w/single coils had changed into more of a punchy chime & I figured it was because the stronger signal causing the oscillations that makeup the resonant profile of Paulownia, to speed up, & that's what changed the tone in such a pleasing way. It was great, but it wasn't perfect yet, & that's when I discovered active pickups, & what they do with Paulownia. I already had a set of EMG's in an Explorer, but they were average, & I didn't understand how they work really. It was when I was reading up on a new set for that guitar, that I learned about the way the pickup actually works (It isn't like you might think, since it's not much different than passive) & because they have a type of powered magnetism (that's what the battery is for), they have a more faithful signal that's very balanced & strong, w/o necessarily being hotter. It was doing the exact same thing as the humbucker, but without being a humbucker. I've had a lot of guitars & swapped out hundreds of pickups & I think this is my favorite out of all of them. It's like Strat tone, except with superpowers. And I don't shill for active pickups. I wasn't even a fan before this experience & had only ever had the one guitar w/a set before, but for the type of stuff I play, which is all over the map from country to pop, to prog to rock, to electronica, etc. (oh yeah, I busk in the NYC subway) there is absolutely nothing like this combo. That's why I spent 10 minutes writing this rant. It's that good. Try to get a second hand set & experiment! It's worth it, & the higher quality pups are usually entirely solderless, so they're easy move around & play around with. -Cheers!
They both are great👍
Maybe paulownia would pair well with a rosewood fretboard!
IDK. It has a bit of a honky tone. A pair of PAFs would probably balance the tone.
Swamp ash hits home for me
The Paulownia sounds a little brighter to me but the sound is great!
Great sound on both! Thanks for the comparison. What pickups were used in these?
Turn the tone knob treble brightness down on Paulownia version and they would be very close.
Love the light weight of the Paulownia, but in this example the swamp Ash sounds better or deeper somehow... I'm still looking for the right Kauffmann :)
Paulownia sounds more resonant imo.
Swamp Ash is better in my opinion. Fuller tone, bigger low end, compressed upper midrange.
I thought the ash had more mids, but nothing a change in pots or pickups couldn't change.
Or an EQ pedal.
Both nice prefer the swamp ash I think. What brand Tele are they? Are they for sale. Cost please
I would have a paulnownia any day.
Zouden jullie wellicht in de toekomst opnames kunnen maken via directe opname vormen ... dan kan men beter het geluid / karakter horen... naar mijn optiek... ben benieuwd naar jullie gedachten hierover.
The tone difference is in the hands of who's playing.
Acoustically it might be possible that there is a difference. I certainly don't think I would hear it.
Through an amp and then YT there is, of course, no difference.
ua-cam.com/video/LYBMmuNW7Sc/v-deo.html Here the fender custom shop tapping two bodies. Alder vs swamp ash. I wonder how high the resonance frequency of a paulownia body is. It seems higher than ash.
do you guys sell these tele made from paulownia? looking for a reduced weight tele.
ash have more midrange freq to my ears..
I like the Paulownia better. Nice absorption of the transients. A bit spongier.
Swamp Ash wins by far: more lively, more warm sound, more dynamics!
so subtle! but swamp ash has the slightest hint more lows
good old tonewood debate 😊
ASH way better, warmer tone in midrange and highs
Swamp ash sounds balanced and well behaved, but Paulownia really screams.. matter of preference I guess.
Swamp ash
Paulownia 1 o 2 piece?
Likely two pieces. The widest part of the tree will have a hole down the center of it. The first years growth is hollow. So it’s hard to get a solid blank wide enough to build a guitar body out of.
How to tell truly any difference with no proper micing. Sounds like somebody is playing guitar in the cellar ;-)
How many lbs. do They weigh?
The paulownia will be much lighter. When the wood it is wet it weighs a ton because it holds so much water. But once it’s dry it’s nearly as light as balsa wood.
Probably 4.5-5 lbs
I have 4 Paulownia body blanks in at 3lb or less.Thats amazing.
Wood has nothing to do with tone on an electric guitar, use anything cheap and available
You must be deaf.
It’s really more of a feel kind of thing than anything. Different woods vibrate differently, it’s a difference you will feel if you play different kinds of guitars. At the end of the day, a guitar is a guitar, but please tell me how a guitar with a mahogany body and one made of black limba feel the same, with same specs, same everything? Even if they got the same kind of pickups, there’s an X factor you can’t get with one or the other.
that’s hilarious. you apparently have “nothing to do”…. might wanna actually play some guitars and quit flat earthing. yer missing out, to say the least 😂
And attitude has nothing to do with choosing a wife.
This is objectively, provably wrong.
Yes i hear a difference...ash is more lively and spanky... more warm and Sounds familiar for a tele...
Ash wins...