[sakeido]

I'm not diggin how my S7320 feels, and I don't dig how my JP7 sounds and costs so I was looking to replace them both with something different. The Jackson Stars Soloist 7s on Ikebe caught my eye, but they are maple necks with alder wings and then ebony fretboards. If I remember right, these are all pretty bright sounding woods. How would that sound altogether?

I'd be putting my Lundgren M7 in the bridge position which on its own is a pretty bright pickup. I like the sheer bark and authority I've been getting out of my LTD PB-500 (think giant Les Paul sound) and man, low B and C palm mutes are sweet in an all mahogany guitar. That is the kind of tone I normally go for but I haven't really been able to find a good affordable one in my price range that is not a Carvin.

Would the SL7 get me close to a big bottom end sound, or is it going be all upper mids and shrill highs? Would I get closer to my "tone" with the Schecter Loomis 7 (swamp ash body with maple neck and fretboard and EMG 707s, and a bigger the normal body?)

[FortePenance]

I think someone here once said that Meshuggah's Nevborn guitars used to be made of a maple bod and maple neck? I thought their tone had some nice bass in some albums.

I used to have a guitar with an Alder body, maple neck and rosewood fretboard. It was kind of dry and midrangey through my Microcube. I tried it through a Laney 2x12 though and I got some pretty heavy bass. So yeah, I gueess it wouldn't be too bad.

[HighGain510]

You can have my carvin! Mine is an alder body, maple neckthru with an ebony board. They sound bright (in my experience) but that can be tamed a bit by putting in a good pickup that might add a little darker tone to the equation. The thing is that I prefer a bright guitar because it's easier to dial that out (unless it's CRAZY bright) than it is to brighten up a dark-sounding guitar, if that makes any sense.

[eelblack2]

I agree with Highgain, you can dial out highend easily and still have a solid snap to the string. Adding high end is not so easy without adding EQ which always introduces noice and mutates the sound from the original intention.


Im fairly convinced from my bodywood experments with maple, ash, and swamp ash that there is almost no such thing as "too bright" a seven string that cannot be tamed by pickup and preamp.

[kherman]

Maple is considered a bright wood.
With a neck-thru your pickups sit mainly in that neck wood.
So, if the neck-thru neck is maple, that will be your dominent tone wood.
The alder wings still do help a bit to tame it.
Alder is considered a medium tone wood.

With the Jeff Loomis, that guitar is a set neck.
So, the pickups sit in the ash body. That will be your dominent tone wood.
Ash is considered a medium tone wood.

Personally I like the maple neck-thru/alder wings of my Carvin DC727.
Of course my '89 Carvins are all maple.
So the '05 Dc727 sounds warmer in comparison.

If you've ever noticed, a lot of high end basses tend to have brighter tone woods. Really help bring out the clarity of those low bass notes.
I think the same can be said for a 7 string with a maple neck thru.
Helps bring out the clarity.

Woods like mahogany or koa can be very rich, deep, and dark sounding.
They work great on a conventional 6 string. (Ala a LP)
But, may be too deep and dark for the low B of a 7 string.
May make that low B muddy.

[xwmucradiox]

The esp steph carpenters are like this and they are very focused and pretty bright but the overall sound is more balanced than an LP type guitar.

BTW - is there a link to those guitars because everytime I go to Ikebe and look for Jackson Stars guitars I only get a few 6 strings soloists.

[zimbloth]

Thats exactly how my custom shop Rico 7 is. If you pair it up with a relatively dark sounding pickup, it won't be shrill or too bright. Excellent sustain, bite, articulation, aggressive mids, tight bottom end, etc are characteristics I'd use. The neck-thru factor is huge though, because with a neck-thru, the vast majority of the tone you're hearing is the maple not the alder wings. On a bolt-on or set-neck that would be different.

[noodles]

Go to a music store an pick up just about any neckthru Jackson. Alder is an awesome wood, with great attack and very musical tone.

I own a Jackson Stars Soloist. I'd buy a Carvin instead, since they're cheaper than importing a Stars, and are better quality. My Stars was a good guitar for the $600 range, but I wouldn't pay much more than that for it. They're not anywhere near the quality of the US stuff, because all the Stars sevens I've seen have been in the lower end of the line.

[MF_Kitten]

imagine a maple neck through baritone 7 with maple wings, with a Bare Knuckle Warpig in it... i believe that would slay :P

but yeah, about the issue at hand, what the other guy said about the bass guitars having bright tone woods is something to think about... my 5 string bass is made from Agathis, which is pretty bright... what this does, is it opens up the low end of the tone, and makes the bass part of the sound really clear and tight...

so yeah... i would say though, that it sort of depends on how deep you tune... i´m no expert in this, but i would say that the deeper you tune, the brighter the wood you should have... like if you tune down to F with a mahogany guitar, you better have some bright pickups :P

which brings me to just that... pickups... you could get brighter pickups?

really bright pickups in dark woods would work...

also, what someone here said about it being easier to dial out brightness than dialing it in is true, BUT this also goes for mids and low end... so if you have a too bright guitar, it won´t have enough bass and mids in the sound...

personally, i like mahogany up to a certain point, but allround my favourite wod is Basswood... it´s just so damn allround-ish, it´s not too bright or dark, it´s got the middle of the spectrum covered...

[ohio_eric]

Alder + Maple + Ebony = Sex. It's my favorite wood combination. It's clear and very balanced across the frequency spectrum.

I agree with HG510 in that it's easier to tame a bright guitar than to brighten up a dark one. So I tend to favor brighter guitars.