Spruce species tonal differences

[Mike Scott]

First off I apologize. I'm sure this has been covered before, but I searched and wasn't able to find it. I did find a really informative article in Acoustic Guitar magazine, but it pertained only to guitars. So, assuming the top wood (without regard to carving and luthier skill) has the greatest affect on tone, what tonal differences could on expect between the various species of spruce. If someone wants to throw in some comments on the various types of cedar and or redwood too, go for it. In my mando journey I've had many of the various species and while they all sound different, it could be (probably is) just the different instruments in question. Plus my ear is not that good so that would play into it as well. So ???

[Marcus CA]

I saw that great article in Acoustic Guitar, and I assumed that most of the info also applied to mandolins, as well, but I really don't know for sure. One understandable omission for that article, though, would be how the different types of spruce affect the tone and projection of chop chords.

As for cedar and redwood, I like them on guitars and dulcimers, but not on mandolins. I find the tone of cedar to be significantly warmer and mellower, and the tone of spruce to be brighter, with redwood in between the two. For the types of music I play on mandolin, I go for the brightness.

[sunburst]

I saw the article in Acoustic Guitar as well, and if I hadn't been around so long and been over this subject so many times, and hadn't learned that people just seem to crave identifiable differences between top wood species, it would have angered and frustrated me. Well, it did a little bit...
Spruce wood can vary greatly from tree to tree and from piece to piece from the same or similar tree. The main things that determine how it will react to the luthiers efforts are stiffness and density. The difference in stiffness with the grain and across the grain also can have some affect, but the builder can compensate for that for more consistency of sound.
In general, some spruce species are stiffer and more dense than others, but they overlap so much that the pieces of spruce used for tops can absolutely defy those generalizations and we can have a relatively light and limp piece of red spruce next to a relatively stiff and dense piece of engelmann spruce. In other words, the generalities of stiffness/density differences, and therefore sound differences between species are completely overshadowed by the differences from one piece of wood to the next across species. Add to that the work of the luthier to control the sound, and trying to attribute differences in sound to top wood species is more a topic of conversation than it is a real thing... yet people want sound differences and believe that they exist to the point that there are many articles and writings like the recent one in Acoustic Guitar Magazine reinforcing the stereotypes.
As Bruce often says; from examining wood samples, we can't tell the species of spruce apart, unless one of them is sitka and we have a magnifying glass and we know what to look for.

[Mike Scott]

John, thanks very much for that explanation. I kinda sorta thought that could be the case, but not being that skookum on that kind of stuff, thought it may be interesting, at least to me to ask the question.