Finest Traditional Materials

Mahogany and Maple Tone-woods
Since the 1950s, mahogany has had a reputation for being the best sounding body wood for an up-market electric guitar.
Mahogany is famous for its superb resonance and smooth full tone range.
Optionaly, capping the main body of mahogany with a thinner front of Maple, which is very hard, adds more attack and brighter harmonics.
Selecting the finest woods from the Maple family adds a beautiful shimmering optical effect to the front of the guitar.

Idigbo wood from Africa, (approximately the USA wood-importer trade-name "Korina") is a similar hardwood to mahogany in terms of sound, weight, strength and stiffness, but more versatile in appearance. Some guitarists rate it as superior in tone and resonance. My tone-tapping bare wood suggests it has an edge of superiority, but on a completed guitar I find it is hard to define any difference from mahogany in terms of tone. It has the same hardwood structure as mahogany with large hollow pores which give it the same beautifully balanced tone, but is light in colour, with more interesting grain structure, and makes a more attractive solid body than mahogany. It can be finished in a variety of wood-stains.

The Rees Workshop in Cambridge, England

Beautiful Inlays
The inlays for the rim binding are made of solid brass and shimmering abalone shell. They provide exceptional good-looks which are in-keeping with the exceptionally fine sounds of these instruments. No tone-sapping plastics are used for inlays.

Evolution
Historically, the first electric arch-top guitars were made like violins, hollow with thin solid carved fronts and backs. These were very good acoustically, resonant, but susceptible to feedback when amplified. Since the 1950s the front and backs of semi-acoustic guitars have usually been made from pressed laminated woods. This is cheaper to manufacture than solid carved wood, has much better resistance to feedback, but inferior sustain due to the crisscross wood grains, and glue content of the laminate. Consequently, arch-tops today are popular for jazz, but not very popular for rock. Solid bodied guitars, introduced in the 1950s, have been most popular due to their high sustain and feedback resistance. However, the best tone-wood, mahogany, is hard and makes very heavy guitars when the body is solid.

Light Weight and High Sustain
Using CAD design, and modern tools, it is now possible to hollow out and carve chambered guitars for the best of both attributes. Clearly, hollowing out a chamber reduces the weight, and allows construction of a comfortable optimally balanced instrument of mahogany. Less obviously, it is actually possible to create an instrument that has superior sustain and tone to the solid bodied guitar. This is because weight and strength of wood can be concentrated from the neck to bridge, yet at the same time can be fairly loosely coupled to the solid rim of the guitar, which is damped by the guitarists clothes and body. The front of a Rees guitar is carved from solid wood, as are the finest violins, and is not laminated in any way.

Home