Poplar body on the Steve Morse?

[kbaim]

And I'm seeing him live 3X in about 2 weeks.

Nyah, Nyah...Nyah, nyah, nyah.

[tommyindelaware]

poplar was picked (by steve) due to it's tone ....warm...yet snappy.......w/ really good midrange......steve's big on mid-range...
alder is probabally as ( lower cost ) as poplar by the way....

[kbaim]

I heard he just went "eenie, meenie, miney, moe".

[PurpleSport]

Fender rarely used poplar at all, and I don't think they even started using it at all until the last decade or so.

Gotta disagree. I distinctly remember seeing mention of '70s-era Fenders using poplar as the alternate wood for their solid color bodies in one of the early versions of Tom Wheeler's "The Guitar Book" (oddly enough, this was back when I did a report on the Les Paul back in high school in the early 80s!).

My girlfriend just gave me another new coffee table strat book from Wheeler for Xmas that I've not been able to check out yet - will be interesting to see if the info's in there too.

Re: Morse and Johnson having similar tone, I personally think they sound totally different, esp. that Axemas track - maybe I'm biased because I'm a longtime EJ fan. However, there's a demo on the DiMarzio site with a guy who's a near dead ringer for Eric - I think it can be found on the page for the Virtual Vintage Solo.

[Hookpunch]

Hey Purplesport -I agree in they have vastly different tones -although Steve is more over the place and Eric usually has the same (but great) tone. Back then I had not listened to much Steve Morse - but had played Ah Via Musicom incessantly

That one Axemas track however - that in the words of my teacher at the time"I think he must be playing Johnson's guitar"

I might not think so now though, having become a big Morse fan I would probably more recognize it as Steve's tone.

[KungFu Grip]

Fender used both alder and poplar for similar purposes. They just used whichever one was cheaper. Also, my opinion is that Poplar is one of the best sounding solidbody woods out there. I prefer it to both alder and ash. However, poplar often has some green grain in it, so it's more apt to be used for non-transparent finishes. Even my Morse shows a few green grains on the back.

Poplar is great wood. I'd love to hear my Albert Lee with a poplar body.