Poplar body on the Steve Morse?

[Deacon]

I'm kind of surprised that EBMM uses poplar on a relatively high end guitar like the Morse.

I always thought poplar was a lower cost and somewhat lower quality tonewood for solid body guitars compared to alder, ash or mahogany.

For example, several of the lower-priced F_nder models use poplar bodies.

Anyone have any info or opinion on this?

Thanks!

 

[Lew]

yeah...if you were told it was ash,would you have known the difference?

I hear the same things about basswood,I just posted on the wolfgang registry about this,surely wood quality is the factor here not wood species and Steve morse seems to get by using it
Alot of people see basswood as a low quality wood aswell,but that doesnt stop EVH getting his tone out of basswood or vai(ok bad example ) or Vinnie moore.

 

[Hookpunch]

The poplar is probably Steve's specifications - my guess is that his original Frankenstein guitar which was a Tele body with a Strat neck might have been poplar.

I was listening to Steve's CDs before and after he started using the Musicman and I think his tone is better with the EBMM.

 

[Deacon]

yeah...if you were told it was ash,would you have known the difference?

I hear the same things about basswood,I just posted on the wolfgang registry about this,surely wood quality is the factor here not wood species and Steve morse seems to get by using it
Alot of people see basswood as a low quality wood aswell,but that doesnt stop EVH getting his tone out of basswood or vai(ok bad example ) or Vinnie moore.

Actually, I probably would have been able to tell the difference visually between poplar and an ash body (if the finish is translucent). I would have a harder time telling poplar from alder, I think.

I have had some poplar body guitars that sounded great, but you generally don't see it being used much in higher end guitars, that's all.

Heck, if I could get the tone Morse does I wouldn't care if the body was made from recycled milk jugs!!

 

[Lew]

Sorry I re read my post and I didn't mean to sound as short as i did.I meant in the tone dept as to telling the difference.
Do you have a morse?

 

[Deacon]

Sorry I re read my post and I didn't mean to sound as short as i did.I meant in the tone dept as to telling the difference.
Do you have a morse?

No problem

Don't have a Morse, but my lust for one is growing daily. I'm torn between getting one of those, or a Silhouette ... which in my case generally means I'll eventually end up with both.

 

[Deacon]

The poplar is probably Steve's specifications - my guess is that his original Frankenstein guitar which was a Tele body with a Strat neck might have been poplar.

I was listening to Steve's CDs before and after he started using the Musicman and I think his tone is better with the EBMM.

I doubt Morse's old FrankenTele had a poplar body. Fender rarely used poplar at all, and I don't think they even started using it at all until the last decade or so. Based on the pics I've seen, I would guess his Tele was an ash body.

I'm not dissing the use of poplar in the SM. I was just curious to see if anyone here knew why that particular wood was selected for use in the SM design.

 

[Raz]

I just realized that the JP's and the Axis are basswood, while the Silo's and the Luke's are alder. We know the SM is poplar along with the Sub1, and the AL is swamp ash...wow such variety! I justed wanted to post, sorry!

 

[kbaim]

Interesting thread.

There's no bigger fan of steve's than me (except maybe Norm), but I will say that while his composing and playing surpasses all others in my book, and if I could only listen to one persons music, it would be his...

But as far as tone goes, I can think of a few others whose tone in general I prefer. Satriani, Eric Johnson, Luke, and Larry Carlton come to mind.
KEITH

 

[Deacon]

Interesting thread.

There's no bigger fan of steve's than me (except maybe Norm), but I will say that while his composing and playing surpasses all others in my book, and if I could only listen to one persons music, it would be his...

But as far as tone goes, I can think of a few others whose tone in general I prefer. Satriani, Eric Johnson, Luke, and Larry Carlton come to mind.
KEITH

Granted, I haven't heard tons of Morse's recordings. On his CD "Major Impacts", he shows off a wide variety of pretty great sounding tones in addition to some wonderful chops.

My personal tone heros include folks like Robben Ford, Derek Trucks, SRV, Peter Green (in the Fleetwood Mac early days), Scott Henderson, Gary Moore, and Ronnie Earl among others.

 

[Hookpunch]

not so sure Kbaim - Steve's tone can be comparable to Johnson's - one of my guitar teachers thought his Joy to the World on Merry Axemas was Johnson.

I think Steve has a wide variety of tones , much the way his music is so varied -Satch and Johnson et. al always have the same tone. That is likely why he has such a unique pickup arrangement as he does.

I love Satch's tone myself - but guitar1 had him listed as one of their 10 worst - the comment was "like Charlie Brown's teacher"

 

[kbaim]

I think his variety of tones is a huge reason why I'm drawn to his music so much.

And it's all just opinion. I saw that guitar one comment and thought it funny. Probably due to Satch's heavy wah wah use.

Now if you asked me if I'd rather play like steve or have Joe or eric's tone, I'd pick playing like steve...but I'd settle for having their tone.

 

[NorM]

No problem

Don't have a Morse, but my lust for one is growing daily. I'm torn between getting one of those, or a Silhouette ... which in my case generally means I'll eventually end up with both.

That's what I did and I have never regretted it.

 

[tommyindelaware]

it takes eric years to finish a recording.
it takes steve a couple weeks.
????????

 

[jongitarz]

Good point!

 

[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.