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I have been googling around trying to understand the many varied differences in spruces for tops. Lots of info out there, and needless to say, I have become a bit confused. I am mindful of the fact that various sponsors provide access to many of the spruces. I am not asking what is the best, I am asking what each of the following provides the end user in terms of cost (and relative rarity), color, grain, strength, figure, and tone

1. Engelman

2. Sitka

3. Lutz

4. Carpathian

5. Adirondack (red spruce)

6. German Spruce

7. Italian Spruce

There are others, I am sure... add as you feel led. Also, my characteristic list may need of features

Thanks for the help,

Mike

Hi Mike,
There are many others here that could surely answer your question better than I, but I can still try and give my 2 cents based on what I've personally experienced and read from various GAL articles......

-Engelmann
This Spruce is supposedly closest to European Spruce in color and sound compared to the other domestic Spruces on the list.

-Sitka
Much brighter tone-wise than Engelmann and perhaps all others too. It's best feature as a Spruce is it's superior strength compared to the others. That's why I always use this wood for braces.

-Lutz
I don't know. Never used it or read anything worth repeating.

-Carpathian
Interesting Spruce. It's supposed to share a lot of characteristics with the Euro breed. I've personally never used it.

-Adirondack
One of the most fabled of the clan! No doubt from it's use in a lot of gorgeous sounding pre-war Martins and Gibsons. My favorite guitar I own is a pre-war Gibson archtop with an Adi top. I don't know how it looks compared to everything else. Very few sources for this stuff! So few in fact, that one fellow I know who's in the business of selling it has a special grading system for it. For example.... Sitka Spruce with lots of variations of space between the growth rings he would obviously grade quite low. Well, with Adi it's a different story. He may grade that as a "good" piece. You get the idea. Did it make those pre-wars sound as amazing as the way they did? I don't know. YMMV.

-German
Be careful! Ironically enough.... some "German" wood has sometimes been bought from the USA by sellers in Germany. Some people will tell you that there is no such thing as "German" Spruce. There are some great sellers in Germany that do cut on German soil so it is German. I believe that they get the stuff near the region I discuss in the next category.

-Italian
Bellissimo! For me personally, this is where it's at! A lot of the good Italian firms get their trees in the Tyrol region, almost near Austria. Supposedly, this is where that guy Stradivari got his stuff from too. I use it for archtops. A good piece is very fine and kind of milky white. Of course the worst part about this wood is the price! It can definitely be worth it though. And I'll tell you.... I've NEVER heard a tap tone ring out so loud when I did my usual test. Absolutely unreal. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Hope this sheds a little light on it though.
-John

Here's a good list of the Spruce species and subspecies

Of course, that list doesn't tell you anything about the characteristics of the individual species at all, much less the characteristics as discussed in lutherie (which of course would be subjective.)

It is my understanding that once a White Spruce tree and a Red Spruce tree are logged (and the needles and especially the cones are not there to provide the identification), that it is impossible to distinguish White Spruce from Red Spruce. Since the growing regions overlap, it is almost certain that some of the precious "Adi" topped guitars are in fact White, not Red Spruce. So, if you like Adi, you might want to expand your search to include White Spruce.

John, you may want to contact Shane Neifer and get a Lutz top and try it for yourself. Many luthiers like the material. Lutz is a Sitka Spruce + White Spruce Hybrid (and some sources say that some trees may also have crossed with Engelmann as well), so individual boards may be pink and more "Sitka-like", and other boards very stiff and whiter colored with more pronounced growth rings, like White Spruce.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Well, the stuff (Lutz) I get from Shane is most def not milky white. It has orange tones. BTW, as Dennis pointed out, it is a hybrid, albiet a natural one. Guess that is because of overlapping regions of habitats.

One of the reasons I asked this is because someone interested in my harps said they like the more "amberish" color of Sitka (see my avatar). But could that not be due to the use of Shellac back in the day? And aging?

John, how could you characterize your response as anything less than totally spot on and comprehensive? Thank you.

I've seen euro spruce guitars that were honey like in color only after 10 years. It really boils down to the amount of exposure it gets.

Other than this, euro spruce is the same species and characteristics regardless of the region, be it Bavaria, Switzerland, Tyrol or northern Italy. The eastern European variety is again same species but tends to have wider rings simply because of the different clime and geography. Density of these vary as with any wood.

The tops I got from Shane have a dark reddish creamy tint to them from the start, which looks very nice under blond shellac. Euro is much more white and the creamy tint is yellow rather than red. Lutz weight and stiffness virtually identical to the Austrian spruce I have, and a bit heavier than the Italian Rivolta usually has.

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Build log

The German spruce tops I got from Martin Guhl at BestEuroSpruce are said to be cutted in Bavaria, not Alps. They are denser than all the Swiss spruce I have. Most Sitka I have are also lighter than them.

I know virtually nothing about the North American spruces, never having felt the need to use any, though I do have a top in the process of being made using some of Shane's Lutz.

However I can talk about the European spruces. First can we establish the fact that there are only two species that are of interest to the instrument maker, Picea abies (European spruce) and Picea orientalis (Caucasian spruce).

All of the designations given to sub-divide the European spruce into regional variations are simply that regional designation.
Swiss, Austrian, German, Italian (even Fiemme), and Carpathian are just terms used to loosely descibe the region that the Picea abies was growing.

The wood sold as Carpathian spruce is also simply ordinary European spruce, P.abies, grown in the Carpathian mountains of Eastern Europe. It's another marketing name, no more. All European wood will show variations according to it's growing conditions, no matter which part of Europe it comes from. Wood grown at different altitude or on the North/South side of a mountain will show different growth characteristics, so it's impossible to say that for instance Austrian spruce has this characteristic whereas Italian has another. Each piece of wood has to be evaluated, no matter where it comes from, for it's own individual characteristics.

Picea orientalis, or Caucasian spruce is a different species and comes from the Caucasus mountain area of the European/Asian borders. I get mine from Turkey. This is another great tonewood that I have used on a number of guitars, including two recent Torres copies with a third in the making. Historically it is thought that this wood was commonly used by the Southern European builders, particularly in Spain where transport from the Levant by sea was often easier than the road route across the Pyranees from Northern Europe. The builders of the 18th and 19th century couldn't just go to there local tonewood dealer for their ready cut tops, but just bought 'pine' from the local importers, the neither knew, or likely cared, what species it was or even it's country of origin, all they worried about was is it good wood.

I have P. abies wood from all of the major production areas, I do have there place of origin marked on them, but if I shuffled them all up I certainly wouldn't be a able to pick out the nation of origin. I can tell the Caucasian from the European, but good Euro is good Euro I have no preferenece for good Italian over good Austrian, or good German over good Swiss, they are all good wood.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Its often commented that good Italian spruce has a very sharp attack so is great for fingerstyle guitars, but what i suspect is being commented on is that much of the best stuff is from the higher alpine altitudes eg alpine spruce and thus is very slow grow and therefore very tight straight grained = strong = thinnner tops possible and thus greater repsonse?

Just wondered which of the two is englemann

Here is what Martin says about the matter:

Not sure what you mean, Englmann is Picea englemanii, one of the North American species.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Are you serious? Ive heard nothing but good things about it from builders, the guiitars Ive heard built with it sound amazing, and the pieces I have are amazing tap wise and in appearance!!
not to mention many larger makers are starting to take notice of its great properties also ....
Im not sure if your mention of Lutz was supposed to sound like a barb but it kinda did.... I think this is a precious resuorce that will be sought after in instruments one day for its unique character,,,
Cheers
Charlie

In terms of the measurable properties that ought to be important for tone production, spruce is spruce. I'm told that most of the different species are difficult to tell apart from a sample of the wood, even for an expert with a microscope. In general, the lengthwise stiffness scales pretty closely with the density, and there's surprisngly little scatter in the data. Crosswise stiffness for any species is all over the lot, being much more sensitive to grain angle than anything else.

That said, it is true that IN GENERAL you can rank the different spruces according to density: Englemann is usually the least dense, followed by European, white, Red and Sitka, in the samples I've measured. However, I have some Englemann tops that are as dense as the desnsest Sitka in the shop. If I hadn't ordered Englemann Ii'd have said it was some particularly clean Red, so species is not all that diagnostic in that respect.

It is said that, all else equal, Sitka has a somewhat lower cross grain stiffness than, say, Euro or Red. I haven't tested enough samples to be able to sort that one out. One researcher also found that Sitka had a 'different' damping characteristic from Euro spruce: dissipating more energy in the low frequency range. It's hard to say whether that's real, or just an artifact of his measurement setup.

In fact, from what I can see, damping is really one of the more reliable species-dependant properties, and, with the possible exception of Sitka, it doesn't seem to vary much among the spruces. Cedar and redwood do tend to have markedly lower damping than any of the spruces on average.

Ultimately, if I've learned anything from measuring the properties of a bunch of tops, it's that you have to go by the piece, rather than the species. There is so much overlap that talking about the 'Euro sound', let alone 'Swiss' as opposed to 'Italian' seems pointless to me. It is, of course, true, that people hear what they expect to hear, luthiers no less than others, and I have to wonder if a lot of the differences we 'hear' are simply what's been drilled into us by suppliers trying for a commercial advantage (AKA hype).

[Ultimately, if I've learned anything from measuring the properties of a bunch of tops, it's that you have to go by the piece, rather than the species]

As stated by Al !!

Al has nailed again !!

Mike

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Mike Collins

I think there is a lot of truth in this... as a player, visiting my local acoustic shop, Guitar junction in Worthing, Sussex, who stock Martins old and new, + a very good selection of fine handmades from smaller outfits, there is definitely something extra about the Adi guitars... but is this the wood or the fact that despite most of it nowadays being wider grained 'quicker' growth - the fact that is more expensive and thus reserved (certainly by Martin) for the more expensive models - its given extra attention? a finer hand , more select bracing and additional 'voicing' that gives it that it extra? For Dreads its perfect with that added volume and crisp sound, but alpine slow growth does also feature on OMs, OOO, etc and sounds darn good when well made... I am starting to think itsless about the wood and more about the skill in bracing and general attention to build. Afterall we use to be told as buyers that 'close grain' was what to look for - yet most of the new build Adi tops look like constuction grade! yet sound great - or this is just expectatioleading the ear?

Hey guys!
My comment about Lutz didn't come out the way I meant it. It was late when I posted.
What I said made Lutz sound like it's a bad Spruce. What I really meant was.... First off I've never handled it so I have zero experience with it. And when I said the bit about "nothing worth repeating".... I meant that I can't remember reading anything about Lutz, specs-wise. Basically I don't know much of anything really about this Spruce.

About the color of any Spruce changing over the years..... How did you judge this? I hope it wasn't on a finished instrument.... Yes, wood changes color with years but so does nitrocellulose and other finishes! A lot of times when I hear people remark about the wood getting darker, etc.... over the years I have to wonder if they're talking about something in their stockpile or are they talking about an instrument?

And about Euro Spruce which also used to be called Picea Excelsa.... There are very big differences, IMO. I will say that most (if not all) of the different Euro stuff I've used has been terrific, but I would be lying if I said that all Euro sounds and feels the same to me. Or to take it a step further, all Euro is created equally. I don't think that they are. I personally happen to think that Italian or Tyrolian Spruce has in my experience the best characteristics for what I'm doing. I'm not knocking all the other stuff. If someone likes using exclusively German or "insert region here" Spruce than that is what's best. I'm just speaking out of my experience. I also have a bit of history to back me up too. The Tyrol is a spot where luthiers have sourced their Spruce for at least the last 4 centuries, so there's something good about it.

Mike O, I'm very glad you got a little use out of my post! Thanks.
-John

Trying to compare spruce that was cut down three hundred years ago with spruce from the same region today IMO is pointless.Climatic changes,higher levels of co2,as well as other factors,weigh in against a fair comparison.The choice of wood from this area might also have had more to do with its' proximity to a violin making region than to its' superiority.I've read that some of the great sounding Torrez classicals have had 'mismatched' tops,runout,and wide grain,all features that today would be considered inferior,yet they produced great sounding guitars.

Since CO2 is tree food, then we should be getting better trees!

BTW, maybe we should consolidate info like this into web accessible spreadsheets?

I know, give the job to the suggester...

Every builder on the forum should comment in this thread, we could possibly get quite a few different opinions.
I know that I hear what I want to hear. When I build with sitka, or red, or euro, I choose it to aim the tone where I want it to go.
Then my wife listens to the finished guitar, and says "it sounds like all your other guitars." That is supposed to be a compliment, but it tells me something else. I build how I build, why wouldn't they all have a similar sound?

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John Arnold posted this on the 'Acoustic Guitar Forum'...
"To say that the different spruces ‘overlap’ in their physical characteristics may look good on paper, but I haven’t found it to be true. Each has their own range of physical traits and characteristic sound. Sitka is tough, spongy and stringy, Engelmann is the softest and lightest, red and Euro are hard and stiff, with red and Sitka the densest. You can select a Sitka and a red top with the same grain count, density, and stiffness, but they won’t sound anything alike. That is because the dynamic characteristics are different. Sitka has much higher damping, which reduces the high frequencies. The ‘dull’ high end is one reason that I have never built a guitar with a Sitka top. Before I started cutting red spruce, I primarily used Engelmann.

Distinguishing the spruces in a finished guitar can be tricky. Sitka is the one that is most different, with larger medullary rays and resin canals. This is easy to see with a 10 power hand lens, viewing a transverse (end grain) section. In a finished guitar, I look for the pronounced silking, the resin canals visible with the naked eye (dark streaks about 3/8” long), and the darkening on exposure (it darkens more and faster than the other spruces).
Sitka is also unique in its growing conditions. It grows only on the Pacific coast, where the rainfall is high and the temperature moderate. Rainfall is the probable explanation for the larger rays, since they are the vessels that conduct water in the tree. The other spruces achieve their best growth in mountain conditions which are colder and drier.
An experienced luthier working the raw wood will have much less trouble distinguishing the spruces because of the differences in hardness, workability, and stiffness. Workability is another reason I shy away from Sitka, because it is tough and spongy. It just never has ‘felt right’ to me."

http://69.41.173.82/forums/showthread.p ... ost1715943

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Jeremy Douglas

My theory is that LMI made this up to market Engelmann. At very least, it was secondhand information when they published it in their catalog, without every documenting real cases where this happened or identifying who their source was.

Whenever I've seen these worries they seem to all go back to that old LMI catalog....

Agree about Italian (or European Spruce in General).

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Filippo Morelli wrote:
"Appreciate your comment, but I'd like to add another perspective. The above statement crisply explains why measurement tools and "science" are not the last word on what contributes to sound quality. There is no better example of this than the recent GAL article on sound ports. "

The one by R.M. Motolla? I have to agree, to some extent. When he first sent me a copy for review, I pointed out that all of his tests had been done in small, quiet rooms; exactly the sort of room where you are unlikely to hear a difference. I wish he had included that in the article.

"Measurement may say "spruce is spruce", but measuring tools don't build instruments, luthiers do. Their senses, coupled with their brains, blow away the technology brought to the tone production table. I think the key misnomer here is the phrase "ought to be important"."

I'm the first to agree that there are things we can hear that we can't yet measure. This is far from saying that 'measurements are irrelevant' and that we should simply 'trust the force'.

"That said, as others have noted, generality is generally useful, not specifically useful. "

Which is my point. In general, Sitka spruce is more dense and stiffer along the grain than Englemann, but that does not mean that the next piece of Sitka in the stack is going to be dense and stiff. Much of the discussion about tone wood seems to assume that all Sitka acts alike, and is different from all Englemann. As I said in my previous post, I have some wood that I'd have sworn was Red spruce, except that it was sold to me as Englemann. I've seen Sitka that was as white and 'rang' as long as Euro. I'm not trying to dismantle the conventional wisdom in a general sense, but simply to apply a corrective to what I see as an over reliance on generalizations, and a tendancy to split hairs that can't really be split. Is Swiss spruce REALLY different from Italian?

One thing that measurements have shown is that most people are not nearly as good at judging things like stiffness and density as they think they are. I always keep what I call 'Feynman's Dictum' in mind: you are the easiest person for you to fool. We all tend to hear what we think we're going to hear, and the point of measurements is to set the record straight. But, at the same time as we look for the limitations in our subjective judgements, we also have to be aware of the limitations of measurements.

Filippo wrote:
"Art is science with too many variables."

I need to put that one up in my shop, along with 'Simplicate and add more lightness'.

I don't know if you've ever tried to make a 'matched pair' of guitars before. It's not easy. Even when you have 'the same' wood, and work everything to tolerances that are as close as you can, they will probably sound a bit different; one might be 'clearer' than the other, for example. In that case, of course, you can't attribute the difference to a different species of top wood; it's just one of those things. So suppose you make two guitars with different top woods, and one is a little 'clearer' than the other: most of the time we tend to attribute the difference to the wood, but can you be sure?

Of course, if some manufacturer like Taylor, which has the ability to work to extremely close tolerances, makes a hundred guitars with Sitka, and a hundred with European, and everything else is the same, you might be able to draw a statistical conclusion, but even that would be 'iffy'. After all, what's the likelihood of getting a hundred backs that are the same? A hundred sets of bracing?

It's my opinion that the differences between spruce species, although they are statistically significant over a large sample, are still smaller than the ability of most of us to control the outcome if you control for wood density, stiffness and damping. I'm pretty sure that most of us, if given a set of Sitka and one of Red that measured 'the same' would make guitars that were as much alike (or different) as we would from two matched sets of Red. Given the range of variation in all woods, it's not too hard to find tops of different species that do match in these ways. In that sense, then, I think that 'spruce is spruce'.

I could, of course, be wrong. In the end I think it comes down to what your friend says: there are too many variables. Maybe at some point we'll figure out what some of those are and how to measure them, and maybe not. I'm not much of a believer in 'the force', but am quite ready to admit that there's a lot we don't know yet. All I can do is go with what I know, and try to learn.

Not having much money I tend to look for different studies to try and figure out why the woods we use might have differing acoustic properties here are a couple of pdf's that seem to suggest that species adaptation to local has an effect.

http://www.coford.ie/iopen24/pub/COFORD-Connects/Mechanical.pdf

http://www.pierroton.inra.fr/WBB/Abstracts/S3p/Ulla_Vainio.1.htm

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

All the posts above aptly point out one of the intangible secrets to why so many embark on this quest for the 'holy grail'of the perfect sound.We are human, and love a good mystery!