What is a wing body?

[Astrikos]

Hi I'm interested buying an ibanez rgt6exfx.It said mahogany body with basswood wings.What are the wings and why they just use mahogany instead using 2 types of wood?Also in the ibanez web site is said Mahogany wing body http://www.thomann.de/gr/ibanez_rgt6exfx_bk.htm

[Last_Confession]

its a neck thru man so theres one piece of wood running from the headstock to the bottom strap pin, 2 "wings" are then glued to this central piece one on each side to form the body

[Astrikos]

Hey guys thanks for the fast reply.How come the info on both sites are different and do you think the basswood wings will affect somehow the sound of the mahogany?I'm not a basswood fan.Should i go for a jackson dkmgt for the same money or maybe an esp?Thanks.

[Soultrash]

get a guitar that swings sounds (amplified/unamplified) feels and looks good.
wood (not talking about good and bad wood!!!)
affects the tone surely but it's very VERY minimal IMHO.

ibanez is nice but in that price range i'll go for a LTD MH 401 NT.

cheers
S.

[STINNETT]

The tone of a neck thru, to the extent that any guitar's tone is shaped by the type of wood it is constructed from (which is debatable, but generally less than what people think in my opinion), is shaped mostly by the neck and much less so by the body wings. It's nothing like a one piece body.

So in other words, I wouldn't let that drastically influence your decision.

[Astrikos]

Thanks guys

[skeksis268]

Originally Posted by STINNETT

The tone of a neck thru, to the extent that any guitar's tone is shaped by the type of wood it is constructed from (which is debatable, but generally less than what people think in my opinion), is shaped mostly by the neck and much less so by the body wings. It's nothing like a one piece body.

So in other words, I wouldn't let that drastically influence your decision.

What is it that forms the main difference between 2 guitars with the same pickups but different woods? I have a cheap bolt on superstrat made of what i presume is alder and an ESP LTD Mh400 which is mahogany w/ maple cap both with EMG 81s in the bridge. The strat copy sounds much thinner and somehow crunchy where the LTD sound far warmer and deeper with much more low mids. The difference is really quite stark, what would you say is the deciding factor in this? I had always presumed it was the wood

[Metaltastic]

I'm still gonna go with wood personally

[slashvanyoung]

When I compare my Teles which all have different body woods reaching from all-maple to mahogany, the differences are are quite significant.

[STINNETT]

Originally Posted by skeksis268

What is it that forms the main difference between 2 guitars with the same pickups but different woods? I have a cheap bolt on superstrat made of what i presume is alder and an ESP LTD Mh400 which is mahogany w/ maple cap both with EMG 81s in the bridge. The strat copy sounds much thinner and somehow crunchy where the LTD sound far warmer and deeper with much more low mids. The difference is really quite stark, what would you say is the deciding factor in this? I had always presumed it was the wood

It would seem to me that those 2 guitars probably differ in far more than just the woods, a lot of the difference is there as well.
I'm not saying that the wood doesn't make a difference, but everything else being equal, it's not always a drastic difference.

If you had an exact copy of the LTD with only an alder body instead of mahogany, it wouldn't be anywhere near as noticable as the difference between the LTD and the Strat overall, that's all I'm saying.

In addition to the different woods, there is also the neck joint, neck stiffness, bridge type, etc. Lots of other factors.

[STINNETT]

Originally Posted by slashvanyoung

When I compare my Teles which all have different body woods reaching from all-maple to mahogany, the differences are are quite significant.

I wouldn't argue against that.

A thick slab body is going to make a significant impact on the sound, and I think that can be generalized somewhat with different species. But every piece of wood sounds different too, even among the same species. I bet if you had 5 mahogany Teles with indentical appointments, they would all sound different as well.

My point was that the differences in many situations (not necessarily with bolt-ons and slab bodies) are generally more subtle than most people think. Some people with sensitive ears notice differences quite easily, and over time they wind up with drastically different perceptions of what various woods sound like, and that's perfectly justified, but many of those differences would be totally lost on the average person. (And probably most of the time on a non average person in a blind test!)

I also can't count the number of people I've known who compared the tone of two drastically different guitars - different construction, different hardware, different pickups - but felt that they could make distinctions based on the species of wood the guitars were made of. That's just hype at work if you ask me.

That's really what I was getting at.

Interesting side-point. I've weighed mahogany body blanks cut from the same board that had significant weight differences. Also different slabs of maple used for necks; some of them are super stiff, and some of them are rubber. That makes a big difference, but those decisions are down to wood quality - not so much wood species. But people would still blame it on the wood species.

Shit, I'm just babbling. Wood definitely makes a difference, but in regards to the original poster - with a neck thru, the body wings won't make nearly as much of an impact based on their wood type as a solid bolt-on body would.

[slashvanyoung]

Absolutely agreeing there, Will!

[Astrikos]

Any opinions about ESP LTD H-401FM,ESP LTD MH-401QM NT.Thomann has the h401 for 719 euros and MH-401QM NT at music store proffesional for 779.Do you think the difference is just cosmetics?Thanks people!

[Executioner213]

I have a basswood Ibanez JS100 with EMG-81/EMG-85 with an Original Floyd Rose, 22 frets.
I have a basswood Ibanez RG450DX with EMG-81/EMG-85 with an Original Floyd Rose, 24 frets.

RG technically has more body mass as it's not beveled down on the edges, and has more wood to the neck (not much...the difference between 22 and 24 frets, so less than an inch or so), but my JS100 sounds so much more ballsy than the RG. So, it's hard to say what the deal is because they are nearly identical other than body shape and one is wired slightly different. Just going off of what wood they are hasn't served me any justice.

I guess I'm concurring with Will here, to a degree...in case I just confused everyone.