Please share your first-hand experience on Okoume tonewood

The Fender Custom Shop has been using okoume for several years at least. It usually gets paired with figured tops. If it’s working for them...

Also, Nik Huber is using Spanish Cedar a lot. Not only does it result in lighter-weight guitars (on average) than his mahogany builds, but I think he charges a little bit less too. I've got a Huber with a Spanish Cedar body and it's great. As resonant as you'd expect and lots of "mojo" for want of a better word.

 

Iirc the new "single cut" Suhr guitar (Aura?) Is made of okoume.

 

Yes, that specific guitar is why the OP is asking for experience… He's very upset and concerned about it

 

It's also called gaboon. Look that up.

 

I love the stuff for body woods. We use it on our modern satins as well. That guitar gets many tone compliments from our artists who use it and I’m using it on the Aura. Lightweight and resonant.

 

Who is “upset”

 

Looks like the person who posted this thread is...

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/25717168/

He's clearly unaware that a) you and other high-end builders (eg Fender Custom Shop, as above) have been using Okoume for a long time already and b) Other high end builders are also using Khaya with great success (literally every non-Private Stock PRS guitar made in the past decade or longer, for example, and quite a few PSes as well).

 

Yes...the OP of this thread.
He obviously believes you have made a wrong decision in using this wood for your new single cut guitar
Edit: according to the post above, it seems the OP is reconsidering his strong feelings against your choice of woods

 

It's just time for new woods. Reclaimed or sustainably harvested, I'm good with either - I think the way it's seasoned and then cut/constructed is far more important than the species name. I trust the guys making them.

 

I always figured that our common body woods: mahogany, alder, ash, were chosen because they were the best of what was readily available. Not necessarily because they were the best tone woods in the world.

 

I have a PRS Private Stock guitar with a Okoume body, and I highly recommend it.

 

Okoume is a cheap silica filled mahogany that moves a lot. Cheap acoustic guitars' necks are made of this junk. I am a high end wood craftsman for the past 30+ years (oh my tone wood collection!). And yes i build high end instruments and wood never use it, when you shape it and the grain freys, you are in sanding hell. Shaper bits do not last long at all. Throw me your comments, I'm cool.

 

Builders pretty much praise whatever they have to work with, and they're driven by supply, cost, consistency, and other issues that are major for them -- but not for the buyer. I've grown reasonably cynical of the promotion of new tonewoods that are in fact not new and which have virtually never, ever been introduced fundamentally for tonal (or other) reasons. It's self-serving praise. Of the woods mentioned above, only Spanish Cedar has been talked about as a positive tonal/structural option. All the others are substitutes. I'm sure good guitars are made out of them. I prefer good mahogany, which is a superior material, but it's pretty much gone, so we're getting this other stuff. That's fine; it's the real world. But let's not present it as an improvement. How 'bout that baked maple?

 

What kind of music do you play on your guitars? Can you compare your style to some well-known players? Any clips of your playing? That will help us understand what your definition of a good-sounding guitar is. Thanks