Norwegian Wood Series Guitars

Every piece of wood is unique and you will never find 2 pieces that sound, weigh or look exactly the same.
However, all the different species of Norwegian wood have different qualities and tonal characteristics that you can learn more about here.

Maple

The maple family includes more than 200 different species, and most of them grow in asia. Not surprisingly, the Norway maple is among the most common species in our part of the world. The sycamour maple that was brought here for its looks in the 1700s has also become quite widely spread.
The maple wood is light in colour, and the hardness and stability makes it perfect for making guitar necks.
Because of its stunning looks and tonal quality, flamed maple has been used for backs and sides in stringed instruments since even before Amati and Stradivari made it the standard for violins. It is still widely used both for acoustic guitars and tops on electric guitars.
Spruce

The spruce in our acoustics are mainly supplied by Norwegian Tonewoods and comes from Røyrvik in NorthTrønderlag.
The Røyrvik spruce is an incredably resonant tonewood that has proven to be perfect for creating acoustic guitar tops. Its rich tone and light weight makes highly responsive tops that invites a dynamic playing style. It also performs great in the form of an electric guitar providing an equally rich tone as in the acoustics.
Walnut

Walnut, The walnut tree originally comes from Asia and is not a natural part of the norwegian fauna. But because of the use of its nuts the tree has been spread out all over the world and is also grown some places here in Norway. All though it`s a bit lighter and softer than rosewood it`s still a hard and heavy wood that works perfect as fingerboard material. The tone might be a bit warmer, but it has much of the same look, feel as rosewood. As a body material it`s extremely clear in its tone combining a crisp treble with a rich bass. Weight: 4158 gram.
Aspen

Aspen, A light demanding wood that grows all over the country. It is a very light weight an stable wood with a wide range of uses from wooden shoes to matches. Since the leafs are constantly moving we say that "it shakes like an aspen leaf". The same can be said about the guitar. It has a fat and full tone and an amazing resonance and sustain that you can really feel on your body when you play it. Weight: 3056 gram.
Alder

Alder, Alder comes in different variations and are considered a bad firewood. Something to think about if you want to set your guitar on fire. While grey alder grows all over Norway, black alder likes it a bit warmer and grows mainly in the southern half of the country. There are few technical differences between the two and alder has been Fenders standard wood for many years. It has a rich midrange tone without getting muddy. It is a versitale wood that will work well with most music styles.
Basswood

Basswood, Basswood prefers the warmer hillsides both in the eastern and western parts of the country. The flowers prowides first class honey if there are bies around. It is also often used for woodcarving. In the shape of a guitar it is a rich sounding wood with a wide range of overtones. Fat and crisp at the same time.
Cherry

Cherry, There are both sweet and sour cherrys. The sweet ones are called "moreller" in Norway. The trees originally comes from the adriatic sea and is very popular in norwegian gardens. The tone is just as sweet as the "moreller" and the tone places itself somewhere in between basswood and ash. A bit crisper than basswood and a bit more muddy than ash. Weight: 3555 gram.
Birch

Birch, The birch tree grows all over norway and& have many uses. It sometimes have decorative flames that makes it very popular for furniture. As it is exellent firewood it helps keeping frosen norwegians warm through the long winters, and the tone of the birch is just as warm as the stove. Jazz player or not, if you play an all birch electric guitar all your jazz licks will come out before you know it. But even though you might be fooled by the very warm and sweet jazz tone, it has plenty of bite if you need it. Weight: 4026 gram.
Nordic ash

Nordic ash, Ash was the "yggdrasil" in norse mythology, the vikings world tree, which extended its crown throughout the earth. The first man Askr was created by Odin of a branch from an ash tree. It grows very big and is often used as a pride tree. It has a clearly defined at the same time sweet tone that must not be confused with the more well known swamp ash. It has a very transperent sound where you can clearly hear everything that is happening. This is in other words not the wood for those who likes to hide behind a muddy tone.
Elm

Elm, The bark of the elm tree can be used to make bark bread. It grows as far north as to the polar circle, and it grows best in sunny hillsides where it wants dry good soil. The tone has a lot of bite to it. Its compact and agressive sound makes it stick out as an obvious rock`n`roll favorite. Weight: 3986 gram.

So, what`s the deal with these Norwegian Woods anyway?!

We have had great experiences using different Norwegian tonewoods for a variety of custom projects. Our goal with the Norwegian Wood Series was to develop this further and to learn more about what distinctive tones we could find within our own domestic woods. We selected 8 different woods for our first series; Ash, elm, birch, alder, aspen, basswood, walnut and cherry. For comparison, we also made one out of mahogany. To really be able to compare the tone in the different woods all 8 guitars in the first series were built as similar as possible with the same necks and pickups.

We thought that some of the woods would stick out soundwise as superior and that maybe others would turn out to be less fit for guitarbuilding. However, what this test showed us was a diversity of sound that few had imagined. It is really not necessarily a question of good or bad sound but rather a question of what kind of sound you are after. After hours of testing and demonstration among experienced guitarists it turns out that all the woods has its own specific qualities that are perfered just as often as the others. We also used more well known woods like alder and basswood. Even though we knew these woods would sound good it turns out that the other woods are perfered just as often when people get the opportunity to compare the guitars up against each other. This only shows that the way we experience sound is highly individual and that the choice of wood is a very important part of creating your own tone.

In cooperation with NTNU (Norwegian university of science and technology) we have been doing a resarch project where we capture the sound of the different Norwegian woods.
The purpose of this project is to visualise and compare the sound of the woods both to each other and to other traditional woods.

This is about as geeky as it gets, and for those of you who are into this nerdy stuff we will translate and publish the report during the next couple of months.
Meanwhile you can get a teaser here..

Stay tuned for more info!

Norwegian Tonewoods

Research project with NTNU

Capturing the sound in the name of science

MAKE YOURSELF HEARD

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