Rule 5: Demand Stable Woods with Good Tone.

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Make certain that only AAA-grade woods were used in the manufacture of the guitar and bass you purchase. The manufacturer may have started with the best grade, but even the superior wood will change after being sawed. Wood needs to be aged sufficiently before a stringed instrument is built from it.

The best guitars and basses are built of a good "tone" wood. These are woods which are capable of producing a clear tone when they vibrate.

For the body, mahogany gives a warm and rich tone. Maple has a brighter tone with more pronounced attack. Spruce projects well and has the greatest strength to weight ratio. Alder is commonly used for bodies made of one kind of wood.

Gibson is the only well known guitarmaker to combine several kinds of wood in the body. Marrying different woods gives a full tonal range.

Les Pauls, for instance, have solid mahogany backs for warmth and sustain and maple tops for brightness and projection. For reduced weight, an extremely light wood is used in the Les Paul Studio Lite. This wood, chromite, is neutral tonally so that it doesn't change the sound quality, but it is an excellent transmitter of vibration.

Gibson Les Pauls are also known for their carved and hand-sanded tops. The carving not only gives the guitar a sensuous swell for beauty; the contour increases projection.

Mahogany and maple are good choices for a strong neck. Fingerboards are often made of rosewood for warmth or ebony for a brighter attack.

Whatever the construction method of body and neck, the moisture content of the wood must be maintained throughout manufacture.

"We want the moisture content of the wood to stay at an average so that we can ship it anywhere, any climate, and it changes very little. If we ship an archtop to Arizona, the top is not going to drop in from drying out."