Opinions on lightened / chambered body guitar

Should I go for a lightened / chambered body?

  • Go for a SOLID body

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Go for a LIGHTENED body

    Votes: 9 64.3%

  • Go for a CHAMBERED body

    Votes: 4 28.6%

  • You don't need a new guitar

    Votes: 1 7.1%
  • Total voters
    14
  • Poll closed .
Riccardo Ros said:
Hi everyone!
I'm in the mood of building a custom guitar from an Italian luthier and one of the options is to have a lightened / chambered body.
The advantages should be a 25% weight reduction and a brighter tone with more sustain for the lightened, up to 35% on the chambered and more acoustic of course.

My only experience with chambered bodies is a Strandberg... I love the resonance and the vibrations while unplugged but I cannot say if the chambered body has a true impact on sound when plugged.
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If you hear a difference unplugged,you will surely hear a difference when amplified....
 
skolacki said:
BG must have a super light touch too because I’ve read he rarely breaks strings. You’re in the biz and making guitars, damn nice ones at that. Do you think heavier sounds better? I do myself but now I’m mostly 9’s. 7? No way.
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Thanks for the compliment. :)
I have always been under the impression that the heavier gauges sounded thicker & chunkier.
Theirs no denying that a set of 14's sound different than 9's or 10's.
I bring this up because I use to restring a guys guitar w/ bridge cables (14's)
& now that's the norm outside of 6 strings because of the extended range guitars. 60-14 are commonplace now, especially for some of the Doom & Stoner metal w/ super low tunings. It's the only way to keep a playable tension for some music.
 
Planta Fantasma said:
I'd highly recommend buying a chambered guitar. The older I get, the more I appreciate them, both for weight & tone.
There have never been more options to choose from as there are these days.

I do my chambering for weight reduction to the body along w/ achieving a more hollow body effect for the neck pickup.

Fret scale divided by 16 will give you one of the many ways of finding harmonic sweet spots & pickup locations based on Bill Bartolini's research.
(This is one way to go about finding multiscale intonation points & pickup coil locations also) ;)

I based these around what I wanted in a guitar:
Tight & thick bridge pickup response for rock & metal heads. I leave the body solid around the bridge pickup.
Nice & fat neck position where the top coil of the neck pickup is directly under the 24 fret sweet spot. When the neck pickup hole is routed in the top, it connects directly into the chamber.
Some people put the middle of the humbucker in these 'sweet spot' locations, I prefer an actual coil to be there when using split pickups.

The circles in the chambered areas are for reinforcement during it's life as a guitar & also so it doesn't collapse when I vacuum press the top on.
Since the guitar is chambered, I decided to hollow out the circles for the additional weight.
The reason I went w/ the circles are because they're a more gentle shape compared to a square. I tried using square reinforcement blocks at first, but I could see little creases in the top after they were vacuum pressed. I went for the softer shape & the problem was resolved.

Enjoy your quest for the ultimate tone!
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Your builds are awesome!!!
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
If you hear a difference unplugged,you will surely hear a difference when amplified....
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But it may not be the one you’re expecting. This is why you should plug in an electric guitar you’re wondering about.

Tip for light without taking wood out: swamp ash. My tele has a fat maple neck and 1pc body. The neck weighs more, its nuts.

Try an ash american pro fender vs alder too.

Most high end builders have probably sorted their lumber for weight and appearance so OP could probably get light and solid if they so chose. The beauty of options!
 
Budda said:
But it may not be the one you’re expecting. This is why you should plug in an electric guitar you’re wondering about.

Tip for light without taking wood out: swamp ash. My tele has a fat maple neck and 1pc body. The neck weighs more, its nuts.

Try an ash american pro fender vs alder too.

Most high end builders have probably sorted their lumber for weight and appearance so OP could probably get light and solid if they so chose. The beauty of options!
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that's a valuable opinion!
I had a guitar with a light ash body and it was really resonant, great sustain and attack.

Maybe my original question regarding the body is a little bit "immature".
I get that you cannot say, by theory, what a guitar build will be... too big/medium/little details to take care of!
The only gut feeling that I'm aware of is that, when I play my strandberg with chambered ash body, I like the feeling of the improved resonance in my belly.

That said I think I'll go with the lightened body, just for the "gut feeling" 😂
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
If you hear a difference unplugged,you will surely hear a difference when amplified....
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Agree. If an electric guitar doesn’t sound crisp and clear unplugged, it sure as hell won’t get better sounding plugged in. I remember ordering a Peavey HP series guitar that I had to wait 9 months to get. I opened the case, played a few chords, and immediately sold it. It sounded dull and lifeless.

Now my Anderson’s, OTOH, are crisp, clear, and acoustic AF
 
You will definitely experience a sustain difference, possibly an attack difference as well.

But my only relevant personal opinion is that Les Pauls should never be chambered.
Anything else, fair game.
 
usersnoozer said:
You will definitely experience a sustain difference, possibly an attack difference as well.

But my only relevant personal opinion is that Les Pauls should never be chambered.
Anything else, fair game.
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I have a weight relieved Joe Perry Boneyard, SN 512. It is by far the BEST sounding LP I’ve ever owned
 
Riccardo Ros said:
The only gut feeling that I'm aware of is that, when I play my strandberg with chambered ash body, I like the feeling of the improved resonance in my belly.
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Exactly. There's always talk about tone, but there's so much more when considering the dynamics & playability of the instrument.
We've all owned guitars that sounded good, but then there's the special ones that feel different from the resonance they produce.
They become 'alive' when we play them!
 
Riccardo Ros said:
I just want to thank everyone that joined this conversation!
There were a lot of good suggestions and interesting thoughts..!

I decided to go for the "lightened" body and I came up with a sort of "Tom Anderson Drop Top S".
I'll be back as soon as the guitar will be ready (90/120 days!)
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Congrats and looking forward to seeing and hearing it.👀🎧
 
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