OUT OF THE WOODS PART 2: THE HUNT FOR ALTERNATIVES
Where’s your next acoustic guitar tonewood coming from? In the face of ecological crisis and concerns over supply, acoustic guitar makers are shaking up their methods and materials. In this, the second part of our report on the future of acoustic guitar woods, we ask what the next generation of acoustics will be made from. Do makers keep going after the same revered species of wood? Protect and replant the ones we like the sound of? Search out lookalikes and use them up, too? Stand back and let forests recover while cooking up synthetic materials? Or how about picking over our old waste – furniture, whisky barrels, railway sleepers? Spoiler: it turns out to be all of the above.
The 2017 trade clampdown on the rosewood () species – and anything made from it – was a watershed moment in acoustic guitar land. Although some makers did continue to parcel out existing stocks of prized woods, often on premium acoustic guitars, others walked away from rosewood and probably won’t be going back to it any time soon, even though instruments have now been exempted from the trade restrictions. For some smaller outfits the additional paperwork required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) made shipping rosewood guitars too much of a headache. But major brands made significant moves, too: Fender announced as early as May
