sylnau wrote:The Provocateur is one of the most beautiful guitar I've seen.
I would really love it with different wood options (for a darker jazzy sound).
And a longer scale.
I keep the wood standard so I don't have to keep a bunch of different things on hand and so I'm not making a special trip to the lumber yard for every order.
One thing I've mention previously (a while ago and I don't even recall the thread) is that when we talk about "brighter" or "darker" in relation to woods I think the focus is on the wrong place.
In my opinion it's DENSITY that matters far more than species.
Take a 50s fender with a super light ash body and a later one with a super heavy ash body. They're both ash but the lighter one has that lighter, more airy, snappy sound.
When people ask for ebony fingerboards the sound qualities they seek are due to the extreme density of ebony.
All of that is to say that the body wood on the Provocateur is soft maple. Soft maple has an average density that is VERY close to mahogany.
The advantages to soft maple are 1) easier to finish due to not having to fill pores. 2) it doesn't have the interlocking grain that mahogany seems to have often which can be a pain to work with.
As a side note to offer mahogany going forward I'll have to add an upcharge for it. Not only is it twice the cost of soft maple but the overall quality has gone down. It is getting harder to find boards that don't have weird cracks and voids hidden within them.
It makes for a LOT of wasted wood when you can't use most of the board due to things that can't be seen until it is cut into.
But back to the Provocateur, if you want dark and jazzy I honestly think the guitar does it perfectly as is.
Again, if someone wants different wood it's fine, and on that guitar I could do a different scale length if needed. The reason I haven't published such options is that I have found that too many options causes a lot of indecision in people AND then I have to deal with "well you offer THOSE lengths but why not THIS one?"
An anecdote: a month or so back I had someone inquire about a Provocateur with a 23-1/2" scale length and three pickups and a few other things.
I told him that it would be possible BUT for all the extra work involved in those custom options that $1,550 guitar would end up being a $2,200 guitar.
That's the other reason that I don't offer tons of options. When you're dealing with guitrars/brands/builders that are totally custom and charge $4k then someone is prepared for that and if the extras bring it to $4,500 or $5k they expect it.
For my stuff it is a different crowd overall and folks don't quite get why they can't totally spec out the guitar with tons of special options without it costing more.
So I just keep the specs limited and if people have special requests they ask and I tell them if it can be done and they decide from there.
Sorry for the long reply. I realize I've never really explained that part of why I do things the way I do so I hope all of that made sense. :-)
