what's the function of maple caps on LP's?

Seems I thought this had something to do with records and something canadian.

hmmm. .

 

Maybe for ease of carving the tops?

 

Gibson has made all-mahogany Les Pauls. I'm sure you could find lots of theories concerning the maple caps through some Google searches, but I've heard that the maple was to brighten up the sound of all that mahogany. But I do not claim to know THE answer.

The truth is out there.

 

On the production modsel STandards and CUstoms, the top is about 1/2" to 9/1`6ths thick mapleThe LEgend is that Les Paul and Ted McCarty came up with the combinsation after trying several different woods together. I think thats' sort of bunk, though, because the old CUstoms were one-piece mahogany bodies including the top. The modern Historic Customs are mahogany back with mahogany tops in place of the maple.
THe thinking is that the maple cap will tighten and brighten the top end while giving articulation to the bottom end. Your mileage may vary on a bass though because the frequency spectrum is different. Construction plays more of a role in the bass than the guitar too- a neck-through guitar with a maple neck will still get more effect from the body woods as will a through-necked maple neck bass.

 

Translation...this was a marketing ploy mumbo-jumbo....it sounds good to the customer when in reality, they were doing the following...saving money on cost (maple costing much less than mahogany) and solving some problems with production (maple makes for better anchors with the bridge) and resists dents a little better than mahogany as well (less market rejects...plus, if you screw up a carved top, no biggie as compared to trashing an entire body...

hence the sandwich makes perfect sense...

 

my son has a '94 all mahogany Les Paul. it simply rocks!

 

It wasn't a marketing ploy. THey used maple and mahogany because they had it lying around. Prior to 1952, Gibson didn't make a whole lot of mahogany guitars. I've even seen some all-original all-maple early Les PAul Juniors. They ARE out there.
Gibson didn't push the wood selection, they pushed the name , the brand, the sophistication, the class.



There is a DEFINITE audible difference in tone between a maple/mahogany and all mahogany.. A Maple-mahogany body sounds different than an all-mahognay. I know this to be truth and self-evident upon hearing it. I can easily say that it wasn't a one-time comparison, either, and holds up every single time.

Some people are making the assumption that the mahogany grown and used today is the same stuff they used back in the '50s, and it's not.Today's stuff grows faster because the environments are warmer,. The atmosphere is also much more acidic, and water is harder ( higher in mineral content). These conditions are a matter of record, especially for the areas from where mahogany has always been imported.

So what does all this mean? The grain's not as dense, so the vibrations are absorbed a bit more. The wood's softer because the grain's not as dense. The wood's heavier because there's more open cellular structure inside it and thus more mineral content from the water that ran through those cells is left behind. So you have a softer, heavier, more mineral-ish wood than what was used in the '50s. I can attest to all of this from first-hand experience. I've SEEN the sparks come off the bandsaw blade from the mineral content while cutting mahogany.

So . ok, it's different. So what? It's going to sound different, that's all.


These same rules apply to maple too, and as for Eastern Maple, it's softer, wider-grained, and much dirtier looking than it used to be.
I love an all-mahogany bass, they're big and boomy and dark and gloomy, with just enough top-end articulation to bring out a really cool harmonic in sustain. Put an ebony board on an all-mahogany bass, reinforce the neck with graphite, go with nice warm active pickups, or the Hagstrom/Dark Stars, and you're done, you need nothing else!

 

I agree that the sound is different...I never said that it wasn't...but aside from that there are destinct advantages to using the two woods in combination.

There is also a destinct difference in the timbers available today vs. the '50s but this has as much to do with the decimation of the old-growth forests and resorting to younger stock as it does climatic conditions.

 

I, too, have seen sparks while making my latest bass, while cutting mahogany, I thought I was just seeing things, and then wondered if I really saw it. Thought it was a rogue staple or something.