Best wood for harmonics?

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Serratus

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Hi guys,
I have an Ibanez RG7620 which I use to play some Ed Van Halen solos in a covers band. But I struggle a bit with getting tapped harmonics to ring out. I find that this guitar isn't particularly good for harmonics - they just don't ring out that well even when its not plugged in - I find that some guitars just seem to be better for harmonics than others. Unfortunately this is the only guitar I have with a trem at the moment so I have to use it for the EVH stuff.
So I am thinking of making a new body for the guitar, maybe from a nice piece of hard ash, and I wondered if you guys have experience with certain woods being 'better' for getting harmonics to ring out. At the moment its a very light basswood body.
Any other ideas welcome! I realise there may be no magic answer to this, it might just be that certain specific combinations of wood and components works better than others for harmonics, but it'd be interesting to find out if there is a consensus of opinion on it.
 
I would check the intonation and if the action is basically laying on the neck raise it a bit.

As far as the wood, it's possible you have a dud, but any kind of wood should work.
 
Probably won't apply here but scale length is very important.

I'm assuming your tuned fairly low on a 7 string. I also believe your 7 is a 25.5" scale?

That scale length is not good for lower tuned instruments.

It's pure science and could be discuss endlessly but it's very true.

Otherwise like you said every component may play a factor as well.
 
Try to raise the strings a little bit...
Harmonics is not that much a matter of wood...
 
The action's not that low, no lower than the other guitars I have, and the intonation is ok. I think maybe it's just a particularly un-resonant piece of wood, it is a very light piece of basswood. It's annoying that this is the only guitar I own with a trem, and yet it's the hardest to get tapped harmonics to ring out on - not ideal for EVH solo's! It has a Bare Knuckle Rebel Yell in it at the moment, I might try a slightly hotter pickup (although I think the RY should be hot enough, maybe its just not gelling with this guitar).
 
amp-speakers?

Maybe you are using a bass-middbass setting...
harmonics need high end...

I don't think it's the pickup or the guitar's wood...
 
I did an interesting experiment with woods recently, though not for guitar, but listened to the various tones produced by different woods in my shop with the goal of building a Xylophone. The two winners were Walnut and Mahogany, in that order. I ended up using Walnut for the keys and Cherry for the sound box. Should have it completed this weekend...

In any event, I found it interesting that Walnut had the most pleasing, musical sound to my ears. That said, I didn't have any Rosewood in the shop so couldn't test it out, but it's apparently the "norm" for Xylophone keys.
 
I don't tap but I think larger frets like at least .047 H X 104 W or the .050H X 100 W or the .055H X90 W

and Jescar Brand because their Nickle is harder and so is their Stainless, easier to get a beefier fret to ring by tapping ( or finger vibrato).

Don't you guys agree that bigger frets help ?

A tighter less absorbing fingerboard will help a bit and a Guitar which has loud acoustic volume and good sustain will help also because this means the strings are vibrating more and longer, more likely to respond to
from the pickups if the Axe has long loud ringing strings .

Pickups, sensitive and close to strings but not too close that the magnetism dampens the vibration.

And the Amp needs good clear gain.

The whole system needs to be so that hammered and tapped notes are almost as loud as picked notes and all this stuff in addition to higher action all leads in that direction.
 
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