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Is Alder at all similar to Maple or Ash? They're all brighter (sounding) tonewoods, right? What are the similarities and differences between them? Are they at all similar tonewise? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Alder would be more similar to Ash I'd say. I think of maple as being super bright.

alder is the middle-of-the-park tone wood. pretty balanced. hard or northern ash is plenty bright and heavy. swamp or southern ash is lighter and has a nice slightly scoop tone slightly brighter than alder. hard maple like those use for necks can be too bright to the point of being shrill for a body. big leaf or soft maple falls on the brighter side of alder. but it is still an acceptable tonewood for a body.

A guy i was talking to who deals in lumber tells me some lumber dealers try to pass off Alder as Maple.... But that was not talking about guitars.... Alder i would think is closest to swamp ash..... I have heard some guitars with Hard ash and i thought they had Maple bodies....

WhoFan

Dani kinda nailed it, slder is a bit more mid-rangy then ash amp; maple body guitars always sound too bright amp; plinky to me. If you're working with them from scratch, alder amp; ash are a bit softer then maple and more prone to denting but they're also a bit easier to tool. A lot of 50's amp; 60's Fenders (plus new Custom Shop amp; the American reissues too) have alder or ash bodys.