Chris, it was just one of those crazy thought that pass thru my brain every now and then. Thinking about it ... it would be a hard thing to do because of the different densities of the shaft and butt.
A solid one piece cue would solve most all that by having only one resonate frequency to start with.
Wasnt one of the old (and much respected) cue masters was a firm believer that hard maple was the absolute best wood for a pool cue?
I know nothing of wood, but I find this subject interesting from a communications point of view...that is my background. We dealt with frequencies and resonating sounds.
I would think that the thinner end of the cue (whatever wood it happened to be) would begin the resonating process and it would continue down the cue. Since the cue gets larger in diameter as you go down from the tip, the resonating would decrease because the increasing mass of the butt would dampen them. Also, lighter and less dense wood would resonate more than heavier dense wood. With that in mind, I would think the butt wood would have to be made of something that "resonated" more than the shaft wood, in order to continue similar vibrations down the length of the cue. Anything added to the cue (metal pins, joints, etc.) would affect the vibrations, as well.
I read the part below on a guitar forum and I'm not a guitar person either, but it is somebody's take on the subject.
According to physics, a lighter (less dense) wood is less stable and has greater amount of vibration - this is a proven fact. For example, a les paul will have less resonance but more sustain than a Martin acoustic.
In guitar, the heavier (higher density) guitars will be more stable, thus less resonance but greater sustain. Sustain was such a fad in the 70's that everyone then seemed to prefer 10lb+ guitars with solid heavy brass bridges, sustaining metal blocks, etc..
Now, the buzz word is "resonance" - the lighter the better (zinc and aluminum bridges to lessen the weight,etc.).
So you can make a GENERAL assumption that swamp ash (less dense) is more resonance that mahogany (more dense). But general assumption won't do you any good when it comes to a SPECIFIC guitar because 2 pieces of ash (or any other wood of your choice) that came from the same tree could have drastically different density depending on what part of the tree they came from. And to throw another wrench into this GENERAL assumption, a SPECIFIC piece of mahogany could very well have lesser density than another SPECIFIC piece of ash.