So hopefully I'm going to be ordering a custom strat from the Fender CS. I've made a mock up of the guitar that I want to order, but I can't decide what fingerboard looks best. Maple or Rosewood? Playing-wise and sound-wise, I don't think it matters much to me. The body will be Ash, but I highly doubt the fingerboard would make THAT much of a difference when you consider amplifier and effects pedals.

Here is the guitar:

I've always preferred maple necks personally. In general, maple is brighter and rosewood is darker (I think lol). But with your color schemes either one likes awesome.

Nice guitar, good luck with it.


CS

Tough choice, man. Rosewood looks cooler but maple looks more classy.

They do feel a bit different when you play tho, at least imo. Go try a few and get a feel for it, then decide.

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2010 American Special HSS 3TSB
Marshall MG15FX

I like the Rosewood better, but since you asked in the poll - Which looks better?, I have voted for Maple. The Strat I grew up with had Rosewood and my CS has Maple. It's hard to resist the beautiful flamed Maple Custom Shop fingerboards and I intend to persist with this far superior guitar.
Once you've adjusted your tone and amp etc, there probably wouldn't be a great deal of difference to the listener. The difference is in the playability. I wouldn't change the CS to Rosewood even if I could, but I'm lucky enough to have both.
Try them both mate if you can, but for looks, definitely the Maple. If you don't already own a CS Strat, you are going to love it. It's a whole new world.

I have one maple neck Strat ond one rosewood neck strat. Tone wise, the two guitars sound different, but one is a USA Strat with 3 single coils (S Duncan SSL if memory serves me correctly). The maple neck one is a MIM that has been converted to HSS configuratin with Fender N3 singles and the Fender Atomic for the bridge.

So, as you can see, these two guitars are worlds apart and it's impossible for me to say rosewood vs maple make a tone difference (guess I could swap necks sometime).

Now for feel, I slightly like rosewood better, but you have to consider that I'm primarily an acoustic player and have played ebony and rosewood necks on acoustics all my life and that could have more of an influence on what I like to play.

In the poll, I picked maple because you asked which looked better. On your color choices, I think the Maple is more striking (my MIM strat is black, with black pickguard, black controls and maple neck). I like that look.


Fun poll, will be interesting to see what the outcome is.

J

My thing was always that maple necks look better on dark colored bodies and rosewood on light colored ones. The exception would be a sunburst with the rosewood and white with the maple (ala Jimi).

Another vote for maple. The big headstock, and the body color, both demand a maple neck. In this case, the rosewood just doesn't fit well.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

I voted Rosewood (even though my Strat is Maple) This topic comes up ever now and again an always fun debating the difference between the two
Being primarily a bass player Ive always like the look of Maple boards but haven't found one that i like as of yet so all rosewood there.
I think the sonic differences between the two is minimal and more of a mental attitude ware your brain says "That must be a brighter tone, its a brighter colour!".
But saying that i could probably tell what the fingerboard was if i was blindfolded so that kind of blows the colour theory ???
Anyways, theres no right or wrong answer, like them both so its personal taste, throw ebony into the question an that contradicts everything i just said even more

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Dan...

Fender 1987 MIJ Stratocaster, Texas Special Loaded.
Fender 2007 MIA Jazz Deluxe.

Maple

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"Damn Right I Got the Blues"

I like the maple. Simply because with rosewood that headstock looks like it's on the wrong guitar ^^

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I traded my car in for a microphone.

moonburst?

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I remember when we were free!

This is a pretty subjective question. Although I prefer rosewood, I do play a lot on my maple fretboard guitar as well. For me it is just whether I want a darker tone as to which one I play at the time I pick up a guitar to play.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

Maple man here. They just look so clean!

For that guitar I believe the maple looks better.

The whole rosewood vs maple thing is really a thing of personal preference. Neither is in all actuality "better" than the other. I consider myself a maple man, though I love my tele which happens to have a rosewood fingerboard.

If your going to have this made, why not and fretboard of ebony, it would look better than either maple or rosewood.

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I remember when we were free!