so over the years ive had and continue to have tons of fender guitars. for some reason they have 99% of the time been rosewood necks with a few maple skunk stripes here and there.

well that all changed last nite. i took delivery of a maple cap reissue strat and cannot believe what a difference and how phenominal the neck is to play. to use the old cliche its plays like butter made from another planet it is just that good.

fender should make maple cap an option on every guitar they produce! i can't believe what ive been missing out on all this time!

I do love the more open and airy sound of a maple board fretboard - my collaborator's Clapton sig is just superb.

But it's horses for courses. I built my sound around a rosewood board and it offers me something I can't get with maple. At least not without some very un-natural sounding EQ adjustments on my amp. So that will be vice versa of course.

So I'll happily go back to rosewood thanks. But a maple board strat is also in my guitar collection for when that particular tone is required (usually when I'm having a Robert Cray style blues moment).

If you can afford the luxury of 2 Strats, then one of each has to be the way to go..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

I used to be a die-hard rosewood guy.

Then I played the Clapton Strat . . . yeah, I will never own rosewood again.

Try the new EVH guitars. Both models come with a birdseye maple capped fret board, and a compound radius with a slim neck profile. One of the more comfortable necks I've ever played.

Annoyingly, this is true.

I've owned a variety of Fenders over the years... 2003 Japanese Jaguar (rosewood), 2004 Highway 1 HSS Strat (rosewood), 2004 American Deluxe Telecaster FMT (ebony?!), 1999 Lone Star Strat (rosewood)... yet I always find myself running back to my 2001 American Deluxe HSS Strat, which is the only maple one I own currently. Also had a Lite Ash Tele, but that was a dog- nightmare to get it sorted, sold it just to get rid of the #$@*&!% thing.

It's a real pisser because I love the look of rosewood, and the sound, but prefer the feel of maple...

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'01 American Deluxe HSS Strat.
'87 Japan HSS Strat.
'11 Custom Shop FMT HSS Strat.

"Without music, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines and dates by which bills must be paid."

i have 2 fenders and 2 PRSs--all maple for me since 1979

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2011 PRS 25th SAS
2008 Eric Clapton Custom Antigua Strat
2012 PRS Artist Package Studio Special Order

Hey guys he said Maple cap, not a 1 piece maple board like most of you are mentioning. They feel and sound a bit different.

forgive my ignorance,

what is the big deal with maple cap and tone?
i played a lite ash that fender used to have, im not sure if they still have it.
however, it had seymour duncan aps1 alnicos II and what looked like a maple cap, it sounded nice and different, but i blamed it on the warmer tone of the alnico 2.

personally, i like a 1 piece maple neck on my hot rod 57 strat.
would love to own an eric clapton sig strat.
i can say im a strat guy, i can switch from rw to maple, vneck to chunky neck on my srv strat and still play as bad, lol.

no but really, whats your take on the 2 piece maple, im curious.
on a side note, i do notice slight nuances between maple and rosewood, unfortunately
im not that articulate do describe them.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

Do you think the maple cap is better than the one-piece maple neck?

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Both my buddy and I have maple necked Strats that are warmer in tone than some of our rosewoods... go figure.Difference in tone is only a fluke and the result of a lot more variables than fretboard wood.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

my PRSs have a maple cap

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2011 PRS 25th SAS
2008 Eric Clapton Custom Antigua Strat
2012 PRS Artist Package Studio Special Order

I've been down the rosewood, maple cap, and solid maple road myself and I wouild go with the latter. There's some agreement in the Custom Shop regarding that opinion, but there's no accounting for tastes. We should just leave it at that.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Played both and prefer rosewood any day of the week. Just my opinion

I've had both. I will say I think the maple takes a bit of practice to get used to.

fender needs to make a buddy holly limited edition strat to pay tribute to him. he was the best player in all fender history! i got to play his original stratocaster in the museum and it sounds good for a 50 year old guitar. i might convince them to give it to me so i can imitate holly and spread his music around the world then i can put it in a hard case and play it a lot but guys would the frets wear if someone plays it? i saw it in the movie La Bamba and noticed that it had no trem arm since holly used a trem arm in some of his songs like Heartbeat and Midnight Shift or was it a early wah pedal i dont know.... i asked the roadies that carried the strat back in the 50's and they said it did have a trem arm in some performances i just didint know his strat had a tremolo arm hole
'

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Musos can be a pain!!!

But if you have 15,000 they will give you free Fenders