Hi Yanktar: good to hear that half of us have got the point, at least. Not quite sure who the other half are - who's arguing that rigidity doesn't matter?

Now then. In tonewood threads it is always fun to see how long it takes someone to mention the name of Stradivarius...

Would I be right in thinking it is Dr Joseph Nagyvary you have in mind, Yanktar? Nagyvary has had a lot to say about fiddles, for instance the varnish Stradivarius used, which he says he has analysed and revealed to be one of the "secrets" of the Cremonese violins. The awkward thing about that is that of all the hundreds of surviving Strads in the world only one - one - still has it's original varnish, and that is the Messiah Strad in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. And that one is never played, so nobody knows what it sounds like. It is a little hard therefore to say that they sound the way they do because of the secret varnish.

I'm afraid the same sort of thing goes for many of his other pronouncements.

As soon as people start talking about old violins you need to arm yourself with an even bigger pinch of salt than for tonewood debates on electric guitar forums. There are A LOT of theories, and they nearly all contradict each other.

Cheers - C

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I'm still trying to grasp what exactly the point was, 'cause I am still trying to figure out how a discussion that almost 100% deals with the affect, if any, that rosewood and maple fretboards have on tone color shows how naive everyone is concerning sustain.

Still not getting it...

I guess I abused some people's sacred cows. Go ahead...wonder about the sonic differences of the wood rather than the rigidity. Interesting that nobody mentions Nagyvary's early work on the opening of pores in the wood...

http://books.google.com/books?id=zNgDAA ... st&f=false

What can I say?

Can you please clarify?

Are these guys you mention saying that is the rigidity of the fretboard wood/material which affects the tone color?

Is it the pores in the wood that affect tone color?

Should we be able to hear a diff between RW & maple fingerboards, i.e. are the differences in these woods enough that in an electic guitar they will/may color the tone?

Fair question. I don't think so. I think rigidity, the brand, style, and setup of the strings, the brand, model and configuration of the pickups, the amp (and other electronics), the space/room's acoustics and, finally, of course, the player's technique that make up the totality of the sound of solid body electric guitars. And I think Ned Steinberger demonstrated that conclusively.

The other things referred to acoustic instruments, a whole different set of questions for the physicists.

Its 100% pick composition and thickness, nothing more.

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You dig?

Oh, now I get it.

Stradivarius made violins, then some chemist guy made some violins that were made of some material other than wood, and they "rivaled" the sound of the Stradivarius. Then Ned Steinberger made guitars from carbon/fiberglass, proving that all wood is therefore like wet noodles. Besides, piano keys used to be made from ivory, so I would rather bring my lunch, than to have to walk to work.

If you put all of this together, it is quite clear beyond doubt that I shot J.R.

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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.

This is absolutely correct, matter of fact, as far as the wood of a Strat making a difference in tone, the neck does it more than the body.
I went from a rosewood board to maple, and I heard a significant change, especially acousticly.
The maple was brighter, and had more snap, and the rosewood was kind of scooped sounding. Now at the time my tremolo was set flush with 5 springs, which I've since changed to floating with 3 springs. This takes away some of the brightness, and makes it more open sounding anyway. I never did that with the R.W board, so I don't know how they'll compare with the ym tremolos floating.

when you think about it, the fretboard has the greatest surface area for the strings to vibrate against, and how dense that wood is will affect how the strings will vibrate by how the frequesncy reflects off that wood. On the body however, the strings run over a plastic pickguard, that has the pickups floating in it, so they don't even use the wood very efficiantly, unlike say; a Les Paul. I find it to be such an obvious change to the tone, I don't know how it can't be heard. It leads me to believe that those who don't hear it may not be able to hear the difference in frquencies.

I find that to know how something is really going to sound is by playing loud, then you hear 00everything, and its hard to do at living room levels.

Huh? Are you asserting that how an acoustic makes mixer
Noise has nothing at all to do with electrics.

I can't believe there are this many people who hear no difference, out makes me suspect of any opinions on what changes tone. I actually feel for people who can't hear the difference different materials make on a guitar, its km seems like a form of being color blind the Urban Myth is being perpetuated because its not a myth, if you can't hear it, you may need to get one of those hearing exams they uses to give on middle school, where they'd play different frequencies, l and you raise your hands when you hear it.

I can accept that regidity comes into okay, but that seems like it would affect necks that don't have truss rod, I mean theyre all reinforced so, they should have close to the same stiffness, and plus all necks are made from maple, and the fretboard is prettu thin. And I didn't reallu hear much difference between mu quartersawn maple neck vs a regular maple neck. There was a bit more resonance, but I attribute that more to the thicker profile on the quartersawn than they other one.

I have been a guitar player since 1969, and a professional composer and audio recordist for the past 16 years. I have my hearing checked annually for sensitivity across the range and suffer no deficiencies. I have owned dozens of guitars, recorded dozens more, played and evaluated virtually every guitar you can think of.

And in my long experience I have learned thing for certain: maple and rosewood look very different from each other. But that is all you can predict.

Even if fingerboard wood made a significant difference in solid body electric guitar tone (which is extremely doubtful), there would be no way of predicting the response based on species alone. For example, some mahogany is very light and airy and some is heavy and dense. So you can't say that "mahogany" sounds a certain way because it all responds differently.

If guitar players spent as much time practicing as you do arguing the fine point of guitar construction (to god knows what end, since "knowing" all this crud doesn't seem to make anybody sound any better), you'd all be monsters.

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Jim Bordner
Gravity Music - www.gravitymusic.com
Composer, producer, Egnater Artist

Thanks!

I guess I'll shut up now and go practice!

Great post EgFryer...but there are some here who 'know" the difference and some who "feel" for the people who can't tell the difference and they will never take the words of pros who make a living playing music...
I can hear more of a difference in picks than I can in "electric tone wood"....so my ears must be good enough for that.
Like you said,knowing something doesn't make you a better guitar player...we've all seen that before.

here's another great statement that was ignored I'm sure.

This is just to bring increased emphasis to the above.

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