The fact that there's no atmosphere in space for the soundwaves to move through i think has more to do than lack of gravity. Ive seen those gutted out 737's they use to simulate zero gravity. Where they hit altitude at a very fast clip ( I skydived professionaly for 3 years, and i think i may vomit at that climb, and resulting descent), then go into a dive, inside everyone is floating around, and talking, so you the lack of gravity isnt affecting it.

Maple is harder and denser then what? Certainly its not harder and denser then rosewood...so again, why is it brighter???

Where did you read that? Maple is most definitely harder AND denser than rosewood. Just looking at it with the naked eye tells you its not as dense, the grain on maple is much tighter. you want to test which one is harder? Take your thumbnail, and press it into the the maple somewhere, and do it on rosewood, see how much easier it is to leave a mark on the rosewood than maple. Maple is known for being a hard wood, one of the reasons its used for necks. You see thousands of maple necks for every one thats made entirely of rosewood.
Play an acoustic that has maple back and sides, and a comperable one (like a dreadnaught to dreadnaught) made with rosewood back and sides. The maple will have much more punch, and be considerably brighter than the rosewood; which will be more balanced.

Good effort - but you are wrong. Please come up with another explanation as to why maple is brighter then rw. Hardness & density ain't it.

http://www.drumsolo.cc/snare_drums/snar ... sewood.htm




http://www.woodsthebest.com/wood/jankaW ... sScale.htm

Don't care what that test says, maple is harder than rosewood. Just out of curiosity, I goggled it, there wasn't one thing that came up that said anything to the contrary.

OK. We'll just ignore facts and real-life tests designed to show exactly what we are talking about, because YOUR eyes and fingernails say otherwise!

Now THAT's just silly!



Here - read it again...
The Janka rating is a measure of the amount of force required to push a .444" diameter steel ball half way into a piece of wood....[to] understand the "relative" hardness of one wood to another...
Royal Mahogany 1400
Hard maple 1450
Brazilian Rosewood (Tamarindo) 3000
Brazilian Redwood 3190
Rosewood, East Indian 3170



And while you can't find anything...
http://www.woodturnersresource.com/extr ... ewood.html

Who know what parmeters were used in that test. Iwill concede that there is some back and forth on what's harder, and it appears to have alot to do with what type of rosewood, and maple you're using; eastern maple is harder than western, euro to american etc. But doing the fingernail test is something I can see myself, and not have to rely on numbers done on a test I never witnessed happening, and cant tell how it was done. Rosewood IS heavier than maple, on that I'll give no disagreement.

The way the grain is seems to have more impact on how it reflects the soundwaves or vibrations more than the hardness itself. I mean, ebony is harder than all of them (though very fragile, ive seen pieces come off in the same way shale would), but you dont see bodies, or whole necks made of it, most probably because its not strong enough.

The parameters seem pretty simple. They are made to test and compare wood, not prove who is right or wrong, so I have NO problem believing they were conducted fairly. And the tests from several sources consider & compare the EXACT woods we are talking about. I don't see ANY 'back and forth' comparing rosewoods and maples...pretty conclusive actually. Peruvian maple does get up there with a whopping score of 1700. Otherwise I think the numbers are far enough apart (RWs are almost double) that a certain type of maple or RW won't matter much.

Fender used maple because, as he designed his entire guitar, it was cheap (and maybe cheaper to work with 'cause its less dense (??) - but still is 'moderatly diffcult to work with'). But maple had to be finished for the most part because otherwise it becomes grungy and dingy and rough if left in the raw. RW and ebony however are harder, denser & heavier, AND more expensive, are very difficult to work with, and do perfectly fine as fingerboards and bridges when left raw, and like maple, as back & sides in acoustics when finished.

Well, if those figures are true, then I humbleyhstand corrected. But, maple does make for a brighter sound in general, like I said about acoustics. Compare a Gibson Dove that has maple back and sides and another Gibson square shoulder, and the dove is much brighter. Rosewood gives a more scooped eq, so sould it be possible that your rosewood necked guitars may have some other thing that's making it sound bbrighter? Because all I know is, I changed necks on my guitar, and only the neck; swapped the tuners over, made a bone nut just like theother. This all took less than an hour, and it was a very distinct change, so I know it was the neck, nothing else changed. Well, there were new strings on the new neck obviously, but I use pure nickle, which are warm anyway, and don't really break in the same way plated steel do; where they sgtart out bright and get progressively warmer. The pure nickels pretty much stay the same. This type of compareson is really the only way to make an unbiased opinion. Comparing 2 differelt guitars just adds too many variables to be able to judge what's changing the sound.

I'm officially done with this thread. i dont know why i feel it necessary to throw my hat into these rings. Trying to argue this is like an aethiest trying to convince the Pope that there is no God, and vice versa. It tends to start out simple enough, then quickly turns everyone (myself inclueded) into badly behaved childeren. Like each of our lives rest on being right.
I did learn something that combated conventional wisdom, and 75% or the results online; rosewood is indeed harder than most maples. I think maple has a harder outside though, because it is easier to dent rosewood than maple, but numbers are numbers, so I was wrong.
What Im not wrong about is that both woods will affect your tone, whether you want to call it brighter, heavier midranged, whatever. I have NO doubt that this is true, because Ive tested it myself, in the proper way; on the same guitar, acoustically so no capacitors, pickups or amps can color the sound.
Now im done.

Its all good! I seem to like rosewood acoustics best due to the wide range of frequency responses and the nice (not harsh) trebles. Mahogany and maple so far have indeed seemed a bit bright, or at least not as nice overall to my ears.

What I find interesting, is that ebony, which is even harder then rosewood, is rated acoustically to have a range very similiar to mahogany, which is even softer then maple (comparatively - these all are hardwoods after all). Maple is in the middle, but as you said one of the brightest tone-wise. I'd love to know what IS the deciding factor in woods for tone response.

Maybe they just are what they are....

When i first started working on repairing guitars(started with moding one of my own, I ended up being pretty good at it, and retained everything I learned as i learned it), acoustics were the last thing I focused on. Solid body guitars, ESPECIALLY Fenders, are pretty easy to fix, where when somethings wrong with an acoustic, you end up having to do pretty invasive work, removing a neck for the first time made me feel like i was disarming a nuclear warhead. When I was told "just grab it, and move it back and forth until you hear a crack" When i asked him how do you know if its the glue that cracked or the wood, he said you dont. It didnt put my mind at ease.
Anyway, i found it odd that mahogany and rosewood tended to react differently on acoustics than it does on solid bodies. Ive always thought of mahogany as a warm, almost muffled tone, at least compared to maple, alder or ash. But i was surprised when i played mahogany acoustics and rosewood, that the mahogany was actually brighter, with more punch, and less sustain than rosewood. I figured it would be the opposite.
I recenetly bought a dreadnaught with mahogany back and sides. I really like the tone of it, especially when i use phospher/bronze strings; the wound strings sound almost piano-like. I dont however like mahogany on 000 sized guitars. They compress so easily with hard strumming, that I think you need rosewood to get a balanced tone.

It'll be moot point (never understood why its moot and not mute) anyway. Im no tree hugger, but there's going to be a point where using mahogany and rosewood is going to get so expensive, that it will be cost prohibitive to make them. Then eventually, you wont be able to get it at all. You already see this with Brazilian rosewood and mahogany. Its already becoming clear in the guitar building world; those woods are being replaced with ogavagal and sapiel (im a terrible speller).
That's why I took issue when the CEO of Gibson ( and head of the board for the renuable woods foundation, or something to that effect) was arrested, and a bumch of illegally obtained woods were confiscated at their European facility.
My day job deals with jewelry cleaning chemicals and cloths, one of my accounts is Gibson Acoustic. They buy the large silver polishing cloths, and give them away with their expensive models.
Oh BTW, for people who use Blitz string cleaning cloths, you're getting ripped off. Ive seen individual cloths at GC for $10, all they are are silver polishing wipes. You can buy a box of 10 for $7 at any jewelry store.
I asked my contact what was the deal with that, he changed the subject pretty quickly.

I believe it has something to do with the grain of the wood. I have two maple B profiled necks. One is quarter sawn, the other isn't. The Q.Sawn has more attack than the regular one.

Has anyone shown that one particular wood neck versus another sound different even though they are equally rigid?

If you tell me a mahogany neck is "brighter" and then show it is more rigid than, say, a maple neck, I'll take it as a valid assessment. But if you cannot show it is more rigid, I will have trouble buying it.

I can easily see how the material of a neck can affect its rigidity and, therefore, its sound. The physics should be be pretty simple. And I'd bet dollars to donuts that if you can make a neck more rigid, the sound will get brighter, regardless of material.

I also can see how the different shape of the neck's profile can change the sound. Again I would imagine that the neck profile would have a major effect on rigidity as well.

When one of the greatest living luthiers, if not the greatest, Ned Steinberger, says it's all about rigidity, I am more inclined to believe him than anecdotal evidence.

Sorry, that's just the way it is.

The real problem with this discussion is that people are assuming that electric guitars operate the same way acoustic guitars do. That is completely wrong.

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No no and no