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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:43 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Fender Strat wrote:
I like rosewood and I did not know that they all have different sounds. :o


They don't. It's a tone myth.

Paul Reed Smith said it best: "You take that thin slab of wood, and then run 22 metal strips through it across the grain... seriously, just how much of its resonant properties do you think it has left?"

As for feel... I can't feel the wood. All I feel is the string and the frets. I guess I don't grip it that hard, as I think feeling the wood would mean pulling the string sharp.

I chose ebony for my Strat because it looks nice.


Last edited by Gravity Jim on Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:03 am
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Source: http://www.pantheonguitars.com/tonewoods.htm

Fretboards and Bridges

Players of electric guitars with bolt-on necks have long been hip to the fact that neck and fretboard materials can have a significant bearing on tone. Maple necks can impart a bright, poppy tone that can do much to reinforce the top end of a large-bodied guitar, while mahogany necks help push the overall palette into a warmer, more woody tonal range.

Fretboard materials also exert an influence on overall tone, although they probably act more as icing on the cake than as a layer of the cake itself. Brazilian rosewood fretboards and their denser rainforrest counterparts add sparkle and ring, and Indian rosewood fretboards can help fatten up the midrange. Wenge, a dense, dark-colored African hardwood unrelated to the rosewoods, has tonal properties remarkably similar to those of Brazilian rosewood.

Ebony, the traditional fingerboard material found on violins, classical guitars, and high-end steel strings, has the lowest velocity of sound of all the woods commonly used in lutherie and has definite damping characteristics. This may not prove to be much of a problem for large-bodied guitars made out of red spruce or Brazilian rosewood, but it may be something to consider when designing smaller guitars, particularly those using some of the less resonant woods for tops and backs.


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:26 am
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Yes, I know that Warmoth and Pantheon Guitars and everybody else with a stake in selling you something is happy to continue the myth.

But that doesn't make it true. And if reading the pseudo-science that Pantheon and others indulge in doesn't "hip" you to the fact that 's all made up, then I don't know what to tell you.

"Brazilian rosewood... add sparkle and ring." "Ebony... has the lowest velocity of sound" (!) That's priceless... like fingerboard wood changes the speed of sound!

The truth is, guitar players cannot tell the difference between a Tele with a maple board and a similar Tele with a rosewood board if they can't see the guitar.

I know this offends some people's sense of religion, so I won't get into the argument again in this thread. But if you want "sparkle and ring," you'll have to add it yourself by learning to play.

------

Also, does someone have the "bad word" filter cranked up a bit high? Two posts up from here, I typed a pair of sentences that contained this string of letters.....

A "t" -- a period -- two spaces -- a capital "I" -- a "t" -- an apostrophe -- and an "s." Incredibly, the forum decided this constituted an attempt to sneak a naughty slang descriptor of a favored portion of the human female anatomy past the censor.

Crimeney, boys, crank it down a hair, will you?


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:45 am
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I can't really tell a SOUND difference, but when I was A/B'ing all the MIM Strats in both my local Guitar Center and Sam Ash, I discovered that I find the feel of maple fretboards to be a bit . . . off. As I think about it, I'm pretty sure the reason for my discomfort is that I've played with rosewood fretboards all my life, so I'm used to 'em. As to the source of the "off"-ness? Maybe it has something to do with Fender finishing the maple one's and no one finishing rosewood ones. Maybe...

Seriously, the lack of rosewood fretboards on MIM Standard Telecasters is what kept me from buying one.


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:06 pm
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This is my first post here. :D

I purchase two 2004 American Standard hardtail strats. They are identical sunbursts, same pick-ups, same radius necks with one difference: One has a maple fingerboard anfd the other is rosewood. Looks wise, I would have picked the maple. I will withhold any tone comments until my 1966 Deluxe Reverb comes back from the shop and I have a while to listen.

I have played both guitars for about 9 months, mainly through a battery powered practice amp. I do some heavy blues stlye bends and if I had to walk out the door to a gig and just take one guitar, it would be the rosewood model, hands down. I bend the strings effortlessly on the rosewood board. The maple fretboard makes me work harder and use more pressure on the neck to make sure a string doesn't slip during a bend. I keep trying to work through this, I have noticed that a lot of great players don't seem to have a problem.

When you play a maple fretboard, you are really playing on the finish, not the wood. The finish is a lot smoother and slicker than raw rosewood. Is it not?

I was a manager at an authorized Fender shop and did plenty of action jobs and have both strats set up the same with medium action .10 to .46. I played in a bar band for 12 years. None of this makes me right, of coarse. I just wanted to give folks an idea of my experience level.

Thanks for listening. :)


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:33 pm
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I bought a new American Standard in the maple neck (my first maple) and I find that my fingers are slowed down when I bend, especially after I've been playing for a long time. I'm about to buy a rosewood neck from Stratospheric on eBay so I can switch from rosewood to maple whenever I like :). I find I have better control with rosewood, as I bend a LOT.

Woo I love eBay!

Ed

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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:33 pm
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But yeah, looks wise, maple is mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:33 pm
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Gravity Jim wrote:

As for feel... I can't feel the wood. All I feel is the string and the frets. I guess I don't grip it that hard, as I think feeling the wood would mean pulling the string sharp.



either you have big strings, tiny fingers, or some combination.

I have a lot of flesh at the top of my fingers--and there's no way some of it won't touch the fingerboard.

But with bass--due to string size--I don't feel the fingerboard.

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