Rosewood vs Maple fretboard

[bokonon82]

I'm interested in opinions with other models from owners, but wanted to share my opinion about my two Comanche guitars.

Both are great guitars. One has a rosewood fretboard and one has a maple. First time I'd ever had two almost identical models with the main difference being the fretboard (the hardware, color, and woodcut pattern differ but imo the sound difference is in the fretboard).

If I were forced to choose, I've come to prefer the maple fretboard for reasons specific to the Comanche. I LOVE how unique and adjustable the z pickups are, BUT without some type of dampening, it can be a bit much. I don't recommend kicking on heavy distortion and the treble on 11. Thus, I keep treble turned down quite a bit and bass all the way up. Another dampener is the fretboard and the nature of maple leads to less resonance of those highs, which softens that sound. This is the only guitar I've ever owned where I definitely have a fretboard preference.

Yes, I can cut some of that sharpness out with the treble knob, but I have more flexibility with the maple. On the rosewood I find that I have to turn the treble to zero and then titrate it up slightly until I get the sound I like. I have more room at the bottom level of treble with the maple. I can play from 1 to 3 easily with distortion.

[neutralomen]

Fretboard wood has no bearing on the sound of a solid body electric guitar. I know the specs of your two instruments are identical, but in order to really be scientific, you must consider the following:

-brand, gauge, and AGE of the stirngs. String age has a vastly greater bearing on an electric guitar's tone than any type of wood. Make sure both guitars have the same size of string, same brand, and same age.

-pickup height: if you don't have the tools to measure the height of your pickups to the 64th of an inch, there is no way you can eyeball this with any degree of accuracy. The guitar with the pickups even a 64th of an inch lower on either side will be the "darker" guitar. You lose presence and high end precipitously with every increment of distance between the string and the pole piece. With accurate measuring tools, make sure both guitars' pickup heights are EXACTLY the same.

contact points: the nut, the saddles, and the frets are what actually touch the string and therefore act on the vibration of the string. If you've got a nut slot that's badly cut, chewed up, etc, it will dampen your tone. If your saddle is tilted or rusty, ect, it will effect tone. If your frets are newer and more polished on one, it will effect the string. Make sure both nuts are in good shape, both have equal action at the saddles, and take a fret polishing stick and give both guitars a fret polish.

Here's the thing. The guitar's string isn't even touching the fretboard. it's touching the fret. How would it even work? How does the wood that's not even touching the string somehow influence the string enough such that, by the time it vibrates into the microphone(the pickup) the tone changes?

While it's true you need a sufficiently hard and dense material to seat the frets into, such that the actual neck doesn't absorb vibrations, the hard woods used for guitar fretboards are all more than sufficiently hard and dense for this not to be an issue. If your frets were seated into foam rubber, that material doesn't have enough mass to act against the vibration of the string. But that's why we choose hardwoods for necks and fretboards.

Try to eliminate all the variables mentioned above, and try a blind test. get a friend to play each while you wear a blindfold AFTEr you've done everything possible to make them equal instruments. I am willing to bet you will not be able to hear the difference.

the body wood also doesn't really effect tone for a solid body electric, but even if the wood is the same in either one, they aren't going to weight the same or have the exact same mass. That may effect sustain a little bit. If it does, it certainly does more than the little slab of hardwood that isn't even touching the strings.

[surfco]

Not this SH#T again...

[LarryNJ]

Not this SH#T again...

[neutralomen]

Not this SH#T again...

Listen I AGREE with you. Nobody has ever been able to answer the simple question: How do the acoustic properties of the solid slab of wood GET INTO THE POLE PIECES. I ask this simple question and there's all this hemming and hawing, usually a reversion to personal anecdote or the authority of some famous guitarist or luthier. Shouldn't be hard to explain to me the mechanism physics wise as to HOW it's even possible.

Also this is a falsifiable claim but nobody has truly done a proper experiment. You'd need basically a dozen or so guitars, six with an ash body, six with an alder body, all cut from the same tree, all the same weight, and all plek'd and meticulously made and measured to be as identical as possible and removing all variables possible. same amp, same string brand, same cables, same pickups, same luthier getting all of them to the exact same setup.

You then get a robot strummer, record demos of all 12 guitars, then you have a group of guitar enthusiasts try to guess which is which, then have a control group who don't know about guitars at all and tell them to determine whether x example is made of wood A or wood B.

I would be willing to bed you anything the results would be basically a coin flip. random chance.

[john o]

If I were forced to choose, I've come to prefer the maple fretboard for reasons specific to the Comanche. I LOVE how unique and adjustable the z pickups are, BUT without some type of dampening, it can be a bit much. I don't recommend kicking on heavy distortion and the treble on 11. Thus, I keep treble turned down quite a bit and bass all the way up. Another dampener is the fretboard and the nature of maple leads to less resonance of those highs, which softens that sound. This is the only guitar I've ever owned where I definitely have a fretboard preference.

i love z-coil pups too, and yup, the tone controls and amp eq are essential in crafting your tone with those. re: fretboard wood, some tele and strat players say their guitars with maple boards are a little brighter, but i think that's their perception and subjective description. as you know, two exactly same gtrs will play, feel and sound different so what's the reason??? If you have a comanche with maple and one with rosewood and they sound different i think it's challenging to say why with any certainty. The important thing is that you like them and they do what you want them to do. If they sound different, keep both of them and use them for their strengths! This is how I justify having several ASAT's!

[LarryNJ]

Ahem... Well I will speak as a Bass Player (and sadly not a current G&L Bass Player; that'll change- BTW- I've had 4 so...
I digress-

Myself, I've always preferred maple , and my ASAT had a stupid-coool BE Maple 'board, as did my ordered SB-2, and CLF Commemorative L2K (oh how I miss that bass!) "Plain" maple on those bad-boys.

My M2000 had rosewood. It was in-stock at a dealer, and I loved it too.

Now I personally think of maple as having more brightness and snap than rosewood, but that may well be a mental thing.
I have basses with rosewood, maple, ebony and even a resin fretboard. ALL of them have "snap" which I believe is more due to the pups and the amp, and the signal chain, and my own attack/technique.

I'm sure tone woods matter, it's just that I put performance/playing before specs and endless discussion about such matters. All good.
I've seen forum-ites on the bass scene endlessly discuss their builds with selected woods, burl tops, chechen 'boards, and so on. All good too.
Who knows? maybe even the choice of wooden tone-knobs matters!

I say- play what you like, play G&L ( An ordered Kiloton may well be next for me, maple board included).
And to all you guitarists---WISH you played the BASS!! (jk jk)

[neutralomen]

Ahem... Well I will speak as a Bass Player (and sadly not a current G&L Bass Player; that'll change- BTW- I've had 4 so...
I digress-

Myself, I've always preferred maple , and my ASAT had a stupid-coool BE Maple 'board, as did my ordered SB-2, and CLF Commemorative L2K (oh how I miss that bass!) "Plain" maple on those bad-boys.

My M2000 had rosewood. It was in-stock at a dealer, and I loved it too.

Now I personally think of maple as having more brightness and snap than rosewood, but that may well be a mental thing.
I have basses with rosewood, maple, ebony and even a resin fretboard. ALL of them have "snap" which I believe is more due to the pups and the amp, and the signal chain, and my own attack/technique.

I'm sure tone woods matter, it's just that I put performance/playing before specs and endless discussion about such matters. All good.
I've seen forum-ites on the bass scene endlessly discuss their builds with selected woods, burl tops, chechen 'boards, and so on. All good too.
Who knows? maybe even the choice of wooden tone-knobs matters!

I say- play what you like, play G&L ( An ordered Kiloton may well be next for me, maple board included).
And to all you guitarists---WISH you played the BASS!! (jk jk)

I appreciate what you're saying, but again, I have a simple scientific question.

When you take a solid slab of wood, a countertop, a plank, or a guitar body, and you knock it with your knuckle, you will get acoustical resonant properties from that object when you send vibrations through it. Nobody is disputing that. So, if measured acoustically, a wrap of the knuckle on any two pieces of maple will sound a bit different, to say nothing of other wood species.

With your electric basses though, The nut is touching the string. That's a contact point. The fret is touching the string. that's a contact point. The saddle is touching the string. That's the third and final contact point.

From there it's age of string, material of string, how you pluck, with a pick, slapping, rest stop, open pluck. From there it's the vibration of the string which is again contacting the nut, contacting the saddle, contacting the fret. it's a piece of metal floating in thin air. The tiny magnet and coil pick up that vibration like a tiny microphone. the rest of it is up to the wiring, cable, and amp.

If you send that string vibration into a soundhole of an acoustic, that's the "pickup." the resonance chamber is the "coloration" and you actually HEAR the acoustic qualities of the wood, like wrapping a hollow storage bin with your knuckle. The top is a diaphragm like a speaker or a drum. this amplifies your signal and sends it out.

So the question is this, in an electric signal like the one I described above, HOW do the acoustic properties of the little fingerboard slab get into the pole pieces? I understand you don't have much of a dog in this fight and acknowledge that your evidence is only your testimony and I appreciate that.

But this is the question that never gets answered. It is my contention that electric and acoustic instruments are fundamentally different and electric instruments' tones are not determined by the acoustic qualities of the solid components. Only exception, I think some objects will provide the string with more sustain, but contact points ie saddle, fret, and nut slot have the most to do with electric sustain.

[LarryNJ]

Let me clarify my position on this subject:

I have no doubt that if a device existed, maybe one does, that measured in some form, frequencies emitted from (2) exact-build instruments, one w/ maple; one w/ Rosewood et al fingerboards...

There would no doubt be differences in those frequencies. After all, wood is organic, has tonal properties, which no doubt differ from the tree(s) where it came from.

I owned a very high-end Yamaha Bass, that was subject to-

Both IRA and ARE technologies are applied to this bass. With these chemical free treatment, the bass sounds silky smooth and mature right out of a factory.

Some scoffed at this, but I played the axe; it was apparent to me. My .02

So personal preference prevails- I had a bass built by a very skilled luthier, spec'd as follows, per his recommendation:

MAHOGANY BACK / WENGE CENTER / MAPLE TOP
SEYMOUR DUNCAN MM(BRIDGE) AJB(NECK) and
NECK SHAFT: 5PC WENGE & MAPLE PINSTRIPES
FINGERBOARD: BIRDSEYE MAPLE

It all works great together, but in the end- I play the bass, and if it had a rosewood board, I bet it would be quite similar (unless the aforementioned device was hooked up to measure those differences.

Cheers,

[suave eddie]

Ahem... Well I will speak as a Bass Player (and sadly not a current G&L Bass Player; that'll change- BTW- I've had 4 so...
I digress-

Myself, I've always preferred maple , and my ASAT had a stupid-coool BE Maple 'board, as did my ordered SB-2, and CLF Commemorative L2K (oh how I miss that bass!) "Plain" maple on those bad-boys.

My M2000 had rosewood. It was in-stock at a dealer, and I loved it too.

Now I personally think of maple as having more brightness and snap than rosewood, but that may well be a mental thing.
I have basses with rosewood, maple, ebony and even a resin fretboard. ALL of them have "snap" which I believe is more due to the pups and the amp, and the signal chain, and my own attack/technique.

I'm sure tone woods matter, it's just that I put performance/playing before specs and endless discussion about such matters. All good.
I've seen forum-ites on the bass scene endlessly discuss their builds with selected woods, burl tops, chechen 'boards, and so on. All good too.
Who knows? maybe even the choice of wooden tone-knobs matters!

I say- play what you like, play G&L ( An ordered Kiloton may well be next for me, maple board included).
And to all you guitarists---WISH you played the BASS!! (jk jk)

I appreciate what you're saying, but again, I have a simple scientific question.

When you take a solid slab of wood, a countertop, a plank, or a guitar body, and you knock it with your knuckle, you will get acoustical resonant properties from that object when you send vibrations through it. Nobody is disputing that. So, if measured acoustically, a wrap of the knuckle on any two pieces of maple will sound a bit different, to say nothing of other wood species.

With your electric basses though, The nut is touching the string. That's a contact point. The fret is touching the string. that's a contact point. The saddle is touching the string. That's the third and final contact point.

From there it's age of string, material of string, how you pluck, with a pick, slapping, rest stop, open pluck. From there it's the vibration of the string which is again contacting the nut, contacting the saddle, contacting the fret. it's a piece of metal floating in thin air. The tiny magnet and coil pick up that vibration like a tiny microphone. the rest of it is up to the wiring, cable, and amp.

If you send that string vibration into a soundhole of an acoustic, that's the "pickup." the resonance chamber is the "coloration" and you actually HEAR the acoustic qualities of the wood, like wrapping a hollow storage bin with your knuckle. The top is a diaphragm like a speaker or a drum. this amplifies your signal and sends it out.

So the question is this, in an electric signal like the one I described above, HOW do the acoustic properties of the little fingerboard slab get into the pole pieces? I understand you don't have much of a dog in this fight and acknowledge that your evidence is only your testimony and I appreciate that.

But this is the question that never gets answered. It is my contention that electric and acoustic instruments are fundamentally different and electric instruments' tones are not determined by the acoustic qualities of the solid components. Only exception, I think some objects will provide the string with more sustain, but contact points ie saddle, fret, and nut slot have the most to do with electric sustain.

Confirmation bias is very powerful.

[LarryNJ]

I can CONFIRM that I prefer maple boards, that's my only Bias!

I'll also add that string/nut/bridge/pup contact points included, If / when I play(ed) my INCREDIBLE former ASAT, I would sound different than another player using the same signal chain, due to my attack.

My .02, YMMV, etc.

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