Tone woods and fingerboards -- myths?

Grolschevik

We've had various debates and arguments on here over the last few years about the merits of different woods and necks on electric guitars.

My personal opinion is that the playing style, pickups, and amps are of much more importance in determining your ultimate sound or tone. Once you throw effects into that mix it's a whole different matter and, at high gain, I freely admit that I can find it hard to definitively say whether a Strat or an LP was used on a particular recording.

Now my attention has been drawn to this YouTube guy. Seems to be a repairer or maybe a luthier, but he's definitely -- how shall I put it? -- pretty, er, abrasive and opinionated...

That said, I enjoyed it, and I think I agree with him here on the acoustic properties of rosewood v maple fingerboards.

Dunno offhand how to embed and can't be bothered to look it up just now, so just posting the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWsaIl9I6mY&feature=youtu.be

martinedwards

IMHO its all about how it FEELS and makes YOU feel

personally, I prefer the LOOK of a dark fingerboard.

I don't like the look of a worn beat up maple board.

I FEEL better with a nice dark board.

therefore I'm going to PLAY better, no?

zafo

Boycie on here just swapped the necks on his Pacifica Tele and found a pretty substantial difference in sound with the rosewood smoothing out of the high end that was too much between the Lollars and the maple neck. I'd imagine the fact one is bare wood and one has a finish would also make a difference.

martinedwards

oops!! doop post!

martinedwards

finish or unfinished makes a difference?

micro-minimal.

I suspect that blind, and without the (I spent E400 on this mod, of COURSE it'll sound great) pressure, I'm saying 99% of people couldn't hear the difference.

and from the 55th row of the RDS through a 50KW PA?

no chance!

unclebill98

For me,

I prefer the maple neck of my bass to the rosewood on the same bass. No efx's used both through the same amp. However when recording, using effects and as said through a PA i would think it makes very little difference.

wild turkey

A while back I replaced the original maple neck on my Peavey t-60 with a GFS maple neck. The guitar sounded terrible, lost a lot of its tone & sustain. 2 pretty much identical necks with the opposite effect on tone etc.
I recon there's as much tone in a good neck as in a good body & if you get both in a guitar all the better.
I've always believed that every neck / body will sound different due to the conditions of tree growth, soil, moisture, weather etc & what part of the tree it was cut from.

Edit; My preferences

Maple on a strat & rosewood on a tele.

Celly Smunt

The only time it makes a difference in my opinion is when the neck wood and body wood aren't matched well.For example,a guitar that has a mahogany body will lose resonance through a maple fretboard and neck.When it comes down to tone woods on a fingerboard,the difference in sound is negligible.Anybody who can listen to a guitar with a maple neck and then with a rosewood and claim to notice the difference has their head up their arse.

I prefer the feel of dark woods (ebony mmmmmmm) on most guitars but i like my fenders with a maple fret board.

one more thing NEVER put lem-oil on your maple fretboard.